On PC's Shaman mystification

From: Ricardo Japiassu (rjapias@uol.com.br)
Date: Mon Jul 08 2002 - 20:09:36 PDT


"... ways in which educational institutions
(as shaman before them) have engaged in
pracices of mystification"

Phillip Capper

I'd like to say,
on the excerpt of your discourse above,
that all kind of generalization always do scares me,
really.

I, personally - and probable many people -
think of shaman practices and rituals
as a very sofisticated and rich symbolic system of
representing the word, of "saying" things in a metaphorical way
rather than a practice of "mystification"
- in a derrogatory sense,
as the one I think you use that word.
Am I wrong?

So... On contrary,
during Military Dictatorship in Brazil,
for example,
when it was very dangerous to say
certain things in conotative Portuguese
- that could in fact
trust a one to jail and death -
The Umbanda and Candomble's
symbolic system,
with all their "magic" thinking and words,
were extensivelly used by people
to comunicate one another
in a "secure" way,
using, of course, a metaforical sense of them.

That, in my oppinion,
continues to happen within
some shamanic practices.
And within some school culture and discourse

They are symbolic systems
of understanding and
communicating knowledge, thinking and feelings,
{boundary objects you'd say - No?}

Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu
Professor da Universidade do Estado da Bahia-Uneb X
http://www.ricardojapiassu.pro.br



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