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Urantia Book Paper 90 Shamanism--medicine Men And Priests
SPIRITWEB ORG, PROMOTING SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS ON THE INTERNET.
Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
...
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Paper 90 Shamanism--medicine Men And Priests
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Introduction
THE evolution of religious observances progressed from placation, avoidance,
exorcism, coercion, conciliation, and propitiation to sacrifice, atonement, and
redemption. The technique of religious ritual passed from the forms of the
primitive cult through fetishes to magic and miracles; and as ritual became
more complex in response to man's increasingly complex concept of the
supermaterial realms, it was inevitably dominated by medicine men, shamans, and
priests.
In the advancing concepts of primitive man the spirit world was eventually
regarded as being unresponsive to the ordinary mortal. Only the exceptional
among humans could catch the ear of the gods; only the extraordinary man or
woman would be heard by the spirits. Religion thus enters upon a new phase, a
stage wherein it gradually becomes secondhanded; always does a medicine man, a
shaman, or a priest intervene between the religionist and the object of
worship. And today most Urantia systems of organized religious belief are
passing through this level of evolutionary development.
Evolutionary religion is born of a simple and all-powerful fear, the fear which
surges through the human mind when confronted with the unknown, the
inexplicable, and the incomprehensible. Religion eventually achieves the
profoundly simple realization of an all-powerful love, the love which sweeps
irresistibly through the human soul when awakened to the conception of the
limitless affection of the Universal Father for the sons of the universe. But
in between the beginning and the consummation of religious evolution, there
intervene the long ages of the shamans, who presume to stand between man and
God as intermediaries, interpreters, and intercessors.
1. THE FIRST SHAMANS--THE MEDICINE MEN
The shaman was the ranking medicine man, the ceremonial fetishman, and the
focus personality for all the practices of evolutionary religion. In many
groups the shaman outranked the war chief, marking the beginning of the church
domination of the state. The shaman sometimes functioned as a priest and even
as a priest-king. Some of the later tribes had both the earlier shaman-medicine
men (seers) and the later appearing shaman-priests. And in many cases the
office of shaman became hereditary.
Since in olden times anything abnormal was ascribed to spirit possession, any
striking mental or physical abnormality constituted qualification for being a
medicine man. Many of these men were epileptic, many of the women hysteric, and
these two types accounted for a good deal of ancient inspiration as well as
spirit and devil possession. Quite a few of these earliest of priests were of a
class which has since been denominated paranoiac.
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While they may have practiced deception in minor matters, the great majority of
the shamans believed in the fact of their spirit possession. Women who were
able to throw themselves into a trance or a cataleptic fit became powerful
shamanesses; later, such women became prophets and spirit mediums. Their
cataleptic trances usually involved alleged communications with the ghosts of
the dead. Many female shamans were also professional dancers.
But not all shamans were self-deceived; many were shrewd and able tricksters.
As the profession developed, a novice was required to serve an apprenticeship
of ten years of hardship and self-denial to qualify as a medicine man. The
shamans developed a professional mode of dress and affected a mysterious
conduct. They frequently employed drugs to induce certain physical states which
would impress and mystify the tribesmen. Sleight-of-hand feats were regarded as
supernatural by the common folk, and ventriloquism was first used by shrewd
priests. Many of the olden shamans unwittingly stumbled onto hypnotism; others
induced autohypnosis by prolonged staring at their navels.
While many resorted to these tricks and deceptions, their reputation as a
class, after all, stood on apparent achievement. When a shaman failed in his
undertakings, if he could not advance a plausible alibi, he was either demoted
or killed. Thus the honest shamans early perished; only the shrewd actors
survived.
It was shamanism that took the exclusive direction of tribal affairs out of the
hands of the old and the strong and lodged it in the hands of the shrewd, the
clever, and the farsighted.
2. SHAMANISTIC PRACTICES
Spirit conjuring was a very precise and highly complicated procedure,
comparable to present-day church rituals conducted in an ancient tongue. The
human race very early sought for superhuman help, for revelation; and men
believed that the shaman actually received such revelations. While the shamans
utilized the great power of suggestion in their work, it was almost invariably
negative suggestion; only in very recent times has the technique of positive
suggestion been employed. In the early development of their profession the
shamans began to specialize in such vocations as rain making, disease healing,
and crime detecting. To heal diseases was not, however, the chief function of a
shamanic medicine man; it was, rather, to know and to control the hazards of
living.
