I am glad you like my article. One especially interesting part of the story is the brain being used to something / whatever. We are all used to something :-) .
I think it's interesting to start to peel away some of the explanations for the more supernatural sort of experiences that humans experience so we can start to understand better what is biological process and maybe just maybe some of the weird mystic stuff really is mystic (hands up I love that stuff).
I did some fieldwork with baka 'pygmy' people in Gabon and they have so many rituals and superstitions and little sacred practices. I really liked it 'cos it felt like it resonated with a deep respect for the forest, and as a conservation scientist that's a very luring idea. But then I was reading Dan Siegel's mindset and there's a small part in it where he explains about superstition, that you can train your brain to believe that if you do a certain thing, like tapping your finger just so many times like a lucky charm, then you will essentially train it to deeply believe that the charm/ritual really is what is protecting you, because the majority of time the terrible thing that you don't want to happen never actually happens so you essentially convince the brain that it's the tapping/ritual or whatever that has prevented the bad thing from happening (e.g. getting stampeded by an elephant while you're out walking about the forest). Errr, should really go back to the book to see if I could explain it better, hope you get the idea! Well, I read that and I kinda thought, ugh, maybe all those wonderful mystical rituals are simply a mild form of OCD?
Hey @kate-m thank you for your inspiring post. I like the touch of mysticism too, you are very welcome.
I am sure the 'Pygmy' are a kind of nature related population, deeply connected to their surrounding meaning nature. What's sacred for us maybe totally strange for them. Try to look behind the curtains for one moment and think about our "sacred" "civilization" and what some people are doing. At least it seems they understood the very little thing about nature and circumstances, hard to understand all their motives for a person coming from the "first world". :-)
It's really not easy to say and I am trying my best but I would say rethink in every aspect is very necessary.
Maybe different people with their different attitudes have different ways to handle things. What's good for the one may not be good for the other. Everybody has it's strength and it's maybe just a question about focusing love peace and harmony...
Oooh! Just to clarify! I'm not slagging the Baka. They are truly awesome. I have total respect for them. Their traditional ecological knowledge is staggering, and I wrote in my masters thesis that the obviously very deeply respectful and sacred way that they ritualise their harvesting practice should not be under-estimated as regards contributing to a very sustainable natural resource management practice (it's such a heart-wrenching situation for so many forest peoples, and I have to say it brings a deep shame to be associated with conservation at times when you learn about what is happening in the Congo Basin). The forest is their God. Without the forest they are nothing (within their cosmovision). I have a tendencies to be overtly polemic sometimes just to underscore my point, so now I'm regretting that in my post above, I didn't want to seem disrespectful. I guess when I read that bit in Dan Siegel's book I thought, oh, maybe I was over-romanticising the "noble savage" (this is like a never-ending ad nauseam academic debate) in my thesis? And I wondered if I was maybe not being analytical and positivistic and bla dee bla scientific enough. Like a little doubt at the back of my mind. But I really feel that "westerners" have so much to learn from indigenous perspectives and worldviews during this global ecological crisis that we are traversing, it's like it's a mirror of a spiritual crisis that humanity is also facing inside of ourselves. I mean, ultimately, does it really matter if a cultural sacred ritual first orginated from a sort of mental safety blanket? If the end result is a profoundly rooted respect for the natural world then that doesn't de-validate the practice.
Hey @kate-m you seem to be a very empathetic person. So am I, therefore please feel free to write and thanks a lot for your openness. I can imagine that the experience of those rituals etc. was amazing....kind of beyond maybe. Don't get me wrong. I have never thought you being kind of slagging the Baka.
The forest is their God.
My speech would say: Our planet is not our home in kinds of those walls surrounding us at "home". Our home is our planet. Nature....
I am sure the Baka are very aware about this, and please don't regret in being passionate. You really brought some interesting points into discussion. This is your speech. Everybody has it's own truth and we should talk about it in general. Every single life has meaning and is therefore a special purpose.
This speak, there is nothing to regret...
I totally agree, that we could learn a lot from indigenous people. So much we have unlearned.
In general we should all combine our knowledge, as there is nothing we couldn't learn from each others as my mother once said :-) .
I spent three months there group interviewing people about their use of forest plant resources. I feel I only scraped the surface to be honest. When you say "write" what do you mean? I haven't figured out if there's like a mesaging service in steemit, the chatroom doesn't make any sense to me.
I know what you mean. I had kind of a similar experience in Burma (Myanmar) regarding feeling like scraping on the surface... Sorry for being inaccurate I was just meaning you to be free about telling your thoughts...
Discord seems to be the way to go in kinds of messaging....kinda new to all this stuff too...
