3 ms·

The West African example (upthread) of positive interpretations of hallucination was of Ghanian Christians. See section 4, paragraph 2 at https://onlinelibrary.

by wahern 2y ago

The West African example (upthread) of positive interpretations of hallucination was of Ghanian Christians. See section 4, paragraph 2 at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tops.12158 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tops.12158 What's distinctive about modern Western culture isn't its traditional religions.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
krapp 2y ago
I wouldn't consider African Christianity to be Western. Like Japanese Christianity, it evolved along a different path to allow for for a degree of syncretism that just doesn't exist within the Western paradigm. Western Christianity was primarily spread through imperialism and colonialism, and thus implemented in such a way that native traditions and cultures were either recontextualized within the Christian paradigm or else purged. The political and financial incentives involved in the spread of Christianity can't be ignored, as they formed the framework by which Western cultures now tend to interrogate and interpret the supernatural. Within that framework, hallucinations and visions can either mark one as possessed by God (a prophet) or possessed by Satan (a witch.) There's no affordance for a third way ("shamanism") as might exist in other orthodox Christian traditions because that would undermine the authority of the dominant imperialist hierarchy.
- wahern 2y ago
  > undermine the authority of the dominant imperialist hierarchy. Ah, yes, the ever-present institutional forces conspiring to oppress the agency of independent, freedom-loving, free-thinking people. I wonder where the oppression-focused, conspiratorial, paranoid, anti-authoritarian mindset steeped in the language of violence that is so prevalent in the industrialized West, especially among those with mental disorders, comes from....
  - krapp 2y ago
    I didn't say anything about agency, free thought or freedom, but yes. Colonialism existed. Empires existed. And the spread of Christianity throughout the Western world was inextricably linked to both ever since the day Constantine decided Christians dying in his army would be more useful to him than Christians dying in the arena. That just bare historical fact. And theories of mind (and associated disorders) tend to be culturally based and coded - see the syndrome/myth of the wendigo as an example. And it does matter if your culture is colonized and forcibly assimilated into a religious paradigm that explicitly suppresses "shamanic" practices as heretical. The degree of common cultural recognition of shamanism as an esoteric interpretation of hallucinatory experience in any Western culture is roughly in proportion to the degree to which colonizing powers sought to eradicate, and resisted syncretism with, existing native traditions. Because that just wasn't a thing in Christianity in the West at the time. I don't know what the snark is supposed to be for, and your comment just seems to descend into a bout of logorrhea. It's difficult for me to know what point you're actually trying to make, or what you're trying to prove or disprove. I guess I did a wrongthink and short circuited your capacity for rational thought? Sorry about that.

by wahern 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

krapp 2y ago

I wouldn't consider African Christianity to be Western. Like Japanese Christianity, it evolved along a different path to allow for for a degree of syncretism that just doesn't exist within the Western paradigm. Western Christianity was primarily spread through imperialism and colonialism, and thus implemented in such a way that native traditions and cultures were either recontextualized within the Christian paradigm or else purged. The political and financial incentives involved in the spread of Christianity can't be ignored, as they formed the framework by which Western cultures now tend to interrogate and interpret the supernatural. Within that framework, hallucinations and visions can either mark one as possessed by God (a prophet) or possessed by Satan (a witch.) There's no affordance for a third way ("shamanism") as might exist in other orthodox Christian traditions because that would undermine the authority of the dominant imperialist hierarchy.

wahern 2y ago
> undermine the authority of the dominant imperialist hierarchy. Ah, yes, the ever-present institutional forces conspiring to oppress the agency of independent, freedom-loving, free-thinking people. I wonder where the oppression-focused, conspiratorial, paranoid, anti-authoritarian mindset steeped in the language of violence that is so prevalent in the industrialized West, especially among those with mental disorders, comes from....
- krapp 2y ago
  I didn't say anything about agency, free thought or freedom, but yes. Colonialism existed. Empires existed. And the spread of Christianity throughout the Western world was inextricably linked to both ever since the day Constantine decided Christians dying in his army would be more useful to him than Christians dying in the arena. That just bare historical fact. And theories of mind (and associated disorders) tend to be culturally based and coded - see the syndrome/myth of the wendigo as an example. And it does matter if your culture is colonized and forcibly assimilated into a religious paradigm that explicitly suppresses "shamanic" practices as heretical. The degree of common cultural recognition of shamanism as an esoteric interpretation of hallucinatory experience in any Western culture is roughly in proportion to the degree to which colonizing powers sought to eradicate, and resisted syncretism with, existing native traditions. Because that just wasn't a thing in Christianity in the West at the time. I don't know what the snark is supposed to be for, and your comment just seems to descend into a bout of logorrhea. It's difficult for me to know what point you're actually trying to make, or what you're trying to prove or disprove. I guess I did a wrongthink and short circuited your capacity for rational thought? Sorry about that.