From: https://cynthiachung.substack.com/p/the-shaping-of-a-world-religion-from
The Shaping of a World Religion: From Jesuits, Freemasons & Anthropologists to MK Ultra & the Counter-Culture Movement
AUG 22, 2023
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By Cynthia Chung
“In approaching this subject, we shall try to find out what it is that is common to many religions in the methods of sudden conversion employed by their priests and evangelists. We shall endeavour to bring this into relation with what we know of the physiology of the brain. We must beware of being distracted by what it is that is being preached. The truths of Christianity have nothing to do with the beliefs inspired by the rites of pagan religions or of devil-worshippers. But the physiological mechanisms, of which use has been made by religions on each side of this gulf, will bear the closest examination.
The leaders of successful faiths have never, it may in fact be said, dispensed entirely with physiological weapons in their attempts to confer spiritual grace on their fellow men. Fasting, chastening of the flesh by scourging and physical discomfort, regulation of breathing, disclosure of awesome mysteries, drumming, dancing, singing, inducement of panic fear, weird or glorious lighting, incense, intoxicant drugs — these are only some of the many methods used to modify normal brain functions for religious purposes. Some sects pay more attention than others to a direct stirring up of emotions as a means of affecting the higher nervous system; but few wholly neglect it.”
- William Sargant, Battle for the Mind (1957), pioneer of Tavistock & MK Ultra mind control techniques.
A Millennial New Dawn and the Master of Life
There is a prophecy, a dawn myth, amongst the indigenous people of the Americas, which is said to have originated in the south and dates as far back as the period of the Aztecs (1300-1521).[1] This prophecy was foretold by a white man with a flowing beard, “at once a Moses and a messiah”[2] and many were drawn to this story that spoke of the salvation of their people. Over time this prophecy was heard by many including those living further north, until it seemed all had heard of this foretelling of salvation by this god-like man. It is said that he had travelled to them from the east with the morning light and had brought life and joy to the world, only to return to the east with the dawn and that they were destined to wait for him until he would return once again and all would be paradise.
This myth is of course shrouded in mystery since we have no history to account for it, whereby the Spanish were supposed to be, as we are told, the first foreigners to have arrived to the Americas in the early 1490s.
It appears this dawn myth played a prominent role for why so many indigenous people had at first welcomed the Spaniards upon their arrival to the Americas. They “welcomed the white strangers as the children or kindred of their long-lost benefactor, immortal beings whose near advent had been foretold by oracles and omens.”[3]
We know very well that this encounter did not fulfill the prophecy. However, despite bitter disappointment, the southern nations continued to cherish the hope of a coming messiah, albeit now this messiah would assume the character of a terrible avenger of their wrongs and they would continue to wait for the coming of the day which would break the power of the white-skin conqueror.[4]
The advent of the deliverer was believed to be heralded by signs and wonders. “Thus, in Mexico, a mysterious rising of the waters of Lake Tezcuco, three comets blazing in the sky, and a strange light in the east, prepared the minds of the people for the near coming of the Spaniards.”[5]
In the 1530s the French would also make their way to the Americas beginning with voyages to Newfoundland. The British, more accurately known as the first American colonists though were still officially recognised at the time as British subjects, would set up their first colony in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia.
Map of North America (1656-1750). Source: Wikipedia.
Map of the Spanish and Portuguese empires in 1790. Source: Wikipedia.
The French colonists appear to have been the most peaceful towards the indigenous peoples out of all of the European colonialists, however, this does not mean they were free of their own destructive machinations as we will soon see. By the mid 1750s, in almost every tribe, if not all, there were French missionaries where the French ruled.
These French missionaries’ “fearless courage and devotion had won the admiration and love of the savage; in every village was domiciliated a hardy voyageur, with his Indian wife and family of children, in whose veins commingled the blood of the two races and whose ears were attuned alike to the wild songs of the forest and the roudeans of Normandy and Provence. It was no common tie that bound together the Indians and the French, and when a governor of Canada and the general of his army stepped into the circle of braves to dance the war dance and sing the war song with their red allies, thirty-three wild tribes declared on the wampum belt, ‘the French are our brothers and their king is our father. We will try his hatchet upon the English,’[6] and through seven years of blood and death the lily and the totem were borne abreast until the flag of France went down forever on the heights of Quebec.”[7]
With the defeat of the French after the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) the Indian tribes were left to fight their war against the British on their own, who they now faced in growing numbers.
On matters of geopolitics, counterintelligence, revisionist history and cultural warfare.
Pontiac’s Prophecy
In 1763 a prophet, Pontiac (1714/20-1769), arose in Delawares, at Tuscarawas, on the Muskingum who preached a union of all the tribes and a return “to the old Indian life, which he declared to be the divine command, as revealed to himself in a wonderful vision.”[8] This scene was recorded by an anonymous eyewitness in French, and serves as a confirmation that there was a presence of the French at this great council of the tribes held near Detroit in April 1763. This manuscript, which historian Francis Parkman refers to as the “Pontiac manuscript” is said to “bear internal evidence of genuineness, and is supposed to have been written by a French priest.”[9]
We will review Pontiac’s prophecy in detail here since it plays a central role to what would form a dominant belief system amongst the Indian tribes throughout the 19th century and afterwards. Both Francis Parkman and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft are recognised as historical authorities on the “Pontiac prophecy”, the latter being one of the spiritual fathers of the Smithsonian Institute and the Bureau of Ethnology.
“According to the prophet Pontiac’s story, being anxious to know the ‘Master of Life’, he determined, without mentioning his desire to anyone, to undertake a journey to the spirit world. Ignorant of the way, and not knowing any person who, having been there, could direct him, he performed a mystic rite in the hope of receiving some light as to the course he should pursue. He then fell into a deep sleep, in which he dreamed that it was only necessary to begin his journey and that by continuing to walk forward he would at last arrive at his destination.
…Day after day he proceeded without incident, until at sunset of the eight day, while preparing to encamp for the night…he noticed, running out from the edge of the prairie, three wide and well-trodden paths…he observed with astonishment that the paths became more distinct as the night grew darker…It seemed to him that one of these roads must lead to the place of which he was in search…[after trying the two widest paths he takes] the third road… [which leads him to] a precipitous mountain of dazzling brightness directly in his path…looking up, he saw seated a short distance up the mountain a woman of bright beauty and clade in snow-white garments, who addressed him in his own language, telling him that on the summit of the mountain was the abode of the Master of Life, whom he had journeyed so far to meet…after much difficulty [he] reached the top…he advanced…to the gate of the village, where he was admitted and saw approaching a handsome man in white garments, who offered to lead him into the presence of the Master of Life…the Master of Life thus addressed him:
‘I am the Master of Life, whom you wish to see and with whom you wish to speak. Listen to what I shall tell you for yourself and for all the Indians.’
