Week 4 - Miguel Flores

This week’s theme delves into the mystery surrounding spirits we see, feel, or hear everywhere. John Broomfield outlines the perceptions and outlook of shamans to explain phenomena that are hard to decipher and debunk. We are indeed not alone, and I agree that intelligence is not restrictive to humans only. Other living creatures have lived before, and therefore some spirits are encapsulated in the bodies and souls of these creatures. They embody a surmountable intelligence that is incomparable to human intelligence. Earth as we know it is just an ecosystem, but Broomfield tries to argue, that within this Earth there are mysteries that are due to be unfolded and discovered. The role of shamans does offer a lot more than you think, in the spiritual realm they are considered the gatekeepers and masters in guiding and manipulating all different type of spirits. They hold the title for being the balance of all things, of all spiritual journeys, and things. The rituals of the shaman are not for amusement, but the spectacle they provide and the assurance and validation they employ is genuinely a mystery and seemingly magical.

Shamans can provide us accesses to other modes of knowing. They are guides to the spiritual world and the balance to all things in this earth. (Photo was taken from Contemporary). 

 Broomfield is proving a point that we are so disconnected with nature that we fail to recognize and appreciate the wonders and mystery it gives to us. Shamans, in a way, fulfills our shortcomings and gives us accesses to alternative knowledge – this, ultimately, gives us another way of knowing. Another argument that Broomfield points out is that we do not know if the science that we know is truly the science we know “know.” They are so many unexplained phenomena, and it is hard for skeptics to believe in something that is out of this world. People tend to stick to what they know in hopes that science has the answer to everything; the truth of the matter is that science does not have the answer to everything. Modern science has only scratched the surface and, as Broomfield emphasized, it only gives us an illusion of knowledge for things that are hard to understand.

In my own experiences, there are some things I felt in the past or dreamt about in the past. I question these dreams and feelings I have experienced before. It could be psychological, but as a borderline skeptic, some experiences are merely out of the blue and hard to be considered coincidences. My family is devout Catholics, and even them too are convinced that there is a world out there full of mysteries and spirits.