Spirituality for America: Earth-Saving Wisdom From the Indigenous

Spirituality for America:

Earth-Saving Wisdom From the Indigenous

Ed McGaa ~ Eagle Man

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013, Ed McGaa

All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents

"These ways are not for us alone. They must be shared."

Frank Fools Crow, Chief Medicine Man, Oglala Lakota, Sioux tribe

Foreword

Spirituality and Organized Religion ~ George Catlin ~ Native Values

Introduction

Native Spirituality Revived ~ Organized Religion in America ~ Election—2012 ~ Islam and Christianity ~ Mongol and Viking ~ Fairy Tale Phobia ~ Spiritual Perseverance ~ Marine ~ Mother Earth Spirituality ~ Mentor ~ Culture ~ Missionaries ~ Guest Commentary: Nancy Miller

Chapter 1: Religion and Spirituality

What is Spirituality? What is Religion? ~ Obliteration ~ Leadership ~ Nature’s Discipline ~ Creator’s Design ~ Forgive Me! ~ What Are Spirits? ~ Spirit Connection ~ Devil? Satan? Again. ~ A Lesson in Observation ~ Mind Fulfillment ~ No Need For a Leader ~ Facebook Entry ~ Communication

Chapter 2: Lone Cloud Sun Dance

Lone Cloud Sun Dance

Chapter 3: Spirit Ceremony

University of South Dakota ~ Predictions ~ Summary ~ Pure, Pure God Truth ~ Carolina Influence ~ Devil or Satan

Chapter 4: Encounter With the Spiritual

Capt. Jonathan Carver, 18th Century Spirit Ceremony ~ Chief Fools Crow ~ First Encounter ~ Pow Wow Dancing ~ The Tourist ~ Fools Crow’s Cabin ~ Spirit Calling ~ The Wotai (woe tye) Stone ~ Prediction ~ Spiritual Connection. Spiritual Communication. ~ Combat ~ Spiritual Predictions

Chapter 5: Bering Strait

Origin of North Eastern North American Indians ~ Across Asia Into Alaska ~ Academics and Wind Cave Myth ~ Ancient Values ~ Tibet and China ~ I. For Lords and Lamas ~ II. Secularization vs. Spirituality ~ III. Exit Feudal Theocracy

Chapter 6: Exodus

Sioux ~ The Sioux—Since the 1500s ~ The Westward Move ~ Pilgrims ~ The Move Westward, Continued ~ Exodus ~ Nadowessi ~ Sioux Held Their Culture—Others Did Not ~ Physical Comparisons ~ Mississippi Headwaters and Further West ~ Westward ~ Tribes ~ French Guns ~ Tetons ~ Exodus West

Chapter 7: Crossing the Wide Missouri

Teton Oglala ~ Arikara Tribe ~ Pushing Westward ~ Horses and Leadership ~ Buffalo Meat ~ First Horses ~ Other Tribes

Chapter 8: Democracy

Varied Democracy ~ True Roots of Democracy ~ Franklin and Paine

Chapter 9: Genghis Khan

Fire Power ~ Spiritual Beliefs ~ Early Life ~ Yassa—The Body of Law ~ Conquests in Northern China ~ Into Afghanistan and Persia ~ Torture ~ Into Azerbaijan, Armenia and Eastern Europe ~ Politics and Economics ~ Commerce

Chapter 10: Leadership

Sioux Leaders ~ Warrior Chiefs ~ Chief Red Cloud, Oglala-Teton Lakota Sioux, (1821–1909) ~ Sun Dance ~ Chief Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa-Teton Lakota Sioux (1831–1890). ~ General Sibley ~ General Sully ~ Lt. Colonel Custer ~ The Unrealistic Order ~ Sitting Bull’s Little Big Horn Battle Dream ~ Chief Crazy Horse, Oglala-Teton Lakota (1841? 1842?, 1843?, 1844?) ~ Tongue River Battle ~ Battle of the Little Big Horn ~ Dr. John Bryde ~ The Time It Takes to Eat a Meal ~ Combat ~ Black Elk ~ Congressional Reform Act of 2012

Chapter 11: Black Elk’s Vision

Black Elks Vision ~ Religious Prophet ~ 1873 or 1874 ~ The Vision ~ John Neihardt ~ With Our Own Kind ~ The Six Powers: ~ Interpretation ~ Canton Asylum ~ Black Elk’s ‘Conversion’