He then commanded him to exhort his people to cease from drunkenness, wars, polygamy, and the medicine song, and continued:
‘The land on which you are, I have made for you, not for others. Wherefore do you suffer the whites to dwell upon your lands? Can you not do without them? I know that those whom you call the children of your Great Father [the King of France] supply your wants; but were you not wicked as you are you would not need them. You might live as you did before you knew them. Before those whom you call your brothers [the French] had arrived, did not your bow and arrow maintain you? You needed neither gun, powder, nor any other object. The flesh of animals was your food; their skins your raiment. But when I saw you inclined to evil, I removed the animals into the depths of the forest that you might depend on your brothers for your necessaries, for your clothing. Again become good and do my will and I will send animals for your sustenance. I do not, however, forbid suffering among you your Father's children. I love them; they know me; they pray to me. I supply their own wants, and give them that which they bring to you. Not so with those who are come to trouble your possessions [the English]. Drive them away; wage war against them; I love them not; they know me not; they are my enemies; they are your brothers' [the French] enemies. Send them back to the lands I have made for them. Let them remain there. [Source: Schoolcraft’s Algic Researches]
The Master of Life then gave him a prayer, carved in Indian hieroglyphics upon a wooden stick, which he was told to deliver to his chief on returning to earth. [Source: Parkman’s The Conspiracy of Pontiac]
His instructor [the Master of Life] continued:
‘Learn it by heart, and teach it to all the Indians and their children. It must be repeated morning and evening. Do all that I have told thee, and announce it to all the Indians as coming from the Master of Life. Let them drink but one draught, or two at most, in one day. Let them have but one wife, and discontinue running after other people's wives and daughters. Let them not fight one another. Let them not sing the medicine song, for in singing the medicine song they speak to the evil spirit. Drive from your lands those dogs in red clothing [the British]; they are only an injury to you. When you want anything, apply to me, as your brothers do, and I will give to both. Do not sell to your brothers that which I have placed on the earth as food. In short, become good, and you shall want nothing. When you meet one another, bow and give one another the [left] hand of the heart. Above all, I command thee to repeat morning and evening the prayer which I have given thee’.”[10] [emphasis added]
This wooden stick with Indian hieroglyphics mentioned by Pontiac which also shows a heavenly map, reappears in the account of Känakûk, the Kickapoo prophet, seventy years afterward. According to the historical account of Catlin, the prophet Känakûk had received his doctrine from a white man. The prophet’s followers met for worship on Sunday, would receive the exhortations of Känakûk and then proceed to march throughout the village in single file while reciting the prayer chant to bystanders as they passed by. They would continue the chant until they arrived at the “father’s house” or heaven, indicated by the figure of a horn at the top of the prayer-stick. The followers of Känakûk would also meet every Friday for confession of their sins, and would receive several penitent strokes with a rod of hickory according to the gravity of his offence.
It should be noted the wooden stick with Indian hieroglyphics is known as a prayer-stick and almost certainly comes from Catholic influence. One prayer stick was kept in good condition by the United States National Museum for closer observation.
“The characters bear some resemblance to the old black-letter type of a missal, while the peculiar arrangement is strongly suggestive of the Catholic rosary with its fifteen ‘mysteries’ in three groups of five each. It will be remembered that the earliest and most constant missionaries among the Kickapoo and other lake tribes were Catholic, and we may readily see that their teachings and ceremonies influenced this native religion, as was afterward the case with the religions of Smohalla and the Ghost dance. Neither three nor five are commonly known as sacred numbers among the Indians, while three is distinctly Christian in its symbolism. It is perhaps superfluous to state that the ideas of heaven and hell are not aboriginal, but were among the first incorporated from the teachings of the white missionaries. The characters resembling letters may be from the alphabetic system of sixteen characters which it is said the Ojibwa invented for recording their own language, and taught to the Kickapoo and Sauk, and which resembled somewhat the letters of the Roman alphabet, from which they apparently were derived.”[11] [emphasis added]
Thus, the wooden stick with hieroglyphics that Pontiac described was of Catholic origination. The Pontiac prophecy revealed to him by the Master of Life becomes increasingly dominant throughout numerous tribes until at least the late 19th century, as we will see. The prophecy always speaks of a messiah who will bring about paradise to the Indian people and destroy the white conquerors if they wash themselves of their sins and return to their “original state”. This included being forbidden from using gunpowder and firearms as well as flint and steel to make fire. Later the prophecy would also include that the prophet of this divine mission would also receive the power to cure all diseases and to arrest the hand of death in sickness or on the battlefield, that their dead would rise again and that their old would become young again and the young would never become sick.[12]
Although the prophecy promised to rid the Indians of the presence of the white man, it should be noted that this never meant all white men, for there were always, even amongst the most warrior-like tribes who were followers of Pontiac’s prophecy and were aggressive to the colonialists, acceptable white men that they received in their company as brothers. We will come to know who these acceptable white men were throughout this essay.
Pontiac ascended to the highest position among the leaders of the Algonquians. For his services during the Seven Years’ War on the side of the French, he had received “marks of distinguished consideration” from Montcalm himself, the commander of the French forces during the Seven Years’ War. “By reason of his natural ability, his influence was felt and respected wherever the name of this tribe was spoken, while to his dignity as chief he added the sacred character of high priest of the powerful secret order of the Midé.”[13]
Thus, after his vision, Pontiac, now in the prime of manhood, announces the policy of confederation of all tribes at the great council near Detroit in April 1763 as was revealed to him as the will of the Master of Life. At this great council, Pontiac was listened to as if he himself were an oracle, and he declared to all the chieftains present that he had only to declare the will of the Master of Life to be obeyed. Pontiac would fail in this mission after about three years of battles and was murdered in 1769 by a Peoria warrior, while already living a life of obscurity having been exiled from his home village after too many failures in battle. However, the Pontiac prophecy would continue to be believed in and this initiative to form a confederation of all tribes would be carried forward almost to successful completion by the great Tecumseh.
Tecumseh and his brother the Shawnee Prophet
In 1805, Tecumseh’s younger brother Tenskwatawa would become known as the Shawnee Prophet and founded a religious movement that called for the Indian people to reject European influences and return to a more traditional lifestyle.
