As I stated in a previous post, there sure are a lot of Obama supporters in the spiritual community. So, I decided to examine this situation.
When I talk about spirituality I am referring to beliefs that include New Age and Eastern religions, not our traditional Judeo-Christian religions. Over the past few decades many Americans have taken up practices that fall outside the traditional religions that they grew up in. Many have become involved withBuddhism and Hinduism; remnants of the transcendental movements such as Science of Mind; and a conglomeration of spiritually focused practices that fall under the title of New Age. It is in this group that we find the strong Obama support.
I figured part of the support was projection and the other part of it was post 9/11 delusion. What I came to realize is that it’s actually more than that. It’s, well,
the Ghost Dance!
The Ghost Dance
The Native American Ghost Dance was a religious movement that originated in 1889. At that time, conditions on the reservations were extremely bad, many were starving, and the way of life was disintegrating. This was a situation ripe for a movement that promised an apocalypse and a New Earth. So, along came a prophet, Jack Wilson (Wovoka) with a convincing prophesy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance
“At the core of the movement was the prophet of peace Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute, who prophesied a peaceful end to white American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation.
Jack Wilson claimed to have left the presence of God convinced that if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to “hasten the event,” all evil in the world would be swept away leaving a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith.”
The Ghost Dance movement was designed to raise the consciousness of the Indians and prepare them for the New Earth:
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKghost.html
“…one in which the white people would be obliterated, buried under the new soil of the spring that would cover the land and restore the prairie. The buffalo and antelope would return, and deceased ancestors would rise to once again roam the earth, now free of violence, starvation, and disease. The natural world would be restored, and the land once again would be free and open to the Indian peoples, without the borders and boundaries of the white man.”
The Ghost Dance was a circle dance in which dancers sometimes reached frenzies and collapsed. This is from an eyewitness account of the Ghost Dance:
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/eyewit.html
“The actual dance was performed by all members joining hands to create a circle. In the center of the formation was a sacred tree, or symbol of a tree, decorated with religious offerings. Looking toward the sun, the dancers would do a shuffling, counter-clockwise side-step, chanting while they sang songs of resurrection. Gradually the tempo would be increased to a great beat of arousal. Some dances would continue for days until the participants "died," falling to the ground, rolling around and experiencing visions of a new land of hope and freedom from white people which was promised by the messiah. The dance often produced mass hypnosis in its transfixed participants, and thus, it became known as the Ghost Dance.”
Ultimately, the Ghost Dance failed to protect the Indians or their culture. The white man feared this new spirituality. The native communities were devastated and the Indians fell into a lingering despair.
The New Spirituality
There are three main threads to the new spirituality:
§ Eastern Religions, which many people became interested in during the 60’s.
§ Transcendental Religions, which include Science of Mind and Religious Science.
§ New Age beliefs, which are a conglomeration of a variety of practices and techniques.
What these three threads have in common is a belief that a change in consciousness can bring about a change on earth. The Transcendentalists and the New Age followers believe in the possibility of a Utopian existence on the planet; all we need to do is change our consciousness.
During the 1990’s, life was good. We had a Democratic President, which pleased those in the new spirituality; we were at peace; and the country was prospering. Hope was high that we were well on our way to a higher consciousness. The end of the Aztec calendar in 2012 was sparking a lot of energy and people were looking forward to a sudden leap in consciousness.
Then the Presidential election of 2000 arrived on the scene. A continuation of the 1990’s came to a close as the Supreme Court put Republican George Bush into the White House. This was followed by 9/11 and the Iraq War. What happened to Utopia?
Eight years of war and deficit spending, an unpopular President, torture, and conservative judges took its toll on the vision of the new spirituality. Let me repeat a sentence from the above description of the Ghost Dance.
This was a situation ripe for a movement that promised an apocalypse and a new Earth.
Enter Barack Obama
A candidate, who comes to be seen as transformational, enters the 2008 political campaign: Barack Obama. Half white/half black; half muslim/half Christian; half American/half foreign, it’s almost too good to be true. In fact, it’s absolutely miraculous. The perfect man: the Messiah, enters the scene.
I’m not sure if Barack Obama is the perfect storm or if he just walked into the perfect storm, but the conditions were perfect for the re-introduction of the Ghost Dance.
Remember those huge Obama rallies during the primary campaign: swooning, fainting, sobbing fans gasping to breathe the air that Obama breathed. Once again, let me repeat these sentences from the above description of the Ghost Dance:
…until the participants "died," falling to the ground, rolling around and experiencing visions of a new land of hope and freedom from white people which was promised by the messiah. The dance often produced mass hypnosis in its transfixed participants…
There are also the prophets, who much like Jack Wilson, had a vision, of a New Earth. Contemporary spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle even wrote a popular book called “The New Earth”.
But, it is Deepok Chopra, guru of the New Age, who serves the role of Wovoka. Chopra declares:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/obama-and-the-call-i-am_b_80016.html
“But to make a historical career in public life, the times must seek you out. That happens only rarely, and now it has happened to a junior senator from Illinois . If Barack Obama makes it all the way to the White House, it will represent a quantum leap in American consciousness and a promise to restore America 's position in the world.”
And what about that Utopia? Well, San Francisco Chronical columnist, Mark Morford writes in an article entitled “Is Obama an Enlightened Being”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/03/barackobama.uselections2008
“Many spiritually advanced people I know ... identify Obama as a lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who [can] actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet”. On the higher astral planes of the blogosphere, the notion met with enthusiasm. "He may play a major role," one blogger wrote, "in bringing us to [what] the Hopi Indians call the Great Shift."
Interestingly, just as the Native American Ghost Dancers believed that white people would not live on the New Earth but, “ would be obliterated, buried under the new soil of the spring that would cover the land and restore the prairie”, the new Ghost Dancers also believe the New Earth is only for those who fit the appropriate description.
New Age spokesperson Barbara Marx Hubbard writes:
"Christ-consciousness and Christ-abilities are the natural inheritance of every human being on Earth. When the word of this hope has reached the nations, the end of this phase of evolution shall come. All will know their choice. All will be required to choose..... All who choose not to evolve will die off; their souls will begin again within a different planetary system which will serve as kindergarten for the transition from self-centered to whole-centered being. The kindergarten class of Earth will be over. Humankind's collective power is too great to be inherited by self-centered, infantile people." (from The Plan, quoting Barbara Marx Hubbard, Happy birthday Planet Earth.)
We know that the Native American Ghost Dance did not fulfill the prophecy. The New Earth did not materialize; the white man did not go away; and, the buffalo did not return. And the rest is history. So, what are the chances that we are seeing history repeat itself? As I stated in a previous post, “Riding the Crest of the Wave”, we have maybe two years before the legacy of Obama hits the fan. And when that happens, the new Ghost Dancers will be forced to face reality: it takes more than drinking kool-aid to change the world.
I’d like to end with this video which is a sad, but lovely tribute to the Native American Ghost Dancers. It contains historic still photographs and video.
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