Native American Spirituality: An Educational Revolution

"One of the great teachings said that the other three races, we only come in four colors, will come and each direction on the medicine wheel. The yellow from the east, black from the south, red in the west, and white people in the north and we are born of one mother so we are related… so it was inevitable that the other three races would come here. What is coming out of the ashes of how they have all come here is a rebirth and a regeneration of First Generations’ culture. We are moving into the year 2000 and we have not been assimilated, or obliterated, or erased. We are going to go for another 100 years--if I have anything to say about it.” Shannon Thunderbird


AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION
THE NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE
SHANNON THUNDERBIRD: WE HAVE NOT BEEN ASSIMILATED
THE ASSIMILATION OF CAROLINE MYSS
CEREMONY: THE REAWAKENING OF THE SUNPRIEST COMMUNITY

AN EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION

The “Gaia Hypothesis,” being taught in public schools, was initially articulated in 1969 by chemist James Lovelock. Lovelock concentrated on the nature of the earth’s atmosphere and argued that “the entire range of living matter on earth, from whales to viruses, from oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living entity, capable of manipulating the earth’s atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts (“Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Lovelock, New York, Oxford University Press, 1979).”

The Gaia Hypothesis suggests that the earth is a self-regulationg, self-sustaining entity, which continually adjusts its environment in order to support life. In the Gaia framework, the division between animal, vegetable, and mineral is erased and all is “nature.” Our common understanding of "nature" is now being considered fiction.

Environmentalists, dedicated to preserving the earth and arguing the need to reharness human energy from war-making to earth-keeping are inspired. Humans may actually be merely passengers on the planet rather then managers of it and may be nothing more than a transitory phase. Humans may even need to "reconcile" themselves to their function within the all-embracing Gaia. Gaia Hypothesis

In an article for a recent public high school history class in a suburb of Chicago, students were assigned to read about “the cause of violence” according to Zenobai Barlow.(11) Barlow, is at the heart of the educational revolution aimed at reconnecting students to te natural world. She says, “If we are to survive as a species we need to shape minds capable of grasping ecological understanding.” Barlow directs “The Center of Ecoliteracy” and wants to help young children hold on to the wonder they naturally find in trees, rivers, and animals… As the children learn that their actions make a tangible difference in the world around them, they will also be building a sense of belonging to a place.

Chief Executive officer, Dr. Michael S. Coffman, president of Environmental Perspectives, says, "They are instituting a new state religion." It is a religion at sharp variance with the Judeo-Christian foundations of the American constitutional republic. A document mandated by the U.N.--sponsored Convention on Biological Diversity, the Global Biodiversity Assessment, explicitly refers to Christianity as a faith that has set humans "apart from nature," a process in which nature has "lost its sacred qualities."
Barlow grew up on a ranch in Texas and claims that the physical environment in which she grew up helped her learn early about the connection between people and the landscape. She claims that this connection radically alters how we behave toward each other and how we move through our days. Recently, she has been the executive director of the Elmwood Institute, and ecological think tank and international network of activists and scholars founded by physicist, systems theorist, and author Fritjof Capra. Barlow is also and accomplished photographer and has traveled extensively documenting forms of worship and spiritual practices around the globe. At her home she promotes gardening with the neighborhood children with the double meaning about how humans have “always learned”---by working alongside the ones they love.

Barlow encourages “pulling the weeds” out of the gardens which bring us back to our humanness.. She claims that when she gets children to work together in the gardens it helps them to understand what it feels like to be connected to the rhythms and cycles of the natural world. Barlow’s ultimate judgement came when she shared that it was the children in nonenvironmental groups that would throw rocks at birds rather than nurture them. She went on to say that it’s important to see other beings as relatives with whom we can interact in a meaningful and respectful way.