James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology, in his The Ghost-Dance Religion recounts the story thus:
“Now arose among the Shawano another prophet to point out to his people the ‘open door’ leading to happiness. In November, 1805, a young man named Laulewasikaw (Lalawe'thika, a rattle…), then hardly more than 30 years of age, called around him his tribesmen and their allies at their ancient capital of Wapakoneta, within the present limits of Ohio, and there announced himself as the bearer of a new revelation from the Master of Life, who had taken pity on his red children and wished to save them from the threatened destruction. He declared that he had been taken up to the spirit world and had been permitted to lift the veil of the past and the future — had seen the misery of evil doers and learned the happiness that awaited those who followed the precepts…[of the Master of Life]. He then began an earnest exhortation, denouncing the witchcraft practices and medicine juggleries of the tribe, and solemnly warning his hearers that none who had part in such things would ever taste of the future happiness. The firewater [alcohol] of the whites was poison and accursed; and those who continued its use would after death be tormented with all the pains of fire, while flames would continually issue from their mouths…All property must be in common, according to the ancient law of their ancestors. Indian women must cease to intermarry with white men; the two races were distinct and must remain so. The white man's dress, with his flint-and-steel, must be discarded for the old time buckskin and the firestick. More than this, every tool and every custom derived from the whites must be put away, and they must return to the methods which the Master of Life had taught them. When they should do all this, he promised that they would again be taken into the divine favor, and find the happiness which their fathers had known before the coming of the whites. Finally, in proof of his divine mission, he announced that he had received power to cure all diseases and to arrest the hand of death in sickness or on the battlefield.” [emphasis added]
According to Drake’s historical account The Life of Tecumseh and of his brother the Prophet, which appears to be the most extensive available, the Shawnee prophet (Tecumseh’s brother) began a sort of crusade against those suspected of witchcraft or magic arts and it is claimed that he took political advantage of this to effectually rid himself of all who opposed his sacred claims.
In Drake’s account he describes a situation in one village where the chief and his wife were both denounced as guilty of witchcraft by the Shawnee prophet and condemned to death, which was commonly done by slow burning by fire that could take days before death. The chief, out of respect, had been spared this fate and was instantly killed by a tomahawk to the head. While preparations were being made for the immolation of the chieftain’s wife, her younger brother, a youth of 20 years of age, leads her out of the council and returns exclaiming “The devil has come among us [alluding to the Shawnee prophet], and we are killing each other.”[14] According to Drake, this resulted in a wild frenzy amongst the Indian people and put an end to such cruel scenes and for a time greatly impaired the Shawnee prophet’s crusade among the Delawares.
According to a historical account told by John Tanner[15], a white man captured as a child and brought up among the Ojibwa, he relays more curious stories about the Shawnee prophet having told his tribe to do away with flint and steel making it much harder to make a fire, and that they must always keep a fire going and never let it go out which led to a depletion of wood, to throw away their medicine bags and even encouraged the killing of all hunting dogs with only one dog being permitted per family. This led to great difficulty in hunting wild game since their hunting dogs played a key role. Farming was thus encouraged as a replacement for hunting, but much of the land was not suitable for farming, and the Indians had next to no experience in farming, and this led to further hardship and even starvation. Eventually the people of the Ojibwa concluded that the Shawnee prophet of the Master of Life was an impostor and a bad man.[16]
Mooney writes:
“Tanner's account is confirmed by Warren [a historian], from the statements of old men among the Ojibwa who had taken part in the revival. According to their story the ambassadors of the new revelation appeared at the different villages, acting strangely and with their faces painted black — perhaps to signify their character as messengers from the world of shades. They told the people that they must light a fire with two dry sticks in each of their principal settlements, and that this fire must always be kept sacred and burning. They predicted the speedy return of the old Indian life, and asserted that the prophet would cause the dead to rise from the grave. The new belief took sudden and complete possession of the minds of the Ojibwa and spread ‘like wildfire’ from end to end of their widely extended territory, and even to the remote northern tribes in alliance with the Cree and Asiniboin. The strongest evidence of their implicit obedience to the new revelation was given by their attention to the command to throw away their medicine bags, the one thing which every Indian holds most sacred.”[17] [emphasis added]
Mooney continues the tale:
“The prophet now changed his name to Tenskwatawa, ‘The Open Door’ (from skica'te, a door, and the'nui, to be open; frequently spelled Elskwatawa), significant of the new mode of life which he had come to point out to his people, and fixed his headquarters at Greenville, Ohio, where representatives from the various scattered tribes of the northwest gathered about him to learn the new doctrines. Some, especially the Kickapoo, entered fervently into his spirit, while others were disposed to oppose him…To establish his sacred character and to dispel the doubts of the unbelievers, he continued to dream dreams and announce wonderful revelations from time to time, when an event occurred which effectually silenced opposition and stamped him as one inspired.
By some means he had learned that an eclipse of the sun was to take place in the summer of 1806. As the time drew near, he called about him the scoffers and boldly announced that on a certain day he would prove to them his supernatural authority by causing the sun to become dark. When the day and hour arrived and the earth at midday was enveloped in the gloom of twilight, Tenskwatawa, standing in the midst of the terrified Indians, pointed to the sky and cried, ‘Did I not speak truth? See, the sun is dark!’ There were no more doubters now. All proclaimed him a true prophet and the messenger of the Master of Life. His fame spread abroad and apostles began to carry his revelations to the remotest tribes.” [emphasis added]
Again the prophet encouraged a return to the old ways in the sense of banishing firearms, alcohol and flint and steel for fire, however, somewhat contradictory he also moved to end old practices such as polygamy, medicine bags and magic arts which were claimed to be corruptions of the ancient purity of the Midé rites. Instead of these the Shawnee prophet was to give them new songs and new medicines.[18]
Interestingly, the historian E. A. Kendall writes:[19]
“In the north…there is always a plain discrimination against the Americans. The Great Father, through his prophet, is represented as declaring himself to be the common parent alike of Indians, English, French, and Spaniards; while the Americans, on the contrary, ‘are not my children, but the children of the evil spirit. They grew from the scum of the great water, when it was troubled by an evil spirit and the froth was driven into the woods by a strong east wind. They are numerous, but I hate them. They are unjust; they have taken away your lands, which were not made for them’.”[20] [emphasis added]
It is interesting and relevant to note here this historical observation, that by the time of Tecumseh, which overlaps with the War of 1812 (which lasted from 1812-1815) between the Americans and the British, it was understood by the Indian tribes that the unacceptable white men, were not the English, the French or the Spaniards but only the Americans. Note that during the time of the Seven Years’ War (1756 – 1763), the British at this time were largely made up of what would become the American patriots of the revolution.