Chapter 12: Vision Quest and Sweat Lodge

Vision Quest ~ Wotai Stone ~ Sun Dance and Spirit Calling ~ Who Are the Spirit Helpers? ~ Sweat Lodge ~ Eagle Feather’s Four Parts of the Sweat Lodge ~ A More Definitive Description ~ Six Powers and the Spirits ~ Power of the Hoop ~ Free Choice

Chapter 13: What Spirituality is Not

What is the Track Record of Spirituality? Of a Religion? ~ What Spirituality is Not ~ Suppression of Truth ~ Holy Horrors ~ Modern Atrocity ~ Janna Linn ~ Harmonic Balance ~ Sun Dance ~ Focus ~ Creation Denial ~ The Ban

Chapter 14: Evolvement and Needed Change

Does a Spirit World Lie Beyond? ~ What Are You Doing To Progress Toward the Spirit World? ~ Dragon Fly—Tusweca (Tuss we kah) ~ Grasp the Spirits ~ Discipline ~ Not a Bible ~ The Spirits and the Nine Life Cat ~ Humor ~ Utilize the Four Directions, the Six Powers of Black Elk’s Vision ~ The Sun Dance ~ Mystery ~ What Will You Do Concerning the Environment? ~ Water Disaster—Too Much Water. ~ Water Shortage ~ General Eisenhower ~ Military-Industrial Complex. ~ A Colossal Undertaking ~ Water Westward ~ Nature’s Pipe Line ~ Is It Doable? ~ Stopglobalwarming.org ~ Four Other Issues: Heat, Thin, Gone and Too Many ~ Ending

About the Author

Notes

Dedication

To the World's Greatest Step-Mother

Mary Ray McGaa

A Word From the Author

An overpopulated world a century from now, maybe less: Planetary Salvation will demand Man’s return to Spirituality. Organized Religion will not and cannot save the Planet! Europe has already awakened. America has not.

Foreword

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler who they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

—Aristotle

Spirituality and Organized Religion

Since most of America’s readership knows little or nothing of Native American Spirituality, I find it best to utilize a comparison between it and ‘Organized Religion.’ Spirituality is based on Nature (Creator’s Creation). Organized Religion is Man-based. As an American Indian who has experienced years of forced indoctrination from Organized Religion, I believe that I know quite a bit about the White Man’s Organized Religion. I also know something about our Native Spirituality, which I wish to share with the reader. First, I want to briefly set the historical record straight about the invasion of Organized Religion into our Spiritual Lands.

The invaders came into America primarily because their own land had many inhospitable social and religious aspects that severely curtailed the Natural Freedom that is inherent to all living beings and not just the so-called Reasoning entities—we humans. The animal world—Wamaska skan to us Sioux—always strives to be free and are some of our teachers. Put a wild, free animal in a comfortable cage with abundant food and water and it will pace back and forth, seeking to escape back to its own realm. Yes, even back to a locale offering less food. Many will refuse to eat. Perhaps European immigrants were escaping from their cages, except there they were not even fed adequately. ‘Nobility’ owned all lands surrounding the local villages inhabited by the majority of the European populace, which was teeming with wild game mainly because of the restrictive hunting laws laid down by the controlling nobility. Any huntsman found in the deer-abundant forests would have his bow fingers severed. Hence very little protein bearing meat supplemented the average European’s meal that mainly consisted of gruel—like porridge. No beans, corn, potatoes, or rich in protein foods, grew in Europe until post-Columbus ships brought them back from the Americas. Consequently the European was small in stature. English knight armor would fit a five-foot, four-inch person or a small woman of today. Europeans were still much smaller than the average North Eastern Indians. Chief Red Cloud—Sioux (Lakota)—was close to six foot two and most Sioux warriors were in the six foot range, as were the Iroquois.

So Natural Spirituality is about true Freedom, not the rhetoric of freedom. It is also about Reality Nature. In our way of thinking everything is created out of a Mysterious Force that has designed the world and all that is in it to maintain a balance among its complex and often chaotic relationships. IT is a Mystery to us, which we readily admit; indescribable and actually beyond total comprehension to us—and to all the rest of humanity. But they cannot and will not admit it. Such is their indoctrinated egotism from Organized Religion. We Sioux pride ourselves for being honest with such admittance. And any talk about such subjects, even as I am doing now, comes from a suppositional attitude, unless referring to a reality actually observed. Otherwise, we respect Spirituality as an incomprehensible Mystery.

