Western Shamanic Earth-centered Spirituality and History
Shamanic Sensibility and Earth-centered Spirituality
in the West:
A Rich Inheritance, Nearly Forgotten...
Western spiritual history, especially of shamanism and the native European Earth-centered spiritualities, faced a troubling, dark history of widespread political and religious eradication. Native religious and spiritual places, teachers and priests, and nearly all of what we now might refer to as our own rich shamanic and Earth-centered past fell before the Roman and Christian expansion and its desire to establish control over its conquered territories.
Throughout the last millennia and a half, native spiritual centers in Europe and the British Isles, buildings as well as sacred groves and springs, were targeted for systematic destruction by the implacable power of the Roman army and the Church. Cathedrals, monasteries and churches were then built on top of these ancient sites in a successful program of discouraging native spirituality and establishing control over the spiritual yearning native Europeans had long associated with these places. These were devastating practices that were astoundingly effective.
At the same time, native spiritual leadership and its practitioners were searched for and executed. It became a deadly endangerment to even be associated with Europe's own spiritual wisdom, practice and ritual. In its place, disinformation was spread about native spirituality, glorifying with evangelical teachings, the Roman Church's replacement religion.
It is largely for these reasons that Europe and its descendants find themselves today, alienated, often unknowingly, from their own spiritual roots. Through the forgetfulness of time the west is now embedded in misunderstandings of its rich inheritance, its own native European spirituality, and shamanism.
It is said that history is written by the conquerors, and for the Romans, Christians, and later the British, this was certainly the case when it came to Europe's native spirituality. Authorities fabricated and spread completely false information, even going so far as to associate European spirituality with ‘devil worship’ and evil.
Satanism, by the way, is a Christian heresy, and has nothing to do with Western European native spirituality. What was ‘evil’, was simply that which was not Christian.
Today, many people whose families derive from Europe are seeking out their nearly-forgotten spiritual heritage in a quest to rediscover a more healthy, vital, Earth-centered spirituality. Among European descendants and throughout the world is appearing a conscious or intuitive recognition of the personally, socially and ecologically unhealthy nature of a theology that attempts to separate people from their power and the Earth.
If you are interested in learning more about shamanic spirituality, or developing yourself as a shamanic practitioner, I encourage you to look seriously at the basic shamanism class Level 1. It is an excellent path to a very well grounded and rich education that can serve you both personally, and as a practitioner who is rediscovering a grounded, Earth-centered spiritual life. I invite you to explore the glimpses of shamanism in the pages on this website, and seriously consider starting the path of a practitioner yourself. There is so much I would like to show you.