Prime Time Replay:
Burrill Crohn
Director of the Shamanic Film/Video Archive
MsgId: *infinities(1)
Date: Sun Jul 6 21:55:18 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
Good Evening and welcome to Infinities. Tonite our guest is Burrill Crohn, director of the Shamanic Film/Video Archive. Mr. Crohn has been a student of shamanic traditions for a decade, and co-founded the Archive seven years ago. Welcome Mr. Crohn.
MsgId: *infinities(2)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:00:45 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
Hi, Melanie-- I'm glad we've connected here in cyberspace. And hello to anyone else sharing this conversation.
MsgId: *infinities(3)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:01:36 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
Could you tell us a little about the Shamanic Film/Video Archive, how it came to be and what is its purpose.
MsgId: *infinities(4)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:17:00 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
A friend, Dr. Eleanor Ott was in Budapest where she met an anthropologist who was working with shamanic cultures in Central Viet Nam. She thought it would be great if he had a video camera. When she returned to the US she raised funds for a camcorder. Next year, I met Gabor and viewed his material and decided that what could be done with one camcorder could be done with many. Now we have four cameras which have been to more than a dozen countries in several continent. The purpose of all this, of course, is to help preserve shamanic practices which are in danger of being extinguished, ironically by the very same technologies and "progress" that has given us those camcorders.
MsgId: *infinities(6)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:24:45 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
What are a few of the more fascinating pieces of footage that your teams have captured?
MsgId: *infinities(7)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:33:06 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
They're all could be said to be "fascinating". But what I find to be truly fascinating, if that is the right word, is that in widely diverse cultures thoughout the world, and going back to the beginnings of recorded history there has been this common figure, the shaman, the person who intercedes between this world and the world of the spirit to help himself and his (or her, for women are shamans, too) community. And it is not just in so called "primitive" societies; it might well be that Moses was a shaman and Western civilization has taken his messages very seriously.
MsgId: *infinities(8)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:36:16 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
With the changing regimes in Eastern Europe, and increased openness of those societies, what new and exciting information on shamanic activities is coming from that part of the world?
MsgId: *infinities(9)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:42:01 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
What's new and exciting is that practices and traditions that are ancient and venerable are reemerging from the limbo to which they were driven by the dictates of totalitiarinism.
MsgId: *infinities(10)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:43:40 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
Can you give us one or two specific examples of activities surfacing in these areas of eastern Europe and parts of the former USSR?
MsgId: *infinities(12)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:49:20 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
Well, recently one of our cameras went to Tuva, in Siberia, with an American researcher. That certainly would not have been possible -- simply because shamanic activites were driven underground -- under communism. And a little further East, one of our cameras went to China and Mongolia with Susan Grimaldi who returned with remarkable footage she made into a documentary, "Drums of the Ancestors".
MsgId: *infinities(11)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:47:23 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 152.163.213.33
Can you be more specific about the tribes or cultures represented in the Shamanic Film/Video archive?
MsgId: *infinities(16)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:57:12 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
I just saw another question about specific tribes and cultures represented in the Archive. Our cameras have been to the Bru tribe in Central Vietnam, to Estonia, to Namibia to film traditonal healing practices, to Mongolia and China and Tuva, as mentioned in the last answer, to South Korea, to film a shamanic divination, to Peru, and even here in the United States videoing Native American healers. But beyond material shot with our camcorders we collect other films and videos as well. So for instance there is the documentary "Shamanism Past and Present" by Dr. Mihaly Hoppal which contains remarkable footage from the 20's and 30' of Siberian shamans, a film on the inititiation of a Korean shaman, by Dr. Laurel Kendall, films from Brazil and Peru, and a great film on Nepalese shamanism, Shamans of the Blind Country.
MsgId: *infinities(14)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:54:47 EDT 1997
From: guest At: 152.163.213.33
How can people contribute to the efforts being made by the Shamanic Film/Video archive to preserve these precious human treasures?
MsgId: *infinities(17)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:59:06 EDT 1997
From: crohnb At: 208.148.73.153
By contacting us: The Shamanic Film/Video Archive, PO Box 691, Beasrville, NY 12409; P/F (914)679-9761 or email:crohnb@rpi.edu
MsgId: *infinities(13)
Date: Sun Jul 6 22:51:14 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
What is the importance of the role of shaman in a traditional culture, facing changes in the modern world?
MsgId: *infinities(19)
Date: Sun Jul 6 23:15:48 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
The role of the shaman in cultures which still celebrate the sacred, remain unchanged; but the figure of the shaman remains important for all of us. While we are not all shamans, we all have as a natural birthright the ability to contact what Carlos Casteneda called non-ordinary realities. A place of wisdom, beyond the limited view of the intellect. Finally, the shaman, who is aware of the living spirit in all things, speaks with the spirits of plants, trees, rocks and stones, reminds us to preserve the environment that contains the elements of our healing.
MsgId: *infinities(20)
Date: Sun Jul 6 23:17:45 EDT 1997
From: melaniem At: 204.164.64.219
Mr. Crohn, thank you so much for your thoughts, and our audience, thank you for joining us on Infinities. Good night.
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