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zed240

The introduction of religion into previous shamanic traditions

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I am curious as to how many, and to what extent, shamanic traditions and the use of entheogenic plants have been changed and influenced once they were "discovered" by different, more modern religions?

The one that immediately springs to my mind are the cactus of the South American people that are now very often referred to as "San Pedro". From my understanding that name came about as Spanish conquistadors invaded the areas they were used and to make sure their precious plants and traditions were not abolished entirely, as the christians did not approve of them, the native people integrated some christian names and values into their customs.

Another I wonder about is Salvia Divinorum. I see it referred to as "Ska Maria Pastora" in reference to the christian figure "virgin Mary". Unlike Huachuma, (one of the more original, native peoples names for "san pedro"), I have not yet found information about S Divinorum's use prior to christianity seeping in to it.

I wonder what other rituals, (or plant names or other interesting things), have been changed or influenced when organised religions discovered them?

I will admit I always find it a little sad to hear Cactus referred to as "San Pedro" as it serves to remind me of the oppression that christianity brought to the people and their traditions.

I apologise if this has been discussed at length here before. I have used the search function and not come across much other info. I know there are many well read and knowledgeable people on here so I'm interested to hear what you have to say.

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Hey Zed, i think you'd be hard pressed to find any shamanic traditions anywhere that are not in some way impacted by the incursion of Christianity into what was previously virgin territory (although the Tarahumara and Huichol come to mind and are hanging in there).

In some cases this is direct appropriation of Christian themes directly in ritual (huachuma mesada being a classic example, for more info see the works of Sharon, Jorlemon and Glass-Coffin; also Santo Daime and UDV with ayahuasca), but in other cases simply through attack and vilification, or the simple imposition of a new religious idea and the "benefits" of this religion like tobacco, sugar and flour and an alteration of values associated with resources such as gold and silver.

Christianity also brought a new understanding of landscape which shaped countries in which animistic/shamanistic societies previously held sway. It edged away the foundations of cultural perception (i.e. the "black magic" of australian aboriginal societies quickly lost its power under the influence of Christian ideology, for good or bad).

In other cases parallels emerged especially around the figures of Mary and Jesus and the "messiah" and the "second coming of Christ". In this example the north american Ghost Dance is instructive. Within the Native American Church peyote ceremonies are different depending on the religious denomination of the practitioners.

Since Jesus was a shaman for sure, many animistic cultures realized his message. But the colonialists themselves were brutal and violent and decimated the fundamental structure of animistic perception through destruction of landscape, genetic infilration (often non-consensual) and violence against native peoples and introduction of disease, so there are two elements to your query and they work inseparably.

In Australia most early anthropological knowledge was secured by missionaries often with a queer and perceptive understanding of animistic belief. On the other hand entire continents and their theoretical foundations were undermined by colonialists working "on behalf of the church and state".

Returning to the once huachuma now "san pedro" mesa of which i am most familiar most practitioners these days work within a framework of Christianity where idols of Saint Ciprian, Jesus, Mary and other saints appear in the mesa alongside ancient (usually north coastal) artifacts from pre-Columbian sites. But this did not happen immediately and most modern practitioners are "mestizo" and the ceremony is weighted toward prayer to God and away from visceral experience, albeit retaining elements of earlier shamanic technique.

Christianity impacted shamanic traditions by providing a counterpoint to an otherwise isolated perceptual framework. That incursion of Christian beliefs was accompanied by widespread death, disease (that, critically, could not be cured by indigenous methods) and a callous, and fracturing, attitude toward the environment compromised generally robust and functional epistemological systems. The true impact of Christianity cannot be separated from the rupturing of previously contained perceptual frameworks through near total destruction of physical systems such as local natural environments and ecosystems and community relationships and dynamics (the two are intimately related in shamanic culture).

Yet at the church in the town of Chavin on the door is a frieze of saint peter holding the "keys to heaven" alongside a picture of the lanzon, and Mary above a picture of the black and white portal holding a baby Jesus. And in front of the door are two potted huachuma plants. The wise from any culture can see the message of Jesus.

This is a big topic and worth investigating. Considerable literature exists but is widely spread across disciplines. That the shamanic traditions survived at all is remarkable and a testament to their validity and I for one welcome the archaic renaissance!

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Awesome stuff was kinda waiting for ya micro or VelvetSiren to respond :)

Given the nature of the inquisition etc its not hard to see the choices of necessity survival wise, I wonder how many people were/are true believers given the usual contradictory nature of Christianity. I guess the first generation or two would feint faith in order to keep on breathing, but once you get to the kids thats where we can really start to rewrite an entire culture.

