Personal Experiences
Since I live in a contemporary Western society which does not recognize the social role of an ecstatic healer who cavorts with spirits, my psychotic episode did not initiate me as a shaman. I have devised the term "shamanistic initiatory crisis" to describe my experience. As anthropologist Ruth-Inge Heinz noted, "The term 'shamanistic' is used for shaman-like activities, e.g., activities which may be carried out by somebody other than a shaman, while the term 'shamanic' indicates that these activities are carried out by somebody who actually is a shaman." (3) Therefore, shamanistic is the appropriate term.
My psychotic crisis occurred 18 years ago. After coming to the conclusion that, at 23 years of age, I was spending all of my time learning about other people, and did not know my own self, I dropped out of the doctoral program in social anthropology at Harvard University. I gave away all of my possessions, from bed to books, that would not fit into my backpack. I started travelling -- hitchhiking across the country, up into Canada and down into Mexico, even to Hawaii. In Palo Alto, six months later, I awoke just after midnight. Although I had slept for only two hours, I felt rested -- in fact, I was full of energy and eager to get back to writing in my journal. But first a quick trip to the bathroom. While there, I stopped in front of the mirror and gazed at my reflection. Suddenly I noticed that my right hand was glowing, giving off a white light. My thumb was touching my forefinger in the ancient mudra position of the meditating Buddha. Immediately the meaning of this sign was clear to me: I had been Buddha in a previous life. Then another thought came: Buddha had been reincarnated as Jesus Christ. Therefore, I had also been Jesus Christ. Now, in this moment, the luminous image in the mirror was awakening me to my true purpose: to once again bring the human race out of its decline. My journal writing was actually the creation a "new Bible", a Holy Book which would unite all people around the common tenants of a single belief system. Instead of unifyng just one social group, as Buddha and Christ had, my mission was to write a book that would create a new worldwide society free of conflict and full of loving relationships
|
