"Other ways of knowing," aka Different Cognitive Styles

[tama]

84. Also

Path of shamanistic experiences and initiations - in the widest sense and regardless of various terminologies, if that is acceptable - is often initiated by some sort of personal crisis.

While it can be said that at the root of all religions there is religious/shamanistic experience before and under the culturally and linguistically dependent interpretational level, the distinction between religions and shamanistic experience is also useful and meaningful. Not least because shamanistic experiences and empirical knowledge at least in this day and age tend to come with very strong precautions against starting new religions and cults centered on worshipping someones personified shamanhood and "miraculous" experiences etc.

Of course such things keep on happening, as creating a cult centered on worshipping You is not at all difficult, as for example the founder of Sahaya Yoga etc. etc. etc. proves and testifies (Sri Mataji tells somewhere that she thought that if that daft Osho can start a cult and gurubusiness of personal following, so can she and so she did ). And as more and more cults and religions get founded, the more stories on pages of victims of religions and cults. The thing is, the experiences of cult and religion founders are usually genuine enough and the methods they teach work to some extent, but as the whole thing is built around the trap of self-importance it remains a trap. Of course we learn also from traps and mistakes, so there is no need for categorical condemnation.

So while nothing is fool-proof, including in-built shamanistic precautions against starting cults and religions, I would say those precautions work generally well enough and it's more than OK to have trust and confidence in world and in yourself.