Do the Practitioners you've spent time with consider themselves as Christians micro? like go to church and read the bible etc?

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My teachers both work with the archaic. Nevertheless, the ayahuasquero says a short prayer to Mary before every ceremony; the huachumero has a rosary bead with Jesus on the cross on his mesa, but not in a central location. That's about the end of it, their methods are about as pre-colonial as you can find in a post-colonial world.

In other Western countries where I have seen ayahuasca used what is frequent is the incorporation of buddhist/eastern philosophical ideas, but these are western people not indigenous. I have never seen eastern ideas incorporated in south american shamanism by mestizos although many of the concepts overlap, the chakras being one. Chakra incidentally in quechua is a small circular clearing in the forest for growing food (yams, corn, beans etc.). I always liked that curious and coincidental connection.

I actually think many did become, and are, firm believers. Certainly in Australia many indigenous people made a strong conversion and dropped previously held beliefs. I think that has shifted back in the last three decades which does tell you something about conditions in australia in early settlement and that the environment was ripe for sincere conversion. The appropriation of saints on the mesa is equally not a ploy, the practitioners do believe in the power of the saints to ward away evil; in that sense the mix of original belief and superstition and new religion makes an awkward blend of influences that seems to fuse surprisingly well.

But I agree, the choice may have been coerced by destruction and removal of access to pre-Colonial ideology (i.e. through idolatry) but in many cases the conversion was nevertheless sincere.

In Korea, where I lived for a while, first buddhism displaced a previously thriving shamanic culture and then christianity displaced buddhism to some degree, but the Christian feeling was very strong in those who had moved across from buddhist thought. Interestingly, shamanism is on its way back in Korea.

It all points to the malleability of meaning based on surrounding environment, which has fascinating implications of its own.

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While I am at it, it's important to realise that religious traditions were highly fluid in most continents even before colonisation. One needs only to look at the changes in rock art styles in the kimberly region to get an idea of this process. Rock art in that region spans 30,000+ years, beginning with the archaic animal and plant irregular infill style followed by the bradshaw period, clothe peg period and terminating in the Wandjinas. In many of the art galleries later Wandjina figures are painted directly over bradshaw figures, and in many cases bradshaw figures have been "pounded" in an obvious attempt to supplant this earlier religious system and claim ownership over terrain (note - bradshaw people and wandjina were not contemporary but separated by the last glacial maximum however the desire to supplant earlier religious systems is persistent). With bradshaw art, the early non-violent tessellated figures are replaced by the clothe peg style characterised by the double-barbed spear. What this seems to suggest is that an invading people with a double-barbed spear technology replaced, probably by conquest, an early and apparently non-violent society who wore tassels and large head ornaments. Following this invasion tassels dissapear from the art as well as many other artistic elements including motifs involving the ceremonial processing of yams in netted bags.

Likewise in south america culture followed culture with significant modification of religious motifs. When the early Sican culture floundered as a result of severe El Nino flooding, artisitic references to the culture hero Naylamp almost entirely disappear - as represenations of the creator-god of the moche, Ai Apaec, had previously vanished even though sharing the same regional location - revealing a lack of confidence in this religious figure to safeguard the security of the society. In Incan art, equally, the complexity of religious ideology had been diminished in comparison to early empires and the representation of entheogenic plants became almost non-existent, from which inferences can be drawn.

In south america and australia sometimes the change in religious systems is due to conquering people from another geographical area (i.e. nomadic hunter gatherers from northern mexico brought with them the ideology that would produce the fabulous art of Teotihuacan, displacing earlier systems), but quite often also environmental upheaval (or a combination of both). The Wandjina art style emerged following the end of the last ice age, Moche and Sican both were obfuscated by droughts followed by severe flooding. The list goes on.

The reality is, the desire to impose ones religious views was not limited to Christian colonialists. The process was underway on conquered continents for thousands of years. The Inca and Aztec were just at the pointy end, and at the time of being conquered were fully engaged in the process of imposing their religious systems on other societies and doing (or had already done) a fair bit of violent conquering themselves. In conquest, the force of ideology was and always will be fundamental.

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That was such an interesting read! May I ask your background I just want to read more? This is such an interesting topic, almost an evolution of religion.

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It's an interesting topic, good thread idea.

As has been said, Christianity seems to have infiltrated most cultures in that regard...another besides the above-mentioned "San Pedro" and "Ska Maria Pastora" instances is Iboga - I was watching an iboga documentary and there are supposedly large numbers of people in the Gabon who belong to Christian iboga churches.