We see this further supported by what would otherwise seem paradoxical, how Tecumseh the continuation of Pontiac’s prophecy, the latter who was a friend of the French and an enemy of the British, would find himself siding with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812 and would ultimately die for the British cause.
In fact, at this time, both Spain and England had joined forces against the young United States and had helped to spread opposition against the Americans through Spanish and English emissaries which culminated in the summer of 1813 in the terrible Creek War which lasted one year and carried over into the War of 1812.[21]
[Note: It is beyond the scope of this essay to go over how within the American factions there were both pro-British which was a continuation of imperialist policy and anti-British which was a genuine opposition to imperialist policy that composed the American government and its institutions. Suffice to say, the acknowledgement that by 1812, the predominant belief amongst the Indian tribes were that only the Americans were not to be counted as among the children of the Master of Life is significant and relevant in understanding the geopolitical machinations of this time. For a more thorough historical review please refer to Anton Chaitkin’s Treason in America and Graham Lowry’s How the Nation was Won. However, the specific role of the Jesuits in manipulating such scenes will be discussed in detail [below and] in Part II of this series.]
Subscribed
Tecumseh (Tecumtha, “The Meteor”) was son of a chief and the worthy scion of a warrior race. His tribe, the Shawano, were known by all tribes as the most determined in their resistance against the encroachments of the whites. Both his father and his older brother had died in battle against the white people. Tecumseh was also known for his honor and nobility, and despite all of the injustices he had suffered from the whites he never gave into a mean spirit of revenge and was known to treat his prisoners and the defenseless with humanity while under his protection.
As already mentioned, Tecumseh was to carry forward Pontiac’ mission to unite the Indian tribes against the white encroachment. Tecumseh’s request to the American government during this period (which overlapped with Jefferson’s government 1801-1809 and Madison’s government 1809-1817) was very reasonable. He asked that the Greenville treaty be made invalid since it had been forced upon the Indian people and that the only true boundary was the Ohio River, as established in 1768, and that all future cessions must have the sanction of all the tribes claiming rights in that region.
Although Tecumseh was from all accounts an intelligent and peaceable man, over time, no doubt from continuous disappoint in attempting to negotiate with the American government and its representatives, while the injustices upon the Indian people only grew, his movement grew into a “military spirit…[which] afterward gave to it a warlike and even aggressive character, and henceforth the apostles of the [Shawnee] prophet became also recruiting agents for his brother [Tecumseh].”[22] It appears that it is at this point that Tecumseh’s council becomes increasingly more odd and detached from his conduct earlier on.
In 1807, a point is reached of frustration where Tecumseh agrees that a final stand for the valley of the Ohio is to occur. Tecumseh’s brother, the Shawnee prophet of the religion of the Master of Life begins to arouse fervor to go to war, while Tecumseh becomes general and active organizer of the Indian tribes.
Mooney writes “In 1809, however, rumors of an approaching outbreak began to fill the air, and it was evident that the British were instigating the Indians to mischief in anticipating of a war between England and the United States [the War of 1812]…The Indians now refused to buy ammunition from the American traders, saying that they could obtain all they wanted for nothing in another quarter.”[23]
In the summer of 1810, Tecumseh attended by some several hundred warriors, descended the river to Vincennes to deliberate with Governor William Henry Harrison (later President of the United States). These deliberations continue until 1811. Tecumseh speaks to Harrison of how he only wants what the Americans have taught them, to unite their colonies.
In November 1811, Tecumseh leads a surprise attack on Governor Harrison’s camp at night. The battle continues until day-break. According to the historian Drake, prior to the battle “the prophet [Tecumseh’s younger brother] had given assurances to his followers that in the coming contest the Great Spirit would render the arms of the Americans unavailing; that their bullets would fall harmless at the feet of the Indians…Availing himself of the privilege conferred by his peculiar office, and perhaps unwilling in his own person to attest [test] at once the rival powers of a sham prophecy with a real American bullet, he prudently took a position on an adjacent eminence, and when the action [the battle] began, he entered upon the performance of certain mystic rites, at the same time singing a war song. In the course of the engagement he was informed that his men were falling. He told them to fight on – it would soon be as he had predicted. And then, in louder and wilder strains, his inspiring battle song was heard commingling with the sharp crack of the rifle and the shrill war whoop of his brave but deluded followers.”[24]
This prophecy that the Indian tribes would be invincible to the white man’s bullet would incredibly be repeated on numerous other occasions, most notably with the Ghost-Dance religion which would lead to the tragic events of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 and which would again show evident influences from the advising of white men as we will see.
Believing in the word of the Shawnee prophet that they would receive supernatural aid from above, they had fought with desperate bravery, and their defeat against Harrison’s forces completely disheartened them. They at once abandoned their town and dispersed, each to his own tribe. “Tecumseh’s great fabric was indeed demolished, and even its foundations rooted up”[25] by his brother’s false prophecy.
“The night before the engagement the prophet had performed some medicine rites by virtue of which he had assured his followers that half of the soldiers were already dead and the other half bereft of their senses, so that the Indians would have little to do but rush into their camp and finish them with the hatchet.”[26]
After their terrible failure in battle, Tecumseh’s brother was denounced as an unsuccessful medicine-man and a liar, he was deserted by all but a few of his own tribe and warned away from several villages until he found refuge in a small band of Wyandot, where he lived his remaining days in the gloom of obscurity.
Although Tecumseh would continue his days as a valiant warrior, he had lost the leadership of a great many Indian tribes due to his brother’s folly, and was now only the general of a few tribes who continued to believe in Pontiac’s prophecy. The mission to unite all Indian tribes had nearly been accomplished successfully by Tecumseh if it were not for the failure of his brother’s sham prophecy. We can only imagine what such a union would have looked like under the intelligent and benevolent leadership of Tecumseh if it had not been for this sabotage by the religious convictions of his younger brother who followed the revelations the new religion of the Master of Life.
Because Tecumseh lacked forces, he joined with the British leading the remaining loyal tribes into battle against the Americans. He died in 1813 against Harrison’s forces in a war where the cause of his people was nowhere to be found and whose desperate will to fulfill Pontiac’ prophecy the British merely took advantage of to service their own purposes.
The Jesuit Connection
All things to all men. - Jesuit maxim
The Society of Jesus was founded in Paris in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish monk-soldier who it is said underwent a profound religious experience while recovering from serious wounds. Loyola called the society “The Company of Jesus” to indicate its military spirit. The order was authorized by the Pope in September 1540 to ordain its members.
