BECOMINGANIMAL

In 1980 French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and psychoanalyst Félix Guttari (1930–1992) publishedA Thousand Plateaus, the second part ofCapitalism and Schizophrenia(part 1 is entitledAnti-Oedipus[1972]). Deleuze and Guttari speak of “vitalism,” a sea of constant flow, flux, change, and “becoming,” and in chapter 10, entitled “Memories of aSorcerer,” they outline how “we sorcerers” engage with becoming by “becominganimal,” a form ofshape-shiftingortransformationcalledtheriomorphism. Unusually for Western philosophy, shape-shifting in this instance should not be read as a metaphor, analogy, or form of mimesis: for Deleuze and Guttari, becoming-animal is notimaginalor fantasy but “perfectly real” (1980, 238, also 273–74). In their disruption of Cartesian, Hegelian, and other Western philosophies, and indeed the Modern condition, Deleuze and Guttari might be argued to offer a critical, postmodern methodology for engaging with indigenous realities such as shamanisms andanimism. Matt Lee examines the Edwardian artist-shamanAustin Osman Sparein this light, arguing that Spare is Deleuzian in the sense that he no longer insists on a focus on the “magician” as controller, perceiver, or creator: Sparean sorcery is “a technique not of . . . ego-dissolution but . . . [of engagement] with . . . the ocean of becoming.”