Mai Xiong - Week 5
In “What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital,” by Stephanie Marohn with Malidoma Patrice Somé, Dr. Somé shares their views and observations of mental health institutions. According to Dr. Somé mental health illnesses are “signals” for “the birth of a healer”’ (Marohn, 2014). In western practices, people are labeled with a mental illness and seen as “sensitive,” however in the Dagara tradition, Dr. Somé explains that sensitivity is a sign in which a spirit is trying to integrate with a human being to send information. However, in western culture, this view is typically marginalized. From the interview with Dr. Somé, Marohn explains “...we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world...When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening.” Marohn’s statement gives us a way of seeing spirituality and the spirit realm in another light—one that explains why our view on the spirit realm can be limited due to our westernized cultures. This can possibly explain why some experience isolation or a feeling of not know what to do when they have a calling because they may have grown up in a culture that lacks the knowledge of an existing spiritual world. Thus, some individuals become “unequipped” and are unable to recognize their calling. This can make it difficult for someone who has a calling to answer the calling or take the next steps forward because of unsupportive cultures or people around them.
Image by Buma Imaginearts
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