Shamanism Versus Romanized Religion

For the past few years, I've started big construction projects in March. This year, I'm building a passive solar greenhouse. This type of project involves some planning and design work, then lots of grinding manual labor outside in a variety of weather conditions. More often than not the weather is pretty nice, even if the ground gets muddy this time of year, and it's beautiful to be out with all the wild animals, mainly birds and squirrels, who will put up with the sounds of hammering and running power tools.

Many of the steps involved in this type of project are pretty mindless and labor intensive. You can't help slip into a meditative state as the verbal part of consciousness goes idle for hours at a time. Being outside in the spring in that state of mind is a profound and liberating experience.

Quite a lot of religious tradition is really a repackaging of meditative discipline and exploration of different states of consciousness as a means to get in touch with the primal elements of existence. In the shamanic mode of religion, the path is individual. While someone might help a seeker along that path, it's up to the individual to experience and live it. Really what else could it be?

The empire propaganda religions were very keen on obliterating their competition and institutionalizing religious experience and enslaving the minds of masses of people. It's really to impose and emphasize particular modes of thinking.