Spirit Camp 1 2012

Well, back from another Swedish Spirit Camp for a second year. Last year I had the grace to keep my mouth shut but this year I found it drifting open. It’s an odd event based on ancient American Indian Shamanic traditions. Odd in that it somehow doesn’t do what it purports to do yet in a sense it does. That needs explanation. As a Dog Soldier for example we are well organised to do numerous different tasks to support the ceremony. We all eagerly pitch into every task with enthusiasm and the leaders of the team lead with the same fervour. It requires considerable focus over long 18 hour days. Our orders change and conflict due to changing circumstances but all the tasks are very simple and one very soon learns initiative is not required, just obedience, though self initiative is lorded as a virtue. Countless arbitrary rules of ceremony are to be obeyed that can be changed on a whim by the higher-ups and make no apparent difference if they’re broken. This, as anyone who’s worked in a large corporation will attest, leads to stress. One begins to rail at the stupidity, the inefficiency, the blocking of any personal input. All this is in the name of doing what needs to be done. Over days this regime creates strain where it purports to be quiet efficiency. At some point or another individuals give in to this strain and ‘can’t take it any longer’ and at that point they’re left to recoup with no mention that that is the purpose of the exercise. It purports to be a support role yet its real role is to break the lower self of the individual. With enough ‘breaking’ the lower self opens its awareness to the higher self. It’s a sort of ancient boot camp principle. One chap made very valid comments on how the working system could be improved and the work made easier and more fulfilling but in a way that would make the whole thing less effective. One could argue that human progress is built on that chaps suggestions and that we would all feel much better if our work was easier and we felt good about ourselves, it’s definitely been the basis of my self development, but being a member of an ancient tribe where daily life was a matter of survival one needed to be tough and resolute. Though today life is much easier they’re still necessary virtues.
Whether this is spiritual is another matter. The modern variant of this ancient tradition doesn’t call for teenagers to do this once or twice as needed but for people of all ages to do it yearly time and time again. I find this strange. I mean if Battymouse has done 43 Spirit Camps does it mean he is very wise or the world’s slowest learner? Either way I’ve done two now and I’ve figured it out and needn’t go again.