Exorcizing the exorcist

 

“Exorcising the Illusion of Bon “Shamans”: A Critical Genealogy of Shamanism in Tibetan Religions” by Zeff Bjerken is a scholarly article published in 2004. It´s a very “in-house” overview of how Western and Asiatic scholars have interpreted (and presumably misinterpreted) Bon (sometimes spelled Bön), which is rightly or wrongly regarded as the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. There is a modern Tibetan religious community which practices Bon (or something they call Bon). Bjerken does make some interesting points, but he never presents his own view of Bon, and the article has a somewhat “postmodernist” feel, as if no true interpretation or perspective was even possible – neither of Bon nor of religion in general.

Originally, Western scholars had a very negative take on Bon. It was “sorcery”, “fetishism”, “animism” or indeed “shamanism”, a primitive survival of a barbaric past. They were probably cannibals, too. Buddhism was seen as a tool of higher civilization. Explicit parallels were made with how Christianity replaced paganism. At the same time, Western observers were wary of the Tibetan form of Buddhism, as well. Both Catholics and Protestant regarded “Lamaism” as too close to Catholicism. The superficial similarities are indeed striking: monks, priests with miter-like headgear, complex rituals resembling masses, relics, prominent lamas acting like “popes”, etc. To Jesuit missionaries, this was “diabolic mimicry” of Holy Mother Church. To Protestants or scholars influenced by Protestant models, pure and pristine Buddhism had degenerated into the Tibetan version in pretty much the same way as early Christianity had been distorted by the Catholic Church. Often, the most negative or debased practices of “Lamaism” were explained in terms of “shamanic” Bon influences. Compare how Catholicism is seen as influenced by paganism.

One intriguing observation is that the negative Western perspectives on Bon was shared by Hindu and Japanese Buddhist scholars. Bjerken also points out that Tibetan Buddhist sources dealing with Bon are extremely negative and paint a dualistic picture of the two religions, one being good, the other being evil. Thus, the Western scholars weren´t just constructing “Orientalism” (in Edward Said´s sense), but hybridizing it with native anti-Bon polemics. Of course, another way of putting it is that they used Buddhist anti-Bon polemics to fuel their Orientalism, since they often didn´t fancy the Tibetan Buddhists either!

One popular idea in Bon studies has been that the religion evolved in three different phases. This comes from a polemical Tibetan Buddhist history, but was taken seriously until recently, amplified by other Tibetan sources. The first phase is the properly shamanic Bon, often starkly depicted as a dark age. The second is a syncretistic phase when original Bon is combined with influences from the foreign lands of Kashmir, Gilgit and Zhang zhung. The third phase is the current form of Bon, when the religion becomes syncretized with Tibetan Buddhism. Western observers often regarded *this* as the worst and most sinister form of Bon, almost as if they believed in diabolic mimicry! Indeed, current Bon-pos do circumambulate in the “wrong” direction, have their sacred svastikas oriented “backwards”, and so on. Maybe this does evoke black masses, which are supposedly read backwards, und so weiter.  

The author is critical of the term “shamanism” as a universal religious category, arguing that there really is no such thing (this is the standard position in modern scholarship). It´s interesting to note how the figure of the “shaman” constantly stages a comeback in Bon studies, sometimes through the backdoor, as it were. To many early scholars, “shamanism” was a strongly negative term (see above). Mircea Eliade, by contrast, seem to have regarded shamanic experiences as truly initiatory, perhaps even as survivals of a primordial monotheism. Tantrism was shamanic, too, so I assume Eliade was generally positive towards both Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. After this comes a period in scholarship when Bon monks trained at Western universities could aid scholars in understanding the canonical Bon scriptures. By this, the shaman seems to have been finally exorcized.

Except that he wasn´t. The most recent trend (at least in 2004) was apparently that anthropologists studying Tibetan communities recreated the shaman, as it were, and even placed him in a dualistic relationship to the lama…but with the added twist, that the *shaman* was now the good guy. The shaman is the ecstatic-romantic trickster who stands for chaotic freedom as against the authoritarian order and high scriptural knowledge of the lama. Hippie era, much? Meanwhile, Bon has gained Western converts while Neo-Shamanism has become all the rage. Some Tibetan Bon teachers now call themselves “shamans” and their religion “shamanism” when speaking to Western (New Age?) audiences! (I don´t know how Bon has been received in Japan, but I can absolutely see Bon teachers there trying to sell their religion as a form of Shugendo or what have you.)

Apart from shamanism, Bjerken is also critical of terms such as “syncretism” and the attempts to explain everything in terms of “diffusion”. Thus, he takes scholars to task for suggesting that perhaps Bon was influenced by Shaivism, Manicheanism, Taoism, Nestorianism or what have you. I admit that I didn´t get this part. The existence of cultural diffusion is well established, I mean, Buddhism diffused to Tibet?! He also says that the shamanic traits of Bon can be explained by influence from Tantrism (by diffusion, perhaps), but here, I think Eliade may have been on to something: perhaps Tantrism *is* shamanic at root level, so turning the Bon shaman into an Indian siddha doesn´t really exorcize him. 

As already mentioned, the article says very little about what Bon may actually have been, except when polemicizing with Eliade. Bjerken points out that the Bon sources don´t paint the Bon religious specialists as shamans in the “standard” sense. There are no ecstatic techniques, no decentralized networks, no carnivalesque tricksters. Rather, the Bon priests serve the centralized Tibetan kingdom, aiding its imperialist rulers to defeat foreign enemies with the help of magical rituals. Yes, they wear animal skin and other “shamanistic” paraphernalia, but this is booty from the defeated barbarians, given them by the kings for services rendered. This may have nothing to do with actual history, but it certainly shows that Bon´s self-understanding (at least at one point) wasn´t shamanistic.

With that, I end my reflections on the mysteries of Bon… 

PS. I asked Copilot Designer to imagine a Tibetan shaman, and the result can be seen above. I admit that it does seem to be a fantasy character!