Decoding The Gurus
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Interview with Manvir Singh on Shamanism, Gurus, and various other topics *VIDEO*
🕑 Added 2022-10-14 11:21:45 +0000 UTCFirst off there is no Matt for this interview. Some might say it's because he got the timing confused and was lost in a whiskey haze, others say he was battling Bullsharks on the Noosa river. Whatever the cause... you have something of an anthopology fest.
Manvir is a great researcher who produces really fascinating papers and it is thus impossible for Chris not to geek out. Might be a bit more academic than usual as a result but hopefully you enjoy.
We discuss a variety of topics including the parallels between gurus, shamans, and prophets. Graeber & Wengrow's book and whether intermittent fasting works.
Audio to come in a bit.
Comments
Deepdick Chopra
Great interview, very nice to get a background to this practice. One thing though Chris; I wasn't sure but you spoke as if high profile psychologists going off the rails, speaking of subjects way out of their lane and gifting hard is a recent phenomenon, but there's a fairly long history of it (Wilhelm Reich and the whole Orgone thing for example). Psychology itself these days largely recognises generalised intellect and expertise is myth.
Nina Davies
Great Saturday morning viewing and there are many threads I could pick up on. Margaret Mead believed she could spot when a trance was real or not .... and there are still hypnotherapists that seem to believe in trance inspite of the overwhelming evidence otherwise. Shamanism and stage hypnotism have a crossover with the gurus - in certain ritual frameworks we are very open to suggestion. If anyone is up for a 3 hour rambling podcast listening to two or more Gurus present their views on symbolism or why the scientific community is wrong, they are up for listening to a 'sermon' or a ritualised talk. It may not include dance and music and prayers but it is very much sitting at the feet of the guru, suspending reality and wanting to believe. In terms of the hard Guru hardluck story, I have long been intrigued by the Twitter following of Jack Monroe. As the child of people who grew up on rationing, I was never particularly impressed by her money saving tips so really did not understand her appeal. As I watched over time l really noticed her constant reminders of financial hardship, although she must have had a greater income than me. I could see her followers were really into her financial hardship and responded to her calls for financial help very positively. It is as if she has to reinvent her poverty every so often to appeal to her audience on Twitter. This is really in contrast to the valuable campaigning work she does and the Twitter personality does not fit comfortably with that, in my mind.
