Shamanism alive and well

[Jguerra]

I was unable to pick up WEWN on shortwave the other night so I scanned the AM broadcast band and had to stop on 1050KHz. There, loud and clear from XEG in Monterrey, Mexico was a call in show hosted by a curandero, a shaman. Distraught callers would phone in their various maladies and the host would recommend this or that procedure. In one case, the curandero told the caller to come to his shop tomorrow and he would show her the face of the adulteress. Throughout his commentary, he would throw in a “Praise God” or “Thanks be to the saints in heaven.” At the end of his program, he told his listeners to go ahead and drink the little glass of water he had them put on or near the radio at the beginning of the show. I was flabbergasted. When he finally left the air, I heard the disclaimer about content responsibility and then it was repeated. Another shaman came on with a lengthy prayer of thanksgiving and a request for grace to help God’s people.

I could not believe it. In this day and age you would think things like shamanism would not have such a strong following as to support actual practitioners going on a commercial radio station.

Heaven help us.**

 

[Scotskin]

Well, it’s in Mexico, for one thing. Even in countries like America there are still indigenous (and not so indigenous) peoples practicing what they practiced before they were colonized by Christians. In places like Mexico and Haiti people may claim Catholicism, but they actually just use Catholic names for voodoo and santeria practices. For instance in Voodoo, they may call on St. Catherine but they’re actually referring to the loa Erzulie.

I don’t know what the solution is to this. I don’t necessarily condone this, but I can sympathize to a certain extent. Conquistadors may have called themselves Catholics but they were some raping, murdering, village burning and pillaging Catholics. If I was one of their victims I wouldn’t take Christianity too seriously myself. They must’ve come from some denomination we’re not familiar with. One that hopefully no longer exists.

 

[Scotskin]

As a side note, I would like to add that there were Jesuits in South America at that time trying to keep the “Catholic laity” from enslaving the natives, but I recently looked at the numbers of Jesuits in the modern world and there’s roughly 3000 in the United States (which has a large number of them), and there were far less back then in any country. And for a country this size, 3000 isn’t very much.

I guess my poorly made point (actually, I don’t think I got my point across at all in my last post I’m bad about that when I post during lunch breaks at work) is that I think kindness and compassion converts more people than attempting to just flat out convert people. As Saint Francis said: "It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”

The sad thing is, these people in many ways have been denied the opportunity to see the beauty of Catholicism. The reason being they were invaded and enslaved by Catholic cultures such as Spain. One of the biggest strategies in invading a country and making it your own is destroying the religion of the people and indoctrinating them into your own ways. So Christianity was brought to them in a horrible way for all the wrong reasons. It’s no wonder they’re calling in to radio shaman shows! Just imagine how different the world would be if the only Catholics they saw were missionaries entering their societies with food, clean water, medicine, and the word of God.

I’m not saying this directly to you, because I don’t know you or how you live your life but I’d like put this into the thread for anyone who reads this … If you really love God and love all His children and desire grace for all of them, your first desire should not be to change them but to give them your kindness and charity. People come to conclusions about Christianity based on the behavior of people wearing crosses or claiming Christianity.

I know, because I know many people who are turned off by it and I was one of them. Fortunately, I decided it’s not the people in church I should base my faith on but the message of the church. So I’m Catholic in spite of other Christians, not because of them. And I guess because of that I’m especially defensive of people who aren’t Christian, because I do want them to come to a life in Christ and sometimes when I try to talk to people about the beauty of Catholicism I feel like I’m swimming against the stream because I’m having to dismantle their prejudice based solely on the ugliness they’ve been subjected to by Sunday Saints.

:console:

 

[Student09]

Erm. Both where I live now and where I grew up, the whole New Age thing is very big. This is not surprising to me at all.

 

[Bendecida]

I think what the OP and Scot were talking about would be called syncretism. New Age “Shamanism” is something else entirely: native-languages.org/religion.htm however even though I have heard many scholars say the word shamanism should only be applied to Siberian pratices many Spanish-speakers will know what you mean when you refer to a a chaman. If you’re not easily offended this site has a wealth of knowledge on the silliness of New Age traditions skepdic.com/shamanism.html. Oh, and Carlos Casteneda’s Don Juan never existed.

 

[Bendecida]

bump

 

[crystal_waters]

I was unable to pick up WEWN on shortwave the other night so I scanned the AM broadcast band and had to stop on 1050KHz. There, loud and clear from XEG in Monterrey, Mexico was a call in show hosted by a curandero*, a shaman. Distraught callers would phone in their various maladies and the host would recommend this or that procedure. In one case, the curandero told the caller to come to his shop tomorrow and he would show her the face of the adulteress. Throughout his commentary, he would throw in a “Praise God” or “Thanks be to the saints in heaven.” At the end of his program, he told his listeners to go ahead and drink the little glass of water he had them put on or near the radio at the beginning of the show. I was flabbergasted. When he finally left the air, I heard the disclaimer about content responsibility and then it was repeated. Another shaman came on with a lengthy prayer of thanksgiving and a request for grace to help God’s people.

I could not believe it. In this day and age you would think things like shamanism would not have such a strong following as to support actual practitioners going on a commercial radio station.Heaven help us.*

when ive looked up saint novenas on the internet its directed me to hoodoo/voodoo sites and they have a huge following, they seem to be praying to mary and the saints at the same time as doing “spells”