Barlow believes that, although indigenous peoples have just as many squabbles as we do, they make a commitment to cooperate because they know they are in it for the long run. She says she has learned a lot from her Okanagan Indian activist friend who perceives her world as a series of nestled systems, joining individual, family, community, and land into one dynamic whole. Her friend has been involved with Native American leaders and environmental activists and scholars conducting ceremonies modeled on the four societies of Okanagan communities.

From this experience Barlow has adopted the four Okanagan societies into what she calls the “four perspectives”: Vision, Place, Community, and Action. She has introduced “this process”(Hegel’s dialectic) to many organizations. Sustainable societies, or self-sufficient communes are the new wave of the future replacing the mere “rationality” the Westerners have prided themselves in. These communities are able to “maximize their diversity at the same time that they reinforce their interdependence” (dialectic). For the schools, teams of teachers are needed to reinforce an integrated curriculum.

They will need to all be reinforcing the same conceptual understandings and intellectual themes in different contexts (dialectic). Schools need enlightened leaders and the indigenous model for education encourages teachers to suspend judgment, not to impose their will, and to trust that meaning will emerge out of the students experience(intuitive). But when morality is relative, individual rights outweigh public good. Society is broken up into small groups with common morals and goals. The groups are pitted against each other demanding their “rights.” People are to think of themselves as members of a certain gender, group, race, culture, or moral. Feminists, homosexuals, and other civil rights activists encourage fragmentation as they seek special privileges for themselves.


In America, writers like Laura Ingalls once won the hearts of our youth with their stories of America's life on the frontier....attending Sunday school, memorizing Bible verses, and strong morals and family ties. She stressed the value of “time away from the crowds” to not be drawn into their way of thinking. American writers once almost unavoidably wrote in biblical language, whatever the subject, but even in Christian schools today, youth will meet evolutionism, humanism, and the occult. Today, Harry Potter's occult stories "required reading," and read to children in their mother's lap. Most public high school science book’s ideas about evolution are all outdated by the latest evolutionary ideas, which, although they appear to keep disproving themselves, are considered “facts.” Ironically, science is defined as observable, testable, repeatable, and falsifiable. Although evolution fails all of these criteria, modern evolutionists in effect have defined science to be "naturalism" and declared evolution to be a fact. Even ethical matters (birth control, population control, conservation, animal rights, etc.) are to be taught from this evolutionary perspective.

“Rolling Thunder” the Shoshone Indian medicine man has said, “Scientists will eventually discover what pagans have always known.” That’s exactly what is happening with the invasion of Eastern’s mysticism into the West. Hinduism is taught at all schools across the United States k-university. Hindu occultism is being openly taught in spite of the otherwise enforced separation of church and state. Spirituality is “in” and it has nothing to do with Christianity. (15) The Ten Indian Commandments are allowed hang on the wall of a classroom at a public high school in the suburbs of Chicago(separation of church and state?):

Remain close to the “Great Spirit”
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Be truthful and honest at all times
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well being of mind and body
Treat all earth and all that dwell thereon with respect
Take full responsibility for your actions
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good
Work together for the benefit of all mankind.

The true source of education restructuring has nothing to do with education in the academic sense, but education in the philosophical and esoteric religious sense. Behind the Global Education Project, the Design Teams consisted of strong proponents and activists for globalism and New Age philosophy. One of the many places occultic roots are found are in Dr. Dorothy J. Maver’s “Seven Rays” educational theory. Her seven rays hypothesis states that each person has more than one intelligence, known as “rays,” that determine their evolutionary destiny. Humanity is being shuttled toward global interdependency based on the evolutionary belief that all life forms are of equal value. The heart of te education restructuring movement lies in nature worship. Ecological awareness is a “main thrust” of the new education. Many on the Design Team perceive that the Hindus are correct in calling the earth God. There is a spiritual “at-one-ment” with nature—a unified world system where the individual is subordinated into the whole. Education under the direction of the UN will lead the way to this realization. The disciplines for defining this “new education” is very subjective and intuitive and is actually based on the ancient wisdom of the mystery schools. (5)

