shamanism to me is not any easier, but it is certainly more relaxed, less, formal, less symmetrical...
That appeals to me... it seems no matter what type of magic used, it needs a healthy dose of both intellect (to direct it towards a specific goal) and emotional energy/passion (to give it enough power to make it work), and whether it's pagan/shamanism or Golden Dawn is just a matter of style, in essence they're all the same.
if anything (i don't mean though to take sides: i know it is apparent i prefer the shamanistic approach....barefeet, not high heels....
), but that
relaxed approach i allude to can most certainly lead to more
intense experiences...i realize that is quite too subjective of a statement, but i hope the context is understood.
(and yet it implies that one's intent must be strong but supple...an enhanced sense of equanimity...
would that be willful ambivalence?)
shamanism is the oldest approach and most certainly was already (metaphorically or not...) riding brooms, sticks, clouds, inner-pharmakopaeic-space for millenia....
i think the newer branches of categorical magic (ancient middle east/egypto-assyrian etc as well as modern-GD and post-mod CHAOS modes) can all be implemented, blended....
as we have shown in the MLA-CM course, there is already much success thus far....
and categorical walls for many of us have been duly strengthened: strong doors or
stargates between dimensions ( or
dementias 
)
installed...
and/or simply obliterated...
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Walt Whitmanby the way, you can never go wrong with reading a few paragraphs of anything by Terence McKenna, especially much of THE ARCHAIC REVIVAL...and pretty much every drop of ink in TRUE HALLUCINATIONS.
Therein those tomes lie many a white whale........and their accompanying shadows, sputtering auras, live-wire spinal cords whipping frantically back and forth...
go fishadditional note: i am not so sure of this new wave of de-culturalized shamanism as spearheaded by Harner & Co...much good in it for sure....but...
another note on shamanism and modern magick: i think that i--like many of us here and elswehere--go thru phases. i admit to being more drawn at times to high magick (as well as deep south hoodoo "low" magic), the beautiful, ceremonial theatre of it all....i like that option. but sometimes, too much text and too much expounding on that often superfluousness of textuality really gets in the way of pure experience.
an old theme of mine i return to...that the prepositional position of much magic = theory. and theory needs to be put to the test more often. eLABORation is quite necessary...but i see many of us, ME INCLUDED, often getting caught up in the talk OF or ABOUT essence....
cerebral titillation is fine...but where is the ELATION of enchantment which is an experience beyond any verbiage (ya know, to paraphrase: the Tao that can be described is but a language-construct of that which cannot be grammatically stilled, caught, described....it might be close, but to use the old zen phrase, it's a finger pointing at the moon...or the moon's reflection in an old bamboo bucket who'es sides are now falling apart: where's the moon now?
)
a fine grain of salt for sure, but how about less labwork and more field reports? just a note to myself made public....