Ahhhh! But human will change! How so? I have to issue this following phrase with a smirking smile that will even outdo Former President George W. Bush. Climate Change! Mother Nature’s Planetary Heating is now making millions of believers. It was almost overnight that millions in the Northeast were hit disastrously by Frankenmonster: Hurricane Sandy coupled with high tide, a full moon and an advancing ‘Nor’easter’ storm added to a disaster that unquestionably educated the densest population area of the United States. They were like a man stumbling up groggily from a knockout punch knowing definitely he had been conquered by his opponent. Nature leaves no question about who remains in control of this planet. Re-elected President Obama suspended his presidential campaign bid for several days at a critical campaign time in what was then thought to be a very close race with former Governor Mitt Romney, who ridiculed Climate Change, as do most of the Republican Party faithful. A Republican Governor, Chris Christie, a harsh critic of the President, ‘took off his boxing gloves’ so to speak and worked side by side with the President during the aftermath and in the end of their duty gave positive plaudits to the President such had Nature’s wrath changed him. Later he called the President to congratulate him on his re-election. Earlier he refused to attend and speak at a rally for the man from his own political party who ridiculed Climate Change and the President’s Federal agency that administers to Nature’s disasters. I suppose the Republican Party’s reasoning is that their Bible says nothing about the world’s greatest forthcoming disaster, even though it becomes such an obvious reality with the increasing havoc that plays out across the planet let alone the disappearing Arctic Sea ice and melting glaciers. Simply observe Greenland! They remain ‘locked in’ but this last election and such a devastating storm will prove to subtract many a Republican adherent from their lists, is my future prediction. I firmly believe the Earth Power as created by some mysterious Vast Creator will prove me out. Unfortunately the Planet’s scenario will not become a rosy, Hollywood ending scenario. I do hope, for the sake of humanity, that I am dead wrong. Who is the culprit? As these pages turn, the source will be repeated considerably—Overpopulation! Nature will eventually force that alteration. Yes! Big Time! It will be brutal unless we change now—but that won’t happen until far too late.

Originally, religions began from a Spiritual base, but soon human intervention lost touch with this base. For example, there is nothing left of the Celtic Way (European Nature Based Spirituality) from what I have directly observed in travels through Europe. It has been thoroughly obliterated by Organized Religion. Celtic Peoples followed basic Earth principles like the Original Inhabitants of this land. All Indigenous cultures that I have met practice a Spirituality that is Earth or Nature based. Religion is generally based on Man’s beliefs. Often it even vilifies and deprecates Nature. Religion often disagrees with the findings of observable science whereas Spirituality more often is in alignment with it. Quantum physics is more and more coming to realize the conclusions of Indigenous Peoples observations of Nature.

A point I am trying to make is that Nature is All and Humans as part of Nature cannot change it to that which it is not. This is what religion tries to do. Spirituality does not invent morals and ethics. Nature created it and the Animals have taught how to live accordingly long before Humans came. Idiotic Man has traversed widely into his attempts to ‘know’ what is actually impossible to truly perceive and has used religion to fabricate knowledge successfully. Man has established a religious hierarchy which controls using fear along with false promises that are endangering all of life on Mother Earth today. Through religion-based fear rather than Spiritual fearlessness people are programmed and medicated to exist as if we were not a part of The Great Mystery.

What will it take for religious people to recognize the imbalance and unhappiness caused by Organized Religions? Take one example relating to the religious source for homophobic hatred of some individuals. Many Christian churches speak against other-gender orientations as do Muslim ones. They deny that Nature and its complex design, stemming from the Force of the Great Mysterious, allows for such variety. Indigenous Peoples always understood this. For example, my tribe states that a Winkteay (one born as a non-heterosexual) should be treated as everyone else. No chastisement or negative treatment of such individuals should be allowed or is condoned. Why? Because one does not condemn or vilify, worse persecute, worse torture or even put to death what Creator has created! Harvesting, or foraging for food, is of course allowable as the animals do. Contrast this with the sexual perversions (pedophilia) infamous in Organized Religion. And this is just one item on a list of many religious interpretations causing unnecessary harm in the world, not to mention those ideas that have led to the current ecological crises with every life system on earth at a tipping point.

Indigenous Spirituality is then simply about ‘Honest Observation’ of reality, based on a time when we lived amidst Nature and were able to observe it. It is looking clearly at what Nature reveals to us along with an awareness of civilization’s deceptions and fears. Honest Observation also holds a cautious respect for Nature’s power, of course, but not escape from it. To regain the Natural Way, we must be honest, courageous and generous. This requires making sure that we pay attention to what Man is doing to our environment. We should consider how our actions relate to future generations. Spirituality tells us to mind the laws of Nature and seek balance. Religion tells us to multiply and subdue the Earth. Natural Spirituality tells us to live according to the natural balance between the masculine and the feminine. Religions say Man is superior.