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Good stuff!

Generally i would tend to disagree with the sincerity of conversion even in todays worlds we see those whose ideologies are challenged, derailed and deconstucted tend to coalesce towards ontological clusterfucks of meaninglessness. A gross failure of imagination on humanities part. To strive for meaning, definition of self and place, a sense of belonging and community these aspects are largely what and who we are as people and these operating systems - religion,culture etc neatly encompasses such aspects as that you dont really have the to need to or should feel a need to use your imagination and or brain too much with existential conundrums or even the strange contradictions within whatever system it is, How far do we go till we are just like robots playing out the programming we have inherited how sincere can sincere be when we are talking about beliefs? haha :)

Great point about the continual evolution of belief systems its like migration and largely tied too it, Most probably as a species we have been moving around and mingling from our beginning.

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Hey YT I started researching the issues of indigenous conversion to Christianity to find the answer but I only got started on Australia and realised it's too massive a task to even attempt with my available spare time.

i did find this excellent document though (which i also don't have time to read!):

FREEDOM OF RELIGION, BELIEF, AND INDIGENOUS SPRITUALITY, PRACTICE AND CULTURAL RIGHTS
PREPARED FOR THE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF ABORIGINAL
AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER STUDIES:
By the Centre for Education, Poverty and Social Inclusion,
Faculty of Education, University of Canberra
Associate Professor Katja Mikhailovich
Ms Alexandra Pavli
Assisted by Professor Cathryn McConaghy and Mr Nathaniel Ward

Which can be downloaded at: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/frb/papers/Indigenous%20Spirituality%20FINAL%20May%202011.pdf

In the Aust. Bureau of Statistics 2010 census 73% of indigenous Australians identified as Christian (various denominations), but this says nothing about sincerity (which is not easily measured) or the amount to which they have retained traditional beliefs as well, more info in that above paper.

I'm not even going to start on other continents!

Smokeliss I started out with an interest in plants and learning about plants led on to other topics, since plants have been inseparably linked with human culture (and all that comes with culture; religion, art, conquest etc.) for ages, topics necessarily begin to expand and interrelate. I would not have guessed that would be the case, but plants are very special.

I think i'm out! Good question zed, food for thought.

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Cheers bro ill download that pdf and give it a read on the kindle in the next week or two.

I guess in many ways we all are the remnants of cultural migration, subjugation, appropriation, assimilation etc to varying degrees which has been the case more often than not for most of human history. Generally i was lamenting on the failure of human beliefs in particular to fully encompass the true nature of what it is to be a human meat bag/conscious computer, our cultural illusions and history of such are indeed the stark reminder we are still on the ladder in terms of the evolution and growth of culture, society, relatedness, consciousness/awareness etc. Thus said it is certainly is amazing times to be alive and experience the pinnacle of human evolution as it stands in the here and now living in a precipice as such where our ability for survival or failure comes down to the mass consensus of belief and the logical implications of the follow through

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I think i'm out!

Thats not how that game works!, my friend you are still very much IN! haha :wink:

Sorry for the tangent Zed, usually its mostly where most of my inspiration comes from these days lol. Would definitely recommend the stuff Micro suggested by Sharon, Jorlemon and Glass-Coffin has been quite some time since i read them but from memory is certainly worthwhile although laden with academic language and general boring sort of tediousness reminiscent of anthropological texts its def some of the easier stuff to read given the context. Some stuff might be available with uni access - research journal wise and or library.

Edited by -YT-
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The use of the term San Pedro was merely protective.

It was not an inclusion of Christian ideals, but a mechanism allowing the use of the tradition to continue under scrutiny.

It is analogous to the use of catholic symbols for the loa, there is zero Christianity in it.

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Generally i was lamenting on the failure of human beliefs in particular to fully encompass the true nature of what it is to be a human meat bag/conscious computer, our cultural illusions and history of such are indeed the stark reminder we are still on the ladder in terms of the evolution and growth of culture, society, relatedness, consciousness/awareness etc.

Sounds like a can of worms, I am most certainly out!

I'll be back in adelaide in a few weeks, for a couple of weeks, much easier to take this conversation round in circles in person than on a computer!

Edited by Micromegas

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Well I really enjoyed reading your posts Micromegas, cheers for taking the time to express them. I don't have any other extra interesting info to add to this thread at the moment but I will do some more scrounging for information out of curiosity. If I find anything I think is relevant I will link to it here or paraphrase it.

Cheers again. :)

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Yep i always enjoy Micros stuff very insightful! any luck on that research info/studies Zed?

