How to Kill a Tradition: Appropriation in Current Esotericism and Spirituality

In the light of cur­rent events, ie. a case of a Span­ish actor who was charged for acci­den­tal­ly killing a man with toad ven­om dur­ing an alleged shaman­ic rit­u­al, we now feel the need to talk about the ele­phant in the room once again: appro­pri­a­tion in spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and eso­teri­cism. We talked about it when deal­ing with the Ayahuas­ca polemic and the Path of Poi­sons years ago, but it feels like it’s time to address this top­ic again.

The toad ven­om celebri­ty case was actu­al­ly pret­ty sim­ple: Span­ish actor Nacho Vidal alleged­ly admin­is­tered pow­dered toad ven­om to a man as part of a heal­ing rit­u­al. Vidal claimed being an expert on the sub­stance and offi­ci­at­ed a rit­u­al admin­is­tra­tion of the ven­om to a per­son who died as a result of drug-induced com­pli­ca­tions. Vidal argued he was try­ing to help the vic­tim, his friend, over­come a drug addic­tion: he said that he him­self had tried toad ven­om and that it had changed his life. So, in a few words, Vidal used an entheogenic sub­stance that was part of cer­tain ini­tia­to­ry cer­e­monies, and used it in a ther­a­peu­tic fash­ion. In inter­views pri­or to the inci­dent, he said: “I want peo­ple to expe­ri­ence the same thing I expe­ri­enced”. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the heal­ing cer­e­mo­ny had a fatal result, and Vidal failed to react when he saw the effects the drug was hav­ing on his friend.

Even though Vidal’s case is a bit extreme, it is also rep­re­sen­ta­tive of what we want to talk about today, both because of the caus­es that led to the inci­dent and also because of its aftermath.

The Roots of Appro­pri­a­tion: the Appeal of Exoti­cism and the Dis­re­gard from our Surroundings

Appro­pri­a­tion makes use of a sub­stance, an idea, a spir­i­tu­al belief, a cos­mo­log­i­cal con­cept, takes it out of its orig­i­nal con­text, and places it in a dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al frame –usu­al­ly in a cul­ture that abused the for­mer- for the prof­it of a per­son or col­lec­tive. This goes from white peo­ple prac­tis­ing Afro-Amer­i­can mag­ic or sor­cer­ous paths, the abuse of Ayahuas­ca by the white col­o­niz­ers, etc.

Appro­pri­a­tion has many faces, and most of them are quite evi­dent, like tak­ing deities and plac­ing them out of con­text, using cer­e­mo­ni­al cloth­ing as cos­tume, but there are also sub­tler but equal­ly destruc­tive exam­ples of appro­pri­a­tion: white peo­ple using white sage smudges and Palo San­to wood sticks, for instance, which are orig­i­nal­ly linked to long-abused com­mu­ni­ties and that are now being mar­ket­ed amongst the colonis­ers. The white sage and Palo San­to mar­ket does not only harm the cul­ture in which this was orig­i­nal­ly used but also harms the envi­ron­ment on which the plants grow, as the mar­ket demands can­not be met by the cur­rent lev­el of pro­duc­tion. Glob­al­iz­ing cer­tain aspects of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty can lead to graver con­se­quences that we might ever think of.

But why does appro­pri­a­tion occur? After think­ing about it, we reached the con­clu­sion that appro­pri­a­tion is a result of igno­rance. For instance, using endan­gered white sage for “cleans­ing” spaces instead of, for instance, using thyme, which has been employed since ancient times in west­ern tra­di­tions to scare epi­demics or to deter death. But also, ignor­ing the fact that white sage is endan­gered and that was revered and rit­u­al­ly employed as part of reli­gious cer­e­monies by a cul­ture that rejects the cur­rent usage we make of this and that is striv­ing to cul­ti­vate and grow it.

Anoth­er con­cern that comes with appro­pri­a­tion in spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and eso­teri­cism is the fact that, by appro­pri­at­ing oth­er things or ideas, we are fail­ing to acknowl­edge our own her­itage, and we run the risk of los­ing for­ev­er a valu­able source of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence. It is in our hands to revert the sit­u­a­tion and try to con­nect with your envi­ron­ment. I am not talk­ing here about find­ing what your famil­iar her­itage is or mak­ing up tra­di­tions, because this is part of each one’s iden­ti­ty, but we should pay respects to the ter­ri­to­ry we live in now. The land that gives you the food you eat and the water you drink, and the spir­its that sur­round you each and every day. Fail­ing to acknowl­edge them just dri­ves us closed to the irre­me­di­a­ble loss of an invalu­able treasure.

Syn­cretism or Appro­pri­a­tion: where to draw the line?

It is true that con­tact with for­eign ideas and con­cepts make cul­tures move for­ward; inno­va­tion is part of progress, and we can nev­er inno­vate if we are not open to inspi­ra­tion or the ideas of oth­ers. But let’s set things straight, appro­pri­a­tion is not equiv­a­lent to syn­cretism. While syn­cretism (be it cul­tur­al, reli­gious, or aes­thet­ic) is the result of a nat­ur­al process of organ­ic adap­ta­tion and exchange, appro­pri­a­tion is born out of dis­hon­esty and igno­rance. Study­ing, research­ing or try­ing to com­pre­hend one cul­ture dif­fers from using this just because you want to do it, because it’s trendy or eye-catching.

