T
trickster
Guest
Well most of the time I catch on to what Pfaffenhoffen is saying…and I enjoy his writing styles…but I lsot him on this one…
Syncretism, Paganism = Native American Spirituality - Yes or No?
- Status
T
trickster
Guest
Ah Truelight…I agree that music is not new age…and the New Age movement as I said in the initial thread is not native…and in fact, most Aboriginal elders reject the appropriation of new age when it takes our stuff and uses it without permission…however, “our stuff” is also to be shared and we do so in ways that honours all humanity as a part of the universal eco-system.
In terms of your second statement (and I wanna challenge you a bit in a friendly way) are you saying that Native spirituality is pagan? If so, I would very much welcome that conversation because amongst Catholic Answer readers and writers it is a very common assumption…and I love to get into that a bit more…as much for my learning too.
Incense is a thing, it has been borrowed from a particular culture or a world region (I know that people will update on the exact origins) and this “thing” was used to represent certain ideas…incense is not magical, it does not operate in a metaphysical world it is simply - as I understand it - a symbol of a spiritual process…that has been my reading and take on it…
Sweet grass is also “just a thing” that comes from an Aboriginal culture and is close to the meaning and use of incense. Sweet grass is not magical, it does not operate in a metaphyscial world it is - simply for an aboriginal audience - a symbol of a spiritual process.
Sweet grass does not ward of negative energy … it is used to mentally support us in letting negative energy go and that psychological process is not uncatholic either. Many of the symbols we use in the chruch also help our mental health processes…having said that though I need to do more research on the role of incense…I have heard a number of things on it and need to look at it more…so any understanding of incense its use, it symbolis, etc., would be welcomed in this conversation.
Cheerz and Blessings for Now and I look forward to your thoughts.
Bruce Ferguson
Trickster
T
TrueLight
Guest
It’s nothing deep. I’m only using the term in one of its basic definitions, “a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim.”
Semantics.
It’s the “negative energy” jargon that makes some people say you are mixing Catholicism with New Age.
Native American Spirituality is beautiful. But it’s not Catholicism.
I’m actually too tired to write much, but maybe later tomorrow.
L
LilyM
Guest
But the meaning of incense in Catholic worship is nothing like. What it symbolizes in Catholic liturgical use is the prayers and worship of the priest and the prayers of the faithful, as scripture says ‘let my prayer rise before you like incense’.
Catholic theology has no room for such a vague term as ‘negative energy’, nor for such a concept as ‘letting go of’ same. There is good, to be encouraged, and evil to be rebuked and conquered. Nothing else, no such thing as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ energy.
If what you have said really is the idea behind burning sweetgrass, then it is a dangerously syncretistic one.
Catholic theology has no room for such a vague term as ‘negative energy’, nor for such a concept as ‘letting go of’ same. There is good, to be encouraged, and evil to be rebuked and conquered. Nothing else, no such thing as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ energy.
If what you have said really is the idea behind burning sweetgrass, then it is a dangerously syncretistic one.
T
trickster
Guest
Hello LilyM I was actually responding to anothers’ posting where it was asked is sweet grass burned away negativity…alluding to the a pagan or wicca idea of magical potion or something…(and I know that characterization is unfair to the great people who are pagans and wicca these days) but I was trying to address the question about burning negativity away.
Yes, your understanding of incense as a physical symbol of our prayers going to God - the sky - is mine too…the use of incense I undertstand goes back to the earliest church and has some precedents in the Hebrew Bible too…so having said that…I can say that sweet grass in an aboriginal catholic context could serve the same function as incense.
Catholic theology as far as I have studied it has not specialized on what world religions can tell us about the electric fields of our bodies (our energy fields) and so forth that can be scientically measured. The Vatican has not spoken out against or for those things, so any statements that disallow our catholicism to talk about energy is a bit premature in my take. Energy, actually is neutral, it is not positive or negative…I am told, but then I get confused on electric currents…in any case, our bodies interact with energy and electricity…and I don’t think our Catholic church has made any pronouncements on that field.
“Nothing else” statements are also a bit premature too in that in a black and white world view such as the one you are expressing around this particular issue does injustice to the complex interconnected nature of our Creator’s work…there is always grey…anyways, at my age…I was on a roll as you can tell then I forgot where I was going with this thread so as an old guy, I’m just going to bow out gracefully and resume my thinking later…
Cheerz
Bruce Ferguson
T
trickster
Guest
Yeah, he is also a conservative Native American bishop too…which is awesome…not that I am conservative…i still consider myself progressive…and i think the threads I write indicate that…but to have one of our own as it were, makes the church a little bit more welcoming to me too…
Bruce
T
TrueLight
Guest
I really am going to bed.
But based on the above, I believe this thread needs to be in non-Catholic religions. Next thing you know you will be talking about chakras.
