Pilgrimages are a sort of ritual return to Paradise. Phony heroes seek
to return to phony, purely spiritual Paradises, whereas true Heroes like
Alexander, Ulysses, Osiris, Dionysos and Gilgamaseh seek for the true
site of the Terrestrial Paradise. And this they invariably do, just as
their New World counterparts, by crossing into the Indies, as we can read
in the ancient sagas.
The first Europeans in America
emphasized the differences and the "savagery" of the Amerinds as an excuse
to force them into submission and slavery, and in order to be granted royal
and papal permission to steal their land and property and to disorganize
their nations and their religion. Thus deprived of their values, the acculturated
Indians became an easy prey of the far more bestial
Conquistadores
and
Bandeirantes who inevitably follow the missionaries everywhere
they show up among the primitives.
You know how it is: send
the missionaries first. If they fail in the task of destroying the social
structures of the natives and in "converting" them a sure sign of their
pact with the Devil send in the soldiers to butt in, and to punish the
savages, and to force them into complying. Once their culture and their
religion and social structure are disrupted, send in the colonists to take
away their land, their property and even their very humanity, through enslavement
and sheer genocide. Look into History, and you will see that this sad reality
is the rule rather than the exception everywhere in this world of ours.
The Meaning of Drug Cults
Like the Luiseños
and the Mescalero Apaches, the Pueblos and the Navajos often adhere to
Drug Cults. These are based on hallucinogens such as the sacred mushroom,
the
peyote and the
mescal. Indeed, most Indians use one type
or another of drug-induced ecstasy, in order to enhance their mystical
union with God.
Such was also the original
purpose of the Holy Communion of the Christians, where wine (a hallucinogen)
substitutes for other drugs. All such rituals ultimately derive from the
Soma rituals of the Hindus, as many specialists have recognized. Soma was
prepared from many plants such as hemp, mushrooms, asclepias, etc., as
well as from animal poisons obtained from toads and snakes.
Drug cults were generalized
in the whole ancient world as well, as archaeological research is unequivocally
uncovering. Even the Egyptians were apparently addicted to such rituals.
A recent study of several Egyptian mummies by the meticulous Germans unmistakenly
revealed that the Egyptian pharaohs routinely used drugs such as hemp,
opium, tobacco and coca.
Now, hemp is an Indian plant,
whereas tobacco and coca are of South American origin, and opium was usually
produced in the Near East. So, what this remarkable research unequivocally
discloses is the existence of an ancient international naval trade in drugs
(and other goods as well) throughout the world, and encompassing principally
the Indies and the Americas in its routes.
Another often-used hallucinogenic
drug is datura or jimson. This is also called loco-weed or thorn-apple
(Datura stramonium). The datura is common to both the Old and the
New World, and is also widely used in India for the same ritual purposes
as in the Americas. Jimsonweed is particularly popular among the Chungichmich
of Southern California, and is much used in initiatic rituals involving
nagualism and shamanism.
Peyotism is based on the
peyote (or mescal) cactus (Lophophora Williamsii), native to Mexico.
In the US, Peyote is eaten in a communal meal that closely resembles the
Holy Communion of the Christians, which it apparently parallels. Indeed,
modern Peyote religion actually claims that Christ instituted the "White
Communion" to Whites and the Peyote (or "Red") Communion to the Reds. Interestingly
enough, the ancient Hindus also spoke of two similar types of Soma Communion,
one "red" (or "golden" or "Solar"), and the other "white" (or "silvery"
or "Lunar").
Peyotism has been forbidden
or, at least, persecuted, since early times in the Americas. In 1620, the
Inquisidor General of New Spain forbid the use of peyote by all
Christians, a fact that meant that those caught in the practice were not
Christians and, hence, liable to prosecution and burning-at-stake for heresy
or witchcraft or both.