🎭Shamans, Psychologists, and the New Priesthood

1. The Birth of a Ritual

It began with ink. Case notes, observations. A room with shelves and silence.

A figure leans over a desk. He listens, he writes, he asks questions no one else dares to ask.

There are no robes, no chants. But there is a ritual. A sacred exchange: One speaks, one listens, one interprets.

The practice spreads. Not through spectacle, but through publishing. Journals, lectures, societies. Millimeter by millimeter, the ritual becomes a discipline, and with time, respect.

You might think this is modern science. You might think this is a university in Vienna. But this is a belief system built in Australian Aboriginal dreamtime cosmology, which is ancient, possibly dating back 40,000+ years.

A circle of fire. A drumbeat. A dream shared.

2. The Fire Before the Page

Long before the ink, there was rhythm. Not peer review but rather repetition. Not evidence, but a silent echo.

A thought takes shape. One voice speaks, another repeats, a third swears they’ve seen it work.

Soon, it spreads across the circle. Legitimacy through witness, faith through narrative.

It didn’t need laboratories; it needed memory, a myth.

And for those who carried it—it worked.

3. Two Paths, Same Architecture

So what really separates them?

One wears a coat, one wears feathers.

One speaks in Latin, one sings in symbols.

One builds a theory, one builds a story.

But both ask the same thing: What does your dream mean? What does your fear want? What will help you face the unknown?

Different costumes, same architecture.

Both are rituals. Both demand belief, aim at the same goal: To face the unknown without breaking.

4. The Modern Ritual Called Marketing

Here’s the twist.

Marketing is not far from either. It borrows the structure of both.

From the ink: publication, white papers, case studies, research-backed claims.

From the fire: story. Symbols. Emotion. The promise of belonging.

And just like the others, it doesn’t matter if the “truth” is absolute. What matters is if the narrative holds, if the ritual works.

Some of us want the doctor, some want the fire. All of us want a story we can believe.

5. The Genius We Don’t Admit

That’s the genius of marketing. Not to create truth, to give it a form. Make it wearable, to let us carry it, repeat it, believe it.

Psychologists, shamans, strategists, all working with the same human clay.

Our hunger for narrative, our need for ritual.

The Uncomfortable Question

If we call one “science” and the other “cult,” do we reveal more about the practiceor about ourselves?