Huna

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Hawaiian stone oracle according to Huna: The colors of the stones represent the seven principles
Serge Kahili King teaches Huna

Huna ( Hawaiian huna = hidden, secret) is a neo-shamanic handicraft for modern, urban people with the aim of healing the individual and the world in the sense of what feels good. The teaching consists of philosophical , psychological , spiritual and esoteric elements and interprets the ancient Hawaiian religion . Over the last few decades, Huna has gained numerous followers, especially in many European countries, in America and in the Pacific region, for example Japan and Australia.

history

Tradition of the Kahuna Kupua

The traditional Hawaiian cult was based on the actions of the Kahunas and especially on that of the "Kahuna Kupua", the master of ceremonies. Their teaching was traditionally passed on orally from generation to generation. Even before the arrival of the first whites in Hawaii under Captain James Cook , the Hawaiian ritual practitioners were persecuted by their kings, which later continued under the influence of the white missionaries. The teachings of the Hawaiian religion survived fragmentarily in the very inaccessible forests of the island of Kauai .

Max Freedom Long

The American New Age author Max Freedom Long (1890–1971), who worked as a teacher in Hawaii in the 1920s, is considered to be the discoverer of the Huna teachings. He wanted to discover the traditional religion of the native Hawaiians. Fascinated by the impressive abilities of the Kahunas (the priests , knowledge carriers and healers of Polynesia ), whom he believed to have magical knowledge, he tried to decipher their secret knowledge. However, they refused to cooperate more deeply, because from the Hawaiians' point of view, Max Freedom Long came from an intellectual tradition which considered the cultural superiority of the then dominant "western" civilization to be so assured that he believed that he could use the abilities of the local population assess, classify and catalog from a superior point of view.

Long was not deterred by this, however. He believed that practically all of the teaching in coded form was reflected in the structure, vocabulary and structure of the Hawaiian language. After a few years of studying the Hawaiian language, he assumed that he had deciphered and understood the essential contents of the old "natural religion". The elements he found in this way were finally brought together in a teaching building, to which he gave the Hawaiian name Huna , which translated means secret or secret knowledge . He published several books on the subject and founded Huna Research Associates in 1946 , which devoted itself to the further study of the teaching he had set up. Long headed this organization until 1971, since then the institute has been led by his successor, Otha Wingo. For many years Max Freedom Long and his Huna Research remained the only authoritative source of information for those interested in "Huna" and Hawaiian neo-shamanism.

Serge Kahili King

According to his own statement, the psychologist Serge Kahili King (maiden name Serge King) was accepted into his family by Wana Kahili - comparable to the way in which apprentices were traditionally accepted into the family of a master in Germany - and trained there over many years as a Kahuna . In 1973 he founded his own society for the dissemination and teaching of the Huna system ( Order of Huna International ). He wrote a number of books on Huna and explained the teaching in lectures and seminars. Today the version of the teaching according to Serge Kahili King is the most widespread.

The teaching

"The world is what you think it is."

The contents of the teachings of Long and King are very similar in principle, only differing in points that are not of central importance. Both describe Huna as a system that is supposed to enable the user to influence his fate and the reality surrounding him with the help of magic .

It is claimed that the reality in which a person lives is an exact image of conscious and unconscious beliefs and beliefs. One can exert an influence on reality by changing these beliefs profoundly and permanently.

The four levels

Huna names four levels of meaning:

  • The objective level
  • The subjective level
  • The symbolic level
  • The holistic level

While € 50 is just € 50 on the objective level and everyone agrees on it, on the subjective level they mean, for example, a new pair of shoes, a ticket home or a dinner with a friend, on the symbolic level, for example stand for a gift or a recognition and on the holistic level they are just part of a financial system that belongs to an economy that has a meaningful place in the universe as part of it.

Most principles and techniques work on the subjective and symbolic level. Therefore, they do not initially develop an objective, but rather a subjective or symbolic effect, which can of course manifest itself on the objective level.

The three parts of the self

Huna looks at three different but inseparably linked “selves”. This tripartite division is arbitrary but useful.

  • The Lono (ʻUhane: "soul") - middle or outer self: seat of the human waking consciousness and the rational mind. Its central function is the development of the will , because it is the task of the lono to make decisions about the direction in which people think and act.
  • The Ku (ʻUnihipili: "spirit of a deceased relative") - lower or actual self, also inner self or lower self: The function of this self is in parts identical to the western concept of the unconscious . The essential task of the Ku is to organize and manage the memory of humans. In this context it is responsible for the formation of emotions . Furthermore it controls all unconscious functions of the human body. Only the “Ku” would have access to the “Aumakua” , the third self of man.
  • The Kane or Aumakua ("ancestral spirit", "family protection spirit", or Kumupaʻa, "principle" or ʻaoʻao, "relationship" , here to an ancestral spirit ) - high or divine self, superconsciousness: This self represents the connection between man and the “otherworldly “The world represents. It is the representative of the human being on the higher divine level and, in interaction with the forces that rule there, the creator of concrete earthly reality.

