Modern Native throat singer, "Animism" (video)

Crystal Quintero, Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Tanya Tagaq (Q/CBC)

The Buddha had blue eyes? It's not so rare in Central Asia extending south from Gandhara/Afghanistan north to Kalmykia/Russia to the Far East of Buddhist Siberia, North Asia

A little bird told me, and it wasn't twitter. We are all interconnected (No Strangers)

Q's Jian Ghomeshi speaks with Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq about her new album, "Animism," and how she went from being a self-taught throat singing vocalist, honing her skills in the shower, to collaborating with the likes of the Kronos Quartet and Björk. Indeed, it was her lack of formal training that attracted Björk to her, says Tagaq, adding that the Icelandic artist didn't think she was "supposed to" sound a certain way. That's a perspective Tagaq shares.

• CBC Music: First play of Tanya Tagaq's Animism (free)

• 

  Inuk Tagaq reclaiming Nanook of the North

  Animism? (from Latin animus, -i "animator, soul, life") is the worldview that all entities (animals, plants, inanimate objects and phenomena) possess a spiritual essence. In the anthropology of religion it is used as a term for the underlying belief system or cosmology of some indigenous tribal peoples, especially prior to the infiltration of colonialism and organized "religion." Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, the term "animism" is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives -- so fundamental and taken-for-granted that most animistic indigenous people have no word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"). More

Shaman medicine (thefederationoflight.com)

"I like to live in a world that's not supposed to be. Or it's just there already as it is. It doesn't have to be anything, you know, because we put a lot of constraints on ourselves everyday in this crazy society," she says, adding that she gives "zero sh*ts about what people" think about her -- even as a trendy rave dancer -- but instead respects herself, her instincts, and her emotions. "And I every day do what I can to be a good person.... That's why breath is so important; it's the common denominator."  More

• VIDEO: Tuvan throat singing of shaman Mongolia
• L.A.'s HAIM shows off Himalayan throat singing 
• Vancouver's Push Festival: From Throat Singing to Puppets
• Science: Native Americans came from Asia
• Afghans and Chinese beat Columbus to America
• Ancient skeleton in Mexico reveals Asian DNA

(GSS) "Tantric Choir": Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist lamas of Gyuto chant in the Mongolian style of Bön "medicine men," shamans, and nomadic reindeer herders.

Standing by her #Sealfie: Manitoba's Tanya Tagaq addresses the controversial anti-Ellen campaign. Despite the considerable backlash after posting a photo of her daughter beside a dead seal, she supports native hunting and "being a part of what you [kill to] eat" (CBC.ca).

KARMA IS A B-TCH: When the "hunter" becomes the hunted, guilty of killing then mauled for it by another "hunter" in the samsaric wheel of survival. (LOL? Schadenfreude?) Don't kill.

When we were in the Spirit World (video)

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

The spirit world can appear as weird and strange (Alex Tooth/deviantart.com)

Mother Earth, Father Sky, one a womb, the other a seed, brought together by falling rain.

(KE) The shamans of Mongolia and Siberia who preceded Native Americans illustrate that knowledge of the spirit world is not limited to any culture, group, or period. These Vajrayana Buddhists and animists as well as the rishis (seers) and yogis (hermit-ascetics) of India were well aware of these strange realms and their inhabitants. In northern Europe the spirit world was sometimes referred to as the Wyrd (like our word weird).

Rain Dancing Our Way into the Spirit World

We dance to make it rain calling on spirit helpers and spirit guides. The rain dance of the Navajo Native American was influenced by the Hopi and others (sonocarina)

 

Dryad or "tree nymph" spirit

The spirit world (spirit = breath = an invisible force like the wind), according to Spiritualism, is the adjacent world inhabited by spirits. (WQ Rain Dance)

In Buddhism "spirits" are variously called devas, petas, nagas, suparnas, gandharvas, kumbhandas, yakkhas, narakas, and asuras, or "light beings, ghosts of the dead, dragons, avians, fairies, gnomes, hellions, demons, and titans").

