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shamanism and 21

chingching

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I'm particularly interested in sooo's framing "what if I got this reading on a desert island" and I'll add, and there were no hard things, it was some kind of soft serve fruit island, what would 21 mean then?

Humanity has always used drugs, they make it easier to be a shaman, but unfortunately they usually forgot they had also teeth. Even the best shaman needs in the first place good teeth.

Also interested in Lise's interpretation here, I feel a bit silly but I don't get the metaphor of having good teeth.

And I suppose part of me wants to know how one can be a shaman in everyday life, a notion which seems oxymoronic.
 
S

sooo

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I'm particularly interested in sooo's framing "what if I got this reading on a desert island" and I'll add, and there were no hard things, it was some kind of soft serve fruit island, what would 21 mean then?

That sounds like 21.2: biting through something so tender that the nose disappears into it, like say a melon or mango.

Also interested in Lise's interpretation here, I feel a bit silly but I don't get the metaphor of having good teeth.

21.jpg


Hexagram 21

Bite

Teeth are for more than smiling. Excuses won’t cut it.​

And I suppose part of me wants to know how one can be a shaman in everyday life, a notion which seems oxymoronic.

It took me awhile to really get at (bite through) LiSe's connection with the shaman in with 21, which led to my little verse above and the image of biting on something impenetrable, such as an arrow or arrowhead, i.e. 21.4.

Sometimes things are very hard to understand, to 'bite through' to get to "what is really going on here," how to really comprehend the nature of what I'm trying to understand or get through. Then it requires more than simple deductive reasoning, it takes a deeper penetration into the heart of the matter. That sometimes requires an almost abnormal revelation, an ah ha! moment ("crack something between the teeth. Pronounced hia: laugh" LiSe) of breaking through or biting through what stands in the way of 'getting your teeth into or through the substance of the matter, such as a seed or nut. To think outside the box, for example: using a nut cracker, or a rock to break open a coconut. Those things also bite through to get at the meat; one might call them an extension of ones teeth. Even enlisting the help of God or gods to help accomplish something you can't do with your normal abilities is equivocal to shamanistic practice here.
 
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hilary

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The other thing with teeth is that they meet together. (If, heaven forfend, you need a filling in the surface of a molar, the dentist will finish up by working on restoring your 'bite' to make sure the teeth meet well.) The parts of the whole fit together, unite, and so they work: there is a single effective self who can take anything in. Nothing the world has to offer can get in the way of that wholeness and effectiveness, or not for long. I think that's the shaman, too.
 

chingching

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Does it involve some transcendence of the mundane situation? So the shaman brings it back to whole, makes it work again, but through leaving the physical plane?
 

rodaki

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'Crack open' and then 'bring together' as a unit .. I like this, it comes full circle

I think asking the Yi has something of the shamanic in it -we reach out for our Sacred selves, a higher existence, our totem animal or protector saint to help us get thru the boulder from lack to harmony . . what cracks up is the sense of not seeing what I have in front of me, what unites is me and the world in its wholeness, being

. . For some time now, when I'm throwing a Yi reading and perceiving I am coming across my own misperceptions or pre-conceived notions, I loosen up, crack my willful self, and, usually, I get a spontaneous feeling of beating wings and a sense of flying . . then I know I have to allow this to take me and when it does, my throw comes together in much more meaningful ways . . Now I'm not saying that is what shamanism is, or claiming I know about shamanism proper, but this process sheds what was and shifts my awareness . . that shift of awareness that liberates feels very much like what must be at the core of a 'shaman' - imo
 

chingching

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Now I'm not saying that is what shamanism is, or claiming I know about shamanism proper, but this process sheds what was and shifts my awareness . . that shift of awareness that liberates feels very much like what must be at the core of a 'shaman' - imo

yes I know what you mean. Certainly the shift in awarness is something I associate with shamanism. So Io guess from here I start to wonder how to apply the punishment aspect to 21.

I guess because punishment is something I consider less evolved for want of a better phrase.

And do you feel your shift of awareness is biting through the block or just stepping around it, or going in an entirely new direction?
 
S

sooo

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Does it involve some transcendence of the mundane situation? So the shaman brings it back to whole, makes it work again, but through leaving the physical plane?