Ancient black art, both religious and secular, was called white art when
practiced by either priests, seers, shamans, or medicine men. The practitioners
of the black art were called sorcerers, magicians, wizards, witches,
enchanters, necromancers, conjurers, and soothsayers. As time passed, all such
purported contact with the supernatural was classified either as witchcraft or
shamancraft.
Witchcraft embraced the magic performed by earlier, irregular, and unrecognized
spirits; shamancraft had to do with miracles performed by regular spirits and
recognized gods of the tribe. In later times the witch became associated with
the devil, and thus was the stage set for the many comparatively recent
exhibitions of religious intolerance. Witchcraft was a religion with many
primitive tribes.
The shamans were great believers in the mission of chance as revelatory of the
will of the spirits; they frequently cast lots to arrive at decisions. Modern
survivals of this proclivity for casting lots are illustrated, not only in the
many
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games of chance, but also in the well-known "counting-out" rhymes. Once, the
person counted out must die; now, he is only it in some childish game. That
which was serious business to primitive man has survived as a diversion of the
modern child.
The medicine men put great trust in signs and omens, such as, "When you hear
the sound of a rustling in the tops of the mulberry trees, then shall you
bestir yourself." Very early in the history of the race the shamans turned
their attention to the stars. Primitive astrology was a world-wide belief and
practice; dream interpreting also became widespread. All this was soon followed
by the appearance of those temperamental shamanesses who professed to be able
to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
Though of ancient origin, the rain makers, or weather shamans, have persisted
right on down through the ages. A severe drought meant death to the early
agriculturists; weather control was the object of much ancient magic. Civilized
man still makes the weather the common topic of conversation. The olden peoples
all believed in the power of the shaman as a rain maker, but it was customary
to kill him when he failed, unless he could offer a plausible excuse to account
for the failure.
Again and again did the Caesars banish the astrologers, but they invariably
returned because of the popular belief in their powers. They could not be
driven out, and even in the sixteenth century after Christ the directors of
Occidental church and state were the patrons of astrology. Thousands of
supposedly intelligent people still believe that one may be born under the
domination of a lucky or an unlucky star; that the juxtaposition of the
heavenly bodies determines the outcome of various terrestrial adventures.
Fortunetellers are still patronized by the credulous.
The Greeks believed in the efficacy of oracular advice, the Chinese used magic
as protection against demons, shamanism flourished in India, and it still
openly persists in central Asia. It is an only recently abandoned practice
throughout much of the world.
Ever and anon, true prophets and teachers arose to denounce and expose
shamanism. Even the vanishing red man had such a prophet within the past
hundred years, the Shawnee Tenskwatawa, who predicted the eclipse of the sun in
1808 and denounced the vices of the white man. Many true teachers have appeared
among the various tribes and races all through the long ages of evolutionary
history. And they will ever continue to appear to challenge the shamans or
priests of any age who oppose general education and attempt to thwart
scientific progress.
In many ways and by devious methods the olden shamans established their
reputations as voices of God and custodians of providence. They sprinkled the
newborn with water and conferred names upon them; they circumcised the males.
They presided over all burial ceremonies and made due announcement of the safe
arrival of the dead in spiritland.
The shamanic priests and medicine men often became very wealthy through the
accretion of their various fees which were ostensibly offerings to the spirits.
Not infrequently a shaman would accumulate practically all the material wealth
of his tribe. Upon the death of a wealthy man it was customary to divide his
property equally with the shaman and some public enterprise or charity. This
practice still obtains in some parts of Tibet, where one half the male
population belongs to this class of nonproducers.
top of page - 989
The shamans dressed well and usually had a number of wives; they were the
original aristocracy, being exempt from all tribal restrictions. They were very
often of low-grade mind and morals. They suppressed their rivals by
denominating them witches or sorcerers and very frequently rose to such
positions of influence and power that they were able to dominate the chiefs or
kings.
Primitive man regarded the shaman as a necessary evil; he feared him but did
not love him. Early man respected knowledge; he honored and rewarded wisdom.
The shaman was mostly fraud, but the veneration for shamanism well illustrates
the premium put upon wisdom in the evolution of the race.