Multiculturalsim promotes global education(one-world government). In the June 25, 2003 Chicago Daily Herald, Chad Brooks wrote, "Hoffman High Even Brings Students and Community Together." At the end of the school year the students got the chance to learn just what a diverse world they live in. "Diversity Day" was hosted by the school's Human Relations Club. It featured presentations on the practices and cultures of Islam, Sikh religion, as well as the gay and lesbian culture.... The club strives to make everyone feel comfortable. The Human Relations Club boasts that it is the largest in the school! The next generation is being taught to think dialectic and they won't believe in God because they are always going to question who he is. They will fall into the course of the New World Order that will worship man the creation, and not the Creator. The dialectic treats you as a human resource, something within creation. It takes man who fears God and turns him into an animal which fears man. If animals are supposed to fear man, then you are no different than an animal. But God has not created us that way. We are accountable to His laws. Jesus said this world is not His kingdom. He is going to return and judge this world for its dialectic process. He will deliver those who refuse to participate in this process and hold Him as the way, the truth, and the life. Repentance is deliverance from the dialectic process. (4)


THE NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE

From the Christian perspective, after the Flood, God caused the people of the world to speak many different languages and scattered them from the tower of Babel “upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9). The first people to come to America were probably hunters following the trail of animals that had begun to multiply and spread out. The early Indians had forsaken the things that their ancestors knew about God. They passed down inaccurate stories about the Creation and the Flood and they worshiped the things that they could not explain, like thunder, wind, fire, and the sun. Although the Indians are viewed in awe by many because of their appreciation for nature, they have not always lived in peaceful way or ways that were good for the environment. They did not always behave in ways that were best for the family life either. Their religious leaders were called medicine men. Not only were wars between the tribes common as many tribes shifted to new areas and pushed existing tribes off the land, but an account of some of their ceremonies could outdo any of the current attacks on Spain’s conquistadors or the Puritans and their beliefs.

New Agers claim the early Indians were champions of harmony and wisdom, but they were not. Native tribes in the Americas offered hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices to their false gods. Facts about pagan cultures are being hidden and history is being rewritten as the American culture has largely turned its back on God. Christianity is mocked and even censored in schools. In the 1700’s Rousseau’s ideas were promoted. He said that man himself is the only god and the most primitive man, the one who is the closest to nature, is the purest. When Columbus first met the Arawak Indians they warned him about the fierce Indian tribe of cannibals called the Caribs. The Caribbean Sea is named after them. Both the Arawaks and the Caribs practiced a pagan, panteistic religion that involved many immoral practices. In Cowboy Wash in southwest Colorado archaeologists have unearthed three collapsed pit dwellings that had been abandoned in the 1100s. The bones of seven people were found in the cooking pots with clear evidence that they had been eaten. According to Scientist Richard Marlar at the University of Colorado, “They had a human meat meal.” For at least 600 years the Anasazi Indians spread through what is now Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. But by the year 1300 they mysteriously vanished. (14)

The Maya also practiced pagan religion with human sacrafice and between 1519-1521 Cortez conquered the Aztec Indians with the help of neighboring tribes who had been victims of human sacrifice for the Aztecs worship of the gods of nature. Although they had an advanced civilization, they worshipped hundreds of gods. They centered their worship on the “sun god.” They believed that they were “chosen” people of the sun god and that they needed to supply him with human sacrifices. They judged their righteousness solely on the submission to the gods. (10, pp.234, 235).