I am glad you like my article. One especially interesting part of the story is the brain being used to something / whatever. We are all used to something :-) .
I used my brain for that just the other day!
I think it's interesting to start to peel away some of the explanations for the more supernatural sort of experiences that humans experience so we can start to understand better what is biological process and maybe just maybe some of the weird mystic stuff really is mystic (hands up I love that stuff).
I did some fieldwork with baka 'pygmy' people in Gabon and they have so many rituals and superstitions and little sacred practices. I really liked it 'cos it felt like it resonated with a deep respect for the forest, and as a conservation scientist that's a very luring idea. But then I was reading Dan Siegel's mindset and there's a small part in it where he explains about superstition, that you can train your brain to believe that if you do a certain thing, like tapping your finger just so many times like a lucky charm, then you will essentially train it to deeply believe that the charm/ritual really is what is protecting you, because the majority of time the terrible thing that you don't want to happen never actually happens so you essentially convince the brain that it's the tapping/ritual or whatever that has prevented the bad thing from happening (e.g. getting stampeded by an elephant while you're out walking about the forest). Errr, should really go back to the book to see if I could explain it better, hope you get the idea! Well, I read that and I kinda thought, ugh, maybe all those wonderful mystical rituals are simply a mild form of OCD?
Hey @kate-m thank you for your inspiring post. I like the touch of mysticism too, you are very welcome.
I am sure the 'Pygmy' are a kind of nature related population, deeply connected to their surrounding meaning nature. What's sacred for us maybe totally strange for them. Try to look behind the curtains for one moment and think about our "sacred" "civilization" and what some people are doing. At least it seems they understood the very little thing about nature and circumstances, hard to understand all their motives for a person coming from the "first world". :-)
It's really not easy to say and I am trying my best but I would say rethink in every aspect is very necessary.
Maybe different people with their different attitudes have different ways to handle things. What's good for the one may not be good for the other. Everybody has it's strength and it's maybe just a question about focusing love peace and harmony...
Oooh! Just to clarify! I'm not slagging the Baka. They are truly awesome. I have total respect for them. Their traditional ecological knowledge is staggering, and I wrote in my masters thesis that the obviously very deeply respectful and sacred way that they ritualise their harvesting practice should not be under-estimated as regards contributing to a very sustainable natural resource management practice (it's such a heart-wrenching situation for so many forest peoples, and I have to say it brings a deep shame to be associated with conservation at times when you learn about what is happening in the Congo Basin). The forest is their God. Without the forest they are nothing (within their cosmovision). I have a tendencies to be overtly polemic sometimes just to underscore my point, so now I'm regretting that in my post above, I didn't want to seem disrespectful. I guess when I read that bit in Dan Siegel's book I thought, oh, maybe I was over-romanticising the "noble savage" (this is like a never-ending ad nauseam academic debate) in my thesis? And I wondered if I was maybe not being analytical and positivistic and bla dee bla scientific enough. Like a little doubt at the back of my mind. But I really feel that "westerners" have so much to learn from indigenous perspectives and worldviews during this global ecological crisis that we are traversing, it's like it's a mirror of a spiritual crisis that humanity is also facing inside of ourselves. I mean, ultimately, does it really matter if a cultural sacred ritual first orginated from a sort of mental safety blanket? If the end result is a profoundly rooted respect for the natural world then that doesn't de-validate the practice.
Hey @kate-m you seem to be a very empathetic person. So am I, therefore please feel free to write and thanks a lot for your openness. I can imagine that the experience of those rituals etc. was amazing....kind of beyond maybe. Don't get me wrong. I have never thought you being kind of slagging the Baka.
My speech would say: Our planet is not our home in kinds of those walls surrounding us at "home". Our home is our planet. Nature....
I am sure the Baka are very aware about this, and please don't regret in being passionate. You really brought some interesting points into discussion. This is your speech. Everybody has it's own truth and we should talk about it in general. Every single life has meaning and is therefore a special purpose.
This speak, there is nothing to regret...
I totally agree, that we could learn a lot from indigenous people. So much we have unlearned.
In general we should all combine our knowledge, as there is nothing we couldn't learn from each others as my mother once said :-) .
I spent three months there group interviewing people about their use of forest plant resources. I feel I only scraped the surface to be honest. When you say "write" what do you mean? I haven't figured out if there's like a mesaging service in steemit, the chatroom doesn't make any sense to me.
I know what you mean. I had kind of a similar experience in Burma (Myanmar) regarding feeling like scraping on the surface... Sorry for being inaccurate I was just meaning you to be free about telling your thoughts...
Discord seems to be the way to go in kinds of messaging....kinda new to all this stuff too...
Oh, was that with the Penan?