I’ve long been of the opinion that our modern, generally secularized Western civilization, despite our collective rejection of the traditional religious forms of human conduits to the sacred/profound realms (priests, rabbis, swamis, etc.) has, without realizing it, redirected a deep instinctual need to connect with the transcendental domain toward specific kinds of rock stars. Without being aware of it we have been seeking a kind of “deliverance” via these de facto shamans of the modern era.
One could argue that this has been the case with movie stars and the modern phenomenon of “celebrity” in general – that they’ve also acted as de facto substitutes for the now eschewed pre-modern idols of the clergy. I would say that this is somewhat true but nowhere near to the extent that certain rock stars have tapped and utilized quasi-religious and shamanic qualities in their presentations and in the sermon-like events/shows they’ve been putting on over the course of the last 60-plus years … “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today….etc.”
The presentational characteristics of a Little Richard or a David Bowie appear to traverse sex and gender spectrums. These figures betray a seeming nearness to madness using colorfully ostentatious costumes that often draw from forms present in the animal world. There’s also the loose attitude toward the ingestion of mind-altering substances. These are all characteristics, traits and methods that have been prevalent among shamans for centuries.
These modern musical icons have actually been effective guides in several respects. They’ve certainly fulfilled a cathartic function by liberating certain cultural tensions revolving around sexual hang-ups, unnecessarily rigid gender concepts and tendencies toward self-censorship. On the other hand they do not, nor have they claimed to function effectively as dependable guides to individual transcendence for their followers. In this sense they’ve acted as superficially reliable fill-ins that have picked up a portion of the spiritual slack left by our modern culture’s absent shamans.
I’m not claiming to be the first to point this basic idea out. I’m fairly sure that Camille Paglia or some such person has touched on this notion before. What I’m (possibly) adding to the conversation is the fact that I don’t believe that this tendency is simply another kind of nostalgic mimicry linked to one or another dying cultural period or mythic form. There is a core intention in our species that is, at bottom, the motor of history itself. This intention is to go beyond the apparent limit of death, to transcend the apparent “given” of our individual and collective mortality.
And now in the 21st Century our new (and older) rock and pop stars no longer seem to be able to impart the same “charge” that they did when the medium was new. So the question arises: What forms, what set/s of images will arise to motivate us to the degree that we can surpass the nonmeaning, the dehumanization, the spreading wars and violence that have proliferated so widely over the course of the last few decades? Because ignoring and/or squashing the transcendental impulse in our species is an impossibility. Science is a wonderful domain but it does not nor will it ever serve as a substitute for the shamanic realm.