The Huna doctrine presupposes the existence of such an otherworldly plane of existence and declares this to be the cause of all worldly phenomena. Huna positively postulates that the human body is a materialized thought of the higher self. According to the Huna followers, this applies to the entire world of phenomena: Everything in the world, even every grain of sand, has its own Aumakua , and so the whole world is an expression and materialization of the common thoughts of the community of the high selves ( poe aumakua ) . The reality on this physical level is called Kino (body, embodiment) in Hawaiian .

The seven principles

Huna names seven principles, which are described below from Huna's point of view:

principle meaning colour animal
Ike Awareness White Dolphin
Kala freedom red bird
Makia focus orange (Predatory) cat
Manawa Now yellow Buffalo, elephant
Aloha love green Horse, unicorn
Mana Power blue bear
Pono flexibility violet wolf
  • Ike, the world is what you think it is. Rain can (subjectively) be good for the harvest or bad for a picnic, for example. This also implies the phrase “everything has a dream of its own”. The word dream is best rendered in German as "inner film".
    ( Hawaiian ʻike means see, feel and know .)
  • Kala, there are no limits. All boundaries - including definitions and stipulations - are (subjectively) arbitrary and can be changed or overcome if you find out how to do that. For example, centuries ago it was completely impossible to fly to the moon or send a message to the other side of the world in an instant. It's possible today because we've figured out how to do it. This principle of freedom also implies the shamanic phrase that everything is connected.
    ( kala means free and liberate , also to forgive .)
  • Makia, the energy flows where the attention is. Conversely, attention also flows to where there is energy.
    ( Makia means goal or purpose .)
  • Manawa, now is the moment of power. There is (subjectively) only the present moment. The past is over and the future is not here yet. What is there of the past now is the memory of it and the importance that is (subjectively) attached to it. This meaning can now be freely chosen if it is useful or wholesome. Likewise, there are (subjectively) only plans for the future now and these can now be changed if this is useful.
    ( manawa means time or season .)
  • Aloha, to love means to be happy with. Love feels good If it doesn't feel good, it's not love, but possibly some form of fear.
    ( aloha means to like, to love and to greet , and as a noun, sympathy, love, pity or greeting .)
  • Mana, all power comes from within. The power to change one's own life does not (subjectively) lie with a higher authority, e.g. B. Parents, God, boss or government, but with yourself. For everything that happens to you in life you are (at least partly) responsible.
    ( Mana means power , both political and spiritual, and also, for example, the effectiveness of a drug.)
  • Pono, effectiveness is the measure of truth. There is always another way. If something doesn't work, you're welcome to do something else.
    ( pono means right, fair and successful , as nouns duty, fairness, morality, success and well-being , and as verbs must .)

Aka and Mana

To illustrate the forces and relationships that are supposedly at work here, the authors fall back on set pieces and fragments of the old Hawaiian religion:

  • Aka : In Hawaiian Aka means "shadow" and convey the essence of a thing. In the event of a sacrifice, the Hawaiians believe that the gods would eat the shadow of the pig, etc., and the humans would eat the meat. The Huna doctrine postulates that the entire “real” world is permeated by “ subtle ” Aka substance . Every concrete appearance - be it human, animal, plant or stone - would find its image in that one. This applies not only to the physical appearance of things, but also to fleeting appearances such as human thoughts and feelings. Huna calls this image "shadow body" and means a subtle matrix in which a kind of blueprint of the dynamic reality of life is contained. If this matrix changes, then reality will also change. A certain resemblance to this concept can be found in the esoteric ideas of the etheric and astral bodies .
  • Mana : According to the followers of the Huna, mana is an energy thatflowsin the Aka forms of things in order to fill them with life. They believe that reality is shaped according to the image of reality in which the flow of this energy is strongest. "Ku" is ableto collect mana and direct it in a certain direction. The Huna concept of “mana” partly finds a correspondence in the ideas of various teachings of a “universal life force”, such as prana , qi (ch'i), orgone and others. However, the Huna teachings personalize this power by connecting those with the worldly abilities and will of those whoacquire and use mana . In Polynesian, mana means “power” as well as “ability” and “energy”. The use of mana for magical purposes is, according to the advocates of the doctrine, a targeted use of that vital energy, bound to the abilities and will of the user, in order to realize “magical” goals.

Magical action

In order to carry out a successful "magical act" in the sense of the Huna doctrine, the proponents of the doctrine believe that the following requirements must be met:

  • Elaboration of an exact thought picture of the desired state of reality. (Aka-thought-form, seen as "germ" or "seed".)
  • "Kala" : clearing the way, inner purification. Possible conscious as well as unconscious doubts and internal resistances, which stand in the way of the realization of the desired state, should be removed here. The Huna supporters emphasize that a magical act can only be accompanied by success if all three human selves are in harmony and work together towards this goal.
  • Establishing a connection to the higher self to initiate the flow of mana and guide it into the elaborated thought form of the requested reality.

To facilitate this process, followers of the teaching suggest a number of supportive measures: Different types of meditation, e.g. B. Piko-Piko, Huna prayers, breathing exercises, special massages and various forms of ritual activities. The realization of a magical project can therefore require a multi-stage and lengthy procedure.

criticism

More recently, there have been increasing voices from Hawaii who question the authenticity of the teachings of both Max Freedom Long and Serge Kahili King. They try to revive the original rites and practices of the ancient Hawaiian culture and point out that the name "Huna" alone is a falsification. Furthermore, they criticize the fact that a “kahuna” in its original meaning does not have to be a shaman and not necessarily a priest: Any expert - be it a boat builder, fisherman or cook - can be a kahuna as long as his life and thinking are within the cultural framework and religious beliefs of ancient Hawaiian traditions.

Recognized in Hawaii, kahuna and expert on Hawaiian history and culture, Charles Kenn, was Long, but judged Huna: "This Huna study is an interesting study ... but it is not and never was Hawaiian." (“While this Huna study is an interesting study,… it is not, and never was Hawaiian.”) Professor Lisa Kahaleole Hall writes that Huna "bears absolutely no resemblance to any Hawaiian worldview or spiritual practice" and calls it part " the spirit industry of the New Age " Kū, Lono and Kāne were mainly three of the four highest gods in ancient Hawaii: Kū was the god of forest and hunting and god of war, Lono was the god of agriculture and Kāne the creator, ancestor of man and God of fresh water. The fourth was the sea god Kanaloa, whom the missionaries tried to push into the role of the devil and who perhaps because of this does not appear in the Huna system.

However, neither Long nor King ever claimed to depict and represent the old, historically evolved structures of the Hawaiian religion in their works, even if they explicitly refer to them. The essence of the various Kahuna is differentiated in King's works and the reference to the Kahuna Kupua is called. Since, for example, the animals that are mentioned in the Huna as symbols of the seven principles, such as the elephant, do not even occur in Hawaii, there is no doubt that these assignments have no historical authenticity, but were only made by Long or King in modern times .

Serge Kahili King claims to have initially tried with moderate success to teach the alleged Hawaiian " shamanism " (the majority of ethnologists do not include Polynesia in shamanistic concepts) in courses lasting several months from the Hawaiian tradition, which the participants asked him about had what actually "Huna" was now. Under the impression of these difficulties, he more and more worked out their core ideas and converted them into an easily communicable form for the modern, urban person of Western culture. Although this easily communicable form contains numerous references to the Hawaiian tradition, it is at least to a considerable extent an artificial product of the efforts of Max Freedom Long, Serge Kahili King and their companions. The extent to which the traditional Hawaiian view of the original religion is actually reproduced in the Huna is not clearly indicated. According to the Hawaiian healer and culture expert Mary Kawena Pukui, gods and guardian spirits were not parts of the soul for the pre-Christian Hawaiians, but rather parts of external reality, such as fish and canoes, but also prayers and curses. The concept of the aumākua, often thought of as persons and comparable to the Roman Lares , "goes beyond the normal, limited concept of the superego," said Dr. Haertig, Honolulu psychologist.

Serge Kahili King openly states that Huna is as fictitious as any other philosophical, religious, or spiritual system, and in a way that, in his opinion and experience, works well. Because according to him, the external reality is a function of the psyche is , no philosophy of physical reality also Huna measure must meet not. On the contrary - according to its seven principles, physical reality corresponds to current philosophy.

Parallels and differences to other systems are shown, for example to constructivism , Christianity , Buddhism , esotericism , New Age , neo-shamanism and NLP . Serge Kahili King states that people in different parts of the world have often found the same answers to the same questions.