I don't necessarily think 21 always involves transcendence of the mundane. Investigating the facts of a legal dispute can "crack the case", and in that sense bring it together. However, a psychic is brought in to find the whereabouts of missing evidence, or if extraordinary persistence leads to an unexpected break through, i.e. a relatively new DNA evidence break-thorough would, at one time be considered magical and deeply penetrating science. Most magic has a scientific basis, although not always Newtonian science, for example. But though in Hilary's example, a dentist isn't exactly a quantum physicist, he/she'd surely be considered a shaman in some cultures, using materials and methods previously unknown. Likewise that "ah ha!" moment may seem to appear out of nowhere, there was likely a cognitive reasoning process which led to it. When Bruce Lee breaks through those hard obstacles, it may seem superhuman, when in fact it is a combination of state of conditioning, mind, art and science. But so was likely seen the first primate who broke open a coconut on a rock, or carved a canoe from a fallen tree. These shaman images, illustrated on LiSe's site, come from an early culture. A CT brain scan would have been big magic back then, as would sending exploration ships to Mars, but both were major breakthroughs.
 

hilary

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'Crack open' and then 'bring together' as a unit .. I like this, it comes full circle

I think asking the Yi has something of the shamanic in it -we reach out for our Sacred selves, a higher existence, our totem animal or protector saint to help us get thru the boulder from lack to harmony . . what cracks up is the sense of not seeing what I have in front of me, what unites is me and the world in its wholeness, being

. . For some time now, when I'm throwing a Yi reading and perceiving I am coming across my own misperceptions or pre-conceived notions, I loosen up, crack my willful self, and, usually, I get a spontaneous feeling of beating wings and a sense of flying . . then I know I have to allow this to take me and when it does, my throw comes together in much more meaningful ways . . Now I'm not saying that is what shamanism is, or claiming I know about shamanism proper, but this process sheds what was and shifts my awareness . . that shift of awareness that liberates feels very much like what must be at the core of a 'shaman' - imo

Just quoting this because I like it so much I want it to be on the thread twice.
:bows:
 

chingching

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the common theme for me when receiving this hex is around situations I'm inexperienced in, so it would take some kind of magic to make it work, but how do you do the magic...like magic I guess... one of those things you know when you KNOW it I guess. Thanks so much sooo, hilary and rodaki very insightful!!
 

rodaki

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Just quoting this because I like it so much I want it to be on the thread twice.
:bows:

:blush:



chingching, I'm not sure as to whether your question about how I see it still stands because I get a sense that you have found some answer (?) but thanks for asking the question anyways, it was interesting to think it thru more thoroughly
 

chingching

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I still feel a bit stuck I guess, cant bite through biting through, like in the responses I'm reading what I need to know but I cant know it yet , really know it. but would still like to know your take on what in a practical sense is the process of biting through, and to add one more question 21 as an uc hex,.

...Yeah... I get it and I don't get it at the same time.
 

rodaki

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well, that's the thing I'm not set on how it happens as far as my example goes . . the clearest part of it in my experience has been about allowing things to show me how they work . . I have a rather yin idea of biting thru though and I see most of its lines talking about caution. If something cracks there is the idea of me doing something or effecting my will . . it's more like alignment with what I'm getting to rather than directing.
Btw, I don't think 21 has to necessarily mean punishment, it's not a meaning I include in my understanding of it
 
S

sooo

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Love this guy. He's also featured in "What the bleep do we know, Down the rabbit hole."

This may not meet your question on shamanism and hex 21, chingching, but it may shed light on the "not yet-ness" of understanding, which you speak of. If it's any comfort to you, you're not alone. This difficulty to grasp in a final resolution way is shared with some of the greatest contemporary minds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yufAa4oFyug&feature=relmfu

64 is also descriptive of this not yet-ness nature or way of understanding. This is especially true when dealing with (waves of) potentials, which is part of both shamanism and quantum theory.
 

rodaki

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;)

I came across this clip shortly before posting your answer chingching and just got thru it . . it's quite intriguing!
 

rodaki

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btw, I came across the video when I tried to find where I had heard the phrase 'there is no wall' . . that's the simplest thing that came in my head trying to explain 21 . .
 

chingching

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thanky, but I'll have to wait a bit before I can watch it, I have slow internet here :(
 

charly

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... "what if I got this reading on a desert island" and I'll add, and there were no hard things, it was some kind of soft serve fruit island, what would 21 mean then?
...
Hi, Chingching:

In some traditions to bite the fruit is a SIN even if the island is not desert. I believe that the Changes is more tolerant and will allow you to bite, chew and even eat the fruit without consequences. But consider that the fruit is a metaphor that stands for another thing.

That's why to bite the fruit is a CARNAL SIN. The Changes is maybe more direct and speaks straightforward of bittig MEAT. Must be said that chinese make no difference between meat and FLESH. H.21 is a CARNIVORE hexagram tasting different sorts of meat.