You can’t have one foot in the Church and one foot out. Seriously.
I was involved in paganism and know all about the “neutrality” of energy.
God can touch your soul and your brain releases all sorts of neurotransmitters. That’s the science part of it. The Devil can also touch your soul and do the same.
Do not mix non-Christian spiritual traditions with Catholic traditions. Do not try to make Catholicism fit to your idea of spirituality.
I say this in love.
L
LilyM
Guest
Trickster, documents like ‘Dominus Iesus’ and ‘Jesus Christ, Bearer of the Water of Life’ have plenty to say about the right relationship between Catholicism and the constructs and theologies of other religions.
I would recommend particularly starting with the glossary at the end of the latter document, which has an excellent and succinct definition of paganism under ‘Neopaganism’, and discusses the idea of ‘energies’ under the entry on Feng Shui. Such is outright condemned as being a form of geomancy.
I would recommend particularly starting with the glossary at the end of the latter document, which has an excellent and succinct definition of paganism under ‘Neopaganism’, and discusses the idea of ‘energies’ under the entry on Feng Shui. Such is outright condemned as being a form of geomancy.
T
trickster
Guest
And I appreciate that. Listen TrueLight…I don’t want you to minimize what I am saying about energy fields…even Cardinal Arinze when asked about acupuncture, he simply said that the church has no position on it…if putting needles into your body eases pain can there be anything wrong with that.? Are you saying then that energy is “neutral”…I really am going to bed.
But based on the above, I believe this thread needs to be in non-Catholic religions. Next thing you know you will be talking about chakras.
You can’t have one foot in the Church and one foot out. Seriously.
I was involved in paganism and know all about the “neutrality” of energy.
God can touch your soul and your brain releases all sorts of neurotransmitters. That’s the science part of it. The Devil can also touch your soul and do the same.
Do not mix non-Christian spiritual traditions with Catholic traditions. Do not try to make Catholicism fit to your idea of spirituality.
I say this in love.
Yes, your statements on God and Satan releasing neurotransmitters is true. However, we know things by their fruits and if people are drawn closer to their Creator in an authentic way are we going to make a judgement about the source of their 'ways"? I heard some really crazy fundamentalist stories about how satan uses reikei as an example…
I am very interested in your views of paganism as I have never been involved with them…although I have met a few and in our basic conversations (like over a beer or something) they indicated that they do not worship nature but honour all creation…what is paganism to you? And I guess too, when we talk about scriptural and early church relationships with paganism then we need to understand the paganism of that day…which is not necessarily the paganism of today, right?
Again, the traditional catholic church had those conversations and I would be very interested in that piece…so yeah…your understanding of paganism would be appreciated.
As you may know I have been arguing that Native spirituality is not pagan, that we believe in an ultimate creator Kitche Manitou (the Great Spirit of the spirit world…and this goes to the animate and inanimate nature of creation of which our people believed relationships existed as we are all connected…this is something that western thinking (other than Celt) did not get its head around…
So, have a good sleep and I look forward to your thoughts on this string.
Bruce Ferguson
Trickster (Aboriginal Concept for Transformation/Conversion)
T
trickster
Guest
LilyM …thank you for those sources. I will follow that up for sure.
Bruce Ferguson
trickster (aboriginal term for transformation/conversion)
T
trickster
Guest
Just googled those titles and they look very exciting to read. It will help me better clarify my arguement that indigenous spirituality is not new age, nor pagan…thanks again…
Bruce
P
Pfaffenhoffen
Guest
But like a needle in a haystack…They’re all over the place!
It makes no sense to have Indian Spirituality when the Indians had the destiny that they had…
P
Pfaffenhoffen
Guest
I mean.
Look to Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela. You see that they are mixed blood. There is Indian Blood in the population of those countries.
In English colonized countries, the native population was supressed (to say with the kindest of the words). So, you do not see a population which has got mixed blood.
Only in countries like SA and India the British could not win with an apartheid system for they were overwhelmed by numbers.
So, for me it makes no sense and it is a matter of great sensitivity to have Indian Spirituality where there are no Indians, at least in the percentage that it should be and in a situation (reservations) which is totally unundrstandable for a foreign eye.
I am deep mixed blood with 4 races inside me, so I am sensitive to that.
L
Laudate_Dominum
Guest
Holy Mother Church has her own spiritual traditions to turn to. Why look to pagan Native American spirituality when you can turn to those which are already approved by Holy Mother Church and indeed developed in humble obedience and communion with her?
We do not need to look to Native American traditions or Buddhist traditions to enrich our Holy Faith.
We do not need to look to Native American traditions or Buddhist traditions to enrich our Holy Faith.