The Natural Way of Spirituality is a matter of living your beliefs according to what you know, understand, and feel in the presence of that which is Nature. It is a lifetime of moral and ethical application of integrity and caring for others. The more advanced you develop yourself from direct observation, the more advanced your mind, your spirit, your soul will become in preparation for what Spirit World may be next. This supposition also means one must unclutter and remove clogging superstition, harmful appetites, greed, ego and ignorance from the mind. The more Truthful you keep yourself, the more Knowledge that you seek, especially Nature-reflecting knowledge—the more God-reflecting you become. It is all about how you live life every day with respect for all relationships. It is about the common sense knowing that something great and beautiful is responsible for the Gift of life and Mother Earth but that it is too mysterious for Man’s complete understanding. It is about the virtues that most cultures claim to cherish, such as honesty, generosity, courage, fortitude and respectfulness. Quite simple—is it not?

It was a Dictator who was indirectly responsible for encouraging me to write the first of this Spirituality series (Spirituality for Spain: Re-birthing Celtic Wisdom from the Indigenous). Francisco Franco, the abiding friend of Benito Mussolini, Pius Pacelli (the wartime Pope) and Adolph Hitler, according to the opinions of the many Spanish people I conversed with while on a recent trip to that sunny land. The 40-year ruler banned every religion in his country, even Christian Protestantism, except of course, the Catholic Church (Catolico), whose Vatican sponsored his rise and long rule. I observed the fallen churches, crumbling monasteries as a result. The people’s memories have now turned on his major sponsor which now has to staff foreign priests, mainly from Africa and India, as very few Spaniards enter the few functioning monasteries left. It is the same situation all across Western Europe and Australia as well.

On an earlier trip, actually many trips to England, it was a similar situation. Authors travel. We get to see many lands and get close to the people. The huge, once elaborate churches were deteriorating there as well. Membership and attendance have plummeted (Australia even more so). Modern communication now has exposed the true church history, a horrid past of cover-up, atrocity, banishment, outright murder and torture in the medieval ages for centuries but more explicitly, power seeking mainly through manipulation and cooperative support of political leaders finally being revealed is no doubt the reason why. The Truth is more difficult to subvert and cover up in these modern times. The modus operandi of Organized Religion has little ethical, moral and pragmatic Earth protective substance to offer, as well, in respect to the advancing environmental challenge facing all. Nature Based Spirituality adherents, Organized Religion followers, Atheists and whatever one wants to term the remainder of two-legged (Humans), all of us are seriously, yes, life-threateningly affected.

If the situation was reversed, there would be numerous writers telling you about it and no doubt loaded with embellishment. Odd, that I am the only writer exposing such a huge portion of the world change, for the rest of Europe is similarly affected. Such is the power of Organized Religion and of course the cowardice of modern writers, in my opinion. Equally odd, I will be condemned by organized religion fanatics for simply and truthfully exposing what is happening and ongoing. They should be condemning themselves and not me. They brought all this calamity about—not me. But fanatics cannot and will not introspect. It is a direly needed trait that they are simply immune to: the shutting out of plain, simple truth. John Cornwell of Hitler’s Pope is an excellent example of a church sponsored author vilified for his honest exposure of real truth once the Vatican briefly opened up its historic files regarding Pius Pacelli XII and World War II Church involvement regarding the Jews by the honest, short-lived Pope John. At my age, like Stephen Ambrose, I can care less about any false vilification attempts. Observation based Communication can no longer be halted, covered, distorted, or destroyed, mainly due to the Internet. At least, let us say, it is considerably more difficult for the ‘Un-Truthful advocates’ to block observed reality.

After the Spain book, I began writing Spirituality for the British Isles: Re-birthing Celtic/Arthurian Wisdom from the Indigenous (early working title). Earlier, I had been devouring Bernard Cornwell’s Arthurian series every time I returned to the U. K. Whether or not there was an Arthur—either as a King or a Warlord, mattered little to me. The warriors, knights, archers and footmen in Cornwell’s historical fiction were closer to what I term ‘Nature’s Way’ than they were to early Christianity. King Arthur’s warriors, knights (his book heroes) and followers regarded Honor, Duty, Country, steadfast Vows; practical and pragmatic Environmentalism; thus they point to a higher truth than what I observe in the writings of later human association. Cornwell is certainly no friend or advocate of the medieval church in England. He is rather humorous in his characterization of early church leaders, aptly painting them as buffoons more interested in control and accumulating rather than ‘saving souls.’