That sounds like 21.2: biting through something so tender that the nose disappears into it, like say a melon or mango.
Hi, Bruce:

Your images have nothing disgusting, your are praphrasing W/B, wich is, I believe right.
But not all the authors agree about to whom belong the nose. Some authors think in a sort of fight where one bites the nose of the rival, being not only disgusting but even cannibal.

Chinese saw pommergranates and melons, both fruits with many seeds, as metaphors of FERTILITY.

The chinese word here translated DISAPPEAR means many things, to destroy, to suffocate, sometimes by extension to submerge. The character has water + fire + weapon, meaning that water destroys or suffocates fire. Fire can be soffocated by submersion in water.

Bitting tender meat and submerging the nose can be also an image of honoring fertility.
I have not my chinese documents at hand, but maybe you understand the same.

I have to think more and read the recived text.

All the best for both,


Charly
 

charly

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Now see the chinese title of True Blood here:

690-165.jpg


Now, look at the first character at the left, of course, the first character of H.21 name: 噬 SHI.

Ch.
 

arabella

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It may be significant that shamans stand as the gate-keepers between this world and the world of the subconscious. Curing schizophrenia, for instance, is a shamanic task, where the normal connection between symbolism of the material world and the subconscious has been lost and the individual spirals into insanity. Caught at the right moment, this can be reversed by a shaman who can follow, mimick, and retool a disintegrating mental/spiritual process by reengaging emotion. And here there is the chewing motion perhaps, of disconnecting and reconnecting synapses that weren't working and reestablishing a new bond between material reality and spiritual meaning, chewing the disconnected, shredded elements into a new cement.

The image of hex 21, the breaking and discovering and reworking into a new substance reminds me that we are in charge of our own nourishment. We can't just lie there and hope somebody will feed us. And the wonderful promise of this process is that we have the tools, we have the teeth or can use a hammer and chisel, a mortar and pestle, an imaginative mind, to open and grind and rework into a substance that is useful. We are all alchemists who can transform apt symbolism into thought and action. That is the excitement of casting the Yi, to me at least. I am enquiring: what can I do with this situation? What the Yi suggests back to me may even seen impossible at first glance, then I begin to draw together the elements, measure, toss them around, align them and look again, choose a few and begin to knead, mold, or crack open to expose the core.

The Yi is the catalyst and the cauldron in one experience, like dance or sound can be a catalyst-cauldron for shamanic detachment and rebirth. It opens the mouth of the maelstrom and says, step in if you dare. The Yi is not for sissies.
 
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Tohpol

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The Yi is the catalyst and the cauldron in one experience, like dance or sound can be a catalyst-cauldron for shamanic detachment and rebirth. It opens the mouth of the maelstrom and says, step in if you dare. The Yi is not for sissies.

Never a truer word spoken.

If you genuinely open the ancient Yi portal you better be sure you can handle what comes next. After all, it seems to be rooted in an archaic form of shamanic, intitiatory, alchemical lore and as such it is transformative, usually whether you like it or not...lol

It's a bit like one's Personality is a USB key that plugs into the I Ching as the interface / software that eventually allows you to upload and download nuggets of gold from the mainframe where the Higher Self resides. That is, once you have oriented yourself and established your conduit or "Blog" in the world wide reality web...
 

charly

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It may be significant that shamans stand as the gate-keepers between this world and the world of the subconscious. Curing schizophrenia, for instance, is a shamanic task, where the normal connection between symbolism of the material world and the subconscious has been lost and the individual spirals into insanity. Caught at the right moment, this can be reversed by a shaman who can follow, mimick, and retool a disintegrating mental/spiritual process by reengaging emotion. And here there is the chewing motion perhaps, of disconnecting and reconnecting synapses that weren't working and reestablishing a new bond between material reality and spiritual meaning, chewing the disconnected, shredded elements into a new cement.

The image of hex 21, the breaking and discovering and reworking into a new substance reminds me that we are in charge of our own nourishment. We can't just lie there and hope somebody will feed us. And the wonderful promise of this process is that we have the tools, we have the teeth or can use a hammer and chisel, a mortar and pestle, an imaginative mind, to open and grind and rework into a substance that is useful. We are all alchemists who can transform apt symbolism into thought and action. That is the excitement of casting the Yi, to me at least. I am enquiring: what can I do with this situation? What the Yi suggests back to me may even seen impossible at first glance, then I begin to draw together the elements, measure, toss them around, align them and look again, choose a few and begin to knead, mold, or crack open to expose the core.