Sounds like a can of worms, I am most certainly out!

I'll be back in adelaide in a few weeks, for a couple of weeks, much easier to take this conversation round in circles in person than on a computer!

Eh human history/culture is very much a can of worms :wink: well the meet is on again in two weeks or so hopefully your back by then and we can both lament in person! ( oh the joy haha )

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First I'd like to thank zed240 for introducing this thread. In light of our pioneering generation in this global information age, we have this incredible forum (www) to trade ideas on seemingly every level - and all are really welcome, including the read-onlies. We couldn't do this 30 years ago, so it will continue to be interesting to see the sharing and influences about this as well as every subject here.



The discussion of Shamanism & Colonialism seems so central to the express purpose of this website and all of us as we gather around the plants that we love. It doesn't matter what information has been discussed before, as this is not a monograph, but something much more alive (as appealing as the archives are.)



That being said, I offer my voice directly to some of what has been discussed above:




To my mind zed240 you are absolutely correct in noting that the use of such terms as "San Pedro" and "Ska Maria Pastora" are a result of the Judeo-Christian Cultural Colonialism. Whether the appellation is an indication of coercion or resistance is a deeper matter.



[i'm using the term Judeo-Christian (J-C) in the sense of a worldview as distinct from a theology or an intellectualized academic identity. I swear (!) that I am not trying to be daft when I say that I include in the J-C worldview its atheists, agnostics, pantheists, justhumans, and idon'tknowwhoiams, because the salient point is a way: values, manners, mores, mantras, definitions, expectations that altogether form a constantly shifting blob of a worldview that is well in place in our pre-instructive formative years. Not to be obscure about this very serious point: we are wired to see and do, try out or throw out. In my experience I have been severely punished by a 4 year old - with that ridiculous gleaming smug projectile grin - because she saw from her grandmother that this was how she is to act towards others (ie, the Chosen Punisher, who is also the Praiser on rarer occasions.) Another personal expample is a 70-year old man who declares himself intellectually to be Atheist, though his every thought and relating towards others is well-placed in his J-C cultural context (We're All One, Nobody's Perfect, Our Words Are Our Weapons, etc) In short, he learned during his formative years that he could and must defeat, symbolically, the Other - and even with an attitude that their expressions or identities are impositions! His worldview then is J-C, despite his intellectual protestations. No One is without cultural context.]



As Micromegas says, most peoples, where J-C dominate, have primary elements of J-C influence (though I have to - and hate to - actually include both the Raramuri and the Huichol). There is simply no escape from an ideology that actually includes all people in its motivation to contact and give what it perceives as its gift to the world. [and I love, Micromegas, that you used the word 'virgin' to identify territory that has not been contacted by Christians!] One of the social formulas of any 'patriarchy' (which actually refers to a sky-god inclusive unitarianist worldview,) is to perceive the Other as someone to understand, such that one of the mantras is that we are to look for similarities, and avoid differences. This is painfully destructive, as it means that anything that the J-C does not get in the Other's ways or cosmology is simply thrown out. Some elements of the colonized, if nonthreatening to basic principles of the dominant though changing J-C ways are actually absorbed into its tremendous idealogical machine. It is essentially a racism of ideas: one looks for themself in the Other, and in this J-C actually has arranged a sense that it is not racist - that it is inclusive of all peoples, and indeed one sees in this and other colonialist cultures, like Aryan and Inca and Bantu, a heavy mix of ethnic backgrounds. They appear accepting and multiracial - but this is the result of coercive imperialism.



In my academic anthropology experience back in the 80s, I learned from my professors of a term - syncretism - which was always delivered by these self-identified liberals of the age of the so-called movement, the Sixties, as a way for colonized to slip by the then violent oppression of Christian colonialism. So as said many times, 'San Pedro' was a way to protect the plant from demonization by the Christian conquerors. More complex examples come from such places as Bahia, where, we were told by our J-C professors, the colonized pretended to pray to Christian Saints, but were really, wink wink, praying to African Deities. The issue that I have with the syncretic argument is that it is essentially tokenized Noble Savage racism. The reality is that Christians did conquer most of South America. Whatever victories of the poor humble folk to fool their oppressors is moot considering that most of the people have been subdued. I rather look at the early Israelite writings, in particular, of Isaiah, who learned from the aryan king Cyrus, that conquered peoples are much more manageable if they are given a bone of inclusion. Previously, the Israelites simply killed in the tens of thousands any people who did not join their agenda. As the history of the concept Carnival shows, the colonized are even given special days of release in which they can openly insult their colonizers. Come Monday, it's back to work. This not killing of the enemy seems to me a successful - so far - strategy of a tribe that is determined to seek out and subdue Others to its primary ideology. Ostracism and Demonization of individuals are far more effective weapons than is a gun - plus the reward is livity - like a dog, upon given a task, the colonized can obtain food, shelter, as long as he or she makes movement and expression of 'humility' (ie a nonthreatening posture.)