3. THE SHAMANIC THEORY OF DISEASE AND DEATH
Since ancient man regarded himself and his material environment as being
directly responsive to the whims of the ghosts and the fancies of the spirits,
it is not strange that his religion should have been so exclusively concerned
with material affairs. Modern man attacks his material problems directly; he
recognizes that matter is responsive to the intelligent manipulation of mind.
Primitive man likewise desired to modify and even to control the life and
energies of the physical domains; and since his limited comprehension of the
cosmos led him to the belief that ghosts, spirits, and gods were personally and
immediately concerned with the detailed control of life and matter, he
logically directed his efforts to winning the favor and support of these
superhuman agencies.
Viewed in this light, much of the inexplicable and irrational in the ancient
cults is understandable. The ceremonies of the cult were primitive man's
attempt to control the material world in which he found himself. And many of
his efforts were directed to the end of prolonging life and insuring health.
Since all diseases and death itself were originally regarded as spirit
phenomena, it was inevitable that the shamans, while functioning as medicine
men and priests, should also have labored as doctors and surgeons.
The primitive mind may be handicapped by lack of facts, but it is for all that
logical. When thoughtful men observe disease and death, they set about to
determine the causes of these visitations, and in accordance with their
understanding, the shamans and the scientists have propounded the following
theories of affliction:
1. Ghosts--direct spirit influences. The earliest hypothesis advanced in
explanation of disease and death was that spirits caused disease by enticing
the soul out of the body; if it failed to return, death ensued. The ancients so
feared the malevolent action of disease-producing ghosts that ailing
individuals would often be deserted without even food or water. Regardless of
the erroneous basis for these beliefs, they did effectively isolate afflicted
individuals and prevent the spread of contagious disease.
2. Violence--obvious causes. The causes for some accidents and deaths were so
easy to identify that they were early removed from the category of ghost
action. Fatalities and wounds attendant upon war, animal combat, and other
readily identifiable agencies were considered as natural occurrences. But it
was long believed that the spirits were still responsible for delayed healing
or for the infection of wounds of even "natural" causation. If no observable
natural agent could be discovered, the spirit ghosts were still held
responsible for disease and death.
top of page - 990
Today, in Africa and elsewhere may be found primitive peoples who kill someone
every time a nonviolent death occurs. Their medicine men indicate the guilty
parties. If a mother dies in childbirth, the child is immediately strangled--a
life for a life.
3. Magic--the influence of enemies. Much sickness was thought to be caused by
bewitchment, the action of the evil eye and the magic pointing bow. At one time
it was really dangerous to point a finger at anyone; it is still regarded as
ill-mannered to point. In cases of obscure disease and death the ancients would
hold a formal inquest, dissect the body, and settle upon some finding as the
cause of death; otherwise the death would be laid to witchcraft, thus
necessitating the execution of the witch responsible therefor. These ancient
coroner's inquests saved many a supposed witch's life. Among some it was
believed that a tribesman could die as a result of his own witchcraft, in which
event no one was accused.
4. Sin--punishment for taboo violation. In comparatively recent times it has
been believed that sickness is a punishment for sin, personal or racial. Among
peoples traversing this level of evolution the prevailing theory is that one
cannot be afflicted unless one has violated a taboo. To regard sickness and
suffering as "arrows of the Almighty within them" is typical of such beliefs.
The Chinese and Mesopotamians long regarded disease as the result of the action
of evil demons, although the Chaldeans also looked upon the stars as the cause
of suffering. This theory of disease as a consequence of divine wrath is still
prevalent among many reputedly civilized groups of Urantians.
5. Natural causation. Mankind has been very slow to learn the material secrets
of the interrelationship of cause and effect in the physical domains of energy,
matter, and life. The ancient Greeks, having preserved the traditions of
Adamson's teachings, were among the first to recognize that all disease is the
result of natural causes. Slowly and certainly the unfolding of a scientific
era is destroying man's age-old theories of sickness and death. Fever was one
of the first human ailments to be removed from the category of supernatural
disorders, and progressively the era of science has broken the fetters of
ignorance which so long imprisoned the human mind. An understanding of old age
and contagion is gradually obliterating man's fear of ghosts, spirits, and gods
as the personal perpetrators of human misery and mortal suffering.
Evolution unerringly achieves its end: It imbues man with that superstitious
fear of the unknown and dread of the unseen which is the scaffolding for the
God concept. And having witnessed the birth of an advanced comprehension of
Deity, through the co-ordinate action of revelation, this same technique of
evolution then unerringly sets in motion those forces of thought which will
inexorably obliterate the scaffolding, which has served its purpose.
