Shamcher Bulletin
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Mind-altering! Initiations, Drugs and Dayaks
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Mind-altering! Initiations, Drugs and Dayaks

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This week we open with audio! A story from Shahabuddin Less, telling how Shamcher answered his question: “Do you think you can have the exact same experience that you have on some mind-altering substance, without taking the substance?”

And more in this issue: Shamcher’s adventures with a Dayak Shaman. Plus: Reflections on Sufi initiation.


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A Dayak Elder, today

The Young Engineer in Dayakland

I was working for irrigation, to bring rice fields to bloom for these poor people there. And also sugar for the sugar plantations. And we had to be just and see that the poor people on the rice fields got enough water. The sugar people tried to bribe us to give them more water, they had a big plantation. The water came from rivers, in Borneo we had a river called the Amend River. And once, I thought, “Bryn, what about a little adventure going up into Dayakland and finding out about the sources of the…”

A few years earlier, a Dutch man and twelve envalets that went in there – they all disappeared. And they thought that their shrunken heads would be a decoration on some Dayak chief’s bed. So we went in there, thinking nothing of that. We were so stupid, we didn’t even think of the danger. And when we came in there things went rather well and the controller said, “Oh, I have to go back, you have to come back with me, Bryn.” “Oh no. I haven’t even seen the sources of the Amend River. I came here to see the Amend River’s sources. I have to go on on my own.” “I’ll give you my Malay policemen.” “Oh no, the Malay is in the dark, that means they’re enemies – they won’t help me.” “I’ll give you one policeman.” “No. No.” “I insist.” So again we want a policeman, so we walked up to the next village. Three Dayak carriers and a policeman with a gun behind us, together with one of the carriers.

Suddenly I heard, “Pip pip” behind me. I looked around, saw nothing. I rushed back, still nothing. And finally, the one guard, who had been along with the Malay came smiling, with a gun, gave the gun to me and said, “Malay no like us, he gone back.” He was of course killed. And so I went on.

And then we came to the next village. The other Dayaks refused to go close to it. I had to go on alone. I looked, and I saw all these grim figures standing there with crooked foreheads. I looked, “Have I no friends here?” Suddenly I saw an old man wink. That was a medicine man. I went right over to him and explained how a rainmaker was made – explaining it in my mixture of English, Malay and things, but he understood my thought, he seemed almost to read it, because he called to two people and explained something. His mouth went like a machine gun -akk kkaak aakk kkaak. He went out and came to me afterwards with a very presentable rainmaker and he explained to the chief first how this worked. I explained it to the chief without him understanding a word but I used the same signs as the medicine man. So he came to understand.

And so the night came and I was invited to eat with them. Then I was to sleep alone in a kind of hotel, and that has a ceiling, and a bed of woven palm leaves but no walls. I heard the jungle animals cry and scream and it was very comfortable and I went right to sleep, deep sleep. Suddenly I was up onto the ceiling, and looked down at myself lying on the bed. And the me over the ceiling said, “Get up, get up! Don’t you see this big Dayak chief is coming with this crooked sword.” The man on the bed was also conscious but he wasn’t motivated. “Ya, I’ll get up, it isn’t that much of a hurry.” Suddenly my consciousness from above clicked into my consciousness from below and up I went and carried my gun under my arm, and walked out. After this experience, I felt very happy meeting the Dayak man, I felt this was more interesting than the Dayak. And so I bowed and said in my best English or Norwegian or whatever, “What gives me the honor of your company?” He couldn’t have understood a word, but he immediately, “aakk baakk aka kk.” From that I felt the definite feeling he said, “I came to protect you against wild animals, wild men or whatever.” I said, “Oh no, that is not necessary, thank you very much but this gun is so made that it goes off automatically at anyone who approaches me at night.” He looked down at the gun, like that. So he must have understood, I think. He bowed and went back.

I sat down on the bed and thought – can I go to sleep again? Will he come back again? While I sat there, there was a rustling in the leaves, and I looked, and there was the medicine man. And he just motioned me to come. So we climbed up the ladder to the community house, and there were little cubicles around the walls and one was empty. He put me in there on the mattress, and he put himself along the door as a mat, that people had to tread on it to get in. And so I slept beautifully there for the night.

(from An Interview with Shamcher Beorse)
Bahau Dayak, Hudoq ceremony,Dutch East Indies (now East Kalimantan, Indonesia). (Taken c. 1898–1900)

I Accept Nothing That Isn’t Already In Me

Yes, I am the bad boy of the Sufi effort to some, and the good boy to others, because I accept nothing that isn’t already in me. I see that stagewise gradual development through an accepted “teacher” can be all right for some cases, and also can lead the aspirant to stand pat and never go forward or even backward. Anyway, it is not my way, neither as a “pupil” or a “teacher”. The only thing I can do is to live and act myself all the time, and those who like it, fine, and those who don’t, equally fine. For who am I (or anyone else??) to judge whether a seeker shall have only a nickel or a whole dollar or all of yourself? The least you can give is all of yourself, at once and forever. And he or she who feels like a pupil today, why should he (she) not switch to a teacher, away from his once-upon-a-time teacher the next second? Indeed, he ought to. Pir Vilayat has shown great understanding and perhaps agreement, though he naturally must and does act differently.

​In the same vein, who am I (or anyone) to “initiate” another person? Well, say the pious, it isn’t you but God who initiates him. Well, don’t you think God can do that without my help? I am sure he can. Personally I see no virtue or advantage in the ritual of initiation. But if you want it, take it. A friend who visited me said, “I want to have all I can of Sufi teachings but don’t initiate me, for that would separate me from others, from parents, wife, and friends who are not initiated.” I said: “You are perfectly right.” Nevertheless, in New York he was now initiated. I was initiated myself, by Inayat Khan. I have no objection, nor any inclination. … Actually, whenever my glance strikes another human being, or a tree, a dog, it, she, he, is initiated by me and I by him, her, it, in a whole lot holier unity than any formal words or sign. And all this appears to be accepted heartily by Pir Vilayat, by his father Inayat Khan (who left his body in 1927) and especially by Inayat Khan’s musician son, Hidayat.

​The Sufi effort needs many kinds of people, also my kind. Though I am ready to jump out any time I am pushed. I will be the same. I don’t recommend, suggest or discommend initiations. 

(from Correspondence)

Photos: Dayak Elder photo from Inodeo.com. Historic ceremonial photo from Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures
Audio: From Shahabuddin, 99 Teaching Stories Vol.1, recorded by and available from Amir O’Loughlin. Reply to this email for details.

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The Shamcher Bulletin is edited by Carol Sill, whose newsletter, Personal Papers, is HERE.

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