America's Assignment with Destiny pt 2 ► The Mysteries ►William Cooper ► 07.01.1993

America's Assignment with Destiny pt 2 ► The Mysteries Pt 25 ►William Cooper ► 07.01.1993

Charles F. Lummis, who spent many years among the Southwest Indians of the United States, described the miracles performed by the medicine priests. Although naturally skeptical, his experiences among the Navajo and Pueblo Indians impressed him deeply. Mr. Lummis mentioned how Indians seated in their medicine lodge created miniature thunderstorms within the room, accompanied by flashes of forked lightning, while the outside sky was entirely clear. He says: "How the effects are produced I am utterly unable to explain, but they are startlingly real." He was also impressed by the ability of the priests to change themselves into animals in the presence of spectators. Some priests could create an artificial sun inside the lodge. This miniature luminary rose in the eastern side of the room, crossed overhead, and set in the west during the performance of the sacred chants.

[Now,] Amerindian priests grow the sacred corn in exactly the same way that the East Indian mendicant grows his mango tree. The magician plants the seed which grows immediately, and about three hours later the stalk is laden with fully developed ears of corn.

Other writers have reported that in some of the medicine lodges the Indians are able to levitate large stones and to cause their own bodies to float in the air. Unprejudiced observers have been forced to conclude that among most tribes of Amerinds magical rituals are performed involving the use of natural forces beyond the normal experience of human beings.

The Amerindic concept of cosmogony paralleled, in a general way, that of the Chaldeans and other peoples who dwelt in the valley of the Euphrates. The world consisted of three regions, with human beings inhabiting the surface of the central zone. Above this middle land was an airy expanse extending to the abode of the Sky-Father. Below the surface were subterranean levels extending downward to the place of the earth-mother. This cavernous region was like the dark and shadowy underworld of the pre-Homeric Greeks.

In the Southwest legends, human beings originated beneath the earth in a kind of paradisaical land. There, also, were mountains, valleys, and beautiful plains, and a sun and moon that lighted the region. In the beginning everyone was happy, but later an evil deed brought upon them the wrath of the gods. In most accounts this lovely shadowland was destroyed by a flood. In some miraculous manner a few righteous persons were preserved and took refuge on a tall plant, which, growing rapidly, finally broke through the surface of the middle land, bringing the survivors to safety.

The secrets of healing, prophecy, and magic came to the Indian from an order of beings called manitos. This Algonquian word is now applied to the concept of powerful governing spirits. The manitos were not actually gods, but superhuman manlike creatures, possessing extraordinary attributes and frequently considered as giants. The size factor, however, is figurative rather than literal. The manitos were a divine invisible tribe -- masters of magic -- to whom human beings could turn for help and guidance whenever necessity arose.