This profound religious experience included supposed visions that revealed to him the mysteries of the Catholic dogma. For these visions he was seen as a great mystic, who was now capable of an incredible ability in the “distortion of the will.”
“He never doubted the reality of these revelations. He chased Satan with a stick as he would have done a mad dog; he talked to the Holy Spirit as one does to another person actually; he asked for the approval of God, the Trinity and the Madonna on all his projects and would burst into tears of joy when they appeared to him. On those occasions, he had a foretaste of celestial bliss; the heavens were open to him, and the Godhead was visible and perceptible to him.”[27]
As Edmund Paris, author of the Secret History of the Jesuits, writes, “Is not this the perfect case of an hallucinated person?...From the start, medieval mysticism has prevailed in the Society of Jesus; it is still the great animator, in spite of its readily assumed worldly, intellectual and learned aspects. Its basic axiom is: ‘All things to all men.’ The arts, literature, science and even philosophy have been mere means or nets to catch souls…To this Order, there is not a realm where human weakness cannot be worked upon, to incite the spirit and will to surrender and go back to a more childish and restful devotion.”
Loyola would produce a small book titled “Spiritual Exercises,” it is the textbook of the Jesuits as well as the selected biography of Loyola in laying out the highlights of what shaped his long inner development before reaching the level of master.
“Ignatius understood more clearly than any other leader of men who preceded him that the best way to raise a man to a certain ideal is to become master of his imagination. We ‘imbue into him spiritual forces which he would find very difficult to eliminate later’, forces more lasting than all the best principles and doctrines; these forces can come up again to the surface, sometimes after years of not even mentioning them, and become so imperative that the will finds itself unable to oppose any obstacle, and has to follow their irresistible impulse”.[28] [emphasis added]
Thus, all the “truths” of the Catholic dogma are not only to be meditated upon, but are to be believed and felt by the one who devotes himself to these “exercises” with the help of a “director” or “operator.” In other words, he will have to see and relive the mystery with the greatest possible intensity.[29]
Edmund Paris writes[30]: “The candidate's sensitiveness becomes impregnated with these forces whose persistence in his memory, and even more so in his subconscious, will be as strong as the effort he made to evoke and assimilate them. Beside sight, the other senses such as hearing, smell, taste and touch will play their part. In short, it is mere controlled auto-suggestion. The angels' rebellion, Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise, God's tribunal, the evangelical scenes and phases of the Passion are, as one would say, relived in front of the candidate. Sweet and blissful scenes alternate with the most sombre ones at a skilfully arranged rhythm. No need to say that Hell has the prominent part in that ‘magic lantern show’, with its lake of fire into which the damned are thrown, the awful concert of screams, the atrocious stench of sulphur and burning flesh. Yet Christ is always there to sustain the visionary who doesn't know how to thank him for not having thrown him already into hell to pay for his past sins.”
Edgar Quinet wrote[31]:
“Not only visions are pre-arranged, but also signs, inhalings, breathing are noted down; the pauses and intervals of silence are written down like on a music sheet. In case you do not believe me, I will quote: ‘The third way of praying, by measuring the words and periods of silence’. This particular manner of praying consists of leaving out some words between every breath; and a little further: ‘Make sure to keep equal gaps between every breath and choking sob and word’. (Et paria anhelituum ac vocum interstitia observet), which means that the man, being inspired or not, becomes just a machine which must sigh, sob, groan, cry, shout or catch one's breath at the exact moment and in the order which experience shows to be the most profitable.
…Do you know what distinguishes him [Loyola] from all the ascetics of the past? The fact that he could observe and analyse himself logically and coldly in that state of rapture, while for all the others even the idea of reflection was impossible.
Imposing on his disciples actions which, to him, were spontaneous, he needed just thirty days to break, with this method, the will and reasoning, in the manner in which a rider breaks his horse. He only needed thirty days ‘triginta dies’, to subdue a soul. Note that Jesuitism expanded together with modern inquisition: while the inquisition dislocated the body, the spiritual Exercises broke up the thoughts under Loyola's machine”. [emphasis added]
Edmund Paris adds to this, “It is understandable that after four weeks devoted to these intensive Exercises, with a director as his only companion, the candidate would be ripe for the subsequent training and breaking.”
The Jesuits took their mission to the New World, very seriously and quickly grew in their prominence throughout the Americas. By the time Ignatius died in 1556, his Jesuit sons were working amongst the pagans in India, China, Japan, and the New World, as well as France, Southern and Western Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and England.[32]
The Council of Trent which was held from 1545-1563, was the 9th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. Pope Paul III had sent Diego Laynez, a Spanish Jesuit priest, to the Council of Trent to act as the Pope’s theologian. In 1558, Laynez was made general of the Congregation with the power to organise the Jesuit Order as he saw fit.[33] He established five congregations to administer the Jesuit Order: Italy, Germany, France, Spain, England and America. These congregations were themselves divided into Provinces grouping the different establishments of the Order. Only the admonitor (or overseer) and assistants are nominated by the Congregation. The general appoints all other officials, promulgates the ordinances which are not to modify the Constitutions, administers the wealth of the Order according to his own wishes and directs its activities for which he is responsible to the Pope only.[34]
To this militia the Pope would concede privileges that were exorbitant when compared with other religious Orders. As early as 1545, a bull of Pope Paul III (1534-1549) enabled them to preach, hear confession, dispense the sacraments, say mass, give absolution, change vows or even cancel them; which meant they were allowed to exercise their ministry without having to refer to the bishop.
Gaston Bally writes[35]:
“The general's power concerning absolution and dispensations is even wider. He can lift all punishment inflicted on the members of the Society before or after them entering the Order, absolve all their sins, even the sin of heresy and schism, the falsification of apostolic writings, etc...The general absolves, in person or through a delegate, all those who are under his obedience, of the unhappy state arising from excommunication, suspension or interdict, provided these censures were not inflicted for excesses so enormous that others, beside the papal tribunal, knew about them.
He also absolves the irregularity issuing, from bigamy, injuries done to others, murder, assassination... as long as these wicked deeds were not publicly known and the cause of a scandal.
… Finally, [Pope] Gregory XIII [from 1572-1585] bestowed on the [Jesuit] Company the right to deal in commerce and banking, a right it made use of extensively later on.
These dispensations and unprecedented powers were fully guaranteed to them.
