"Despite concerted attempts by respectable
19th century scientists, no one has yet found a way to communicate
with the dead" (Pinker, 4). This piece contradicted my values as it was strategically placed at the end of the paragraph after discussing the idea of a soul being dissected in half in a split-brain surgery, closing the conversation with the idea that a way of communicating with the dead does not exist.
This piece from Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate, stood out to me because it discussed the existence of spirits of the dead. Spirits of the dead are strongly believed in my culture and religion. Many aspects of my religion relate to the well-being and the peace of spirits of ancestors and family. In the Hmong community, there are special people who are chosen to engage in rituals that allow them to communicate with the dead. These people may be referred to as shamans and they only communicate with spirits or the dead for the well-being of a living person. Usually the shaman will help resolve the issues of the unwell person by communicating or leading the unwell person's soul back to their body. In my religion, it is believed that when the soul leaves the body, the body will deteriorate and the person will become ill and possibly die.
Although it is difficult and has yet to be well recorded, I believe souls, spirits, and the ability to communicate with the dead does exist. Souls, spirits, and the ability to communicate with the dead has played and continues to play a big role in my reality along with many other Hmong people. I have witnessed people communicating with the dead and just because a man in a white coat has yet to declare it to be in existence or true, it is my truth and my reality,
Thank you for the interesting insight into Hmong culture that I was personally unaware of. My thoughts while reading this spanned to, how would you try to make the man in the white coat believe in your reality? Is it something you could prove or is it more a matter of faith that simply can't be demonstrated to others? I think of faith as a interesting concept as I am unsure if it is of intrinsic human nature or solely a product of culture. Do you think you would still have faith if you had been raised outside of your culture?
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that souls and spirits exist, which is also part of my beliefs. This idea of communicating with the dead through shamanism is something that cannot be easily explained by science, which makes hard for other people outside your culture and other cultures that has the same beliefs, for them to believe in this phenomenon. Science tries to explain how things work, but there are somethings that are not mean for science to explain or somethings that cannot be explained at all --this is where faith plays its part.
ReplyDeleteLike Michael said in his comment, it is hard to make the man in the white coat believe in our reality since they need a scientific evidence for what is going on. However, we were raised with that idea in our head meaning that we do not question it and making it "normal" for us.