Talk:Soul dualism

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[edit] Motivation

Writing an article on soul dualism turned out to be necessary, while enlarging the Shamanism article.

To understand many shamanistic beliefs (e.g. the Eskimo soul concepts), it is important to explain soul dualism.

In fact, creating such an article seems to me as necessary out of logical reasons (modularity, reusability, decomposition[1]).

Physis 14:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion of soul dualism with two-spirit

Soul dualism as defined in this article seems to pertain to separate souls for eg. body and spirit. Body soul might be described in Western culture loosely as "unconscious bodily functions": deep genetically oriented memory of body usage; digestion, sleep patterns etc.

This is different from the two-spirit concept in Shamanism, where during Shamanic Initiation, a spirit may possess the body of the chosen Shaman, so that two spirits reside therein - one to handle transactions with the physical world (such as healing), and the other to handle transactions with the spirit world (such as conducting the dead). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.122.68.139 (talk) 15:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


A tableau presenting figures of various cultures filling in mediator-like roles, often being termed as "shamans" in the literature. The tableau presents the diversity of this concept.
A tableau presenting figures of various cultures filling in mediator-like roles, often being termed as "shamans" in the literature. The tableau presents the diversity of this concept.

Thank You for Your message. What we call "shamanism", is in fact a collective term trying to cover certain motif set among a variety of many different cultures.[2] Although Piers Vitebsky does not exclude the possibility that, in the deep past, there might have existed "pure" shamanistic communities, but we have almost no traces about such ones, if any existed at all. As for recorded times, shaman"ism" is something that is fragmented.[3] The thing I wrote about was that, in some cultures, shamans are believed to be able to send their own soul (one of their souls) away to seek the lost soul of the ill person.

There are several beliefs about the causes of illnesses in various cultures.

An "additive" one
illness is an evil thing that intrudes into the body of the sick person, and the healer has to exorcise it. (E.g. belief in intruding ongons)[4]
A "substractive" one
People have several souls. If some of them escape, people don't die (at once) but turn sick. The healer has to fetch back the escaped soul and reinsert it into the body of the sick person. How does the healer achieve that? By sending his/her own soul away to fetch the escaped soul of the sick.[4]

I do not challenge that the thing You wrote can be true in some cultures, thereare many faces of shamanism. But what I wrote about is a specific motif, observable in some cultures, and forming only one of the many motifs of shamanism even there.

Best wishes,

Physis (talk) 23:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ I took the motivation of the reuse + modularity metaphors from Why Functional Programming Matters written by John Hughes
  2. ^ Hoppál 2005: 15
  3. ^ Piers Vitebsky: The shaman, the section about "What is a shaman?", just after the forewords. Sorry for failing to provide page number, but I have only a Hungarian translation of the book, thus, it is more appropriate to localize the section.
  4. ^ a b Hoppál 2005: 27–28

[edit] References