Baba Yaga, Shamanism, and Emergence
A brief history of the weird ways of knowing the unknown
There is a severe thunderstorm warning, and I am feeling too feral for the Internet.
On the surface, these two things are not causally related - the thunderstorm did not cause me to feel feral, and me feeling feral did not cause the thunderstorm (at least, I hope not). And yet, in the realm of nonlinear mythopoetic cognition, these two things are perfectly related. There is a thunderstorm, and I am feeling feral. Of course.
Two days ago, I started writing a piece about shamanism and emergence, but when I got to the end, I just couldn’t wrap it up in a way that was satisfying. It’s not that I had writers’ block, it’s just that my tone ended up sounding rather cantankerous. I reflected that I was well on my way to becoming an old Baba Yaga living in the woods.
Aha - and there it was, that’s exactly how it was supposed to go. I wrote about the shamans and failed to honor the Feminine, and so she showed up flying in with her broom.
What does Baba Yaga have to do with emergence, you ask? Well, everything.
Baba Yaga & Emergence
Baba Yaga is a very prominent character in Slavic mythology. She is often portrayed as an old witch in the woods, flying around in a pestle with a broom in hand, living in a hut that stands on chicken legs and tends to wander on its own, surrounded by a fence of human skulls. If you happen to run into her, you can never be sure if she will eat you or speak to you tenderly and grant you your wishes.
Sometimes, she is portrayed as several women - three sisters, or a whole coven. Baba Yaga symbolizes Mother Nature. She can control the elements, and cause a whole range of natural phenomena, from the wondrous and the weird to the savage and the deadly. In other words, she is the very personification of emergence.
Baba Yaga is omniscient - she knows all things. She resides in the domain of the supernatural and holds secret knowledge, which she sometimes reveals to those whom she deems to be deserving of it.
To those whose character is noble, virtuous, and kindhearted, Baba bestows gifts and can be very motherly. To those whose character is not so noble, she can be quite ruthless and vile. Your skull may just end up making a good addition to the fence around her hut.
Baba Yaga’s ancient origins
The origin of Baba Yaga as a character is of much debate, but her characteristics can be traced through Slavic pagan mythology for thousands of years, and further back in time to the spiritual beliefs and practices of our Proto-Indo-European ancestors.
Baba Yaga is simultaneously human and more than human - she is archetypal. Her image and traits were likely inspired by female shamans, the medicine women who were an essential part of human society during the historical period between the migration of humans into Eurasia and the Christianization of Europe.
As the climate gradually changed, the living conditions for humans also shifted fundamentally. As the forests expanded across Central Europe, the animals that once dominated the tundra - namely, mammoths and reindeer - lost their natural habitats. Other animals, like red deer and wild pig, appeared in the landscape. And so the hunters and gatherers were compelled to change their subsistance strategies.
Shamanism thrived during this period in history, as a set of practices for knowing the unknown.
An archeological finding from this phase of the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age), around the first half of the 7th millennium BC, has revealed an extraordinary burial of a female shaman. The deceased woman was placed in a 30-cm thick layer of red mineral, together with a twelve-month-old child. Abundant gifts had been put into the grave, such as various tools and animal bones.
Examination of the shaman’s skeleton revealed a deformity in the first neck vertebra, which could have caused lameness and difficulties in movement. Therefore, it can be presumed that it was an alleviation of her suffering for the woman to be in trance. Techniques for extering non-ordinary states of consciousness are the prerequisite for a shaman’s journey across the veil, through which they can enter the world of spirits and the realm of the dead.
Let’s get back to emergence for a moment.
Game B, The Third Attractor, and Emergence
Among those who study the future, and in particular those in the fields of complexity theory and existential risk, there has been a lot of talk of a “strange attractor” from the future that is pulling many of us towards it.
It’s been called Game B, The Third Attractor, Regenerative Civilization, Solarpunk, a More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible, and many other names - depending on whom you ask.
The prophets are trying to predict and describe the thing, the complexity theorists are trying to map and measure the thing, and the savvy speculators are no doubt already placing their bets on the thing.
The story goes that emergence is what will show us the way there.
Emergence - what is this fairy dust?
In complexity theory, science, and art, emergence is a term for when a complex system as a whole behaves in a way that is more than the sum of its parts.
Emergence is happening all the time. The interconnectedness of all things is constantly producing strange phenomena. Life is always recreating itself into new wholes that do all sorts of unusual things. The sacred never stops being the sacred, we just tend to forget about it. We forget to pray when times are abundant - that’s me paraphrasing a Neil Gaiman quote from American Gods, because I can’t seem to find the original.
