Shamanism & Humaniversity (Part 1)
Merging Shamanism and Humaniversity Psychology .... into HUMANIVERSITY NEOSHAMANISM
The fondamentals of an on-going work in progress
toward the growth of a new branch on the Humaniversity tree
This is the first part of a my master paper, which was submited in May 2006. It is posted on this blog in 4 different parts. This is the introduction and chapter 1. Chapter 2, 3 and 4 follow in the next 3 articles.
In this document, I intend to present, describe and analyze the main elements of Shamanism and demonstrate that Shamanism and Humaniversity Psychology (HP) contain various elements that are on some points similar in their conceptualizations and their goals, while on other points different but complementary.
But first, a few words about what inspired me to write this paper. My therapeutic practice started in 1990 when I left the Humaniversity, where I lived for a few years, to come back to Canada to be a father again to my daughter Leonie. As of today, in my personal life as well as in my professional practice as a university teacher and as a psychotherapist, I am still strongly and deeply influenced by my training and my living at the Humaniversity almost 20 years ago. Whether I am teaching in the university or leading meditation and growth workshops in our summer meditation center here in Quebec, I still use many of the therapeutic tools that I discovered ans practiced while living in the Humaniversity. Our way of living in our commune is also very much influenced by the Humaniversity values and lifestyle. In my pratice as a psychotherapist which is rooted in the Humaniversity tradition, I started integrating over the last six years some techniques from the shamanic tradition, amongst which many are related to nature and its elements, which is an important caracteristic of where we live.
Gradually, it seemed more and more clear to me that being a therapist was in many ways quite similar to being a shaman. So the need to conceptualize, understand and put into words this vague intuition and instinct is what drove me in writing this paper. But this work is also an excuse for me to keep the connection with Veeresh and the staff of the Humaniversity in Holland alive in the present and for the future as it is only the start of a long-term project.
After starting a branch the Humaniversity-Québec in 1999 in Canada), I became more involded in planning, organizing and assisting in Humaniversity workshops together with the staff at the Humaniversity in Holland. Even though I was already leading workshops inspired by the Humaniversity approach since 1990, this closer association enhanced in 1999 refueled my connection to Veeresh, the Humaniversity and its staff. An important point in realizing the similarities between a shaman and a therapist came when Veeresh was in Canada in 2003 to lead a workshop as part of the Therapist Training. In a Darshan, when asked by a participant if he knew any shaman, Veeresh answered that he knew two of them, Aamod and me (Ati, the author of this paper). It confirmed for myself what I had started feeling since a while already, that my work as a therapist was on many aspects similar to the one of a shaman and that the Humaniversity therapy could be bridged with the shamanic work. So since then, I consider myself as an apprentice shaman in training, gradually learning and experimenting, and it is one of my most sincere intention to integrate the Humaniversity techniques and shamanistic tools.
So I will start this paper by presenting respectively a description of Humaniversity Psychology and Shamanism. Of course, the shamanistic tradition will occupy the most important part as I take for granted that most readers are well acquainted with the Humaniversity approach. I will afterward describe a concept called psychoshamanism, developped by Jean-Jacques Dubois (2000), in which he compares and integrate traditional psychology and shamanism. Dubois’s model will serve as a base of integration of shamanism and Humaniversity Psychology. In the last part of this paper, I will compare respective tools, techniques and concepts of shamanism and Humaniversity psychology to start the integration process. In doing so, I will explain how both approaches are similar and/or different and how they could be integrated.
1 Humaniversity Psychology
1.1 The Humaniversity’s main components in (too) short
As I mentionned before, the readers of this document are certainly quite familiar with the Humaniversity and the work of Veeresh, actually maybe probably more than I am. Despite this fact, a quick and brief highlighting of a few of the main elements of the Humaniversity psychology will help settle right from the start a better understanding for the later part of this paper. I am aware that trying to extract only a few elements out of the complex universe of the Humaniversity psychology and the work of Veeresh might be reducing it to something too limited, but I consider that it anyway is worth the risk.
