Week 4 - Michelle Nguyen

This week’s readings focused on how shamans see spirits and why they can do so when other humans or not. In ““We Are Not Alone” The Shamans Of The World Tell Us”, shaman are described as beings who are much more in tune with nature and their environment, thus allowing them to sense spirits. This concept made me consider that perhaps the way society teaches us to think hinders our mind from being able to truly connect with our environment. Coming from a science background, I concur. While we are taught to think critically and deeply, taking this ASA course makes me realize there’s so much more to thinking outside the box than I had imagined. What if the way they are teaching us to think prevents us from being able to think critically of topics (ie. the spiritual realm) that do not fit the set of rules we already have? This week’s article “Possessed by the Spirits” touched upon how society looks down upon the len dong ritual, a religious practice. In fact, instances of leng dong is also being taken out of the Vietnamese community. The government criticizes and shuns mediums of the spiritual world and portray them negatively. I understand that outsiders might view these negatively because it’s something they can’t understand and perhaps the rituals don’t follow the social rules that they follow. I suspect that the government is trying to copy western thinking since the United States and Europe are such large world powers. In an effort to gain even a margin of that success, the government wants to ban these spiritual thinkers because westerners look down upon those practices for not following our strict scientific rules. The image I chose portrays this solitude shamans must feel from being shunned by society. Yet, they are kept close enough that they can be called upon in times of need. Nevertheless, shamans still claim to hold power to gain access to the spiritual world. Despite my skepticism, there is a solid shaman community that I cannot ignore. The question that keeps burning in my mind is: what gives spiritual items and shamans power? I think this is one of the main questions that prevents scientists from embracing the validity of spiritual power – because it cannot be explained.

References:
Broomfield, John. "“We Are Not Alone” The Shamans Of The World Tell Us."Collective
Evolution. N.p., 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

Fjelstad, Karen, and Thị Hiền. Nguyễn. Possessed by the Spirits: Mediumship in
Contemporary Vietnamese Communities. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell U, 2006. Print.

Media:
https://contemporaryshaman.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/women-shamanism-and-spirituality/