Similarities Between Schizophrenics And Shamanism

We have no tradition of shamanism; modern day society is terrified of madness because the western mind is a house of cards, and the people who built that house of cards know that it is a house of cards. We have a great phobia about the mind and hesitate when first principles are questioned, Rarer than corpses are the untreated mad and this is because we cant come to terms with it. As Terence McKenna says in a lecture on this subject: “a shaman is someone who swims in the same motion as a schizophrenic but the shaman has thousands and thousands of years of sanctioned technique and tradition to draw upon…” in a tribe if a child shows ‘schizophrenic’ tendencies they are immediately drawn away from society (but not rejected) and put under the care
Both shamans and schizophrenics experience hallucinations and become very introverted and withdraw from ordinary realities. From the moment a person becomes schizophrenic or shamanic they are in a constant psychedelic state and perceive the world in a completely different way to normal people. What is different between schizophrenics and shamans is how that psychedelic potential manifests and conditions itself. For a schizophrenic the conditioning takes place the moment he/she is born, the schizophrenic experiences and neutral stimulus, ordinary reality, this then elicits an unconditioned response, ordinary perception, but as the child grows up he/she is subjected to a new unconditioned stimulus, culture, when this new unconditioned stimulus is repetitively paired with the neutral stimulus, ordinary reality, Eventually the neutral stimulus, ordinary reality, becomes a conditioned stimulus and begins to elicit a conditioned response, non ordinary perception which in turn makes the schizophrenics perception psychedelic. In a sense, this psychedelic state of perception is permanent, for the schizophrenic is most likely always going to be a member of his original culture. Only through the external manipulation of the taking of antipsychotic drugs can the schizophrenic come out of the permanent psychedelic state that he/she is in. the shaman is conditioned
Schizophrenics interpret a certain stimulus, the archetype of religion, in ways that don’t correspond with the accepted norm of their culture or rather the accepted religions of their culture. Shamans also interpret the archetype of religion but in ways that are accepted by their culture and religion. Shamans are accepted by their society where as schizophrenics are