| |
|
In response to William Wright's request:
Lothar please tell me more about the Kenneth Meadows comment.
Kenneth Meadows has done a fine job of helping create a viable and complete system that incorporates a lot of different methodologies and beliefs from around the world. But it's just that, something that he's created and pieced together.
I think it's valid and usable and the only major problem I have with him is his 'history' and 'anthropology'.
His Native American training may have historical accuracy, even though I've read criticism about him by Lakota and Ojibway activists - members of some of the tribes he says he was trained by - who denounce him as yet another white man who is profitting from their religion and lore. But when he links the Native American lore with the I Ching, Western Astrology, the Norse Runes, etc. to some ancient, pre-ethnic, golden age culture it's disrespectful and a bit dishonest.
I'm nit-picking more than anything else but the feeling I get from his books (specifically Earth Medicine and The Medicine Way) is that he wants to lend what he's created (and to be gracious, potentially re-created) credence by saying that they are 'lost teachings'.
He never quite states this but as the following passage from Earth Medicine shows:
"It is a unique life science based upon North American Indian Medicine teachings which had their origins in an even more ancient wisdom and though once lost, can now be regained. These teachings are not those of a particular tribe or group of tribes, but are the essence of a knowledge that impregnated them all."
he's walking a very fine line between saying "This is the real ancient shit that's now been rediscovered" and "This is my interpretation of the connections and deep truths of many different people. I hope it will be of use to you in the same way that it has to me."
I mean, really, isn't it just a little too convenient that the 'Native Americans' had an astological system of power animal signs that corresponds almost exactly to western astrology?
And when he ends his section of Norse runes in 'Earth Medicine' with:
"The prime purpose of this chapter is to show that the runic knowledge and the medicine wheel teachings are related and each form a vital part of the reservoir of ancient wisdom and a powerful form of metaphysical thought. These writings are an indication of a re-emergence of a knowledge that appeared to be lost for ever."
he's strongly intending for the reader to connect the two to some lost golden age source of pure knowledge. Which, in my opinion, is disrespectful to the people who originated these systems.
I remember in the killing god thread that you said:
"There is often a mistake made regarding religions and shamanism/medicine folk. I made some quick reference to Kenneth Meadows and Peter J Carrol, with regards to this subject, my thinking was confirmed. The sprirituality that these people practiced was prior to the introduction of god archetypes, their spirit world was populated by spirits and entities. I suspect that religion was formed from the medicine lore, when populations increased beyond the comfortable communities inwhich they worked.
Much of the medicine lore refers heavily to the spirit of animals and celestial bodies."
Which is an accurate reading of Meadow's statements (as well as Carroll's but why would you take Carroll's word as gospel on something like this?) but is inaccurate from the point of view of the research of indigenous people and is a great example of why I find Meadow's work to be historically misleading.
Each ancient 'shamanic' tribe, culture, etc. was DIFFERENT and had many different beliefs. One of the things that connects them is the shared methodology of shamanic practice. This is similar to the shared use of fire, or tools, or the wheel. It was a similarity of methodology, and sometimes cosmollogy but not of all religious beliefs. Anyone who makes sweeping statements of 'all people believed this way back when' is inaccurate and is usually trying to mislead his audience.
Here are some examples of cultures whose earliest myths feature gods in conjunction with their flavor of shamanism:
The Buryats of Siberia believed that good Shamans liased with the tribal gods while the bad shamans liased with the bad spirits.
The Tamang of the Kathmandu Valley believed (and still do) that the first shaman was created by the goddess Ghang Selmo.
The Dyaks of Indonesia had a similar myth regarding the god Tupa-Jing and his creation of the first shaman.
Not every culture believed this, and an argument can certainly be made that these myths were 'edited' in later times but the point is that nobody knows with any certainty. All anyone can do is state their evidence and why they believe that evidence to be the most accurate. Meadows does very little of that.
Again, I don't have a problem with his system but it's his system that he created and you will only find it when you buy his series of books. If it works for you great, but don't think that his history or anthropology is accurate. It's misleading and a bit disrespectful to the cultures that originated the systems he's incorporated into his own system. |
|
|