Let’s imag­ine we live in France and we decide to work with the jaguar as a spir­i­tu­al guide because we had a spe­cial­ly rel­e­vant dream. When embark­ing on a spir­i­tu­al jour­ney, intu­ition and emo­tion­al respons­es play a cru­cial role, of course, but once the call­ing has been heard, it is time to do some research and try to under­stand the nature of one’s call (it could be born out of ego, out of exter­nal influ­ences, out of a myr­i­ad of rea­sons). We all know it is very cool to have the jaguar as one’s spir­it guide, but our respon­si­bil­i­ty as fol­low­ers of a path is try to know what does that call mean and what price must we pay to fol­low that call. If we real­ly feel the jaguar is our spir­it guide, shouldn’t we try to under­stand where it lives, its nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment, the mytho­log­i­cal and cos­mo­log­i­cal role of this ani­mal in its cul­ture? Shouldn’t we at least try and under­stand the whole ecosys­tem to which this ani­mal belongs instead of just tak­ing it out and forc­ing it into our system?

It is amaz­ing that we some­times claim we hon­our nature and the spir­its that reside in it, but we are unable to con­nect with them because we have nev­er been to that place, or we claim to belong to a tra­di­tion that was actu­al­ly destroyed by our blood rel­a­tives, or that we say we com­mune with an entheogenic plant spir­it while ignor­ing or under­es­ti­mat­ing the cos­mol­o­gy from which it emerged. And, col­lat­er­al­ly, there is a spir­i­tu­al price to pay when appro­pri­at­ing a spir­i­tu­al path, as we this lev­el of self-deceit­ful­ness can fire back at us severe­ly: the spir­its or legit prac­ti­tion­ers of the appro­pri­at­ed tra­di­tion can get offend­ed by our actions, and the same could hap­pen to our land, which we have so wrong­ly ignored.

 

When in doubt…

The only way to stop appro­pri­a­tion is knowl­edge and crit­i­cal think­ing, plain and simple.

We could, for instance, ask our­selves these ques­tions and answer them honestly:

• Why am in inter­est­ed in that tradition?
• How is this tra­di­tion relat­ed to me?
• Am I part of the solu­tion or part of the problem?
• How am I viewed by the tra­di­tion I intend to follow?
• Am I mak­ing prof­it (mon­ey or media-wise) out of fol­low­ing a tra­di­tion that is not my own?
• Am I using excus­es to relate to a tra­di­tion that I don’t belong to (mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, glob­al­iza­tion, etc.)?
• Am I incor­po­rat­ing aspects of a tra­di­tion that is not my own into my prac­tice while hav­ing access to a local equiv­a­lent of some sort?

An unspo­ken col­lat­er­al dam­age of appro­pri­a­tion: how about demo­niz­ing every fuck­ing thing?

Going back to the toad ven­om inci­dent, after Vidal was arrest­ed and the media start­ed talk­ing about the case a lot of “experts” on drugs start­ed pop­ping up on the media say­ing that toad ven­om was actu­al­ly DMT (remem­ber toad ven­om is actu­al­ly 5‑Meo-DMT). This led to a myr­i­ad of jour­nal­ists inves­ti­gat­ing on the so-called traf­fick­ing of DMT, refer­ring to the toad ven­om as “God’s mol­e­cule”, and brand­ing DMT as a fatal drug, warn­ing peo­ple about DMT being sold in the black mar­ket for shaman­is­tic pur­pos­es. From then on, shaman­ism has pro­gres­sive­ly evolved as a word that is used as a syn­onym for quack­ery or fraud­u­lent heal­ing practices.

By appro­pri­at­ing the spir­i­tu­al beliefs and prac­tice of a colonised or abused cul­ture we con­tribute to the demo­niza­tion of those same beliefs and prac­tices that we claim to respect and fol­low. Instead of just using them as a badge to prove we are cool, why not help those who are the legit prac­ti­tion­ers and recep­ta­cles of the tradition?

As a conclusion

We claim we are a com­mu­ni­ty, right? Or is it just a word is fun to say? As a com­mu­ni­ty we have the respon­si­bil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate as hon­est­ly and clear­ly as we can: we have the oblig­a­tion to choose the right words, to know why we do what we do, and to make sure we prac­tice what we preach.

We say we have to take care of the help­less, and yet we for­get about tra­di­tions, spir­its, plants, ani­mals, or even min­er­als (do not get me start­ed on how your amaz­ing min­er­als come from very sketchy places). Appro­pri­a­tion may end up with nasty out­comes such as demo­niza­tion, pro­hi­bi­tion, destruc­tion of our own tra­di­tion if we do not pay atten­tion. It is our duty as prac­ti­tion­ers to be hon­est to the paths we fol­low, and do not let fraud­u­lent usages go unnoticed.