 

Whereas religion concerns the inner life, the spirit world is regarded as an external environment for spirits (Spiritualism - Its History, Phenomena, and Doctrine, Arthur J. Hill 1918, p. 211). Independent from the natural world, both the spirit world and the natural world are in constant interaction.

Through mediumship -- through local shamans, curanderos or healers, medicine women and men -- these worlds can consciously communicate with one other. The spirit world can be described by mediums in trance (Ibid., W.J. Colville, Universal Spiritualism: Spirit Communion in All Ages Among All Nations, 1906, p. 42.

Anyone who does not believe the spirit world is real and right there before on blind third eye, there are three dangerous routes to personally prove that it is: drums, drugs, or trying to get through Finnegans Wake in one sitting.

Journeying to Three Realms in under 30 mins.

(NW) Use headphones. This is a shamanic journey led by Glenn Sullivan (NaturalWisdom.ie) explaining the landscapes and calling in the directions with a 16-min. drumming journey. Come together into a sacred circle and learn to journey into non-ordinary states of consciousness. See the spirits, gain a deeper understanding of the "human" plane and its many inhabitants, cycles, and patterns to problem solve in everyday life and the spiritual path.
 

HISTORY

Mayan shaman, Day of the Dead (IR-M)

By the mid 19th century most Spiritualist writers concurred that the spirit world was of "tangible substance" (ectoplasm) and a place consisting of "spheres" or "zones" (John W. Edmonds, Dr. George T. Dexter, MD, Spiritualism, 1853, p. 262). Although specific details differed, the construct suggested organization and centralization (Bret E. Carrol, Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Religion in North America), Indiana Univ. Press, Oct. 1, 1997, p. 62).

 

The 18th century writer Emanuel Swedenborg influenced Spiritualist views about the spirit world. He described a series of concentric spheres each including a hierarchical organization of spirits in a setting more earth-like than theocentric (Ibid., p.17). The spheres become gradually more illuminated and celestial.

 

Spirit travel through astral space

Spiritualists added a concept of limitlessness (Buddhism's "boundlessness") or infinity to these spheres (Edmonds, p. 123).  Furthermore, it was defined that "Laws" initiated by a god apply to Earth as well as the spirit world (Edmonds, p. 136).

Another common Spiritualist conception was that the spirit world is inherently good and is related to truth-seeking as opposed to things that are harmful residing in a "spiritual darkness" (Hill, p. 168; Edmonds, p.143). 

This conception inferred, as in the biblical parable of Lazarus and Dives, that there is considered a greater distance between helpful and harmful spirits than between the dead and the living (Hill, p.208).

Scandinavia: land of the Sami shamans (VN)

For some the spirit world was "The Home of the Soul," as described by Theosophist C.W. Leadbeater, suggesting that for a living human being to experience the spirit world will be a blissful, meaningful, and life altering experience (Colville, pp. 268-270).

Most shamans were women (DA)

Yet, John W. Edmonds states in his 1853 work, Spiritualism, "Man's relation spiritually with the spirit-world is no more wonderful than his connection with the natural world. The two parts of his nature respond to the same affinities in the natural and spiritual worlds" (Edmonds, p. 104). 

Edmonds asserts, quoting Swedenborg through mediumship, that the relationship between humans and the spirit world is reciprocal and thus could contain sorrow. Though ultimately, "wandering through the spheres" on a path of goodness "is received at last by that Spirit whose thought is universal love forever" (Edmonds, p. 345). More

(PD/EOC) What begins as a Christian program branches out with science in an attempt at credibility. Is the spirit world real? Who dwells in it? How did the spirits come into being? What do science and religion say about the spirit realm? Does the spirit realm affect us?

The Buddha: Knower of Worlds

Knower of the Worlds (Amrit Vismay)

The Buddha frequently said, there is this world and the other (or next) world. And a teacher who is enlightened directly knows and directly perceives these worlds. He frequently is shown to be aware of other planes or dimensions as well as worlds in space and underground (the 31 Planes of Existence). A buddha knows all of these worlds and the paths (karma) leading to rebirth there as well as liberation from them. 