Pragmatic Spirituality could be a descriptive term to describe a people’s belief system that simply wants to reflect what Creator’s Nature reveals directly. Practical, Pragmatic, Positive, Mother Earth-based Spirituality would be more accurate. Yes, and as personified by Nature, it would be devoid of all modes of Superstition.

This work, Spirituality for America, will be little changed from the British version. As stated in the text, Nature is Nature on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the Pacific. Mother Earth—God’s magnificent creation (for us) treats, teaches, provides, disciplines, punishes, and removes her subjects with equal application. Since religion is a primary focus herein, do attempt to realize truthfully that I am simply reporting from direct observation. A few worthy mentors have input as well. The results and conditions set in motion by Organized Religion, especially the environmental dilemma now unleashed, are not of my doing or cause, nor of the Indigenous people who remained steadfast in their belief system which attempts to adhere to and respect Nature’s teachings. As time moves on, great life-saving, earth-saving attributes will finally be recognized from their spiritually influenced lifestyle. Their track record down through history is truly commendable and indisputable regarding a healthy, viable, living world. It will be a foolish America that continues to ignore their Wisdom.

George Catlin

After living out in the so-called ‘Wild’ with one of America’s tribes here in America while we Lakota were still free, several centuries ago, the following is what a respecting White Man had to say about us after he experienced a people first hand, immersed in living the Natural Way.

Catlin’s Creed.

I love a people who have always made me welcome to the best they had.

I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.

I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read them or heard them preached from the pulpit.

I love a people who never swear, who never take the name of God in vain.

I love a people who love their neighbors as they love themselves.

I love a people who worship God without a bible, for I believe that God loves them also.

I love a people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.

I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, where there was no law to punish for either.

I love a people who have never fought a battle with white men, except on their own ground.

I love and don’t fear mankind where God has made and left them, for there they are children.

I love a people who live and keep what is their own without locks and keys.

I love all people who do the best they can.

And oh, how I love a people who don’t live for the love of money!

George Catlin (1796-1872)

George Catlin, Artist, who lived for eight years among Native American tribes, said in 1841: Nowhere, to my knowledge, have they stolen a six-pence worth of my property, though in their countries there are no laws to punish for theft. I have visited forty-eight different tribes, and I feel authorized to say that the North American Indian in his native state is honest, faithful, brave . . . and an honorable and religious being. (NOTE 1) Catlin offers an excellent observation of a people who lived within Nature for centuries.

Native Values

Catlin was rare among the white writers not only of his time, but even when measured against the later writers and commentators to follow. Even in these modern times, the majority of white writers associated with tribal people cannot reflect the deep values and true track record of the Mongolian descended people (we Indians), who migrated over to these lands, starting from the Bering Strait, long before the European immigrants arrived. I do not want to dispute that earlier man may have already been here in the Americas, as recent studies claim. It was a big land. The Mongolian values, however, especially their resource saving and environmental example, these earliest of migrants maintained, practiced and preserved during their long stewardship (thousands of years) of the Northern Hemisphere of what is now called the Americas. They even gave Man’s greatest gift to fellow Man—Democracy, which came from the Iroquois. Early colonists at least, were wise enough to copy such a freedom bearing government already in place. Democracy then spread to Europe. If Democracy came from Greece and Rome, as later falsely claimed, then why did it take so long to arrive after the European immigrants, who in reality discovered it from the Iroquois? Instead of the deserved recognition owed to the Indigenous, their gifts remain ignored by American writers and media.

My ancestors kept this land pristine for thousands of years. Such a gift besides democracy to ignore! The White Man, (European descendant) has been in America but a few short centuries and has not only seriously harmed/consumed Mother Earth’s ample resources but is now turning the nation into economic ruin due to greed, let alone accelerating future environmental disaster. A huge national debt has now arisen. The grandchildren of those who are its cause, mainly through their elected Congress and Presidency, are allowing vast rewards for themselves and their sponsors—the Rich, these ‘Generations Unborn’ are now so-called ‘mortgaged.’ They will be future victims of such inherited debt and consequently have to suffer heavy burdens regarding economic sanctions. The American Indian, mainly through the Truthful Discipline of Nature’s Way, never had to ‘mortgage’ their offspring as America has done. Life went on, relatively harmonious, for all, from generation to generation. Their Spiritual outlook and respectful practice had much influence for such fruitful continuance.

