Essay - Peyotism the White Man's Reality is His Streets with Their...

Peyotism

The white man's reality is h***** streets with their banks, shops, neon lights and traffic; streets full of policemen, whores, and sad-faced people in a hurry to punch a time clock. But this is unreal. The real *****ity is underneath all this. Grandfather Peyote helps you find it."

- Crow Dog

Peyotism and North American Indian religion are intimately interlinked and extends over a vast expanse of recorded and unrecorded history. The use of Peyote as an essential element of North American religion is evidenced in many archeological ***** historical **********.

The religious ***** peyote is very ancient. One cache of dried ***** found in a Texas cave, has been dated at approximately 7000 years old. The use ***** peyote ***** ceremonies among Mexican tribes was a well est*****blished tradition by the time of the European entrance into ***** continent. This pre-historical ***** use eventually diffused into the ***** American regions.

However, the ancient ********** of ***** North American Indian culture was disrupted and in some instances destroyed ***** the incursion of other *****s into ***** the area. "Along with this evangelistic migration came changes in the basic ceremonies associated with peyote. "

***** above fact relating to the eventual changes caused by the migration of settlers into the New World will form an important aspect of ***** following *****view ***** the ***** religion. The central focus of ***** paper however will be on an integrated view of the origins *****d importance of Peyotism in North ***** Indian culture and traditions.

2. Native American spirituality and *****

In order to understand ***** importance and functioning of the culture of Peyote in North American Indian spirituality, one ***** to firstly ***** the central concepts and underly*****g *****oretical and spiritual basis of Indian religion. It must be stated at the outset th***** understanding these religions requires a mindset ********** conceptuality that is often different to modern Western religions. As will be discussed, there is a d*****nger in attempt*****g to understand the spiritual dimensions of ***** North ***** Indian through the perceptual lenses of ***** Culture, which ***** results in various misinterpretations of these cultures.

The foundations of the Indian religions rest on the belief in ***** *****terconnections between different dimensions or worlds of reality. A cardinal point in ***** Indian and ***** other ancient religious structures is that the world ***** *****, *****in ***** more ancient cultures, is closer to ***** reality of e*****day life than is possibly the case in contemporary culture. Th***** is an extremely ***** aspect, as ***** Native ********** Indian ***** view the natural world as a liv*****g conduit to ***** *****s ***** the spirit.

In other words, the world of spiritu*****lity was not distant or removed from ***** experiences of everyday life. To this end ***** were spiritual specialists within all these ancient ********** whose role it was to explore the realms of the ***** and secondly to interpret and act as negotiators between ***** spiritual world ***** the world of common reality. These ***** specialists