The popes called even upon princes and kings to defend these privileges; they threatened with the great excommunication ‘latae sententiae’ all those who would try to infringe them…a bull of Pius V [1566-1572] gave the general the right to restore these privileges to their original scope, against all tempts to alter or curtail them, even if such curtailments were authoritatively documented by papal revocation... By granting the Jesuits such exorbitant privileges which run counter to the Church's antiquated constitution, the papacy wanted, not only to supply them with powerful weapons to fight the ‘Infidels’, but especially use them as a bodyguard to defend her own unrestricted power in the Church and against the Church… To preserve the spiritual and temporal supremacy they usurped during the middle ages, the popes sold the Church to the Order of Jesus and, in consequence, surrendered themselves into their hands... If the papacy was supported by the Jesuits, the whole existence of the Jesuits depended on the spiritual and temporal supremacy of the papacy. In that way, the interests of both parties were intimately bound together.” [emphasis added]
For anyone familiar with the Templars, one cannot help but note the striking similarity between the two militant religious orders and their right to deal in commerce and banking. The Templars were known as among the first, if not the first, Corporation.
Is it a wonder then, that Albert Pike, the founder of the Scottish Rite Freemasonry would write in his Morals and Dogma that “The Templars were unintelligent and therefore unsuccessful Jesuits.”[36]
Thus, the Catholic presence in the New World must be understood within this context such that any region which was to have a strong Catholic influence, which would be the majority of the New World, meant that it was likely overseen either directly or indirectly through the directorship of the Jesuit Order.
Thus, the significance of the French priest that was present at Pontiac’s prophecy-telling that would launch the new religion of the Master of Life should also be re-evaluated in this context, that this French priest was almost certainly in service to the Jesuitical Order to which the French colonialists were especially dominated by in their French missionaries within North America. Recall that the Jesuit Order was founded in Paris, France. (For a list of Jesuit missions in North America refer here.)
It should also be noted that the Jesuits were known to use the foretelling of eclipses to impress the pagan peoples from all around the world.
Bertrand Russell writes in his The Scientific Outlook[37]:
“The Chinese Emperors repeatedly refrained from persecuting the Jesuits because the latter were in the right as to the dates of eclipses when the Chinese astronomers were in the wrong.”
It was pretty much a guarantee in such situations that if one was seen as having the ability to predict an eclipse, such a person was pretty much a shoo-in in being regarded with supernatural or divine powers. It was guaranteed to sky-rocket anyone to “prophet” status.
Recall that Tecumseh’s prophet-brother only earned the respect and admiration of all the Indian tribes when he predicted the occurrence of the eclipse.
Subscribed
The Rise of the Prophets but Whose Religion?
After the false prophecy by Tecumseh’s brother that would lead to the terrible defeat by Harrison’s forces, things were quiet for a little while and no new prophet of significance was heard of for a number of decades. The next one would arise over 50 years later in 1870 among the Paiute in Nevada. As the story goes, this prophet was said to have been the father of the “messiah” who would found the Ghost dance religion.
It was widely known that this messiah had unquestionably derived many of his ideas from his prophet father, whose name was Tä’vibo, which interestingly means “White man” who was known to have visions and was invulnerable. The name Tävibo refers to the east (tävänagwat) or place where the sun (täbi) rises. By the cognate Shoshoni and Comanche the whites are called Taivo.
Mooney, who was alive during this period and was studying the Ghost dance religion, interviewed many who personally knew both the proclaimed messiah and his prophet father Tävibo. Mooney writes:[38]
“From concurrent testimony of Indians and white men, however, there seems to be no doubt that he [Tävibo] did preach and prophesy and introduce a new religious dance among his people, and that the doctrine which he promulgated and the hopes which he held out twenty years ago were the foundation on which his son has built the structure of the present messiah religion. He was visited by Indians from Oregon and Idaho, and his teachings made their influence felt among the Bannock and Shoshoni, as well as among all the scattered bands of the Paiute, to whom he continued to preach until his death…” [emphasis added]
According to the testimony of Captain J.M. Lee, Ninth infantry, formerly on the staff of General Miles, he wrote the following about the prophet Tävibo:
“I was on Indian duty in Nevada in 1869, 1870, and 1871. When visiting Walker Lake reservation in 1869-70, I became acquainted with several superstitious beliefs then prevailing among the Paiute Indians…In the earlier part of the sixties the whites began to come in and appropriate much of the Indian country in Nevada, and in the usual course it turned out that the medicine-men or prophets were looked to for relief. The most influential went up alone into the mountain and there met the Great Spirit. He [Tävibo] brought back with him no tablets of stone, but he was a messenger of good tidings to the effect that within a few moons there was to be a great upheaval or earthquake…[his] revelation, which was that when the great disaster came, all, both Indians and whites, would be swallowed up or overwhelmed, but that at the end of three days (or a few days) the Indians would be resurrected in the flesh, and would live forever to enjoy the earth, with plenty of game, fish, and pine nuts, while their enemies, the whites, would be destroyed forever. There would thus be a final and eternal separation between Indians and whites….The divine spirit had become so much incensed at the lack of faith in the prophecies, that it was revealed to his chosen one [Tävibo] that those Indians who believed in the prophecy would be resurrected and be happy, but those who did not believe in it would stay in the ground and be damned forever with the whites.
It was not long after this that the prophet died, and the poor miserable Indians worried along for nearly two decades, eating grasshoppers, lizards, and fish, and trying to be civilized until the appearance of this new prophet Wovoka [the messiah], who is said to be the son, either actual or spiritual, of the first one.” [emphasis added]
This “revelation” by Tävibo is what would form the religious foundation for the Ghost dance religion.
In the spring of 1875, as recounted by Professor A.H. Thompson, of the United States Geological Survey, a great excitement was being roused among the Indian people by what was reported to be two mysterious beings with white skins who had appeared among the Paiute far to the west and announced “a speedy resurrection of all the dead Indians, the restoration of the game, and the return of the old-time primitive life. Under the new order of things, moreover, both races alike were to be white. A number of Indians from Utah went over into Nevada, where they met others who claimed to have seen these mysterious visitors farther in the west. On their return to Utah they brought back with them the ceremonial of the new belief, the chief part of the ritual being a dance performed at night in a circle, with no fire in the center, very much as in the modern Ghost dance.”[39] [emphasis added]
Mooney writes:[40]
“It is said that the Mormons, who hold the theory that the Indians are the descendants of the supposititious ‘ten lost tribes,’ cherish, as a part of their faith, the tradition that some of the lost Hebrew emigrants are still ice-bound in the frozen north, whence they will one day emerge to rejoin their brethren in the south. When the news of this Indian revelation came to their ears, the Mormon priests accepted it as a prophecy of speedy fulfillment of their own traditions, and Orson Pratt, one of the most prominent leaders, preached a sermon, which was extensively copied and commented on at the time, urging the faithful to arrange their affairs and put their houses in order to receive the long-awaited wanderers.
According to the statement of the agent then in charge at Fort Hall, in Idaho, the Mormons at the same time — the early spring of 1875 — sent emissaries to the Bannock, urging them to go to Salt Lake City to be baptized into the Mormon religion. A large number accepted the invitation without the knowledge of the agent, went down to Utah, and were there baptized, and then returned to work as missionaries of the new faith among their tribes. As an additional inducement, free rations were furnished by the Mormons to all who would come and be baptized, and ‘they were told that by being baptized and going to church the old men would all become young, the young men would never be sick, that the Lord had a work for them to do, and that they were the chosen people of God to establish his kingdom upon the earth.’ etc. It is also asserted that they were encouraged to resist the authority of the [American] government. However much of truth there may be in these reports, and we must make considerable allowance for local prejudice, it is sufficiently evident that the Mormons took an active interest in the religious ferment then existing among the neighboring tribes and helped to give shape to the doctrine which crystallized some years later in the Ghost dance.” [emphasis added]
Recall that one of the prophecies amongst the Indian people from the Master of Life was that the old would become young again and that the young would never fall sick.
The reader should be aware that the Mormon religion was founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s and is inextricably interwoven with his simultaneous founding of several Masonic lodges, the Nauvoo Lodge being the largest.
The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library Blog writes: “In 1839, after having been expelled from Missouri, Joseph Smith and his fellow Mormon pioneers purchased land along the Mississippi River in Illinois. They named the town Nauvoo. Nauvoo was the center of early Mormon activity from its inception in 1839 until the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in 1844. During this five year period, three Masonic lodges were founded in Nauvoo. The lodges members were all LDS [Latter Day Saints] members, drawn exclusively from Nauvoo's Mormon community. The largest of these lodges, with a membership exceeding 1,500, was called Nauvoo Lodge. The initial expanded endowment ceremonies in 1842 took place in the same second-floor room above Joseph Smith's store that Smith and others were initiated into Freemasonry a few months before. In short, there was a lot of Mormon and Masonic activity in Nauvoo.”
The reader should also be aware that by the time of the 19th century, all freemasonic activity within the United States was run by the Scottish Rite. This will be discussed in greater detail in Part II of this series but it is suffice for now to equate that the Mormon activity helping to establish the Ghost dance religion is directly connected to the Scottish Rite.
There is a lesser-known prophet, named Nakai' dokli'ni, who lived among the Apache and had attracted some attention in Arizona in 1881. Nakai' dokli'ni, whose name literally means “white foreigner”[41], began to boast of his supernatural powers, claiming to be able to raise the dead and commune with spirits and predicting the whites would soon be driven from the land. Nakai' dokli'ni had also began a new and peculiar dance which created an aggressive fervour that led to the intervention of Colonel Carr with 85 white troops and 23 Apache scouts, a skirmish ensued which led to considerable loss on the Indian side. The result was another in the long series of Apache outbreaks.
We see this as a common theme from the time of Pontiac (1760s) to the tragedy of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 as the result of the Ghost dance religion, that those who followed the new religion of the Master of Life as first prophesied by Pontiac, were to be deluded by the belief in their supernatural powers and mystic rites and were encouraged to rush headlong into their own destruction thinking themselves invincible or even immortal.
About the same time as the Paiute were preparing for the millennial new dawn, as per the prophecies of Tävibo, Smohalla would make a name for himself as the “dreamer prophet” in the Columbia region.
By 1872 Smohalla's followers along the Columbia were reported to number 2,000, and his “apostles” would constantly travel from one reservation to another to win over new converts to his teachings.
“They have a new and peculiar religion, by the doctrines of which they are taught that a new god is coming to their rescue; that all the Indians who have died heretofore, and who shall die hereafter, are to be resurrected; that as they will then be very numerous and powerful, they will be able to conquer the whites, recover their lands, and live as free and unrestrained as their fathers lived in olden times.”[42] [emphasis added]
Smohalla was the chief of the Wa'napûm, a small tribe in Washington, numbering probably less than 200 souls, along both banks of the Columbia from the neighborhood of Priest rapids down to the entrance of Snake river. Among his own people and his disciples in the neighboring tribes he is known as Shmóqûla, “The Preacher.”
Mooney writes:[43]
“For more than forty years he has resided at the Wanapûm village of P'nä on the west bank of the Columbia, at the foot of Priest rapids, in what is now Yakima county, Washington. The name P’nä signifies "a fish weir," this point being a great rendezvous for the neighboring tribes during the salmon fishing season. These frequent gatherings afford abundant opportunity for the teaching and dissemination of his [Smohalla’s] peculiar doctrines, as is sufficiently evident from the fact that, while his own tribe numbers hardly two score families, his disciples along the river are counted by thousands.
…In his youth he had frequented the Catholic mission of Atahnam among the Yakima, where he became familiar with the forms of that service and also acquired a slight knowledge of French. Whether or not he was a regular member of the mission school is a disputed point…[however] The influence of the Catholic ceremonial is plainly visible in his own ritual performance. In his early manhood he distinguished himself as a warrior, and had already come to be regarded as a prominent man when he first began to preach his peculiar theology about the year 1850. There can be no question that the rapid spread of his doctrines among the tribes of the Columbia materially facilitated their confederation in the Yakima war of 1855-56. It is said that he aspired to be the leader in this war, and that, to attain this end, he invited all the neighboring bands to attend a council at his village of P’nä, but failed to accomplish his object. [very reminiscent of Pontiac’s prophecy]
Shortly after the close of the war, probably about 1860, the incident occurred which wrought an entire change in his life, stamping him as an oracle and prophet beyond peradventure, and giving to his religions system the force of authority which it has ever since retained. He had already established a reputation as a medicine-man, and was believed to be ‘making medicine’ against the life of Moses, the noted chief of a tribe farther up the river, who was greatly in dread of his occult powers, and forced a quarrel in order to rid himself forever of his rival. A fight resulted, and Smohalla was nearly killed. It is said that he was left on the ground as dead, but revived sufficiently to crawl away and get into a boat on the bank of the Columbia near by. Bleeding and disabled, he was carried down at the mercy of the current until he was finally rescued from his perilous position by some white men, far below. His recovery was slow. When it was completed, unwilling to return in disgrace to his own country and probably still dreading the anger of Moses, he determined to become a wanderer.” [emphasis added]
Mooney goes on to describe how after been rescued by “some white men” he began “one of the most remarkable series of journeying ever undertaken by an uncivilized Indian.” Travelling down the Columbia to Portland and the coast, he turned south and stopped at various points in Oregon and California and continued past San Diego into Mexico, only to turn around again through Arizona, Utah, and Nevada until he finally returned home on the Columbia. Upon his return he announced that he had been dead and in the spirit world and had now returned by divine command to guide his people. As he was thought to have been killed by Moses, and as he had disappeared so completely until now, his awe-stricken hearers readily believed that they were actually in the presence of one who had been taken bodily into the spirit world, whence he was now sent back as a teacher.[44]
Mooney writes:[45]
“Smohalla now declared to his people that the Sa'ghalee Tyee, the Great Chief Above, was angry at their apostasy, and commanded them through him to return to their primitive manners, as their present miserable condition in the presence of the intrusive race was due to their having abandoned their own religion and violated the laws of nature and the precepts of their ancestors. He then explained in detail the system to which they must adhere in future if they would conform to the expressed will of the higher power. It was a system based on the primitive aboriginal mythology and usage, with an elaborate ritual which combined with the genuine Indian features much of what he had seen and remembered of Catholic ceremonial and military parade, with perhaps also some additions from Mormon forms.
