The prefix "cyber" intimates digital technology, and even the cybernetic magickal models refer to information technology.
For "cyber-shamanism" to be anything more than a meaningless buzzword it would need to be some form of application of shamanic methods to cyberspace.
This is exactly what i thought myself and has been why i've been avoiding it really but when i saw the part i quoted above about the actual word Cyber being from the Greek 'Pilot', and read the bit about spirits triggering knowledge and visions i thought that it could mean something less tied up with technology as an actual tool in workings.
Mckenna is one of the people i've been thinking about a bit lately, the other two being RAW and Timothy Leary.
Mckenna had a lot of DMT experience where he'd go on journeys into Hyperspace or whatever you want to call it and meet other beings and Wilson among many other things has these wierd experiences that lead him to places like Chapel Perilous and a really good sense of humour that comes across in his writing, and Tim Leary had his 8-circuit model that went on to be included in RAW's Cosmic Trigger (the first time i came across it) and a great deal of the Cybercraft manual, which i'll get to in a minute. These could be just three of the many things that could be archetypes, or guiding/reference points for people approaching something like the idea of the mindset of the Cyber Shaman, and that are parts of the journey. Something that as time goes on and in the Western world is becoming a lot different than Shamanism in the past in other places.
Chapel P is meant to be some sort of modern day equivalent of the nature of some of the many initiation experiences that we have, or like some sort of converging point for a lot of them, Mckenna's journey's and meeting with other beings could be something that produces inspiration and creativity along with a special type of insight that gives a better perspective into the evolution/development of Humanity in the near future, and Leary's 8-circuit model of consciousness could be one example of a type of guide and map (not too different from elemental systems and kabbalistic planes) of where to go and what to do to effectively de-program massive amounts of the stuff that we get conditioned or taught nowadays that's supposed to pass off as knowledge.
Going back to the Cybercraft manual, that also includes the 8-circuits, it goes into how we have so many things taught to us and imposed on our feelings/emotions and then describes how to use it to reach the same goal of deprogramming concepts/idea's etc that aren't right for you, but it ties it in with the Cyberlord/lady and i think it gives some really good descriptions of the problems that we have and how to tackle them.
Seeing as the type of life we live is so different than what Shamans had to live with, aspects like cities and technology, i think that having a laugh and knowing how to feel better, being creative through art/music/writing etc and finding inspiration, and obtaining knowledge/having visions connected with other beings/spirits could be things that are included in the actual development of the Cyber Shaman, so that they can attune to different dimensions of creativity that through things like art, music and writing would help other people see these visions and other dimensions and help them be inspired too. This doesn't seem to be anything other than healing, and like the same thing, but helping to heal the mind and creativity of others instead of physical problems.
The fun aspect, or simply remembering to have a good laugh, comes in handy for me personally when the mojo's going bad/is about to go bad, and all of a sudden i'm getting visions of being in one of the parts of Chapel Perilous because it lifts the whole mood and atmosphere of the stiuation and reminds me how insane life is, which helps a lot and often prevents things messing up by making me feel better. Also you could have Eris and the nonsense aspect of Discordianism as something that lifts depressing feeling's and add's a bit of lightheartedness to things. I'm finding that a good sense of humour is becoming more and more needed as i go on and is an essential tool that helps out with a lot of stuff that goes on when you start to have results and experiences with magick.
I got this off RAW's website about his book Cosmic Trigger and his views on the nature of reality :
'Cosmic Trigger deals with a process of deliberately induced brain change through which I put myself in the years 1962-1976. This process is called "initiation" or "vision quest" in many traditional societies and can loosely be considered some dangerous variety of self-psychotherapy in modern terminology. I do not recommend it for everybody, and I think I obtained more good results than bad ones chiefly because I had been through two varieties of ordinary psychotherapy before I started my own adventures and because I had a good background in scientific philosophy and was not inclined to "believe" any astounding Revelations too literally.
Briefly, the main thing I learned in my experiments is that "reality" is always plural and mutable.
"Reality" is a word in the English language which happens to be (a) a noun and (b) singular. Thinking in the English language (and in cognate Indo-European languages) therefore subliminally programs us to conceptualize "reality" as one block-like entity, sort of like a huge New York skyscraper, in which every part is just another "room" within the same building. This linguistic program is so pervasive that most people cannot "think" outside it at all, and when one tries to offer a different perspective they imagine one is talking gibberish.
The notion that "reality" is a noun, a solid thing like a brick or a baseball bat, derives from the evolutionary fact that our nervous systems normally organize the dance of energy into such block-like "things," probably as instant bio-survival cues. Such "things," however, dissolve back into energy dances -- processes or verbs -- when the nervous system is synergized with certain drugs or transmuted by yogic or shamanic exercises or aided by scientific instruments. In both mysticism and physics, there is general agreement that "things" are constructed by our nervous systems and that "realities" (plural) are better described as systems or bundles of energy functions.
So much for "reality" as a noun. The notion that "reality" is singular, like a hermetically sealed jar, does not jibe with current scientific findings which, in this century, suggest that "reality" may better be considered as flowing and meandering, like a river, or interacting, like a dance or evolving, like life itself.'
'The only "realities" (plural) that we actually experience and can talk meaningfully about are perceived realities, experienced realities, existential realities -- realities involving ourselves as editors -- and they are all relative to the observer, fluctuating, evolving, capable of being magnified and enriched, moving from low resolution to hi-fi, and do not fit together like the pieces of a jig-saw into one single Reality with a capital R. Rather, they cast illumination upon one another by contrast, like the paintings in a large museum, or the different symphonic styles of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mahler.
Alan Watts may have said it best of all: "The universe is a giant Rorschach ink-blot." Science finds one meaning in it in the 18th Century, another in the 19th, a third in the 20th; each artist finds unique meanings on other levels of abstraction; and each man and woman finds different meanings at different hours of the day, depending on the internal and external environments.'
http://www.rawilson.com/trigger1.html
So if experimenting with those models or ideas of reality was to be explored, the vision and creative journeying aspect comes into it aswell as healing as a method of looking at the other aspects of reality/universe/worlds and using a creative side to the healing side. I could use loads and loads of examples to say more or less the same thing that describe different techniques and i think that the more you have at your disposal the better it is for the Shaman to Cyber, or Pilot his/her way around aspects that we call reality aswell as interacting and healing/helping the people in the area thats being worked in. |