Practicing witch Patricia Telesco and American Indian Don Two Eagles Waterhawk write of uniting all of humankind into a greater community in which we are all a part of: the earth and her people. In their book “Sacred Beat,” they believe that as we all come together we grow and transform the coming together of the “All” in community will round out the whole. The "All' is the totality of our diversity and harmony of will and tought that creates the "potential" to raise the direct power for the good of the "All." To the Indian tribal religions, the unity of life is manifested in the existence of the tribal community, for it is only in the tribal community that any Indian religions have relevance. (16)

In James Jeans book “Physics and Philosophy” he suggests that a profound view of nature lies in the concept of community: “Space and time are inhabited by distinct individuals, but when we pass beyond space and time, from the world of phenomena towards reality, individuality is replaced by community. When we pass beyond space and time, they (separate individuals) may perhaps form ingredients of a single continuous stream of life.” With the nature of the world as a “single continuous stream of life,” The Native American reasons that one can learn to hear the trees talk and that it would be strange if they did not communicate. (2, p. 93). When the Anishinabe go hunting, hunting is regarded as an act of communication between human and animal persons: animals who have their own language, need to be persuaded to give up their bodies by the assurance that humans will make restoration so that the spirit of the dead animal will be reborn: through rituals the hunter and the hunted are connected to each other. (9, p.36).

“Buried within you are memories of your ancient natural habitat—the primeval forest. Your awakening environment consciousness is in essence a remembering of your true place in nature… history and mythology of sacred trees and tree worship around the world… choices you can make to achieve spiritual growth through communication with the tree kingdom… exercises and meditations show you how to communicate directly with the tree Devas for healing and spiritual guidance. The Douglas Fir Deva speaks to the author, “Many within the human kingdom continue to see themselves as elevated above other forms of life on the planet, and thus separate from them. You are coming to a personal awareness that you have a far deeper connection with other forms of life than you have realized…..authors of ‘The Newcastle Guide to Healing with Gemstones,’ maintain a private counseling practice, creating an individualized energy environment that empowers people to contact their own inner guidance and healing resources. Their work focuses on learning self-love through a deeper spiritual connection to the mineral and plant kingdoms.” Newpagebooks

In March 1991, a six-day meditation retreat specifically for environmentalists gathered in Malibu, California which included members of Greenpeace, Earth First, Earth Island Institute, Rainforest Action Network, Natural Resources Defense Council, and other environmental organizations. The retreat stressed “deep, inner peace” for environmental activists, many of whom were Buddhists. On “Earth Day” 1990 the San Francisco Zen Center celebrated including a dedication to animals and plants that had died in the garden: “… Plants and animals in the garden, we welcome you… We ask your forgiveness and your understanding..." The ritual, supposedly, directly addressed unseen beings or spirits, and invites them into a sacred space, expresses sentiments from grief to awe. New Age "Crosscurrents": The Greening of Buddhist Practice
ETERNAL NOW: REINTEGRATION OF HUMANS WITH NATURE

In a mystical form of humanism which denies the depravity of man, PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGE is brought on through emptying the mind through meditation (THE SILENCE) and is said to offer society a clearer understanding of what it will take for a successful “REINTEGRATION OF HUMANS IN NATURE,” called ETERNAL NOW.” A mystic is one who is “sensuously” a person who is aware of his INSEPARABILITY FROM THE UNIVERSE. You die to yourself and you are reborn as everything. The real meaning of concentration is “TO BE IN YOUR CENTER—CENTERING.” Rocks are not dead and the sound that resonates when you tap on a crystal is an extremely primitive form of consciousness. Your behavior cannot be separated from the world around you: YOU ARE SOMETHING THAT THE WHOLE WORLD IS DOING.” Just as when the sea has waves on it the ocean is waving, each one of us is waving the whole cosmos. (Mystical Humanism, The Aquarian Conspiracy, New Consciousness, Holistic Health Movement, Human Potential Movement, New Orientalism..). (13)

New Age author Richard Foster seeks to “RE-CREATE SILENCE” in his meditative disciplines: focusing on the silence of the universe. Contemplatives from the Middle Ages called it “RECOLLECTION,” and the New Age calls it “CENTERING” (Richard Foster, “Celebration of Discipline,” p.24, emphasis mine). New Age Mysticism—Pantheism: “After you have gained some proficiency in centering down, add five-to-ten minute MEDITATION ON SOME ASPECT OF CREATION. Choose something in the created order: tree, plant, bird, leaf, cloud, and each day PONDER ON IT CAREFULLY AND PRAYERFULLY. The simplest and oldest way in which God manifests Himself is through and in the earth itself… (p.25).

