Myth and archetype as a basis of the shamanic worldview

The present article considers the symbolic function of a myth as the earliest example of the understanding and symbolization of human experience of reality; and it also shows how mythological consciousness gives birth to the shamanic worldview and to a specific type of psycho-mental activity, namely, the shamanic practice. The creation of a symbol implies some intellectual operation of eliminating contradictions, and it is a process of mediation. Claude Levi-Strauss established that a myth is an indispensably binary structure as it is a logical tool for conflict resolution. Myths as symbolic structures are needed for mediation and reconciliation of consciousness with the reality. Myths, as manifested images printed in the consciousness and cultural memory of people, are deeply rooted in psychic structures where the kingdom of archetypes lies. Archetypes, like instincts, are much older than culture and therefore they are not transmitted through traditions but inherited together with the brain structure. Archetypes are linked to that part of instincts that can be manifested by means of symbolic forms only and thus could be called a ''form of inborn intuition''. So, by the moment a human made a step toward consciousness and so to culture, s/he already had tools thanks to which s/he was able to adapt psychic activity to the production of unique cultural forms and to meaningful being. The presence of the archetypical structure in human mind helps understand the mechanisms of creation of symbols and their functioning in the cultural space of archaic and contemporary communities. It can be assumed that the possession of the physic energy, now hidden in the unconscious but readily accessible for a human of the remote past, could clear the way for vast creative activity of denoting reality and creating myths. The symbolic concept of culture complemented by the theory of archetypes can be successfully applied for analysis and reconstruction of the mythical-ritual tradition of Siberian shamanism. It appears to be of interest to study shamanism as an early universal worldview system where basic psychic structures and processes were converted to symbolic (mental) images and actions with the aim of existential adaptation of a society (primitive community) to the state of apartness from the natural world and the necessity of interaction with it. It is within the context of the development of human individuality and the shift from early collective perceptions that an iconic figure of a shaman appears with his/her mysterious experience which tends to have a different from the collective - individual - character and to serve the goal of the collective adaptation to new cultural realities. It is not by accident that Sergey M. Shirokogorov called shamanism ''safety valve and self-regulating mechanism of the psychic sphere''. In fact, in the person of a shaman there took place a substitution of mythological characters capable of coming into the living of a primitive community by a real person, a socially important figure capable of reviving a myth through exploring archetypical layers of consciousness and capable of integrating the life of a community into the system of relations with the sphere of sacred existence. For a traditional society, a shaman is, first of all, a symbolic figure capable of carrying out the ritual (and so the real) embodiment of the archetypical scheme. A shaman is a living symbol of the connection between humans and the supernatural, non-human, sacred world. A shaman is able to travel to the ''mythological field'' of the cultural tradition and thus remaining a human, s/he becomes a part of the mythical reality, a full participant of mythological events.

Keywords

Authors

References