Witchcraft In U.S. History :: essays research papers

Aboriginal Dreamtime The Aboriginal Dreamtime is that part of aboriginal culture which explains the origins and culture of the land and its people.Aborigines have the longest continuous cultural history of any group of people on Earth, dating back 65,000 years. Dreamtime is Aboriginal Religion andCulture.The Dreamtime contains many parts. It is the story of things that have happened, how the universe came to be, how human beings were created and how the Creator intended for humans to function within the cosmos.As with all other cultures it speaks of Earth's Creation by Gods and Goddesses, some of whom were kind hearted while others were cruel.The Australian Aborigines speak of jiva or guruwari, a seed power deposited in the earth. In the Aboriginal world view, every meaningful activity, event, or life process that occurs at a particular place leaves behind a vibrational residue in the earth, as plants leave an image of themselves as seeds. The shape of the land, its mountains, rocks, riverbeds, and water holes, and itsunseen vibrations echo the events that brought that place into creation. Everything in the natural world is a symbolic footprint of the metaphysical beings whose actions created our world. As with a seed, the potency of an earthly location is wedded to the memory of its origin. The Aborigines called this potency the "Dreaming" of a place, and this Dreaming constitutes the sacredness of the Earth. Only in extraordinary states of consciousness can one be aware of, or attuned to, the inner dreaming of the Earth.The Australian aboriginal shamans, "clever men" or "men of high degree", described "celestial ascents" to meet with the "sky gods" such as Baiame, Biral, Goin and Bundjil. Many of the accounts of ritualistic initiation bare striking parallels to modern day UFO contactee and abduction lore. The aboriginal shamanic "experience of death and rising again" in the initiationof tribal "men of high degree&quo t; finds some fascinating parallels with modern day UFO abduction lore. The "chosen one" (either voluntarily or spontaneously)is set upon by "spirits", ritualistically "killed", and then experiences a wondrous journey (generally an aerial ascent to a strange realm) to met the "sky god." He is restored to life, a new life as the tribal shaman.Ritual death and resurrection, abduction by powerful beings, ritual removal or rearrangement of body parts, symbolic disembowelment, implanting of artifacts,aerial ascents and journeys into strange realms, alien tutelage and enlightenment, personal empowerment, and transformation, these and many other phenomena are recurring elements of the extraordinary shamanic tradition.