NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH

Quanah Parker is generally recognized as the “founder” of what has become the Native American Church – a belief system that incorporates the use of peyote as a healing agent and a vehicle that enables the user to experience visions, empower themselves,and seek guidance.

As peyote contains hallucinogenic properties it was a given that over time it would attract those seeking merely to get “high”, also a given that the ceremonies themselves would become corrupted and the trappings of the new agers such as crystals would insinuate themselves, accompanied by a cobbled together provenance of being the real deal.

It isn’t a uncommon now to find new agers frequenting such ceremonies and terms like “minister” being applied to those who conduct them, the transition from an indigenous healing and spiritual ritual into a commercial venture is in  full swing as the schism between tradition and pretense increases.

I’ve seen adds on the net where a person need only to send twenty five dollars to be “ordained” a minister in some bogus church, I suspect a great many of  the practicing NAC “ministers” and “medicine persons” are little different.

Another toll of the bell sounding an alarm about the corruption of indigenous ceremonies from the southern most tip of this hemisphere to the northern most.

There may come a time when such “ministers” will seek to broadcast their “services” either on the net or via cable much the same as televangelists do, perhaps they will ask for “love donations” and preach in lieu of a “prosperity doctrine” a peyote doctrine that advises one need only lay their hands on the screen or monitor to be healed-send your prayer requests, distance being a non hindrance.

Sounds too outlandish to consider? What is occurring today would have been deemed likewise a few decades ago.