4. MEDICINE UNDER THE SHAMANS
The entire life of ancient men was prophylactic; their religion was in no small
measure a technique for disease prevention. And regardless of the error in
their theories, they were wholehearted in putting them into effect; they had
top of page - 991
unbounded faith in their methods of treatment, and that, in itself, is a
powerful remedy.
The faith required to get well under the foolish ministrations of one of these
ancient shamans was, after all, not materially different from that which is
required to experience healing at the hands of some of his later-day successors
who engage in the nonscientific treatment of disease.
The more primitive tribes greatly feared the sick, and for long ages they were
carefully avoided, shamefully neglected. It was a great advance in
humanitarianism when the evolution of shamancraft produced priests and medicine
men who consented to treat disease. Then it became customary for the entire
clan to crowd into the sickroom to assist the shaman in howling the disease
ghosts away. It was not uncommon for a woman to be the diagnosing shaman, while
a man would administer treatment. The usual method of diagnosing disease was to
examine the entrails of an animal.
Disease was treated by chanting, howling, laying on of hands, breathing on the
patient, and many other techniques. In later times the resort to temple sleep,
during which healing supposedly took place, became widespread. The medicine men
eventually essayed actual surgery in connection with temple slumber; among the
first operations was that of trephining the skull to allow a headache spirit to
escape. The shamans learned to treat fractures and dislocations, to open boils
and abscesses; the shamanesses became adept at midwifery.
It was a common method of treatment to rub something magical on an infected or
blemished spot on the body, throw the charm away, and supposedly experience a
cure. If anyone should chance to pick up the discarded charm, it was believed
he would immediately acquire the infection or blemish. It was a long time
before herbs and other real medicines were introduced. Massage was developed in
connection with incantation, rubbing the spirit out of the body, and was
preceded by efforts to rub medicine in, even as moderns attempt to rub
liniments in. Cupping and sucking the affected parts, together with
bloodletting, were thought to be of value in getting rid of a disease-producing
spirit.
Since water was a potent fetish, it was utilized in the treatment of many
ailments. For long it was believed that the spirit causing the sickness could
be eliminated by sweating. Vapor baths were highly regarded; natural hot
springs soon blossomed as primitive health resorts. Early man discovered that
heat would relieve pain; he used sunlight, fresh animal organs, hot clay, and
hot stones, and many of these methods are still employed. Rhythm was practiced
in an effort to influence the spirits; the tom-toms were universal.
Among some people disease was thought to be caused by a wicked conspiracy
between spirits and animals. This gave rise to the belief that there existed a
beneficent plant remedy for every animal-caused disease. The red men were
especially devoted to the plant theory of universal remedies; they always put a
drop of blood in the root hole left when the plant was pulled up.
Fasting, dieting, and counterirritants were often used as remedial measures.
Human secretions, being definitely magical, were highly regarded; blood and
urine were thus among the earliest medicines and were soon augmented by roots
and various salts. The shamans believed that disease spirits could be driven
out of the body by foul-smelling and bad-tasting medicines. Purging very early
became a routine treatment, and the values of raw cocoa and quinine were among
the earliest pharmaceutical discoveries.
top of page - 992
The Greeks were the first to evolve truly rational methods of treating the
sick. Both the Greeks and the Egyptians received their medical knowledge from
the Euphrates valley. Oil and wine was a very early medicine for treating
wounds; castor oil and opium were used by the Sumerians. Many of these ancient
and effective secret remedies lost their power when they became known; secrecy
has always been essential to the successful practice of fraud and superstition.
Only facts and truth court the full light of comprehension and rejoice in the
illumination and enlightenment of scientific research.
5. PRIESTS AND RITUALS
The essence of the ritual is the perfection of its performance; among savages
it must be practiced with exact precision. It is only when the ritual has been
correctly carried out that the ceremony possesses compelling power over the
spirits. If the ritual is faulty, it only arouses the anger and resentment of
the gods. Therefore, since man's slowly evolving mind conceived that the
technique of ritual was the decisive factor in its efficacy, it was inevitable
that the early shamans should sooner or later evolve into a priesthood trained
to direct the meticulous practice of the ritual. And so for tens of thousands
of years endless rituals have hampered society and cursed civilization, have
been an intolerable burden to every act of life, every racial undertaking.
