I haven't been relying on texts as much as I used to. In part this stems from the sheer amount of reading I do for graduate work; I get burned out from staring at the screen or the page. There's also a certain degree of feeling a bit "gunshy" about reaching out to spiritual books again. The works I read in adolescence have generally been dismissed as culturally insensitive, out-dated, or -- I'll use the word used above -- mindless "fluff", by my acquaintances better versed in such things; I'm not really sure where to turn now. Usually personal experience has been enough, and I don't claim my spiritual experiences to be anything more than a form of meditation, since I know myself to be... well, something of a neophyte in terms of actual research; and don't want to be appropriating anything I really don't have the knowledge about/right to claim as my own.
This actually inspired me to take a moment to review what few books I still have on my shelf. -- The much maligned Ted Andrews Animal-Speak has collected dust, -- Michael Harner's Way of the Shaman seems to have done the same, -- something called Weather Shamanism by Nan Moss and David Corbin, who appear to be Harnerites -- I don't think I ever actually read this one? -- A couple books on spiritual shapeshifting; the one by Perkins grabs at my memory a bit, I believe I got about half way through, the one by Rosalyn Greene, much less so? Fairly self-help oriented, I believe. -- One I picked up much more recently for a paper; Shamanism in the Interdisciplinary Context a collection of papers from a conference held in Estonia in 2001. I know I've read through a couple of the articles in here and enjoyed them. -- The World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition by Roger Walsh. Don't remember much of this one either.
Huh. I thought I had more, but maybe I got rid of most of the fluffy... with the exception of the more nostalgia-bound volumes which held meaning for me at one point, even if I can't really bring myself to use/believe/respect them any more for various reasons. I know I had a copy of a revised edition of Eliade at some point, though it doesn't seem to have come to Pittsburgh with me.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-09-21 12:30 am (UTC)This actually inspired me to take a moment to review what few books I still have on my shelf.
-- The much maligned Ted Andrews Animal-Speak has collected dust,
-- Michael Harner's Way of the Shaman seems to have done the same,
-- something called Weather Shamanism by Nan Moss and David Corbin, who appear to be Harnerites -- I don't think I ever actually read this one?
-- A couple books on spiritual shapeshifting; the one by Perkins grabs at my memory a bit, I believe I got about half way through, the one by Rosalyn Greene, much less so? Fairly self-help oriented, I believe.
-- One I picked up much more recently for a paper; Shamanism in the Interdisciplinary Context a collection of papers from a conference held in Estonia in 2001. I know I've read through a couple of the articles in here and enjoyed them.
-- The World of Shamanism: New Views of an Ancient Tradition by Roger Walsh. Don't remember much of this one either.
Huh. I thought I had more, but maybe I got rid of most of the fluffy... with the exception of the more nostalgia-bound volumes which held meaning for me at one point, even if I can't really bring myself to use/believe/respect them any more for various reasons. I know I had a copy of a revised edition of Eliade at some point, though it doesn't seem to have come to Pittsburgh with me.