SELF-HYPNOSIS creates the same states of consciousness that you experience under drugs and in yoga and it is at the heart of the self-improvement and positive attitude courses. The New Age uses formulas and sounds as concentration objects, and through that concentration they believe that they learn the lessons of life. They believe that you can learn to hear infinite depths of sound and that when you get down into it you will be listening to the universe. Buddhists use “om” to induce a meditative state. They say that when you dig sound you realize the flow of vibration of sound is a way in which you experience basic existence, being here. Even if our intention is to serve God, SEEKING POWER FROM WITHIN IS THE DENIAL OF GOD. Any discipline of the soul and body that involves centering upon one’s inner person requires repentance. WE CANNOT SERVE, MUCH LESS WORSHIP, GOD IN OUR OWN FLESH. This is sin against the holy God that has commanded that we look only to Him for our spiritual wellbeing. “Imagination” is one of the motivating agencies that helps transform your beliefs into physical experience. The merger of science and mysticism is in full blossom and its fruit will be the coming world dictator that the Bible identifies as the antichrist.


SHANNON THUNDERBIRD: WE HAVE NOT BEEN ASSIMILITATED

Lois Larimore of “Age of E” promotes, “Everyone’s journey is different with many twists and turns along the way. We may never reach the same truth…..” Shannon Thunderbird was a guest on Larimore’s show on the Wisdom Channel during the month of July, 2004. She spoke about the sacred medicine wheel. The host opened up the interview with, “Wherever we travel in America we can find the visible reminders of the people who were here before Columbus. “An elder once said that the teaching on the medicine wheel will always exceed the sands on the beach… it is endless because our lives are endless. Our lives are a circle… The circle is about continuity, about connectedness. Everyone is equal on the circle. It is a level playing ground. When people meet and sit in the circle we are equal.” There are four stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and wiseperson status. There are also four realms of human existence: East=mental, South=spiritual, West=emotional, and the North=physical. The medicine wheel is the “blueprint” to First Nations’ teachings. The old way is done by rocks. The medicine wheel is built out in nature. The ritual involves placing the stones in a very specific way. The four biggest stones represent the directions. You start with the South, you go to the West, then you go to the North, and you close the door of the medicine wheel in the East. After that there are tentacles that come out and it almost looks like the sun. In the East you would start by laying a big stone and that would be for loyalty, then you’d lay one for truthfulness, and then one for trustworthiness… and that tentacle would go all out. The center ties all of the teaching together. When the visitors came to North America hundreds of years ago they found 20-25,000 stone medicine wheels all over the place.”

“A bear sits on the door of the Western end of the medicine wheel because the bears’ medicine is about introspection and that is what the main medicine is for in the West. Just as the bear goes into his den for six months and “dreams” about all of the wonderful things that he did on the six months he was out and wondering around. He thinks about those things “deeply.” The deer sits in the Northern door because he is about kindness and gentleness and sweetgrass… The eagle sits in the East and is about “beginning” because grandfather son rises in the east and sets in the west and so that’s a new start. The Eagle is the principle messenger of the Creator. The Buffalo’s medicine is about power because of its abundance. Everything was used. The American government cut off the buffalo to the Indian to control the Indian wars and by 1880 the last of the plains Indians were moved onto reservations. One of the great teachings said that the other three races, we only come in four colors, will come and each direction on the medicine wheel. The yellow from the east, black from the south, red in the west, and white people in the north and we are born of one mother so we are related… so it was inevitable that the other three races would come here. What is coming out of the ashes of how they have all come here is a rebirth and a regeneration of First Generations’ culture. We are moving into the year 2000 and WE HAVE NOT BEEN ASSIMILATED, OR OBLITERATED, OR ERASED. WE ARE HERE AND WE ARE GOING TO GO FOR ANOTHER 100 YEARS—IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.”

