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Spirit Talkers: North American Indian Medicine Powers
A New Book by William S. Lyon, Ph.D. |
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Books by Wm. S. Lyon
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Chapter One Summary Human beings have only two, basic, psychological modes of operation. We can think either from our heart or our head. The heart mode is a genetically encoded form of behavior, while the head mode is learned. Because we begin life operating from our heart mode, it is our default mode. American Indian cultures opted for the heart mode, while western civilization opted for the head mode. This chapter discusses how these different modes produce different views of reality, and the implications thereof as it regards the nature of a human being. Chapter Excerpts The Core Difference Back in the winter of 1940 Yale anthropologist Leo Simmons boarded a train in New Haven, and slowly journeyed to the small village of Oraibi, Arizona, atop a mesa on the Hopi reservation. In those days the Hopi were extremely isolated from our civilized world. The purpose of his long train ride was to finish up work on his field notes of two years with his Hopi assistant, Don C. Talayesva, whose Hopi name was Sun Chief. Prof. Simmons remained as a guest for seventeen days in Sun Chief's home "in intensive interviewing, checking information gathered earlier, having him repeat many of the major experiences of his life, and filling in gaps in the accounts" as he recorded in his field notes. One of the major "experiences of his life" covered during these interviews was the time Sun Chief had spent in boarding school. At the age of nine, in 1899, he had decided to attend the white man's boarding school afar from home and relatives. It was not only his own decision to go, but also his Hopi-given right at that age to do so. Thus he left Oraibi, only to return during summers when school was closed. However, by his third year there, he began to get bored with school, and his attention turned increasingly towards the summer Kachina dances he was beginning to participate in back at home. By February of this third year his spirits were uplifted a bit when they finally promoted him to the first grade. However, of the following summer he tells Simmons: "On June the fourteenth [1902] my father came for me and we returned home, riding burros and bringing presents of calico, lamps, shovels, axes, and other tools. It was a joy to get home again, to see all my folks, and to tell about my experiences at school. I had learned many English words and could recite part of the Ten Commandments. I knew how to sleep on a bed, pray to Jesus, comb my hair, eat with a knife and fork, and use a toilet. I had learned that the world is round instead of flat, that it is indecent to go naked in the presence of girls, and to eat the testes of sheep or goats. I had also learned that a person thinks with his head instead of his heart." There is something absolutely profound in these observations made by a Hopi boy who saw the universe in very simple terms. He recounts his white man's learning, but then ends his report with a one-sentence overview of it all that embodies a deeper understanding of our nature. At the age of only twelve years old, this young boy already understood that human beings have two very distinct modes of operation, head thinking versus heart thinking. What is so profound about his observation is that this understanding of human nature didn't became a "scientific fact" for us until four decades later. Getting Educated When we are born into this world we know virtually nothing--we can't understand anything we hear, we have very little motor control, and we recognize little that we see. As such, we come out of the womb operating on the only thing we have to go by, namely our feelings. Babies are complete feeling beings. They do exactly as they feel. When they feel tired, they sleep. It doesn't matter to them what time it is. When they feel hungry, they express discomfort and are given food. And, given caring parents, they survive amazingly well in this feeling mode of operation. "We know you highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in these Colleges, and the maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are so wise must know that different Nations have different Conceptions of things, and you will not take it amiss, if our Ideas of this kind of Education happens not to be the same with yours. "We have had some experience of it. Several of our young People were formerly brought up in the Colleges of the Northern Provinces. They were instructed in all of your sciences, but, when they came back to us, they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy, spoke our language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, nor Counsellors. They were totally good for nothing. "We are, however, not the less oblig'd for your kind Offer, tho' we decline accepting it, and to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take great Care to their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them." What Canasatego is essentially talking about here is the development of human sensory skills--the feeling aspects of a human being. A "man" is someone whose skills have been fully developed in this regard. This means that their notion of education was geared more towards developing one's genetic-given abilities to sense reality (via feelings) versus training one's mind to view reality. For example, when interacting with you they are much more likely to check out your "vibe," what anthropologist call your "body language" (facial gestures, body movements, speech intonations, your eyes, etc.), than pay attention to the content of what you are saying. So it is that we have come to trust our thoughts, our explanations for things, while American Indians are much more apt to trust their sense of feeling. In so doing, we have basically abandoned our default mode of operating in this world. The Secret of the Heart One's view of reality from the head mode is kept stable by an ongoing conversation in one's head. It is not a mode of operation from which you can will a drastic change in your view of things. As mentioned, this happens only in times of crisis, or under unusual circumstances, and even then the change is usually not a large one in your overall perspective of things. However, the secret of the heart mode is that our DNA-given way of knowing reality is multi-dimensional. That is, in the heart mode human consciousness can be focused on different levels of reality. Furthermore, in shamanism such changes are usually willed changes on the part of the individual. The shamans direct their "flights of ecstasy" to targeted locations in the "unseen world." For example, Swiss anthropologist Jeremy Narby's recently published The Cosmic Serpent gives a detailed account of how South American Indian shamans acquire a molecular view of reality where they actually see DNA strands and their actions. What this simply means is that via one's heart mode your consciousness can access different levels of reality, be it a molecular level, an atomic level, or even a transcendental level. Shamans, who readily understand this principle, are adept at focusing their consciousness on the levels of reality that results in their medicine powers. At other levels of reality there is a power over our ever-present space-time reality, ordinary reality, that we exist in. This ability is the secret of the human heart. When those powers manifest and the ordinary flow of our reality is suddenly altered, we call it a "miracle." How that is achieved will be covered in Chapter 4. Read more from Chapter 2... To be notified of publication or contact the author, please send an email to: BookAlert@wmslyon.com |
