Article 1: Tribe mentality
Tribal Attitudes
Until the Industrial Revolution really started off in full swing most people in the world tended to live in small tribal style communities, such as large farms, villages, small scale towns and the like. Only a small number of people lived in cities. In the majority of civilisations, even back to ancient times, this has been the normal situation. Even the Greek city states were built on a general tribal concept, with everyone in the state belonging to the extended tribe, which was formed of family groups such as found in Athens and later in Rome and their culture.
Though there are downsides to any system, the main advantage to the tribal system is that everyone in the tribe tends to pull together, if they don't then whoever leads the tribe will have something to say about it. The 'chief' in this case is also a neutral arbiter in terms of settling disputes, perhaps with advice from other sources, usually priestly or spiritual.
OK, so what does that have to do with us, now? Well, consider that ever since the Industrial Revolution people have left their communities, moved to the big city and made their living there. The tribe has been replaced by an extended family, however local city councils, judiciary and police, government, have all taken the place of a more locally oriented leadership system. People no longer have a support network in place, which can lead to feelings of isolation.
Darwin Anyone?
Of course, we also have the genetic side to consider. Many of our natural reactions to stimuli are based on the above proposition. Living in tribal communities means that we naturally defer to whomever is the Alpha Male or Female in a situation, as this will guarantee our acceptance within the community. This is a natural survival reflex.
Stress is a natural life saving reaction to danger. Once danger rears its head we either fight to survive or flee the scene, pumped up with adrenaline to make our bodies react better to the stituation. How inappropriate when we find that our stress is triggered by an office situation, from which we can neither fight nor flee to improve it?
Many of our conditioned reactions to life stem from how we used to live, this is hard wired into our brains for the sake of survival. These are skills we do not need to learn, saving us time.
Learning is another process that we don't have to think too much about. Normally we will learn from those around us, and will accept without question the authority figures in our lives as they tell us how to survive in the world we know.
Modern Lifestyles
Many of the issues that we have can be traced to one thing. We are tribal people trying to live within a non-tribal society. A modern city has no reference points to this convenient system of social structure, instead we find ourselves dealing with a number of different situations where our genetic and automatically programmed reactions are counter productive.
We also attempt to live our lives according to the rules of the society we live in or were brought up in. Sometimes these rules may contradict our own best interests. Sometimes the people responsible for educating us about this world may have given us rules to live by that act only to hinder us in the pursuit of our goals.
The Role of the Shaman
It was the role of the shaman to advise the tribe on what needed to be done to achieve harmony within the group and with the world at large. This role is now defunct, since governments and larger groups have their own agendas to follow that take little interest in the people in their care.
The modern shaman has a new role within the cities. The Urban Shaman needs to help people to come to terms with living and learning within this environment, to help explain how things are and how things can be.
The Urban Shaman can also help by opening people's eyes to how their early learning can be remodelled so they can achieve their goals better, to use modern tools such as hypnosis and complementary therapies to improve people's lives and help them, to use all the knowledge of the ancients to bring solutions to the issues of today.