One of the main general goal of the Humaniversity Psychology is to dive into the darkness of one’s own being to bring it to light, bringing awareness to it, or as Carrivick (2000) puts it in Veeresh - Bliss Beyond Fear, to go from endarkment to engreyment and ultimately to enlightenment. The goal is to develop a more « enlightened » and aware state of living, in touch with one’s feelings, emotions, attitudes, needs and behaviors. In other words, daring to explore every unconscious zones in oneself to bring it into consciousness, passing through a variety of grey zones in between as the process of discovering oneself unfolds. To dare diving into one’s own dark and « negative » sides is inevitable if one wants to get to know himself in its totality and reach the light and feel lighter. Many new age spiritual approaches only or mainly focus primarily on positivity, on the « nice stuff » and wishful thinking, hoping that everything will turn out « nicely » while the negative stuff will disappear simply by visualising light upon it. But as nature always balances itself, one cannot go more into light than he goes into darkness, so the higher we want to reach, the deeper we need to dive in ourself. In my opinion, the Humaniversity approach is the straightest, most no-nonsense and direct approach to meet oneself and others, daring to use confrontation when the message that needs to be heard requires it. In this way, expressing feelings and emotions in various forms with awareness and totality is one of the main medium of the Humaniversity way to create space inside oneself, to « empty the cup ».
Another one of the main goal of the Humaniversity approach is to make friends; not only with oneself, but also with others. In fact, in various therapeutic techniques developped at the Humaniversity, interaction with the others (generaly known as Encounter) is promoted and used to get to know oneself. So others help as mirrors to show us different parts or reflections of ourselves that we cannot see by ourself (blind spots). The help of friends is specially precious in the process of moving from endarkment to enlightenment as some emotional issues are sometimes difficult to face and process; the support of friends makes it easier to keep going « when the going gets though ».
1.2 - Veeresh
Swami Anand Veeresh is the founder of the Humaniversity. He comes from the world of the therapeutic communities and the Humaniversity still carry this quality. Veeresh is an inconditionnal lover of Osho, an innovative therapist, an exceptional humain being, a generous friend and an inspiration for many people around the world. As noted in many books on the subject, many shamans were introduced to shamanism after living a near death experience. In this sense, according to me, Veeresh is a typical contemporary shaman as when he was younger, he experienced several overdoses with drugs when he was declared clinicaly dead but overcame and survived. It clearly appears to me that these experiences motivated him in developping the Humaniversity the way it is today. It gave him the drive to live his life without compromises and to dare creating his approach exactly the way he wanted it and to go for it totaly. Like many shamans, he often uses innovative and ecclectic techniques in working with people, never hesitating to develop new techniques or specific settings to offer people precisely adapted and meaningful learning experiences - human laboratories - in which they can get to meet themselves and one another on specific issues and go beyond limitating past experiences.
The fondamentals of an on-going work in progress
toward the growth of a new branch on the Humaniversity tree
This is the first part of a my master paper, which was submited in May 2006. It is posted on this blog in 4 different parts. This is the introduction and chapter 1. Chapter 2, 3 and 4 follow in the next 3 articles.
Introduction
In this document, I intend to present, describe and analyze the main elements of Shamanism and demonstrate that Shamanism and Humaniversity Psychology (HP) contain various elements that are on some points similar in their conceptualizations and their goals, while on other points different but complementary.
But first, a few words about what inspired me to write this paper. My therapeutic practice started in 1990 when I left the Humaniversity, where I lived for a few years, to come back to Canada to be a father again to my daughter Leonie. As of today, in my personal life as well as in my professional practice as a university teacher and as a psychotherapist, I am still strongly and deeply influenced by my training and my living at the Humaniversity almost 20 years ago. Whether I am teaching in the university or leading meditation and growth workshops in our summer meditation center here in Quebec, I still use many of the therapeutic tools that I discovered ans practiced while living in the Humaniversity. Our way of living in our commune is also very much influenced by the Humaniversity values and lifestyle. In my pratice as a psychotherapist which is rooted in the Humaniversity tradition, I started integrating over the last six years some techniques from the shamanic tradition, amongst which many are related to nature and its elements, which is an important caracteristic of where we live.
Gradually, it seemed more and more clear to me that being a therapist was in many ways quite similar to being a shaman. So the need to conceptualize, understand and put into words this vague intuition and instinct is what drove me in writing this paper. But this work is also an excuse for me to keep the connection with Veeresh and the staff of the Humaniversity in Holland alive in the present and for the future as it is only the start of a long-term project.
