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i got less mad at New Age hippies when i realised they weren't actually trying to really do indian kirtan, native american sweat lodges, peruvian ayahuasca ceremonies not really in the same way wrestling isn't about fighting, it's about the theatre of fighting https://t.co/oATFdfoqU8
they were doing their own New Age theatre, motivated by their own aesthetics, their own neuroses, adopting other cultural symbols as symbolic flair in their particular project of healng healing, healing, healing. that was the aesthetic, the purpose, the drum beat of these spaces https://t.co/XxRD34NKDW
it’s hard for me to know this as well, but my sense is Peruvian ayahuasca ceremonies, while all different in local contexts not about healing. they are about making contact with the spirit world and righting any imbalances
those ceremonies, from within their native context, don’t make sense without a ritual community, shamans who have a relationship with specific spirits, and a relationship to our real, lived world that sees it and us as influenced by spirits and ecological forces other than self
yes, healing happens in these spaces. yes, people find spiritual cures and sometimes medical cures, and individuals with ailments are sent here. but this kind of healing feels cut of a different metaphor than New Age healing https://t.co/1wJaklLRbJ
to be crisp, in the world of New Age, the individuals are the gods. nothing exists to connect the self with smthng smaller or smthng bigger their original myth, their orientation towards healing & merging & love, is not so different from the christian puritan myths they run from
worth saying at this point—i do find their aesthetic beautiful. it's actually quite uniquely beautiful, and some of the spaces and openness they've carved out genuinely improved on what was there before in their lives https://t.co/DrO4TJj6LY https://t.co/illkngCJWj
