The shamans in the past seemed to have had to deal with the charade the gods played. There's always a fight going on, until one day a balance is acquired, where people train themselves by observing their own inner and outer world. ( (Charades) Secretly assign vocabulary words to individuals or small groups)
I have two excerpts from different sources. See whether you can pick up the gist of what was just said.
From: Wikipedia; Wu (shaman)
"Wu-shamans participated in court scandals and dynastic rivalries under Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141-87 BCE), particularly regarding the crime of wugu 巫蠱 (with gu "venom-based poison") "sorcery; casting harmful spells". In 130 BCE, Empress Chen Jiao was convicted of using shamans from Yue to conduct wugu magic. She "was dismissed from her position and a total of 300 persons who were involved in the case were executed" (tr. Loewe 1970:169), their heads were cut off and exposed on stakes. In 91 BCE, an attempted coup against crown prince Liu Ju involved accusations of practicing wugu, and subsequently "no less than nine long months of bloody terrorism, ending in a tremendous slaughter, cost some tens of thousands their lives!" (tr. Groot 1910 5:836).
Ever since Emperor Wu of Han established Confucianism as the state religion, the ruling classes have shown increasing prejudice against shamanism (de Groot 1910:1233-42, Waley 1955:11-12). Some modern writers view the traditional Confucianist disdain for female shamans as sexism. Schafer wrote:
In the opinion of the writer, the Chou ruling class was particularly hostile to women in government, and regarded the ancient fertility rites as impure. This anti-female tendency was even more marked in the state of Lu, where Confucius approved of the official rain-ceremony in which men alone participated. There was, within ancient China, a heterogeneity of culture areas, with female shamans favored in some, males in others. The" licentiousness" of the ceremonies of such a state as Cheng (doubtless preserving the ancient Shang traditions and customs) was a byword among Confucian moralists. Confucius' state seems on the other hand to have taken the" respectable" attitude that the sexes should not mingle in the dance, and that men were the legitimate performers of the fertility rites. The general practice of the later Chou period, or at least the semi-idealized picture given of the rites of that time in such books as the Chou li, apparently prescribed a division of magical functions between men and women. The former generally play the role of exorcists, the latter of petitioners. This is probably related to the metaphysical belief that women, embodying the principle yin, were akin to the spirits, whereas men, exemplifying the element yang, were naturally hostile to them. (1951:158)
Accepting the tradition that Chinese shamans were women (i.e., wu 巫 "shamaness" as opposed to xi 覡 "shaman"), Kagan believes:
One of the main themes in Chinese history is the unsuccessful attempt by the male Confucian orthodoxy to strip women of their public and sacred powers and to limit them to a role of service ... Confucianists reasserted daily their claim to power and authority through the promotion of the phallic ancestor cult which denied women religious representation and excluded them from the governmental examination system which was the path to office, prestige, and status. (1980:3-4)
In addition, Unschuld (1980:125-128) refers to a "Confucian medicine" based upon systematic correspondences and the idea that illnesses are caused by excesses (rather than demons).
The Zhouli provides detailed information about the roles of wu-shamans. It lists (Falkenhausen 1995:282), "Spirit Mediums as officials on the payroll of the Zhou Ministry of Rites (Liguan 禮官, or Ministry of Spring, Chun guan 春官)." This text differentiates three offices: the Siwu 司巫 "Manager/Director of Shamans", Nanwu 男巫 "Male Shamans", and Nüwu 女巫 "Female Shamans".
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And now from: Alien Interview by Matilda O'Donnell MacElroy
Do not rely on the dogma of physical sciences to master
the fundamental forces of creation any more than you
would trust the chanted incantations of an incenseburning
shaman. The net result of both of these is
entrapment and oblivion. Scientists pretend to observe,
but they only suppose that they see, and call it fact.
Like the blind man, a scientist can not learn to see
until he realizes that he is blind. The "facts" of
Earth science do not include the source of creation.
They include only the result, or byproducts of creation.
The "facts" of science do not include any memory of the
nearly infinite past experience of existence.
The essence of creation and existence cannot be found
through the lens of a microscope or telescope or by any
other measurement of the physical universe. One cannot
comprehend the perfume of a flower or the pain felt by
an abandoned lover with meters and calipers.
Everything you will ever know about the creative force
and ability of a god can be found within you -- an
Immortal Spiritual Being. (I.S.-Be)
How can a blind man teach others to see the nearly
infinite gradients that comprise the spectrum of light?
The notion that one can understand the universe without
understanding the nature of an IS-BE is as absurd as
conceiving that an artist is a speck of paint on his own
canvas. Or, that the lace on a ballet shoe is the
choreographer's vision, or the grace of a dancer, or the
electric excitement of opening night.
Study of the spirit has been booby-trapped by the
thought control operation through religious
superstitions they instill in the minds of men.
Conversely, the study of the spirit and the mind have
been prohibited by science which eliminates anything
that is not measurable in the physical universe.
Science is the religion of matter. It worships matter.
The paradigm of science is that creation is all, and the
creator is nothing. Religion says the creator is all,
and the creation is nothing. These two extremes are the
bars of a prison cell. They prevent observation of all
phenomenon as an interactive whole.
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