The Matse and the Sacred⌐ Bennett Blumenberg 1994Ultimate TranscendenceCertainly the most extraordinary report of transcendental experience I haveever read is the article by Peter Gorman (1990), a well travelled,knowledgeable journalist who is very astute about the lifestyles of tribalpeoples. Gorman's description of the Matse, a tribal agricultural people of the Amazonrain forest is very, very important! It illustrates a religious experience of great depth anddaily occurrence which would leave no archeological record. On that account it confirmsthe supposition that the extraordinary mythic art of the Upper Paleolithic cannot represent atrue beginning in any absolute sense, although it certainly represents the earliestarticulation of mythic imagery on nonperishable materials as well as documentation forseveral specific deities and complex rituals. Beyond providing a model for transcendental,personalized shamanism without group ritual or metaphoric art, the nature of the Matse'sexperience, which was also lived by Peter Gorman, provides an extraordinary proof thatother dimensions exist beyond the familiar 3-D which encompasses our daily lives in thisæworldÆ. GormanÆs experience, which confirmed Matse interpretations, is perhaps uniquebecause his æproofÆ (my word, not his) fits the traditional, conservative scientific model ofan hypothesis confirmed by objective, empirically gathered data. Gorman had nointentions of perfoming such an experiment and nowhere in the article does he refer to sucha concept. Nonetheless, unless he is lying, that is precisely what his report documents.The Matse are a society whose atunement to their environment is one ofextraordinary integration and fusion. They articulate a complete oneness with the animalsand plants of their forest. Mind expanding drugs convert nearly every adult into a shamancapable of seeing into the future, talking with plants and animals and projecting a threedimensional anima. Such access for each individual eliminates the need for a single,exceptional shaman in which to concentrate the sacred. Their experience is so complete,so whole and fulfilling, that they have almost no theology or linguistically, articulatedmytho-peotics. Mystics of all ages and all times have repeatedly told us that directexperience of æGodÆ is beyond words and needs no words; theology, philosophy and theintellect are but essential meditation and preparation. The Matse have almost no gods,although they believe the Earth is a benevolent mother (bi-ram-bo) who has provided themwith the jungle. We see here a simple, basic conception of the Great Goddess as Gaiawhich mythographers have always proposed as her earliest form. All things to the Matsehave spirit, some stronger than others, and the Matse spirit is the strongest. Mystics of allpersuasions, but particularly Buddhists, maintain that when ultimate spirituality isachieved, the union with the Void, Great Bliss, or Adamantine Absolute eliminates theneed for thought or conceptualization. God will have been found and humans are but a non-local manifestation of the Ultimate Ground. Dualities evaporate and all individuality thenceases.The Confirmation ModelThe Matse do not achieve an ultimate state of mindless transcendental blissbut a fusion with universal life energy which allows them to be active in arich multi-dimensional æworldÆ. They repeatedly journey into a world ofsupra-dimensions and communicate with the future accurately. This accuracy sets thestage for Gorman's objective confirmation of their experience. By æobjectiveÆ, I mean hedid not need to rely upon reports from the Matse which were æafter the factÆ, unconfirmablestories told upon their return from a spiritual journey which would have to be taken orrejected on faith. Heretofore, such narratives have been the only information baseavailable to æoutsidersÆ to describe and interpret the shamanic æsoul journeyÆ experience.By æaccuracyÆ, I specifically mean that the Matse when undertaking spirit journeys makehighly specific, detailed predictions about the future, based upon their needs and wishes.Their predictions involve changes in the local ecology and the behavior of both humansand animals and are thus accessible to objective confirmation. An outside observer is notforced to deal with a data base which is composed of emotional reactions and proposedpyschological changes within people. Their predictions repeatedly æcome trueÆ at afrequency that far exceeds statistical randomness. The Matse journey along the time trackwhen projecting an animus, then return to their body in this world and live out the alreadyknown future experience.In terms of scientific method, this constitutes a model for phenomena which isempirically verifiable by æexperimentÆ. No subjective interpretations are necessarybecause the phenomena predicted are not subject to trickery, deceit and manipulation, ascan be shamanic healing by sucking out the cause of disease or the retrieval of ælost soulsÆ.This is not to a say such shamanic experiences may not be absolutely real in the hands offully trained masters. What I am trying to establish is that such events cannot beindependently confirmed as ærealÆ in the western scientific sense. New Age cultists sneerat such an approach, or merely define it as beside the point, usually because they are on afervent quest to shed their Western intellectual heritage and because scientific method isdeemed distasteful and narrow. They have merely sidestepped the problem with suchreactions. Deductive reasoning in the hands of the æfaithfulÆ is wrongly assumed to be theonly process by which to investigate the æworldÆ and ærealityÆ. It is but one filter and oneapproach, although it does superbly when confonting the physicality of the universe. It alsohas enormous value if we wish to investigate the degree of objectivity (which can never by100%) of a phenomenon and not remain forever mired in ego-oriented subjective reactionand argument. The experiences of the Matse seem to establish the dimension of thefuture as both accessible from the present and objectively real; and the pyschic materialwhich we hold in common with all living creatures as also objectively real! The Matsehave discovered a methodology to repeatedly access the transcendental. They havetransformed their daily life style into one that continually experiences transcendence,an opening of higher dimensional doorways. They experience a continual explorationof human potential in a fashion that can only be described as optimized and maximized.ARE YOU INTRIGUED? ARE YOU INTERESTED? THEN REGISTER SOTHAT YOU CAN READ ABOUT THIS AMAZING JOURNEY ALONG THETIMETRACK INTO THE DREAMTIME! SEE REGIST15.RPL.
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