Blowgun Spirituality
February 25, 2005
John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, models the Baby-Boomer descent into a second (or second leg of a prolonged) childhood by renouncing the dirty world of affairs for the spirituality of the blow-gun. Having consulted with Amazonian warriors, shamen, sha-wymyn, and the Dalai Lama, Mr. Perkins offers an “Advanced Master Shapeshifting Workshop” on “magical Deer Isle, Maine.”In the New Pantagruel’s forums, where Perkins is being discussed, one member writes:
I can only shake my head at the rest of his resume. It strikes me as supremely inauthentic when people reach way out their native religious traditions to find their “spirituality”. White dudes who grew up in New England shouldn’t try to be shamans or Buddhists; if they want to be exotic they should go Eastern Orthodox or Jewish.Indeed, the man is a touch pathetic–I suspect such a well-coifed fellow is not really a master of blow-gun hunting and jungle survival. But as a missionary myself, I do not accept this principle, for it implies that Hottentot dudes shouldn’t try to be Hoover salesmen or Christians. Why shouldn’t they? The Anglican “Communion,” providentially I am told, is now two-thirds composed of people (including Hottentots) who are indigenously accomplished with the blow-gun, the kwakeiutl, the bolo, etc., while the remaining minority of the communion is chiefly accomplished at jawing on about spirits of consensus and unity. Quite a drama, how the wheel turns.
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