Biognosis

Many shamans claim to have unmitigated access to realms of healing and insight that greatly exceed the “small bandwidth, low resolution” mind of the occidental rationalist, who prides himself or herself on the insular knowledge accrued through conventional, abstract thinking. The realms of insight and healing speak through the shaman in the form of song, dance, or even good old-fashioned storytelling. Through these diverse mediums, the shaman is able to invoke, evoke, or speak directly with condors, jaguars, serpents, and other entities that the stalwart rationalist thinks are lower on the zoological pecking order, therefore inferior in everyway. But this is not true. Every entity is imbued with intelligence and vision. The shaman knows this. The shaman becomes more aware of this intelligence and vision through biognosis.

Biognosis, a flagrant neologism, could be loosely defined as “the ability to know directly the forces that shape and sustain the biosphere.” The tools the shaman uses are the senses, the will, the psychoactive elements and spirits of native plant life, the environment itself, and the spontaneous and veridical whimsy of his or her innate inner-vision. These tools help the shaman access areas or existential fields of biospheric inquiry that aren’t readily available to the dulled, anodyne senses of the rationalist. When accessing these subtle levels of awareness, the shaman is able to acquire and disclose information that is like a healing balm for the tribe. The shaman acts as an intermediary between the gods, the great lords of information and cosmic secrets, and people who can only access the “small bandwidth, low resolution” perceptive matrix of the consensual, humdrum mind. This is why the shaman is venerated.

However, the shaman is not the only person on this planet who has access to these subtle, and sometimes terrifying levels of awareness. Every being has the right and the ability to enter into a direct communication and rapport with the sentient universe that breathes us into form. Biognosis is our birthright, our grail, our sacral power. We can only open ourselves to its liberating, inveterate presence.