Australian Aboriginal Religion

[Electriceclectic]

Love the story! The spirits do funny things sometimes

Can we explore this 'the spirits' thing ? I would like to hear your definitions and ideas about it .

One thing, with the indigenous here , the idea of ' the spirits' is prevalent .... but again, I think it is a general term and not translated well.

One thing I note of interest, in one place, the 'regular folk' are a bit spooked by 'them' ; one legged man that hops after after you at night, you cant go faster than him, he will catch you . Hairy man ... scared of him ! (and one other, 'strange ' one that I cant remember at the moment )..

Yet when my friend ( an elder, 'clever man' ) talks of the same ones he gets all emotional and fond of them ... calls them his spirit guardians and teachers .

Also the 'funny things at times ' ..... often, even with westerners , the more 'private or individual spirits' can at times be 'tricksters' as well as , at other times, of great help . That is a curious dynamic .

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Can we explore this 'the spirits' thing ? I would like to hear your definitions and ideas about it .

One thing, with the indigenous here , the idea of ' the spirits' is prevalent .... but again, I think it is a general term and not translated well.

One thing I note of interest, in one place, the 'regular folk' are a bit spooked by 'them' ; one legged man that hops after after you at night, you cant go faster than him, he will catch you . Hairy man ... scared of him ! (and one other, 'strange ' one that I cant remember at the moment )..

Yet when my friend ( an elder, 'clever man' ) talks of the same ones he gets all emotional and fond of them ... calls them his spirit guardians and teachers .

Also the 'funny things at times ' ..... often, even with westerners , the more 'private or individual spirits' can at times be 'tricksters' as well as , at other times, of great help . That is a curious dynamic .

Well, I'm still wrestling with the concept of spirits...I think every "thing" is/has spirit. While we think mainly in relation to material nouns, spirits are verbs and probably prepositions, too.

Most of the things in our world are entirely indifferent to us, some are friendly toward us, and still others are unfriendly. But all of them are kin to us, and us to them...at least that's what most of the indigenous and ancient stories tell us. Some of the stories are for everyone to share (like the one-legged man), others are only for the community, still others only for initiates (being personal guides and guardians)--although that's probably too simplistic.

My experience has been that I have always had guardians and guides, even though I haven't always recognized them (when I was Christian, I attributed the actions/communications to God; I was never much one for angels)...Later, I have learned to be aware of them in various ways, and to interact with some of them; I'm familiar with several different mythological systems, but they aren't "me:" I know much of my ancestry, but I was not raised in any of those traditions.

 

[Electriceclectic]

Many famous people have had , or been advised or led by such ;

There is the classical 'daemon' of the Greeks, Jung had his Philamon, Napoleon had his 'spiritual' councillors .

'Familiar spirits' . They are of a different 'order' . There seems to be levels and different functions. Swedenborg wrote about (as many different systems also realise ) a 'hierarchy of spirits' . Whether 'real' or not the theory seems to hold well , psychologically , as demonstrated by Dr Wilson van Dusen , who used the theory to examine treat and cure some 'incurable' psychiatric patients .

Guardians and guides , of a 'spiritual nature' or as components of the psyche are known in just about all cultures ;

• Agathodaimon
• Anthelioi
• Kakodaimon
• Daimonic
• Demon
• Eudaimon
• Eudaimonia
• Fravashi
• Fylgja
• Genius (mythology)
• Guardian angel
• Holy Guardian Angel
• Hyang
• Jinn
• Kami
• Shoulder angel
• Yaksha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(classical_mythology)

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

And then there are the various spirit worlds, in which some of these spirits dwell or at least spend time when they're not here...The Dreaming is not our time or place, and there are nine worlds nestled in the boughs of Yggdrasil, for example. The so-called shamanic worldviews have multiple levels where shamans travel for various purposes.

So far, I've met some spirits that seem to be rooted in Native American imagery, but that's the mythology I'm most versed in through reading and people like my wife. But I see, hear, feel and am otherwise aware of the other-than-human persons all around me in both waking and other states.

 

[Electriceclectic]

Last night I rewatched some old film shot here - ' first contact' . Some Aboriginal people coming out of the desert that had never had contact with white people before, nor knew what they were .

The first scenes of them emerging from the landscape into the camera view were incredible ; they were like live, living spirits coming up out of the environment . Amazing ! Many of them do declare there is no difference between the 'spiritual' world and the 'material' world - they are concepts they dont have .

As a youth, I frequented the places they once lived, in a form preserved due to my home being near one of our first National Parks. I saw and sensed their traces, but the land was empty of them, just their 'echo' . I could feel and sense ' the spirit of a place' and sorts of other ' multiple spirits' .

Eventually, I met some 'old strong people' ( strong in spirit and 'culture' ) .... they too were living spirits of the land , they have connections to the land, in a deep spiritual way built up over tens of thousands of years . . . . . and amazing to connect with them, and talk with them , like talking to ancient living spirits of the land .

Even a friend of mine was in awe of them ; he is Aboriginal , 'full blood', initiated, elder guardian 'strong culture man', 'clever man' , we passed this visiting guy in the street , 'desert man' near indigo blue black skin , friend bowed / nodded his head respectfully and after he passed he said to me " Desert Man , I am like a whitefellah compared to him."

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

After living in Western and Central Europe for many thousands of years, most of my ancestral lines jumped to the New World about 10 generations ago, a few more recently, a handful before that. A few stayed some places a few generations, and I still have distant relatives living there.

But where I live now? There were no white people here 200 years ago; and while my wife's family has lived on this land since European settlement in the early 1820s, only the four-legged and winged and six-legged and so on lived here, with the Native two-leggeds, since the glaciers melted about 16,000 years ago. The land has been worked, but NO ONE here has a truly deep connection with the land...but I sense what's here...at least some of it...

 

[Electriceclectic]

yes, I have been to a fresh young place like that ( 'geologically / energetically ' speaking ) . In New Zealand . First people there 1250 -1300 CE . The land is fresh and still being formed and pushed up and around and very volcanic.

Some places in Australia are ancient and like a weathered down skeleton , some of the oldest land surface in the world, the oldest crystal in the world, (dates to around the formation of Moon, so maybe even part of the Earth's first surface ? ) with the people connecting and living in it for maybe up to 60,000 years . Imagine the difference in 'feeling' between the two !

IN nay case , the intuitive can find feel and discover it for themselves , after all, everyone, originally came from 'somewhere else . ' ( Dont tell the Basques I said that ! )

 

[psychoslice]

Sorry, wrong thread.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

yes, I have been to a fresh young place like that ( 'geologically / energetically ' speaking ) . In New Zealand . First people there 1250 -1300 CE . The land is fresh and still being formed and pushed up and around and very volcanic.

Some places in Australia are ancient and like a weathered down skeleton , some of the oldest land surface in the world, the oldest crystal in the world, (dates to around the formation of Moon, so maybe even part of the Earth's first surface ? ) with the people connecting and living in it for maybe up to 60,000 years . Imagine the difference in 'feeling' between the two !

IN nay case , the intuitive can find feel and discover it for themselves , after all, everyone, originally came from 'somewhere else . ' ( Dont tell the Basques I said that ! )

In this area, we can go some places that were under the ice 18000 years ago, and just a few miles away, area that was uncovered since the prior ice maximum, more than 100,000 years ago. Here and there, rivers have exposed truly ancient sediments, some laid down in the Carboniferous, others "only" in the Jurassic. I've been to some volcanically recent areas (last few thousand years), too. All different feelings when you sit and open up.

I'd love to visit some of the ancient places around Australia...