Ritual is the technique of sanctifying custom; ritual creates and perpetuates
myths as well as contributing to the preservation of social and religious
customs. Again, ritual itself has been fathered by myths. Rituals are often at
first social, later becoming economic and finally acquiring the sanctity and
dignity of religious ceremonial. Ritual may be personal or group in
practice--or both--as illustrated by prayer, dancing, and drama.
Words become a part of ritual, such as the use of terms like amen and selah.
The habit of swearing, profanity, represents a prostitution of former
ritualistic repetition of holy names. The making of pilgrimages to sacred
shrines is a very ancient ritual. The ritual next grew into elaborate
ceremonies of purification, cleansing, and sanctification. The initiation
ceremonies of the primitive tribal secret societies were in reality a crude
religious rite. The worship technique of the olden mystery cults was just one
long performance of accumulated religious ritual. Ritual finally developed into
the modern types of social ceremonials and religious worship, services
embracing prayer, song, responsive reading, and other individual and group
spiritual devotions.
The priests evolved from shamans up through oracles, diviners, singers,
dancers, weathermakers, guardians of religious relics, temple custodians, and
foretellers of events, to the status of actual directors of religious worship.
Eventually the office became hereditary; a continuous priestly caste arose.
As religion evolved, priests began to specialize according to their innate
talents or special predilections. Some became singers, others prayers, and
still others sacrificers; later came the orators--preachers. And when religion
became institutionalized, these priests claimed to "hold the keys of heaven."
The priests have always sought to impress and awe the common people by
conducting the religious ritual in an ancient tongue and by sundry magical
passes so to mystify the worshipers as to enhance their own piety and
authority. The great danger in all this is that the ritual tends to become a
substitute for religion.
top of page - 993
The priesthoods have done much to delay scientific development and to hinder
spiritual progress, but they have contributed to the stabilization of
civilization and to the enhancement of certain kinds of culture. But many
modern priests have ceased to function as directors of the ritual of the
worship of God, having turned their attention to theology--the attempt to
define God.
It is not denied that the priests have been a millstone about the neck of the
races, but the true religious leaders have been invaluable in pointing the way
to higher and better realities.
[Presented by a Melchizedek of Nebadon.]
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Subjects Archive The Urantia Book Urantia Book PART III: The History of Urantia
: The Origin Of Urantia Life Establishment On Urantia The Marine-life Era On
Urantia Urantia During The Early Land-life Era The Mammalian Era On Urantia The
Dawn Races Of Early Man The First Human Family The Evolutionary Races Of Color
The Overcontrol Of Evolution The Planetary Prince Of Urantia The Planetary
Rebellion The Dawn Of Civilization Primitive Human Institutions The Evolution
Of Human Government Development Of The State Government On A Neighboring Planet
The Garden Of Eden Adam And Eve The Default Of Adam And Eve The Second Garden
The Midway Creatures The Violet Race After The Days Of Adam Andite Expansion In
The Orient Andite Expansion In The Occident Development Of Modern Civilization
The Evolution Of Marriage The Marriage Institution Marriage And Family Life The
Origins Of Worship Early Evolution Of Religion The Ghost Cults Fetishes,
Charms, And Magic Sin, Sacrifice, And Atonement Shamanism--medicine Men And
Priests The Evolution Of Prayer The Later Evolution Of Religion Machiventa
Melchizedek The Melchizedek Teachings In The Orient The Melchizedek Teachings
In The Levant Yahweh--god Of The Hebrews Evolution Of The God Concept Among The
Hebrews The Melchizedek Teachings In The Occident The Social Problems Of
Religion Religion In Human Experience The Real Nature Of Religion The
Foundations Of Religious Faith The Reality Of Religious Experience Growth Of
The Trinity Concept Deity And Reality Universe Levels Of Reality Origin And
Nature Of Thought Adjusters Mission And Ministry Of Thought Adjusters Relation
Of Adjusters To Universe Creatures Relation Of Adjusters To Individual Mortals
The Adjuster And The Soul Personality Survival Seraphic Guardians Of Destiny
Seraphic Planetary Government The Supreme Being The Almighty Supreme God The
Supreme Supreme And Ultimate--time And Space The Bestowals Of Christ Michael
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