A
Aelred_Minor
Guest
Many (I would guess most, at least on the East Coast) native North American Indians are of “mixed blood” as well. And many of us “white Americans” and “African-Americans” have or may have some small amount of pre-Columbian ancestry as well. In my case there’s a family legend of that which we have not been able to confirm or disprove.
What’s important is that many American Indians have retained their distinct cultural and national (in the old sense of the word) identities to one degree or other. While there might have been a kind of convenience for our continent had the older native cultures and the new colonial ones simply merged into something new and distinct (as was the case to a larger degree in Mexico), that hasn’t happened very much and shouldn’t be forced to happen.
The result is that we have several million native people whose cultural background is substantially different than that of the majority population of their countries. The Church needs to respond pastorally to this.
On the one hand, pre/non-Christian traditions not compatible with Christianity must be abandoned, as has been the case with every people when they are evangelized. This includes not just individual traditions but also generally the culture’s whole paradigm through which they view the world. On the other hand, some customs can be “baptized” safely, easing their path and retaining valued elements of their past culture. To use a timely European example, most of us I think are glad that many traditions regarding holly and even mistletoe were retained from Europe’s pagan past, though some specific practices connected to them were rightly suppressed.
Also remember that many of these native peoples have been Christian for several centuries. In our fast-paced modern world, that could place them more along the lines of Europe in the 14th century than the 4th. That is, when a culture is first evangelized the primary attitude towards their former religion must necessarily be that of rejection, to avoid incompatible superstitions from being retained in their Christian lives. But once enough time has passed a Christian people can look back on the classic cultures of their ancestors with more fondness and admiration, precisely because of the distance from that time and the lack of danger of descending back into paganism.
These questions of what traditions can be retained or what stage of their relationship with their pre-Christian past a given cultural group is in are best answered by the missionaries/clergy who work with them and faithful, orthodox, well-educated Catholics among their ranks. For those of us with very limited knowledge of these cultures it can be much more difficult to tell, and with this kind of thing I would rather err on the side of liberality than cultural imperialism.
T
trickster
Guest
Why would you say that…cannot “world view” be reconstructed and reinvented…traditions does not drop out of the sky…
Bruce
T
trickster
Guest
I think, whether or not, we are products of all of the above processes you talk about…there are still basic questions that are central to the human condition…and then we look for archetypical symbols, rituals, etc, so that we can participate in those world view realities…so is it such a stretch to look back to one’s tradition and Catholicism as a source of constructing meaning in life? Thoughts
T
trickster
Guest
Laudate…then you are missing the point of what the church teaches about inculturation and the role of culture in the service of the gospel… but I want to throw you a friendly challenge…you say quite assertively that you belive that Native American spirituality is pagan…why do you say that? I don’t believe our traditions are pagan.
Buddhist traditions have much to teach in areas that are based on reality adn experiential knowledge, knowledge that the church has not developed because of the monopoloy of western thinking in catholic theology…the church does not deny what is true in Native American spirituality nor Buddhism…thoughts.?
bruce
T
trickster
Guest
EXACTLY! As gospel meets culture, both parties are affected and transformed. Knowledge and experience has a way of doing that…we need to be careful I thinking in taking too much of a black and white understanding of either Catholic teaching or Native American belief systems…each system has to be assessed on its own merits. Equally, time and generations have a way of adopting new models of thinking and dropping old models…and that is a natural process of relationships…so I suggest the process and discernment of incompatibilities is a natural and on-going process…cultures are free to drop those things that don’t meet current ways of understanding, current knowledge or educaiton…but they can also be reinvented again to address those current ways of understanding, knowledge, etc.
You say quite a bit here and my response has not done justice to your thinking…but my computer is under attack from XP Antispyware, so can’t use my labtop and am using the library computer to respond…soon as I get back on lline with my home computer, I want to explore this further with you.
Bruce
A
Aelred_Minor
Guest
Regarding the word “pagan”, unfortuantely there is no one, set, universally agreed upon meaning for it, and I think there may be some talking past each other going on here.
“Pagan” does not necessarily have to mean a sort of hard polytheism probably associated with the occult. By some uses there can be monotheistic pagans, non-religious atheist pagans, agnostic pagans, etc. There is even an old saying, something along the lines of “outside the Church all is Pagan.” The word “pagan” originally meant someone who lived in the country. It refers to the natural state of humanity prior to the acceptance of authentic revealed religion (Judaism or Christianity).
“Pagan” does not necessarily have to mean a sort of hard polytheism probably associated with the occult. By some uses there can be monotheistic pagans, non-religious atheist pagans, agnostic pagans, etc. There is even an old saying, something along the lines of “outside the Church all is Pagan.” The word “pagan” originally meant someone who lived in the country. It refers to the natural state of humanity prior to the acceptance of authentic revealed religion (Judaism or Christianity).
- Status