And thank you for such a thought-provoking response…time with the San; that’s a rare gift.

I agree that it’s difficult to know who to blame, and I think progress can only happen when we can move past blame to seek a solution. Unfortunately, people like Diego de Landa are far from an isolated incident in the Roman Catholic Church, and it’s the larger pattern that he’s an intimate part of that disturbs me so deeply. It’s only one example of countless that has worldwide repercussions that resonate throughout the planet even today.

More than a few highly-developed civilizations were wiped off the planet on the name of the Christian God, and it’s deeply disturbing to me that the Mayans who exist today have only the dimmest and patchiest knowledge of their own history. I couldn’t imagine being in that kind of position, where, on top of my history being stolen form my culture, but to have my culture demonized by the most powerful killing force in history (Catholic Church) is a crime I cannot fathom the true levity of.

You are also not the first to point out that shamanism has its factions, and has had a part in wars and exterminations as well. But, my answer remains the same: Although I don’t condone killing of any kind, I do think that scale does come into play here.

I feel that comparing things like the “bad blood” between different tribes to the atrocities of the Catholic Church is a little like comparing a babbling brook to a raging river. The scale of destruction and deceit as well as the sheer number of atrocities is at a level unmatched in the Catholic Church by any other culture in the whole of history, perhaps even combined. This does not mean that any act of evil can be dismissed because it’s on a smaller scale, I’m just pointing out that the scale of atrocities committed must count for something, and at minimum, the comparison could never be used as justification of the atrocities.

Also, by focusing on the deficiencies of a vastly unacknowledged cornerstone to our mutual human history instead of raising the awareness of the true role that shamanism has played in shaping our mutual human evolution is counterproductive to all of us. I’ve been guilty of that myself. It provides us all with an easy avenue of dismissal; something that Catholic Church are masters of, but we need to remember to not lose focus of cultures as a whole and the contributions they’ve made to our mutual human history. Shamanism is a beacon for positive contribution, and I know that as time passes, the light of Shamanism will continue to glow more and more brightly as people look to reconnect with the past, with simpler times, and seek to understand who we were before we became so disconnected with the planet that gives us all life.

I really enjoyed the music; I’ve left your link up for others to enjoy as well! I’d also like to know how to get more.

All the best to you; I look forward to more discussions with you.

- Keith

I have been mulling over some of your thinking on the Catholic Church and it’s bloody history of opposition to shamanism and thought I might add my 2 cent opinion. I agree that Catholicism has caused an enormous amount of harm and has a lot to answer for, but when I try to see who exactly I should be blaming I start running into problems. While it makes sense blaming people like Diego de Landa, Diego doesn’t really care much. He is dead, and the Catholic Church has moved on. Then I start thinking about who the Catholic Church are now and I realize that, for me Catholicism is entirely irrelevant. I could spend a great deal of my life trying to establish exactly who is to blame for which recent amendments to the Catholic dogma and who is responsible for the retention of existing dogma, but each minute spent on that ultimately fruitless quest is a minute that I don’t spend entering the forest alone (at a place where there is no path).

I also wanted to raise the point that shamanism has it’s factions, and it’s part in wars and exterminations too, at least in the Southern African context. A couple of years back I spent around 10 days at a San village in Botswana with three friends. Visiting the village at that time was a San shaman of considerable local repute. We spent a couple of very interesting days with our backs resting against walls made of dung and mud and our feet in the fine white sand just shooting the breeze. He invited everyone back to his home, but asked me apologetically and somewhat sadly not to come because I had a friend who was a shaman of the Swazi tradition.

Also, noticing your interest in music I thought you might be interested in hearing one of his spiritual songs: http://spinspanner.com/wp-content/uploads/tumi04.mp3. It’s a terrible recording with no real digital processing, but I make no apologies as recording is not something I’m good at.