Embodied or bodily intelligence is the intelligence of the body itself: its skill in movement and making, and, in the wider sense many now use, the knowing that lives in our feelings, gut and whole living being, not only in the head. The psychologist Howard Gardner named a bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in 1983, and the psychologist Guy Claxton has since made the case that bodily intelligence is the most basic intelligence of all. Therapeutic Shamanism sees the body as a conscious part of the self with its own intelligence and wisdom, which knows the truth when the head is telling stories, and keeps shamanic practice grounded and real.
What is bodily intelligence? #
In Gardner’s original list it is bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, which “entails the potential of using one’s whole body or parts of the body (like the hand or the mouth) to solve problems or fashion products.” Dancers, actors and athletes show it most obviously, but so do craftspeople, surgeons, mechanics and scientists working with their hands.1 Gardner also suggested that the skill of controlling one’s own state of mind, as in meditation or trance, might be a kind of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence.2 See What is spiritual intelligence?
The psychologist Guy Claxton, in Intelligence in the Flesh (2015), goes much further. The science of embodied cognition, in his view, has overturned the old picture of a clever mind steering a dumb body: “we do not have bodies; we are bodies.” Modern life, much of it spent at screens and desks, has left people “mind rich and body poor”, and we neglect our bodies because we underestimate their intelligence. He does not propose one more intelligence for the list; his claim is that practical, embodied intelligence is the oldest and most fundamental of them all, and that the others, emotional and mathematical intelligence included, grow out of it. Feelings, in his account, are bodily events that hold our reasoning to what matters, and people often decide better when they use their gut feelings as well as their reason.3
How does Therapeutic Shamanism see the body? #
As one of the four main parts of the selfParts of the self. There are four parts of the self, the realm-corresponding members of the Inner Tribe: the Body and the middle-world self (both of the middle-world), the Soul (of the Lower-World) and the Spirit (of the Upper-World). The Aware Self, also called the Witness, is not a fifth part but a capacity: the awareness that can watch all four, with compassion and equanimity. Read the full answer, alongside the middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer, the Soul and the Spirit, and as fully conscious in its own right. In shamanism the physical body is not just a vehicle for the soul or a thing we inhabit; it has its own consciousness, intelligence, wisdom, needs and drives, and needs to be listened to, honoured and respected as much as any other part of us. It is made of the chemical elements, which makes it part of the Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer and our most direct link with them.4 See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body? and What are Stone People, and what gifts do they bring?
The body’s intelligence shows above all in its honesty. The head is constantly making things up, telling stories, rationalising and justifying; the body cannot make up stories, and is always trying to tell us the truth. When the head is in charge and the body is not listened to, a gap opens between who we think we are and who we really are. Original animists revered their bodies as sacred and full of their own intelligence, listened closely to them, and understood the body as deeply connected to Soul, to the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer and to Mother EarthMother Earth. The sacred Feminine pole: pure potential, from whom all the Peoples arise. The Lower-World is her realm, and she is all the realms: “The Earth is indeed our Mother.” More about this. The body psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich‘s maxim that the body never lies is part of this picture, and so is his account of body armour: when we go through emotional trauma, the body protects us with chronic muscular tension, which sets into habitual patterns that hold the unresolved emotion. See What is body armouring, and what does Reichian work contribute?
Claxton and Therapeutic Shamanism arrive at a similar place from different directions. Claxton starts from neuroscience and finds that intelligence belongs to the whole living body. Therapeutic Shamanism starts from the animist understanding that everything is alive and conscious, the body included, and adds what science does not: that the body is a member of the inner tribe, and a link with the Stone People and the Lower-World.
Why does shamanic practice involve the body? #
Because knowing that stays in the head is only half known. Shapeshifting in a journey into an animal, a plant or a rock helps a person know that being not just in an intellectual way but somatically and viscerally, from the inside out.5 When someone brings a Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer back from a journey, the movement is done with the physical body, not just in the mind’s eye, because the physical, somatic part of it helps to ground, deepen and anchor the experience.6 And shapeshiftingShapeshifting. Becoming another being within a journey, fully enough to know it from the inside: one of the two routes to grokking, a transformation practice, and a direct experience of interconnection. Read the full answer into one’s own Soul does not work if it happens only in the head; it has to involve the body, so that the Soul becomes more embodied and present in daily life.7 See How do embodiment, grounding and the nervous system support healing?
It is also why the first quality on the list of a True Adult is being grounded, present and embodied.8 The opposite, a spirituality that tries to rise above the body and the earth, tends to become top-heavy, disembodied and ungrounded; shamanism teaches instead that we need to rise, but rise rooted.9 See What is spiritual bypassing, and how can psychotherapy help prevent it?
Are humans the most bodily intelligent beings? #
Far from it. Gardner himself suggests that primates have superior bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, and that rats might outdo us in it.10 When a widened list of intelligences is run across the Animal, Plant and Stone People, it is perfectly clear that other animals are extraordinarily bodily intelligent, and humans cannot claim to be ahead. A ballet dancer, a martial artist or a skilled footballer shows great bodily intelligence, but so does almost every wild animal going about its life. On intelligence spread through the cells and tissues of living bodies, and through the living world, see What does Michael Levin’s work say about intelligence in cells and bodies? and Is the living world intelligent?
Can the body be a way into something greater? #
Yes. The mythologist Joseph Campbell, asked in a television interview with Bill Moyers about the peak moments of his life, named two races he ran as a young athlete, when he was immersed in doing something completely competently and everything flowed. Mountaineers and athletes describe the same, as do musicians and painters. In Therapeutic Shamanism such moments carry a message about Soul: when someone is fully being what they were meant to be, body and all, something greater comes through them, with a sense of rightness and of being part of something bigger.11 See What are moments of awakening?