Emergence comes to the forefront of our minds when things are in flux.
This is where our ancestors were after the end of the last Ice Age, and this where we are now.
When the unknown starts to overshadow the known, we are forced to abandon our habituated ways of thinking and doing things, and look to new ways. If we don’t, we risk descending into chaos, authoritarianims, or worse - extinction.
As so a few souls venture out into the unknown. Grasping in the dark, we try to sense the shape of something that we’re not sure is even there. It’s like talking to ghosts.
“When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Historically, this role of abyss gazing, of peering over the edge of the unknown and bringing something useful back, was held by shamans. To our ancestors, who relied on this knowledge for their survival, the shamans played an essential role in society.
In modern civilization, where things have appeared to be stable for a while (at least on the surface), the shamanic role faded somewhat into the background.
Now that the world is in flux, the shaman archetype once again rears its weird head.
A Brief History of Shamanism
Shamanism has existed in every hunter-gatherer culture across time, and in every corner of the Earth. It’s the oldest known spiritual practice in the world, dating back to at least 50,000 years ago and likely before that. The roots of shamanism can be found in every culture and in every religion.
There is remarkable similarity in the experience of shamans from different cultures around the world, most of which had no contact with each other until recently. This suggests that the shamanic experience is not just cultural, but deeply human - it’s archetypal.
The shamanic view values the sacredness of all life and sees a spiritual interconnectedness between all living things.
Shamans actively engage in spiritual practices for the benefit of themselves and in service to their community and the world. These practices are often concerned with healing - both individual and collective, and with knowing the unknown.
They explore the numinous - otheriwise called the spirit realm, the collective unconscious, the great mystery, the transcendent, the Tao, etc.
Shamans use a variety of tools for entering non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as meditation, drumming, dancing, chanting, fasting, psychoactive plants, etc.
They often live at the edges of society and spend periods of time in isolation.
The path of becoming a shaman is marked by great suffering - through a close encounter with one’s own death, major illness, trauma, or wrestling with personal demons. It is said that one does not choose to become a shaman - the path chooses you.
Shamans can be described by different names depending on their culture, and can come in different flavours. The word “shaman” itself is of Siberian origin.
There has been a revival of interest in shamanic cultures and practices since the second half of the 20th century and in the 21st century.
At a time when many indigenous and ancestral cultures are facing disappearance, shamans from different cultures have been sharing their knowledge with each other and passing it onto people outside of their own tradition for the purpose of preserving it for future generations.
Hybrid shamanic practices have emerged as a result of this meeting of cultures, blending philosophies from ancient and modern sources.
Some shamanic practices have made their way into mainstream culture, such as ayahuasca ceremonies, breathwork, and meditation. In these chaotic times, we can all learn something from these.
Stalking Emergence into the Future
The map is not the territory, as the saying goes. And there are no maps for the place we’re going, this Game B, Third Attractor thing in the future.
With so many ways our attention can be hijacked, and so much media manipulation going on, and it’s getting harder and harder to know what is real and what isn’t.
When we’re primed to see something a certain way, that’s how we tend to see it when it actually shows up. You expect to see a pink elephant, so you see a pink elephant - even if the thing is really a pig wearing a Halloween costume.
The human mind is corruptible, yet paradoxically, it is also the tool for seeing past its own corruption. Each of us is a collection of interconnected systems, situated inside a web of connections with every other living thing, remaking itself into ever complex wholes in every moment. And again now. And now. And now.
This interconnectedness of all living things is what shamans are especially adept at noticing and navigating.
When it comes to finding emergence, if that is what you’re after, cultivating expanded perception is exceptionally useful.
One way to do this is to actively try to see past our own ideas of what we think the world is like - to break frame. There is a number of practices for doing this.
It’s about navigating the world without a map, using your intuition, and doing things that you don’t know how to do. In other words, you have to use the Force. Or you may allow the Force to work its way through you, if that is more your flavour.
Historically, shamans were often solitary creatures. But today, in the network age, when we’re all scattered around the world, there is more need than ever for meaningful collaboration with the others.
It’s time to start some covens in service to Life, to tap into collective sapience, to use the old tools and the new.
As more of our social systems break down, and the world makes less sense with each passing day, the era of the shaman is once again upon us.
Baba Yaga is here to stay, and for a while.
This was such a beautiful and needed read. I searched “baba yaga” hoping to find pieces about her that resonated with me. I’ve felt a call to connect with her for two years and this year I finally am!