Another post worthy of attention from Myriad!
Are you sure that mystical or shamanic narratives are the original source? Consider common life experiences in a stone age society.
Yes, quite sure. You go hunting, you endure trials, and you return with the kill. A shaman will use that common experience as a metaphor to hint at the uncommon experience of leaving the body, going to the 'underworld', and returning with, say, a 'soul fragment' of a tribe member.
All in all, doesn't it seem more likely that the monomyth and the path of shamanic development derived from those real-world experiences, instead of the other way around?
I can see how it might look that way to the uninitiated.
Try describing a hunt or raid (or a sea voyage, or a trade mission to obtain a needed resource, or a migration to escape an invader or natural disaster, or being cast out of ones birth tribe as a young male to seek a mate from another tribe—a practice that probably pre-dates the differentiation of the human species) in a narrative that makes logical sense but doesn't evoke the monomyth. Not so easy, I'd say.
Not so easy, but a hunt need not include the archetype of mana, or of the Goddess or temptress, or of the wise old man or woman, or of the trickster, or of the shadow, or of rebirth, ect. But the shamanic life-experience will include most or all of those.
A hunt can take place in known, mundane geography. A soul-retrieval can't. A pilgrimage can can be part of a soap opera or teen romance. A UFO abduction can't.
So when a modern shaman just happens to be an author, you will get stories with archetypes and unknowns outside of the mundane, because those are the experiences of shamans, whether they are urban shamans initiated by UFOs or traditional shamans initiated by tribal gods. The UFO phenomenon is a transformation of archetypes, not a modern technological development that started in Roswell. They are a big part of sci-fi and of our space-age culture as a whole. And they are that which ancient shamans would call a tribal god. It's not a new phenomenon unique to the space-age, and it's not just smoke and mirrors.
So when a sci-fi fan reads a story about aliens, he is reading about an archetype in symbolic form - an archetype that the shaman deals with on behalf of the tribe in a ritualistic, sacred manner. We can see a UFO and imagine that it is mundane (but advanced) technology carrying mundane biological life-forms that evolved on a mundane planet. But that is just the secular, materialistic mythologem of the space-age which our culture takes to heart, and in so doing takes a myth literally just as religious fundamentalists do with Jesus. That's when it crosses over into 'religion'.
Is experienced: yes.
Can help the tribe hunt: yes.
Can locate game with better than chance reliability: maybe (if associated with shaman's ability to deduce or intuitively perceive patterns of game movement).
Can see physical objects or places beyond the scope of vision: no.
Can see physical objects or places beyond the scope of vision: yes.
"I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do."
-Richard Wiseman
No, we don't need double-standards in science, Richard... quit moving the goal-posts.