The mainstream use of ayahuasca in the 'west' is simply not an example of some non-racist open-mindedness, but rather more of an example of colonialism; if ayahuasca was not perceived in the context of the messianic saving jargon of the west, it wouldn't be so heavily used in these bizarre pseudo-spiritual events in the west. Aya was simply absorbed in the cultural context. I predict it will fail somewhat in this endeavor. As drugo has pointed out elsewhere, the west uses aya in a much different way.



Which brings me to my next point, that Micromegas also mentioned, and that is one shouldn't necessarily, and to wit from a J-C social sphere, to criticize only the abuses of Christian colonialism. (One of the specialties of the J-C way is its own flagellant manner. It's always a member of the J-C that criticizes J-C culture. It's always whitey that criticizes whitey. The thrust is to be an advocate of what J-C perceives as fodder for saving.) The very name 'ayahuasca' is quechuan and so doesn't come from the original geographical (in this case therefore botanical) and cultural area of the source material for the drink. The Incan empire was ferocious and terribly abusive. One of the primary weapons, actually, of the Conquistadors was not the gun, not the horse, but the abuse of the Incans who had effectively alienated many of the peoples who they'd conquered themselves. Many people joined the Christians in the conquest of the Incans. The Christians, in that place and time, actually had an advantage in their conquest, which was the social gaming, honed over millenia, and derived from Indo-Aryan traditions, of following up the military conquest with a social conquest of punishment and reward - not killing the Other - but talking down to the colonized and showing their 'children' what they perceive as correct civilized behavior. The 'wicked ways' of the goyim was, to my mind, that they defended their territory and culture from a tribe determined to save them.



We should give all people the dignity and integrity to be jerks toward Others that are perceived as a threat in a world of limited resources. Even if there is massive food surplus, it is within all living beings to be skeptical of a potential threat. The threat of a different tribe of the same species is very great because of the obviousness of similarity: we will be in competition with each other. Another important point expressed by some here is the probability that all humans have within their genes an ancestry of both conqueror and conquered, of slave and master. This widespread notion in J-C culture that a huge group of various tribes can somehow be conquered by a J-C culture and then all lumped together as the eventually poor humble non-violent conquered Other is a construct itself of the J-C conquerors, who then fill the land with members of previously conquered groups (ie most of us.) In this vein, cultural constructs such as Celts, Aborigines, Indigenous, and really any 'native' appellation is a failure to recognize their essential humanity. The people described didn't call themselves that, so Celtic to whom? Aborigine before whom? Indigenous and Native to whom? There is also the indignity of calling a people non-violent. Really the only non-violent of our kindred are any group of pioneers in a geography, since they wouldn't have to defend themselves. But that never lasts. The idea of the poor humble non-violent Taino or Aborigine, or "Native [sic] American [sic]" is a lie. Eventually people fight, make allies and so on. That is basic to our nature.



I will also backtrack a bit here, because I use the term conquer and the obviousness of history is that it was very violent, but it seems to me that the social structure and people-management of J-C, like the Indo-Europeans before them really weren't genetic tribes, as all sky-god cultures are inclusive, but rather social systems that at some point gave an advantage of some type. Better military technology, or in the case of J-C culture, simply lying. The complaint among some American Indians is that the "white [sic] man [sic] broke their treaties." No shit! But now it's too late! But I perceive that the forked-tongue words-as-weapons advantage of J-C culture will run out of steam and morph into something else. Deception is not such an enduring advantage. Other advantages might not even be violent. The incoming may bring an economy (like cow herding, or horsepersonship) that may ultimately prove attractive to the previous tenants of the land. The incoming might in some instances even be attractive and healthy and wealthy. So 'conquer' though the right word in many instances, may also just be waves of social ways that prove advantageous for many. That is the express point of the Vedas and of the Abramic traditions.



So sum up my position - as it stands at this moment - the unequal merging of cultural ways in both violent and friendly manner is an inevitability. The big question as I see it is how the concept of shamanism from non-shamanic cultures reflects either a trend to recover ways that are deep within our bones, or just the co-option of a term that is at the moment perceived as an item of personal power (it's cool, I'm into shamanism, etc).


Edited by gwalchgwyn

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