Buddha life panels, Jing'an Temple, Shanghai

Four worlds he frequently saw and interacted with are enmeshed in this human plane -- the worlds of devas, yakkhas and maras, animals, and hungry ghosts. But he could see and visit all the manifold realms in this world system and even worlds between world systems (the interstitial hells of desolation and isolation). It is not clear if he visited other "world systems" (galaxies or universes), but it is certain that he knew about them. Buddhist cosmology describes them as having similar qualities and stations occupied by different beings such as each having a Maha Brahma and a Sakka and some having a Buddha from time to time.

• VIDEO: Sandra Ingerman on becoming a shaman (training) First set the intention. Shamanic teacher gets up close and personal with deep training insights on the benefits of a mini healing retreat (thecenterforhealingarts.com).
• VIDEO: Amazon Shamans and Ayahausca (DMT)
• VIDEO: How to see Spirit Realm (biblical "gift of discernment" with Jonathan Welton and fanatic Sid Roth)

"Desert Breath" spiral

Seen from high above, this spiral in the Egyptian desert captured by Google Earth appears to be a mystery. It's actually an enormous environmental art installation called "Desert Breath" created in 1997. The artists Danae Stratou, Alexandra Stratou, and Stella Constantinides originally designed the 1 million square foot piece with a small lake in the center, which has since dried out. LiveScience.com

Buddhism in SWEDEN is growing fast!

Jaya (Buddhist Broadcasting Network, bbncommunity.com, 9-11-13); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

It is evident that Europe is changing very rapidly, economically and socially. Although these changes are widely discussed in the media, there are a few that attract very little attention.

 

The change in demography, in particular the growth of alternative religions, is one notable item. Sweden is no exception.

Due mainly to the arrival of Diasporas and the organic growth of Eastern traditions, such as Buddhism, many domestic people are paying attention. Buddhism is still relatively small in Sweden. But in recent years it has seen tremendous growth. It is trending, and estimates on new Buddhists are on an upward swing.

• Indigenous Buddhism in Kalmykia, Europe
• Swedish Christmas in Buddhist Los Angeles
• Buddhism in Russia and Yetis in Siberia
• Celtic Buddhism in Ireland

In April 2011 (the last year for which reliable data are available) it is estimated to have risen to around 35,000 to 40,000 or 0.38-0.43% of the Swedish population, making it the third largest religion after Christianity and Islam.

 

Most practitioners have Asian backgrounds from Thailand, China, and Vietnam. According to official reports in 2011, Buddhism is proportionally the fastest growing religion.

There are now several Buddhist temples in Sweden, including Stockholm (Theravada Thai and Sri Lankan), Borås, Eslöv, Gothenburg, Fredrika, and other parts of Sweden.

 

A BNN reader reports that a giant project in the northernmost part of Sweden is underway. It is supposed to be the biggest Buddhist center in Europe. It has now, however, had to scale back its plans to get clearance for its application to build. But once the project is completed, Sweden will have an enormous Buddhist center that can facilitate more followers.

 

 

Stockholm Buddhist Temple

The Stockholm Buddhist Vihara (monastic residence) is a Buddhist temple in the Theravada tradition. Like old centers in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and elsewhere, it was established by the Sinhalese community to continue an ancient tradition of spreading the Dharma or Dhamma. The center was built in Sweden in 1985 by the Sri Lanka-Sweden Buddhist Association (SIDA) in conjunction with the arrival of the first resident monastic in Stockholm. It is the first ever Buddhist temple formed in Scandinavia, and the members are mostly of Sri Lankan origin.

A Scandinavian home
SIDA came into being in 1983 as a result of the energetic efforts and dedication of ardent Buddhist devotees who gathered in Stockholm during the winter of 1982 to discuss the possibility of forming an association.

Their courage and determination resulted in establishing a temporary organization, which became permanent after a general meeting in March, 1983 at the SIDA Auditorium in Stockholm.
 
Once established in 1985 the Stockholm Buddhist Temple moved to several temporary locations until the monastics and devotees succeeded in acquiring a permanent building for the center in Jakobsberg in 1995.

Thai Temple in Gothenburg
In 2005 Mrs. Eh and her husband Stein donated five hectares in northern Rörum for a temple building. However, lack of municipal water and sanitation would have meant additional costs if it had been built there.
 
So in 2006, Mrs. Eh and her husband found a property, one owned by a Thai/Swedish family, was for sale. They jumped at the opportunity to create a temple in southern Sweden and decided to purchase the property.
 
The temple has been built by Theravada Thai Buddhists and their partners living in southern Sweden. They have received help from the monks of Wat Pa in Copenhagen under the direction of Abbot Phar Kru Somsak.
 
Theravada temple in Skåne Åstorpsvägen

Buddhism is not a law or set of dogmas. It is a direct path to enlightenment, something to be undertaken and verified for oneself. Since it is not a "religion" in our Western sense, one need not abandon any faith or creed to practice.

It is often spoken of as an Eastern philosophy or a way of life, says the Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Assati. All are welcome here to meditate, not only Buddhists. When the temple at Railway Road 13 in Åstorpsvägen was recently inaugurated, about 100 people attended. Most were Sri Lankan Buddhists from southern Sweden who previously had to travel to Stockholm or Copenhagen, where there are already Buddhist temples.
 
"Some attendees were not Buddhists," says Mr. Nandi Dei Zylva, Chairman of Standing Behind the Temple, a Sri Lankan Buddhist cultural association in Skaane. "My wife, for example, is a Christian."

"We’re neighbors with Björnekulla Church, and the pastor and his family came here," continues Mr. Dei Zylva. "They were very friendly and accommodating and said that our visitors were free to use their parking [lot]."

The temple in Åstorpsvägen was financed by members and is a Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, unlike the Bjuv, which is Vietnamese. Bhikkhu Assati explains the difference:
 
"Buddhism, which originated in Nepal and India, has two branches -- ours called Theravada [Teaching of the Buddha's Elder enlightened disciples] and the Bjuv called Mahayana [Great Vehicle]. Theravada is more conservative than the Mahayana. It is much like the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism."

• [A more apt comparison might be Sufism to Islam or Judaism to Christianity because both are related but one is a popularization and is ten times larger.]

"Regardless of the difference, we have a good working relationship with the temple in Bjuv," adds Mr. Dei Zylva. "Before we got our own [Theravada] temple, we went there often."
 
The temple’s representatives wish many Åstorpsbors will come to visit and meditate. They welcome all who feel the need to replace their daily stress with a moment of contemplative rest.
 


In addition to the Bjuv Buddhist temple of Sweden, there is a Vietnamese temple in Katrineholm.

O, Christmas: Shaman Santa Cometh! (video)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; John Allegro

Was "Santa" originally a Siberian/Scandinavian shaman distributing magic mushrooms?

Reindeer-drawn sleigh in pagan Scandinavia, the Norwegian Lapland (visitnorway.com)

 

Budai (Elysia in Wonderland)

We love the holiday season -- not because of the crass commercialism, family fights, or endless droning of Judeo-Christian Xmas TV specials around the house.

No, it is because scholarly research has shown us the true origins of the Santa Claus.

It is not, as the Catholic Christians say, Saint Nick(olas). But we'll have to check in with Megyn Kelly and Jon Stewart for the ongoing debate about that as Stephen Colbert and Bill O'Reilly weigh in.

The indigenous Scandinavians, the Sami, and their shaman ways tied to reindeer and magic mushrooms: Introducing Santa

 

Weihnachten means Krampus

No, it is a Scandinavian/Siberian tale of something that really happened and happens -- a custom, a ritual, something to look forward to in the cold of winter. Across Siberia and Norwegian-Swedish-Finnish Lapland, among the indigenous peoples, the blond Sami and brunette (pre-Buddhist) Mongolians, the local shaman gathered the entheogen mushrooms.