The next guest was artist and songwriter Leonard Cohen. As a “practicing Buddhist” he reflected on suffering as the root of the spiritual journey. “I don’t think that any religious quest is a sense of luxury. And I don’t think that any serious study is undertaken unless the being is broken with some kind of suffering either physical or psychic. I don’t think anyone takes a serious religious examination unless… you realize the heart is broken various paths open… and very many different paths… that’s why WE SHOULD NEVER TAKE A POSITION ON ONE PATH OR ANOTHER because the broken heart illuminates a path for each broken heart and I understand… the truth is that that is the beginning of wisdom… is to understand that you are deeply uncomfortable here and that discomfort illuminates its own solution and it’s often years before you take that solution so you poke around at the different solutions that are available… it may be you come around to the ones that are most familiar with articulating your own religion… most religions are pretty good… it may be a political solution, an ascetic solution… MAYBE A HEDONISTIC SOLUTION. NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO JUDGE ANOTHER PERSON’S SOLUTIONS to suffering.”


THE ASSIMILATION OF CAROLYN MYSS

Feeling powerless and often depressed, Caroline Myss eventually studied mysticism and schizophrenia in graduate school. She claims that mystics lives are lessons in physical, emotional, and spiritual bereavement and disempowerment, followed by rebirth into a new relationship to power. Mystics gain access to the spirit, access so profound that they become capable of “breathing an energy,” like Divine electricity, into ordinary words and acts. “Living in clarity,” and “beyond ordinary consciousness,” the mystics are said to be in continuous intimate dialogue with God. In the language of Buddhism and Hinduism, mystics are detached from the illusions of the physical world; they can see symbolically, clearly, because “they are awake.” It was THE DRAMATICAL AND EMOTIONAL INFLUENCE OF A NATIVE AMERICAN WOMAN who had a profound impact on the life of Caroline Myss. This “brief encounter” changed her life forever. It happened one day after three nights of sleepless and extensive travel (an easy target for hypnosis). Myss claims that this woman’s serenity and matter-of-fact attitude drew her into the Native American spirituality and MADE HER QUESTION THE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD SHE POSSESSED HERSELF. Native American spirituality teaches that we weave the spirit into everything we do and everyone we meet. Woven in by the spirit, Myss looked forward to this new “subjective spirituality” and hoped this new god would be “more responsive to her.”

Intuitive and New Age author Caroline Myss states in her book, “Anatomy of the Spirit,” As we shift our attention away from the external world and into the internal one, we will learn symbolic sight. We are “all the same,” and the more that we seek what is the same in all of us, the more our symbolic sight gains authority to direct us. She says that we need to INFUSE OUR DAILY LIVES WITH A HEIGHTENED CONSCIOUSNESS OF “THE SACRED.” The merging spiritual traditions of the Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish into one system with “common sacred truths” constitutes a powerful system of guidance that can enhance our minds and bodies and show us how to manage our spirits within the world. Because our biological design is also a spiritual design, the language of energy and spirit used together crosses a variety of belief systems. It opens avenues of communications between faiths, and even allows people to return to religious cultures they formerly rejected, unburdened by religious dogma.

Myss was part of the 2000 “State of the World Forum” with Mikhail Gorbachev. The intent of the “State of the World Forum” was to create a “global town meeting” in which acknowledged world leaders in business, finance, labor, science and technology, the environment, human rights, religion, and civil society would join a substantive “dialogue” with selected Heads of State on the great issues confronting all of us as we enter the era of globalization. (1)