I have to expect condemnation from those who choose, My Church—Right or Wrong! or as the administrators of one particular sect often cite, The Church is the Bride of Christ, She is without Sin! Or in other words, What we do cannot be challenged or proven wrong. Fortunately for the innocent non-adherents and especially pedophile victims, the courts no longer buy into such a defense. I am simply an author, one that gathered serious, reliable, obvious evidence that speaks contrariwise. I simply seek to promote Justice in our land and to also let Dominant Society know and understand why so many of our people have had to lead lives of despair, poverty and little hope. Unpreparedness due to the lonely Boarding Schools is a major culprit. My people, the Indian people in America and Canada, have suffered tremendously. We Sioux fought for our freedom and quite successfully, winning a solemn treaty that took little time to be broken, mainly because of the gold discovery in the Black Hills. We simply wanted to keep concepts alive that were enabling a healthy planet for millennia. Hopefully, new knowledge found in these forthcoming pages will spawn a healthier attitude and concepts regarding Indian/Native American peoples across the land, and especially so for those of us who are seeking to return to the Spiritual Earth-Saving concepts of the past. For those who choose, however, to remain myopically narrow-minded, despite the Earth Dilemma warnings, please spare the usual accusatory rhetoric. You are angry, need anger management training, hateful and/or ‘I will pray for you.’ Instead of your well-intentioned prayers, possibly paternalistic, which in my mind I do not believe I need, please take a garbage sack and walk down the side of a highway or through a beautiful park or camping area and pick up any existing trash.

Introduction

The heartbeat of the Sioux threw off the White Man’s unconstitutional religious ban once Eagle Feather stepped defiantly into the Sun Dance arena. I am going to bring back the piercing. Out in the open. Chief Fools Crow made a cutting motion. And I will do the piercing. The crowd of Sioux cheered exuberantly and the women tremoloed. 1950s—Pine Ridge, Oglala Sioux Reservation.

Sun Dance Ceremony

Native Spirituality Revived

Why have I written a spirituality book for Spain and the United Kingdom, foreign lands for the Americans, before I attempted an American version? Because the Americans, who need to hear it most, they will not listen! In my opinion, Spain is unique among the European countries. Under Franco’s rule, I mentioned that he allowed only one sect of Christianity and banned the others. This has allowed an interesting situation and is why there need be only one focus regarding the Spanish post-war past in regards to one particular, powerfully controlling religion. What I have seen in a recent visit is the rising up of the young, the hoven, who vigorously embrace Nature’s Spirituality and now ignore the influence of the old, who still attend the Old Way but in decreasing numbers. Many of the young embrace neither Way (Religion/Spirituality) but instead are totally disgruntled. They want to get on with their lives, many choosing atheism, and forget the dictatorial rule of Franco and his religious supporters. Others are seriously interested in the Natural Way. The Spain book was intended to aid the latter in their new quest.

England did not suffer dictatorial rule, yet the decaying conditions of their village churches speaks for itself: in Australia as well. If giant spiders could attach their cobwebs on such relics it would be symbolic of the utter vacancy and disinterest the populace holds for the once pillars of their forebears.

Organized Religion in America

America, however, is loaded with churches and well attended—although for many church membership is beginning to decline. Pastor Bob’s ornate Glass Cathedral in San Francisco has been sold off into bankruptcy to none other than the Catholic Diocese. It is hoped that some Americans at least will learn from this writing and begin to introspect within themselves. I am pleased to admit that the more intelligent and less-gullible are attempting to probe our Native based ways, but they are few in comparison to the many ignorant who choose to satisfy themselves with superstition, false luxury, fairy tales, celebrity watching and extreme materialism as their life goals and meanwhile continue to gobble up disappearing resources like there is no tomorrow. Lack of discipline and refusal to introspect are also serious American flaws. We Sioux Indians have a statement; Live for the generations unborn. It means we should live our present lives in provisional regard for the approaching generations unborn as well.

Nowhere in the White Man’s teaching, including his black religious book, his Bible, is such a selfless statement recorded. This statement will not be found in the Koran either. Both of these man-written, man-composed books which are held forth by their adherents as ‘God Written’ issue say absolutely nothing about the impending environmental crisis now fast upon us planetary-wise. Instead, as mentioned before, Organized Religion has played a leading role toward the mortgaging of these future generations—the children of America. "Live for today and the hell with the Generations Unborn: