Thanks for your comments, Paul, I appreciate them. I've been thinking about what you wrote in the light of the film, The Conversation, and the Gene Hackman role, and let me just respond. I would question how natural is the 'natural' shroud that you mentioned. Once we're born, between birth and death, there is no need for any sort of shroud. The fact that the Gene Hackman character is having a nervous breakdown points to the unnaturalness of a shroud while we're alive. Separateness must be an unnatural state for us. Community, inclusiveness, intimacy keeps us healthy. Our task (one of a myriad of course) is to detect this unnatural shroud, and then to somehow discard it, because it prevents us from living fully. Thanks again for your response.

The concept of a natural shroud is a theme of "The Conversation" (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, in which Gene Hackman plays Harry Caul, who is having a nervous breakdown. Harry's last name refers to the fetal membrane that can surround a baby at birth. This symbolizes Harry's separateness from others, his own life and inner self, even as he spies intimately on others (he is a professional private investigator at the advent of wiretapping's high-tech era). The film references Antonioni's "Blowup" (1966) and predates (cinematically) "The Lives of Others" (2006, Foreign Language Film Oscar). The theme of masking, covering and shielding is conveyed in the film in the raincoat that Harry wears, the translucent plastic interior walls of his San Francisco warehouse workshop and the final climatic scene. In the tomb of his lonely room, Harry Caul is a Lazarus who may or may not rise from the dead. He may finally be listening to his own voice, or a higher power, and having the conversation he should have had all along. Or not.

Thanks for the reflection on this question, James. On one hand, I was wondering if anything that is not specifically liturgical is automatically shaministic, but that isn't true either. Yet, the shroud I used is a tool that has no antecedent. It's purposes are for healing. Physically, in some ways it resembles a discarded snake skin. However, I'm not trying to enter the natural world the 'different reality' like you mentioned above. Maybe that's the crucial difference, the interaction with the environment. Does the shroud straddle categories, maybe?

I see Shamanism as entering into a deeper relationship with the environment thru ritualistic practice. One can even call it a kind of prayer but not in the western sense ... Right now I see it as a meditative practice. However, it's beliefs do state that a practitioner does actually enter into a different reality. I believe this is what western Church has a problem with... I am wondering if this is simply another example of prejudice because of inadequate knowledge.