Native American scholar and author Vine Deloria, Jr. believes that ONLY A RADICAL REVERSAL OF OUR ATTITUDES TOWARD NATURE can help us in the ecological meltdown that we face. Through protests and SYMBOLIC GESTURES, a different sense of Indian identity has been born. Because our history is far different than what we have been taught to believe, it will take constant, large protests from large groups to reprogram the psychology of American society so that we will not destroy our land. He believes that WE NEED TO APPRECIATE THE “PERSONALITY” OF OUR LANDS and that we have the potential to come to some deep religious realizations of THE ROLE OF SACRED PLACES IN HUMAN LIFE. The Indian protests that began in the 1960’s had to do with the conflict over remaining natural resources of the continent, the best of which were in Indian hands. In the 1970’s a full national Indian movement was in swing. BENEATH ALL OF THEIR PROTESTS WAS THE ISSUE OF RETURNING TO THE CEREMONIAL USE OF THE LANDS and raising the question of people and their right to a homeland. In 1971 anthropologists and archaeologists were confronted with “disturbing the dead” whenever they came across something of the Indians in their field work. By 1990 the Chicago Field Museum played a major role in bringing the museum community to see the Indian point of view. It participated in Indian/museum dialog that led to national legislation repatriating human skeletal remains to the tribes.

Deloria reasons, “I can think of no good reason why the peoples from the Near East—the peoples from the Hebrew, Islamic, and Christian religious traditions—first adopted the trappings of civilization and then forced a peculiar view of the natural world on succeeding generations. The planet, in their view, is not our natural home, and is ours for total exploitation. The world is not to be seen as a global village so much as a series of non-homogeneous pockets of identity that must eventually come into conflict because they represent different historical arrangements of emotional energy... WE MUST BE PREPARED TO CONFRONT RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES IN NEW AND NOVEL WAYS.” (2, p.65) “THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF CREATION. At the bottom of everything is a religious view of the world that seeks to locate our species within the fabric of life that constitutes the natural world, the land and all its various forms of life. As long as Indians exist there will be conflict between the tribes and any group that carelessly despoils the land and the life it supports.” (2:Introduction)


CEREMONY: THE REAWAKENING OF THE SUN PRIEST COMMUNITY

The Sun Priest community of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico is reawakening thanks to the help of anthropologist Jonathan Reyman. Fascinated by the Pueblo ceremonial life, Reyman has been responsible for a feather distribution project which is in its 21st year and has been able to attain 6.5 million feathers from across the country “free of charge.” Currently the project is maintaining aviaries on the reservations to help the Indians become self-sufficient, stop the smuggling of birds and the painful plucking of macaws and parrots. Reyman prides in the trust he has established in his project and HE VOWS NOT TO DISCLOSE ANY SACRED KNOWLEDGE OF THE CEREMONIES because his project depends on this for its success. http://www.wingwise.com/feather.htm

Wherever people are engaged in ritual practice, mandala art form evolves. Geometric art has been used throughout the ages for meditation. Authors of “Gaia Star Mandalas,” Bell & Todd had always been inspired by sacred art, especially from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. They share that their art EMERGED FROM A TRANCELIKE STATE OF PERCEPTIONAL OPENNESS. They believe that they had contact at a core level with our planet and they found the mandalas as a way to “notate,” in a visual way, the vibrational essences they drew from their contact. The mandala is a classic form of this CONTEMPLATIVE ART, WHICH ORIGINATED IN INDIA. Mandalas have a long tradition in diverse cultures like the Buddhist, Hindu, and Native American. The intricate patterns draw the viewer to the center of the image and spin them out of the vortex, thereby centering the soul and expanding your cerebral boundaries. These art forms are created to INVITE ALL PEOPLE TO CONNECT WITHT THIS VISUAL MESSAGE ABOUT THE UNION OF SPIRIT AND MATTER. Gaia is an ancient name for earth as goddess…an emerging being is emerging global being is forming in our midst. This Gaian entity contains countless diverse species and life-forms. Just as differentiated cells organize to form a complex body, myriad individual aspects of Gaia are coalescing into a new kind of planetary unity. This is happening electronically through the worldwide computer web, but it is also happening at profound levels of biological and spiritual identity. The global being is taking shape where grand laws of self-organization intersect with a planetwide intention to make a quantum leap. From this fertile conjunction, a familiar yet uplifted Earth emerges: luminous, self-aware, awake as many-in-one. This is a turned-on world—the Gaiastar. (3)