Finally, the Order of Huna International is accused of trading esoteric items of dubious effectiveness, e.g. B. Talismans, tattoos, stones. It should be noted that the principles of the effectiveness of such esoteric objects are described in detail by King in "Urban Shaman" and it becomes clear from this that there is no objective effectiveness here, but a potential subjective effectiveness due to the subjectively given meaning to such symbols. This can be interpreted as an honest handling of this allegation.

Scientific discussion with Huna

King himself also dealt scientifically with the subject of Huna in the course of his life. As part of his dissertation, written in 1978 at California Western University, Santa Ana, CA, he analyzed the psychological effects of the methods of the Kahunas under the title The Psychological Healing System Of The Kahunas . Paltin (1986) provides further investigations into the medical mode of action of Huna. More recent scientific investigations deal primarily with the use of Huna in western culture (Cech 2002) - but especially in companies (Frost & Egri 1994, Netzer 2000). Current analyzes deal with Huna especially against the background of ethics (Roedenbeck 2006, Roedenbeck 2007) and coaching (Roedenbeck 2009) in companies.

literature

Scientific literature

  • Ursula Cech: Kahuna Revival. About the magical-shamanic-spiritual HUNA system from Hawaii and its possible effects in our ratio-dominated society. Dissertation, University of Vienna, Vienna 2002.
  • Peter J. Frost, Carolyn P. Egri: The Shamanic Perspective on Organizational Change and Development. In: Journal of Organizational Change Management , Vol. 7 (1994), Issue 1, pp. 7-23, ISSN  0953-4814 .
  • Serge K. King : The Psychological Healing System Of The Kahunas. In: Psychology. California Western University, Santa Ana, CA 1978.
  • Christof Netzer: The concept of motivation in HUNA shamanism. Implications for understanding and criticizing the organization of work. Thesis. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck 2002.
  • Samuel J. Paltin: Huna of Hawaii. A System of Psychological Theory and Practice. In: Hawaii Medical Journal , Vol. 45 (1986), No. 7, pp. 213-218, ISSN  0017-8594 .
  • Marc R. Roedenbeck: Management and "huna". Integrating Ancient Hawai'ian Spirituality into Daily Ethical Management? In: Ethical Aspects of Management in Theory and Practice. Berlin 2006.
  • Marc R. Roedenbeck: Spirituality in Organizational Self-Transformation. The Case of the Hawai'ian Spirituality "huna". In: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual International Conference on Advances in Management. 14, 2007, pp. 103-106.
  • Marc R. Roedenbeck: Individual paths in management. Model development and approaches to overcoming paths; Considerations on the Munchausen Dilemma . Gabler, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8349-1409-5 (also dissertation Freie Universität Berlin 2008).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pukui, Mary Kawena, Haertig, EW and Lee, Catherine A .: Nānā i ke kumu / Look to the source, Honolulu: The Queen Liliʻuokalani Children's Center Publications, 1972, rep. 2002, Vol. 1, p. 1 ("ʻahaʻaina", Festmahl), p. 10 ("Aka")
  2. ^ Scott SC Stone: Living Treasures of Hawaii 25th Anniversary of the Selections of Outstanding Persons as Honored by The Honpa Honwanji Mission of Hawaiʻi . Island Heritage, Honolulu 2000, p. 24.
  3. ↑ Pali Jae Lee: Ho'opono . Night Rainbow Publishing, Honolulu 1999, ISBN 978-0-9677253-6-9 , p. 56.
  4. ↑ "'Hawaiian at Heart' and Other Fictions," The Contemporary Pacific, Volume 17, Number 2, 404-413, © 2005 by University of Hawai'i Press http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle /10125/13881/v17n2-404-413-dialogue2.pdf?sequence=1
  5. ↑ Pukui, Mary Kawena, Haertig, EW and Lee, Catherine A .: Nānā i ke kumu / Look to the source, Honolulu: The Queen Liliʻuokalani Children's Center Publications, 1972, rep. 2002, vol. 1, p. 23 f. (" akua , God").
  6. ↑ Pukui, Mary Kawena, Haertig, EW and Lee, Catherine A .: Nānā i ke kumu / Look to the source, Honolulu: The Queen Liliʻuokalani Children's Center Publications, 1972, rep. 2002, vol. 1, p. 23 f. (" akua , God") and 35ff. (" aumākua , ancestors"), vol. 2, p. 121 ff. (" Nā pule , Die Gebete").
  7. ↑ "It seems important that these are family gods with names ... they seem a somewhat mystical and externalized form of deeply ingrained family traditions, family mores, standards and values. All of these have similar broad standards in many families, but each has its unique variances in each particular family. I think this goes beyond the ordinary, limited concept of super-ego " . Ibid. Vol. 1, p. 42.