The Yi is the catalyst and the cauldron in one experience, like dance or sound can be a catalyst-cauldron for shamanic detachment and rebirth. It opens the mouth of the maelstrom and says, step in if you dare. The Yi is not for sissies.

Love it, Arabella!

All depends of what is good for eating and what not. Of course, nothing absolute but cultural.

Maybe shamans, some of which are acostumed to sleep with corpses, might see nothing disgusting in bitting and chewing a NOSE or a EAR. :eek:

I remember that Stevenson reported some cannibal that prefered hands as tasty bites. And it was not thousand years ago.

Connecting with our own inner shaman, maybe the experience will become exciting. Of course that when we accede to the unconscious we are exposed to all sort of disreputable contents, hidden drives, some unknown for ourselves.

Images and scenes of cannibalism, bizarre sexuality, strange territory where metaphors ground and where things become reversible, variable like holograms under different light angles...

Something must be said: don't fear BATS, they were symbols of happiness for chinese people and not all them are VAMPIRE-BATS, some, instead of being blood eaters, are vegetarians. If I remember well even Tyson become a vegan last times.


All the best,


Charly
 

arabella

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Hi Charly! Great to hear from you.

Just wanted to say that shamans can be people who just appear in life. I've never gone to a remote village to find one, let alone a cannibal tribe. But I have known teachers, psychologists, artists, singers, poets, who are shamans. At rare moments I have been shamanic myself, or at least had parts of that experience. Dreams are our proof that other worlds exist and we all have access there. Why else go entirely asleep? Our spirits are busy in a place our bodies can't go.

We all have the capacity to bring back ideas, feelings, symbols, identities, from dreams. Right now my dreams are full of horses and wild places and, no kidding, everywhere I go I see deer, watching me from the sides of the roads. One forced me to stop my car the other evening and stood, contemplating me and my daughter for ten minutes through the windscreen -- an animal that should be too frightened to approach at all. He and I were both transfixed. The nature connection is, for some reason, at a peak. And no doubt the reason will be apparent soon enough. There are similar experiences available through the Yi with eyes wide open in broad daylight.

Just the other day I found a quote by the author CS Lewis that is imaginative and inspired -- and that I also take literally because it explains how the transformation works, again and again and again: "You don't have a soul. You are a soul; you have a body."

Shamans live in awareness of the core, in constant Hex 21 mode. When you are in trouble and they step into the maelstrom or through the portal to hold your hand, or to bring you back, the connection is instinctive. A shaman doesn't perceive a face, they see a spirit. No wonder so many have that very unusual expression in their eyes.

Scientists continue to argue over whether there is anything that moves faster than the speed of light, if there is anything that embraces and then surpasses this material world. If they don't know the answer to this, they've never met a shaman.
 
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rodaki

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I have known teachers, psychologists, artists, singers, poets, who are shamans.

I really like that and have felt similarly at times . . In fact, I believe that all of us carry the potential of taking on the shaman's role at certain times in our lives. Even more so, certain meetings with certain people function as turning points for shamanic aspects of relations to be set off . . And then there are cases were people unknowingly become shamanic for others, or we instinctively project a shamanic role to someone close, because they unwittingly function as catalysts that enable us to cross over to a new understanding of ourselves . . My grandma -who also came from a long line of teachers&priests- had something of the shamanic in her. I don't know what it was exactly, it was a certain vibe she exuded I guess, but it was palpable and powerful -so much so that when I was little, I used to say that when I grew up I wanted to be a 'grandma' :) . Even some scientists carry something of the shamanic aura and power of changing vibrations around them -i.e. people like W. Pauli and the Pauli effect . .


Yet, I have to say, sometimes I miss knowing the distinct presence of some person who would enact the shaman's role knowingly because it is what they were trained, or taught, to do and I also miss the ritual of preparing to go meet a person like that . . I think there was a lot of merit in it


This could be also the reason why nowadays I prefer believing more in animal-shamans, in the encounters with them that do have an unspoiled potential for a deeply felt change of awareness . . I was smiling while reading abt the deer incident you mentioned Arabela! My work is away from where I live and everyday we drive for quite a while thru nature to get there, during which time, encounters with animals happen quite often. The most usual of them are with birds, but there are also goats and sheep and just a couple of days ago I experienced the most stunning presence of a horse, standing perfectly peaceful in front of a house, where I'd never seen any other animals, under the day's first rays .. It was such a powerful thing to behold, like it was teaching me the most natural way to begin my day of work and it had a truly instantaneous effect on me . . I'd hate to misuse or over-use the term 'shamanic' but if we see it as a catalytic presence, it truly felt like that . .
 