In his transcendentalist book “Sacred Places of North America,” Brad Olsen sought out experts on the subject of sacred sites; Native Americans and anyone who had an “intuitive sense” into THE POWER OF PLACE. Amongst sharing his karma statement, a travel mantra, and quoting the Dali Lama, he writes that people venture to sacred sites, consciously or unconsciously, to satisfy the human spirits desire for COMMUNION WITH THEMSELVES, OUR COLLECTIVE HUMANITY AND THE COSMOS ABOVE. You will return a much more understanding and perhaps enlightened person. He believes that sacred places must be fully explained and integrated and as others share in his mission it will provide for the betterment of all. The book is dedicated to the Canadian First Native People, the Native Americans, and the indigenous Hawaiians. Olsen’s hope is that we will learn to live in harmony and respect with all living creatures and ourselves again as we learn from these first people and their wisdom and traditions as well as our relationship with the planet and who we are collectively as a people. He says WE MUST REINVENT OURSELVES AS A UNIFIED HUMAN RACE. Along with evolution, he promotes a new dating system ousting the BC (Before Christ) and AD (anno Domini) to enable universal understanding, which is also currently used at Chicago’s Field Museum. (5)

“...things in nature work together harmoniously for the health, diversity, manifestation, and fulfillment of the contiguous whole. We are relatives, organs, and extensions of the vital whole we’re calling Gaia.... There are at least two indications of a wholly involved and dynamic community. First, WHEN SOME INSURE THERE’S AN INVESTMENT TO PURCHASE AND RE-SACRAMENT LAND FOR RITUAL AND HEALING. And second, when there IS A SUCCESSION AND OVERLAP OF LIKE-HEARTED, LIKE DIRECTED-GENERATIONS TEACHING THE CHILDREN THE WAYS OF THE EARTH AND SPIRIT.” (Jesse Wolf Hardin, “Earth & Spirit: Mother Gaia,” Circle Magazine issue 87, Spring 2003)


PANTHEISM AND THE HUMANIST MANIFESTO

Humanism is the worship of man. Pantheism runs through all of these thought patterns. In 1933 the “HUMANIST MANIFESTO I” was published in the United States, and forty years later the “HUMANIST MANIFESTO II” came out expressing the same ideas only more detailed. Humanist Manifesto I was signed by many religious liberals and key professors in American universities, including John Dewey. The Humanist Manifesto I stated that THE UNIVERSE IS SELF-EXISTENT, THAT MAN IS PART OF NATURE AND IS LARGLY SHAPED BY HIS ENVIRONMENT, religion must be divorced from the supernatural, and “a socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible.”

In 1973 the Humanist Manifesto II was signed by 261 men and women including B.F. Skinner, Alfred Ayer, Julian Huxley, Betty Friedan, Francis Crick, and Isaac Asimov. This is a large and powerful movement that consists of many of America’s leading educators, sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and liberal leaders of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish groups. Humanist Manifesto II called itself “A DESIGN FOR A SECULAR SOCIETY ON A PLANETARY SCALE.” They planned to replace God with the manifesto proposed one-world order: “the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government.” (4, p.180)

Thirty years later, in 2003, Humanist Manifesto III was published in “The Humanist” (volume 63, May/June 2003). The list of endorsers include Richard Dawkins, Ilya Prigogine, James Randi, Eugenie Scott, Oliver Stone, Gerald Larue, and others including past presidents of American Humanist Association. Lester Mondale, a retired Unitarian minister(denies the doctrine of the Trinity—emphasizes freedom of individual belief and world unity) and brother of former Vice President Walter Mondale, has been a signer of all three Humanist Manifestos. (12)
WORKS CITED

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13. Bomer, Norm. “Ancient Enemies.” Gods World News, 10/13/03.
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