(Section 15)
In the primitive world, reality shaping was the function of magic and of the shamans. The shamans used rituals and myths as dream boats to travel outside of the normal frame of reality into the web of all possibilities to communicate with the gods and to shape reality for their tribe. Sometimes through the myths and rituals, the shamans took the whole tribe into the web. But often the shamans went deeper into the web alone ... alone because of the increasing dangers that exist in the web. This magical activity was seen by the tribe as vital to their survival. The shamanistic activity was not limited by the reality frame, by what was practical, although the practical reality was shaped by the shamanistic activity. As a result of these common mythical journeys, the frame was very flexible for all in the tribe.
But this began to change in the modern cultures, especially in the West. The shamanistic activity began to divide into philosophy, religion, art, science, and the occult. Each of these areas began to subdivide into sects, schools, disciplines, mediums, etc. They also divided into “pure” and “applied.” “Pure” activities are done for themselves to explore, shape, create reality, to travel outside the normal frame, to capture possibilities not enclosed within the frame, to bring these “new” possibilities into the frame to magically widen or shift the frame of reality.
The “applied” activities try to use, to control, harness these new possibilities into the service of the established frame. This is the frontbrain activity. In the modern culture, the pure activity is seen as being of value only as it relates to the applied activity. This severely limits the magic change of reality shaping which is what the pure activity is meant to be. What also limits the shamanistic magic in the modern world is the fragmentation of the pure activity. There is a holistic myth developing in science, in philosophy, in art and theatre, in religion, in psychology, in the occult. But this myth cannot get into the frame because the modern myth travelers are talking, thinking, and seeing in different technical languages, depending on their fields. Because of this, they do not realize they are visualizing the same myth. So the new possibilities contained in this myth cannot get through except in fragments.
The apprenticeship is the process of living the holistic myth. This creates a sub-frame or an inner frame by which the holistic myth can enter the cultural frame and shift reality. This is the ultimate function of the apprenticeship. The shamans did not go into the web for themselves, for their personal gain or power. They made the mythic journey for their tribe. They surrendered their individual past and future for the quest. The magic took care of these spiritual warriors.
The student must give up how he thinks life works, give up a large chunk of the cultural frame with its relationships, so that he can live the myth with cherotic passion and faith. The apprenticeship is not an applied activity, is not a problem-solving process. If the student surrenders to the magic, the magic will take care of him. This is not the goal of the process, just an aspect of the process.
Reality shaping is a normal, natural process that is a basic element of life, like breathing. In small ways and in large ways, people who have the possibility of it in reality, shape their personal reality. They do this by focusing on what they think should be real, focusing on it out of time, focusing on it in an intensity and in a discipline, but not in a linear range. They live passionately as if what they believe should be real is in fact real. For a high percentage of people who follow this very demanding, very challenging, reality-shaping process, reality becomes what they believed it should be ... it is reality for them. They can use the possibilities contained in this personal reality in the cultural frame.
This reality shaping is not simply wishing or hoping, thinking or saying something is true. It is not plotting and manipulating things and people to make something real. It takes passion, discipline, intensity (of a special kind), and a not caring how long it takes or what/who says no to this reality. It may take several years to a lifetime for this personal reality to come forth. Or this reality may slip right in. It is vital that how long it will take, and how hard it will feel, be unimportant to the person. For him, this reality must be.
Once this new reality exists for the person, it causes ripple effects in the cultural frame. Understand, when we talk about new reality, what we are really talking about is reshaping the cultural frame. We add a line or a new shade to the picture which is in the frame. The cultural frame in modern times has always resisted this reshaping. It has removed the possibility of the full power of reshaping from most people’s grasp. It puts pressures around the new reality to contain it on the individual level. These pressures often crush the new reality out of existence. But on this personal level, the new reality survives. It works for the person.
At this point, the cultural frame usually isolates the new reality by making the person special in some way, or by ignoring it, or denying it exists. Often this succeeds, and the new reality fades away. But some new realities slip through this curtain of fragmentation, sometimes after laying dormant for as long as a couple of lifetimes (common in science) or hundreds of years (common in religion). The more people find this old new reality by passionately, intensely believing in it in a disciplined, focused way, they breathe more reality into this old new personal frame, making it more and more real until it breaks into the cultural frame, fundamentally changing the cultural frame in small ways.
This is the manner in which the personal change is the key to evolutionary change on all levels. At first glance, the mass and momentum of the cultural frame would crush any and all personal alternative realities. But by using this mass energy on the cultural frame by the erour principle, the personal reality shapes the cultural frame.
In apprenticeship, this evolutionary process is heightened by linking the personal realities of the student and the teacher with the mythic over-reality, and by the teacher linking the students together to create a community. The cultural frame is a mass agreement of how things are and work. The community is a different agreement, different in some fundamental and elementary aspects. But the community is still sitting within the cultural frame. The more passionately focused the student lives within this mythic community, the more reality shaping effects the mythic community will have on the cultural frame.
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