Snowdon - 3/16/22 - Mystical Middlemen in The Spell of the Sensuous (& my two cents)

 3/16/22


Within David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous, I was interested by his description of the place of the shaman within oral cultures. The description that they serve as a bridge between the human community and world around them (“the Others” as Abram writes) creates an interesting image, supported by his account of their often living physically on the outskirts of the settled area, indicative of their status as a sort of middleman. The account of their “negotiation” with each hunt or harvest, as to make sure they are not taking unduly from the world around them is an interesting insight into oral philosophy, but it also makes me think back to our discussion of “What is natural?” or even moreso, “When does something cease to be natural?” No one would contest the fact that the industrialized, modern world, greatly wounds the natural systems and machinations of the planet on which we live, but it is very clear that Abram believes that, due to this connection and mediation through the shaman with nature, those in oral cultures place themselves as more solidly “natural” than those not, and I am curious where he would mark this divide. Did the Mayan system of slash and burn agriculture represent a cruel subjugation of the “natural” world? When the entirely oral Zulu people constructed a kraal for the organized husbandry of cattle within their settlement, was that something unnatural?

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