• (Many Buddhists are Russians, and many more are Mongolian-Siberians, Central Asians, and inhabitants of Europe's only indigenously Buddhist country, Kalmykia).

Amanita mushrooms on pine needle floor

The red and white gifts from Mother Nature sprung up under and around pine trees. Big gifts come in small packages. Each family got its share, delivered by reindeer-drawn sleigh to hut houses with prominent chimneys burning away. The shaman came in the front door, made his moist distribution, which were in dire need of drying to preserve and maximize their effectiveness. (A chemical conversion process takes place through heating, drying, or boiling).

• Why pine trees? Is it because they are evergreen and therefore a symbol of fertility? Partly as birthrates nine months down the road show, but mainly because these fly agaric mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of pine trees. Not much can grow in the bed of dropped needles, a chemical plant strategy to enhance the success of their species by more or less sterilizing adjacent ground and minimizing competition.

Paul Stamets: the world's first "Internet" or communication Web, Mycelium "Running"

  

Mushrooms communicate very well.

The driest and warmest place to accomplish this was above an open fire, in the hearth, in convenient stockings that that hung their. Stocking stuffers, to the delight of Kris Kringles and toadstool-loving gnomes and sprinkling-fairies and mischievous elves who haunted residents with their poltergeist activities. These elementals really went to work, activities which became visible to those consuming the Forest's offerings. No one knew better than the reindeer themselves, with perhaps the exception of old jolly (delirious) Saint Shaman. They "fly" in two senses, high as the sky thanks to licking the snow and trotting, prancing, bounding as they pull.

  

Jolly Budai or Hotei with his sack and candy (Dbonyun/flickr.com)

Massive Budai (melissahardytrevenna)

• Eventually the legend of an obese saintly man carrying a big sack of gifts to give out drifted Far(ther) East from Siberia to China and made it to Buddhist Asia. In addition to Scandinavian shaman "Santa" in his white and red furs, there is Chinese shraman "Santa" in his patchwork saffron robes: Budai (Hotei) Bodhisattva, the "fat, happy Laughing Buddha" as he is almost universally regarded. He was actually a historical figure, a jolly and rotund Buddhist monk who went about carrying a sack of treats to give to children.

Another Mushroom Link

Jesus was a mushroom -- no, really, he was!

If we were to say that Saint Issa (of "Jesus Christ" fame) was a mushroom, we would be scorned and ridiculed -- charged with hooliganism and inciting religious hatred like our Russian colleagues. But it is not we who say such a strange thing. 

It is preeminent, banned-by-the-Vatican scholar John M. Allegro (johnallegro.org) -- author of The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, familiar with many texts in Christian languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English) -- who figured it out.

 

The would-be Satan or Santa?

He was such a towering figure in Christian theology that he could not be dismissed. So his work, originally titled "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East," was banned.

 

What does Allegro mean when claiming that the sacred sage Jesus (a former Buddhist monk according to the BBC), son-of-god (Sanskrit devaputra, anyone reborn among celestial devas, son-of-man, anyone reborn in our manusya loka, Human Plane, as the offspring-of-humans), Jewish revolutionary (renegade rabbi), and presumptive Vajrayana "Maitreya" (Messiah, the new Mithra), was a "mushroom"?

Ye olde Xmas catalogs (wishbook)

Was he the Nazarene Leader of the Essenes or "Jesus Christ," whose name is actually a title meaning "Yahshua the Redeemer"?

Of course, Jesus of Nazareth may have been a good Middle Eastern man and troublemaker (or an exiled dynastic Egyptian trying to gather up an army to attack the Pharaoh), but he only lived on in legend as the "greatest person who ever lived" (Jesus Christ superstar) because clever esoteric Essene/Jewish cultists embodied the lore of magic mushrooms in the name of this obscure figure.

