Still searching for guru-debunking websites
I don't know why. I was looking for guru debunking internet references to link up here. I found one blog and one forum and one website that all seemed promising until I realized they were there to debunk gurus, except their own still sacrosanct gurus. On all three of these websites the guru system itself still is endorsed and promoted as essential to liberation (or salvation).
Then I found...a varied few other publishers purporting to debunk as charlatans or abusers any teachers or practitioners of any (and all) methods for engaging the spiritual or non-ordinary, simply by rejecting them on principle and calling them frauds and much worse...or else mainly rejecting and calling frauds those who charge fees for sessions or get paid for workshops...or else mainly rejecting and calling frauds those who diverge from their favorite tradition yet still claim to be of that tradition...or else mainly those who fit some other criteria for being woefully inadequate or just plain annoying to the website(s) owner(s). So what I have found thus far seems to fit into two big broad categories - the 'picky true believers' and the pseudoskeptics.
Yet shamanic websites are getting scarier too! I practice new shamanics because I still dream, hope, and suppose shamanic ways have the potential to help folks attend intentionally to spiritual and non-ordinary experiences, while freeing them from the urge to give away personal power to outside authorities and mediators between self (and all matter and mind) and spirit. Collegiality as spiritual companionship and circling around among equal individuals at new everyday crossroads of here and now would seem to me to provide natural and flexible checks and balances for independent shamanizers, to keep revelations from getting 'written in stone' and keep anyone from getting guru-philed and keep shamanic ways from getting organized and institutionalized into an official religion.
And yet...Around the internet I keep coming across the word 'shaman' being used as a synonym for 'guru' and the word 'guru' being used more and more loosely which might have something to do it. I notice shamanic practitioners gradually or suddenly, intentionally or unwittingly, being set up or setting themselves up as official or unofficial priestly authorities, by claiming or winning endorsement from their own revered and sacrosanct authority-figures within their paricular chosen (really or supposedly or so-called) ancient or recently-rediscovered-ancient 'shamanic' and/or 'tribal' traditions. So maybe shamanic ways are just another part of the problem(s) and not conduits for solutions.
My own case: I practice new shamanics within the context my community, but as an almost secret 'hermit-in-spirit' to minimize the possibilities that I might do someone more harm than good. I shamanize because shamanic ways bring happiness and fun into my moments and days.
I shamanize behind the scenes questing life shifts towards better and best, and in support of a few who live the risks of shamanizing openly. The folks I call 'shamans' - who help me most as companion life-journeyers and shamanic circle companions - really revel in this universal duality dancing of everything and eschew most of 'enlightenment' except for Immanuel Kant's version synergized with each of their individual experiences and expressions of everyday ecstasy.
~ Teal