After starting a branch the Humaniversity-Québec in 1999 in Canada), I became more involded in planning, organizing and assisting in Humaniversity workshops together with the staff at the Humaniversity in Holland. Even though I was already leading workshops inspired by the Humaniversity approach since 1990, this closer association enhanced in 1999 refueled my connection to Veeresh, the Humaniversity and its staff. An important point in realizing the similarities between a shaman and a therapist came when Veeresh was in Canada in 2003 to lead a workshop as part of the Therapist Training. In a Darshan, when asked by a participant if he knew any shaman, Veeresh answered that he knew two of them, Aamod and me (Ati, the author of this paper). It confirmed for myself what I had started feeling since a while already, that my work as a therapist was on many aspects similar to the one of a shaman and that the Humaniversity therapy could be bridged with the shamanic work. So since then, I consider myself as an apprentice shaman in training, gradually learning and experimenting, and it is one of my most sincere intention to integrate the Humaniversity techniques and shamanistic tools.
So I will start this paper by presenting respectively a description of Humaniversity Psychology and Shamanism. Of course, the shamanistic tradition will occupy the most important part as I take for granted that most readers are well acquainted with the Humaniversity approach. I will afterward describe a concept called psychoshamanism, developped by Jean-Jacques Dubois (2000), in which he compares and integrate traditional psychology and shamanism. Dubois’s model will serve as a base of integration of shamanism and Humaniversity Psychology. In the last part of this paper, I will compare respective tools, techniques and concepts of shamanism and Humaniversity psychology to start the integration process. In doing so, I will explain how both approaches are similar and/or different and how they could be integrated.
1 Humaniversity Psychology
1.1 The Humaniversity’s main components in (too) short
As I mentionned before, the readers of this document are certainly quite familiar with the Humaniversity and the work of Veeresh, actually maybe probably more than I am. Despite this fact, a quick and brief highlighting of a few of the main elements of the Humaniversity psychology will help settle right from the start a better understanding for the later part of this paper. I am aware that trying to extract only a few elements out of the complex universe of the Humaniversity psychology and the work of Veeresh might be reducing it to something too limited, but I consider that it anyway is worth the risk.
One of the main general goal of the Humaniversity Psychology is to dive into the darkness of one’s own being to bring it to light, bringing awareness to it, or as Carrivick (2000) puts it in Veeresh - Bliss Beyond Fear, to go from endarkment to engreyment and ultimately to enlightenment. The goal is to develop a more « enlightened » and aware state of living, in touch with one’s feelings, emotions, attitudes, needs and behaviors. In other words, daring to explore every unconscious zones in oneself to bring it into consciousness, passing through a variety of grey zones in between as the process of discovering oneself unfolds. To dare diving into one’s own dark and « negative » sides is inevitable if one wants to get to know himself in its totality and reach the light and feel lighter. Many new age spiritual approaches only or mainly focus primarily on positivity, on the « nice stuff » and wishful thinking, hoping that everything will turn out « nicely » while the negative stuff will disappear simply by visualising light upon it. But as nature always balances itself, one cannot go more into light than he goes into darkness, so the higher we want to reach, the deeper we need to dive in ourself. In my opinion, the Humaniversity approach is the straightest, most no-nonsense and direct approach to meet oneself and others, daring to use confrontation when the message that needs to be heard requires it. In this way, expressing feelings and emotions in various forms with awareness and totality is one of the main medium of the Humaniversity way to create space inside oneself, to « empty the cup ».
Another one of the main goal of the Humaniversity approach is to make friends; not only with oneself, but also with others. In fact, in various therapeutic techniques developped at the Humaniversity, interaction with the others (generaly known as Encounter) is promoted and used to get to know oneself. So others help as mirrors to show us different parts or reflections of ourselves that we cannot see by ourself (blind spots). The help of friends is specially precious in the process of moving from endarkment to enlightenment as some emotional issues are sometimes difficult to face and process; the support of friends makes it easier to keep going « when the going gets though ».
1.2 - Veeresh
Swami Anand Veeresh is the founder of the Humaniversity. He comes from the world of the therapeutic communities and the Humaniversity still carry this quality. Veeresh is an inconditionnal lover of Osho, an innovative therapist, an exceptional humain being, a generous friend and an inspiration for many people around the world. As noted in many books on the subject, many shamans were introduced to shamanism after living a near death experience. In this sense, according to me, Veeresh is a typical contemporary shaman as when he was younger, he experienced several overdoses with drugs when he was declared clinicaly dead but overcame and survived. It clearly appears to me that these experiences motivated him in developping the Humaniversity the way it is today. It gave him the drive to live his life without compromises and to dare creating his approach exactly the way he wanted it and to go for it totaly. Like many shamans, he often uses innovative and ecclectic techniques in working with people, never hesitating to develop new techniques or specific settings to offer people precisely adapted and meaningful learning experiences - human laboratories - in which they can get to meet themselves and one another on specific issues and go beyond limitating past experiences.
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