SHAMANISM and CHRISTIANITY

Been wrestling with Jordan Peterson and the storyteller Martin Shaw. Public intellectuals who claim that Christianity is an advance on the pagan religions. Lying in bed this morning, prostrated with the lurgy, I felt my heels dig in at a deep soul level. They are both wrong, and I'm not having any of it! It is their own need for certainty, and cheaply bought. It leads to dominant behaviour over other faiths and even over whole cultures.

True faith is more subtle than that. That is why I am Shamanic. There is no holy book, no holy founder, no historical event on which to base an easy certainty. Just you and the natural world as a living presence. It is the original way, always there to fall back on in a simple act of remembrance. Of course, you could in turn view Shamanism as 'better' than what came after. There is no stopping some people. But I think it less easily lends itself to that, as there is less that is tangible to centre such a belief around.

 

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FOOLS CROW and CHRISTIANITY

What I really object to in Christianity is their attitude of thinking themselves 'better' than other traditions. And in particular as representing some kind of advance on indigenous ways, which become 'primitive' by implication. Christians may conceal this attitude, but it is there as soon as you view Jesus as a unique historical event. It is a hidden poison.

The Native Americans had Christianity forced upon them. Of course they did: being a more advanced religion, it was for their own good. Nevertheless, an accommodation can be reached. Here is what Fools Crow, a great 20th century Sioux Medicine Man, says:

"I am still a practising Roman Catholic. I go to Mass once or twice a month. At the same time, we live according to the traditional religious beliefs and customs of our people, and we find few problems with the differences between the two. Many things we believe about God are the same.

"Today, most Sioux feel as we do, but it was not always this way. Some of the things the new faiths said were hard to take, especially their belief that we did not know the true God and that Sioux medicine and ceremonies were things of the devil. So we rejected these views until their positions began to change."

 

 

Above is the book on Fools Crow that I'm reading. There are two of them by Thomas E Mails. The 2nd is called 'Wisdom and Power'