Sami (Erika Larsen/NYTimes.com)

He returned to Nazareth or Jerusalem, Palestine (or Ethiopia, or Egypt) from 18 "lost years" in Kashmir, India. (See scholar Holger Kersten). He was preaching something new, which the mushroom cult adopted as a cover story. Christianity grew to greatness not as the religion of this godman-sadhu-guru, as we are we taught in the West, but as the amalgamation of Euro Pagan Greco-Roman syncretism -- appropriating (borrowing) everything but calling it by new names to fit its take-over-the-world theology.

• 

  Xmas in Japan = money

  Why do so many people claim Jesus/Y'shua as their own -- Jews, Greeks, imperial Holy Romans, Egyptians (Coptics), Tibetan Buddhists (who consider him a tulku, rimpoche, or even as Maitreya Buddha), Persians (who see him as Mithra), and so on and so on? It is because Christianity misappropriated parts of Jesus' life story to fabricate the greatest story every sold/told. It worked. Catholicism/Christianity can claim about three billion adherents, at least nominally, twice the number of Buddhists (when China's billion Buddhists, formerly counted as "atheists" in officially-communist China, are classified correctly in census records).

(TTW) Allegro on the mycological origins of Jesus Christ (Min. 1:50)

 

Scandinavian shaman fairyland

The Essenes -- mystic-monastic Jews, forerunners of the Gnostics, with a monasticism for spiritual striving that was new to the Near East/West (rather than the traditional rabbinical/priestly family integration) -- would have been lost to history. But the message that we are all "GOD," that we are of a divine nature (i.e., have the potential to become devas and brahmas when we are reborn again as spiritus, "light beings," subtle matter of the Fine Material Sphere), that an entheogen like magic mushrooms draws out and makes evident, was too good to lose.

Allegro figured out and published how Jesus came to be conflated with magic mushroom lore, but that he was, of that Allegro was absolutely convinced.

Garden gnome Budai

What motivated Budai/Hotei Bodhisattva to gain weight, distribute treats, and be so happy, that we do not know. Wandering Buddhist monks, called shramans, are like that.

More importantly, what will Wisdom Quarterly staff be doing for Christmas, the Pagan holiday of gift giving and merriment? Eating traditional Chinese food, rubbing Budai's belly for luck, reading our fortunes in the folds of inedible cookies, visiting family and friends to collect and distribute gifts just as Buddhist Lisa Simpson would have us do (any maybe this year there will finally be a wrapped pony under the plastic tree), and Xmas Eve meditation at Against the Stream.

(ML) A Very Pagan Xmas: The True Origins of Christmas

 

Everything we "know" about Christmas we don't. Iranian Mithra has more to do with it than Israeli Jesus. Every common holiday misconception is cracked wide open. The producers who unmasked Halloween now unwrap Christmas. This is a must see for seekers of truth. It recounts Biblical tales. But was Dec. 25th Jesus' birthday? Why do we decorate a pine tree, put lights up, teach children to believe in St. Nicholas, or Santa and his magical reindeer? Paganism. Christendom adopted popular customs; it did not invent them. This will be the Season for Reason when the real story of Christmas is known. For once our eyes are open, Christmas may never close them again.

  

Paul Stamets' Fungi Perfecti (fungi.com)

 

The Sami or Lapp

Sami girl in kolt (visitnorway)

Lapp means a "patch of cloth" for mending. Thus, the name suggests that the Sami are wearing patched garments [just as India's "shamans," the Buddhist shramanas, or "wandering ascetics" (some say bhikkhu/ni originally meant "one who picks up  or makes use of discarded rags for clothing") wear patched robes], a derogatory term and one that needs to be replaced. The word "Laplander" is also problematic since that could mean any person who lives within this region, even non-natives. Finally, there's a part of the Sami population who always have lived outside the region of "Lapland" such as the Sami of Sweden, Jemtland, and Härjedalen. (Editor: One Sami word that made it into several major languages is tundra, which speaks volumes about this part of the world). More

• PHOTOS: Reindeer, dishes, and Sami (New York Times)