Tohpol

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Great!

And "shaman" is just a word for the person that can anchor a "frequency" for others and take on the responsibility that such a path entails. That may manifset at various degrees of intensity. Put another way, maybe the shaman is someone who consciously follows a path of self-development not just on behalf of oneself but by default, for the whole world and then disburses the energy (if asked) to the community of which s/he is a part. if s/he survives the rigours of what that process entails that is... And yes, I think that's inherently creative and artistic in its truest sense regardless of whether one is an "artist" or not.
 

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Exploring Divination

I like your comments that relate to the modality of modern shamanism/Yi because there are so many ancient modalities that can be used to actually cure modern "DIS" eases, that will not respond to drugs. This is because it isn't that the body has a lack of exotic new chemicals and never has, but rather, that only an aware awake and alive energy can facilitate another aware awake and alive energy into coming into alignment with health. Thanks! Love and Light, Tom Wright A Course In Shamanism www.a-course-in-shamanism.com.
 

chingching

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finally have fast internet

Love this guy. He's also featured in "What the bleep do we know, Down the rabbit hole."

This may not meet your question on shamanism and hex 21, chingching, but it may shed light on the "not yet-ness" of understanding, which you speak of. If it's any comfort to you, you're not alone. This difficulty to grasp in a final resolution way is shared with some of the greatest contemporary minds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yufAa4oFyug&feature=relmfu

64 is also descriptive of this not yet-ness nature or way of understanding. This is especially true when dealing with (waves of) potentials, which is part of both shamanism and quantum theory.

finally got to watch this, fascinating. Its very much the way I worked as a pilates instructor but I could never really talk to anyone about it and clients were quite conservative. It got to a point where before my shift I'd notice some pain, or bone out of place etc, then when the shift started there would be one client with that same problem. But because none of my peers had the same experience I never learnt what do with that next and now I have left the industry. Most Instructors are very in their heads and not in their intuition or instincts in this town. Its a real pity that westerners have this cut out of our culture. I want diviners and shamans brought back. Cesar milan is a shaman.
 

arabella

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finally got to watch this, fascinating. Its very much the way I worked as a pilates instructor but I could never really talk to anyone about it and clients were quite conservative. It got to a point where before my shift I'd notice some pain, or bone out of place etc, then when the shift started there would be one client with that same problem. But because none of my peers had the same experience I never learnt what do with that next and now I have left the industry. Most Instructors are very in their heads and not in their intuition or instincts in this town. Its a real pity that westerners have this cut out of our culture. I want diviners and shamans brought back. Cesar milan is a shaman.

Chingching, you must have potential as a shaman, And I've had the same experiences that you mention -- but in different circumstances. I've spent years exploding electrical appliances and lightbulbs and setting off car alarms or overloading store computers with energy that is running at a tangent -- but also finding I absorb other's illnesses, hardships and bad attitudes, then transmute them to something else. Along the way I've transformed my own life direction innumerable times -- and met up with beings that i've later found aren't "here" in the usual sense. Having been born this way isn't very helpful when most people either think you are exaggerating or that there's just something wrong with you. I've spoken with psychologists about these phenomenon who are quite open-minded but think the main job is to give reassurance not to "worry about it." To the contrary -- I wish I knew what to DO with it.

As Mishlove is saying in this video, hanging out with shamans will accentuate and expand this, and at least make you feel like there is an explanation and you aren't on your own with it. I know a few and, one in particular, is more or less responsible for the birth of my two younger children. Participating in a Crow indian sundance the Medicine Man's blessing for me was always "May you have many more children." And each time I got this blessing i was pregnant in a month. The third sundance I asked him to please pick a different blessing.

Mishlove's description of shamanism as a unique and ancient view of science focused on various forms of vibration and how they relate to create our world and belief -- is how I understand the Art as well. It's an extremely intimate way of mixing with the world and other people. In a more "distant" kind of world where we talk to each other on ethernet and communicate with ever more meaningless symbolism, shamans seem even more exotic. But they do exist and practice openly. I know an excellent one in Montana if you are ever looking for mentorship and somebody to hang out with and see where this takes you.

"Entering a quantum reality...mutual sharing of vibrations...Breaking down and creation of new structures and belief systems ..... entering other levels of reality which are parallel to our own." These quotes from the Mishlove video give some concept of the vastness this encompasses. It can only be accepted as a science if it is "quantifiable" -- and who can conceive of any equation that would contain it? It is a matter of practical faith from what I've seen in working shamans. They consider their profession neither usual -- nor extraordinary.
 
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