His words made a deep impression on his hearers. They had indeed abandoned their primitive simplicity to a great extent, and were now suffering the penalty in all the misery that had come to them with the advent of the white-skin race that threatened to blot them out from the earth. The voice of the prophet was accepted as a voice from the other world, for they knew that he had been dead and was now alive. What he said must be true and wise, for he had been everywhere and knew tribes and countries they had never heard of. Even the white men confirmed his words in this regard. He could even control the sun and the moon, for he had said when they would be dark, and they were dark [prediction of eclipses].” [emphasis added]
Just like the Shaker prophet of Puget sound, also clearly influenced by Catholic and Protestant practices, Smohalla is subject to cataleptic trances and it is while in this unconscious state that he is believed to receive his revelations, hence his title “Dreamer Prophet.”
Under the instructions of General Miles, Major MacMurray was tasked to conduct an official investigation of the Smohalla religion, he writes:
“He falls into trances and lies rigid for considerable periods. Unbelievers have experimented by sticking needles through his flesh, cutting him with knives, and otherwise testing his sensibility to pain, without provoking any responsive action. It was asserted that he was surely dead, because blood did not flow from the wounds. These trances always excite great interest and often alarm, as he threatens to abandon his earthly body altogether because of the disobedience of his people, and on each occasion they are in a state of suspense as to whether the Saghalee Tyee [the Great Chief Above] will send his soul back to earth to reoccupy his body, or will, on the contrary, abandon and leave them without his guidance. It is this going into long trances, out of which he comes as from heavy sleep and almost immediately relates his experiences in the spirit land, that gave rise to the title of ‘Dreamers’ or believers in dreams, commonly given to his followers by the neighboring whites. His actions are similar to those of a trance medium, and if self-hypnotization be practicable that would seem to explain it. I questioned him as to his trances and hoped to have him explain them to me, but he avoided the subject and was angered when I pressed him. He manifestly believes all he says of what occurs to him in this trance state. As we have hundreds of thousands of educated white people who believe in similar fallacies, this is not more unlikely in an Indian subjected to such influence.” [emphasis added]
Mooney writes:[46]
“In studying Smohalla we have to deal with the same curious mixture of honest conviction and cunning deception that runs through the history of priestcraft in all the ages. Like some other prophets before him, he seeks to convey the idea that he is in control of the elements and the heavenly bodies, and he has added greatly to his reputation by predicting several eclipses. This he was enabled to do by the help of an almanac and some little explanation from a party of surveyors [from the US Geological Survey]. In this matter, however, he was soon made to realize that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. He could not get another almanac, and his astronomic prophecies came to an abrupt termination at the end of the first year. Concerning this, Major MacMurray says:
‘He showed me an almanac of a preceding year and asked me to readjust it for eclipses, as it did not work as it had formerly done. I explained that Washington (the Naval Observatory) made new ones every year, and that old ones could not be fixed up to date. He had probably obtained this one from the station agent at the railroad, now superseded by a new one, who had cut off Smohalla's supply of astronomical data. My inability to repair the 1882 almanac for use in prognosticating in 1884 cost me much of his respect as a wise man from the east.’
Smohalla had also a blank book containing mysterious characters, some of which resembled letters of the alphabet, and which he said were records of events and prophecies.”[47]
MacMurray writes his experience having been invited to participate in a ceremonial service:[48]
“Smohalla invited me to participate in what he considered a grand ceremonial service…Singing and drumming had been going on for some time when I arrived. The air resounded with the voices of hundreds of Indians, male and female, and the banging of drums. Within, the room was dimly lighted. Smoke curled from a fire on the floor at the farther end and pervaded the atmosphere…The scene was a strange one. On either side of the room was a row of twelve women standing erect with arms crossed and hands extended, with finger tips at the shoulders. They kept time to the drums and their voices by balancing on the balls of their feet and tapping with their heels on the floor, while they chanted with varying pitch and time. The excitement and persistent repetition wore them out, and I heard that others than Smohalla had seen visions in their trances, but I saw none who would admit it or explain anything of it. I fancied they feared their own action, and that real death might come to them in this simulated death.
…In front on a mattress knelt Smohalla…[who] wore a white garment which he was pleased to call a priest's gown, but it was simply a white cloth shirt with a colored stripe down the back.” [emphasis added]
Mooney writes:[49]
“The regular [religious] services [of Smohalla] take place on Sunday, in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Sunday has been held sacred among the Nez Percés and neighboring tribes for more than sixty years, as the result of the teachings of the Hudson Bay officers. The prairie tribes also, having learned that Sunday is the great ‘medicine day’ of the whites, now select it by preference for their own religious ceremonies of the Ghost dance and the mescal.”
Mooney goes on to note the massive Catholic missionary influence on almost all Indian tribes throughout the Columbia region. Mooney writes:[50] “The Yakima are the most important tribe of the Shahaptian stock, excluding the Nez Percés…The majority of these Indian west of the Columbia, including the Yakima proper and others on the reservation, are Catholics, with also a number of adherents of the Shaker and Smohalla doctrines.” We later also hear Smohalla’s name in connection to the Nez Percés war in 1877.
Map of the Columbia River Basin.
The Shakers of Puget Sound (Seattle region) were also heavily influenced by Catholic teachings, and were also known to go into trances like the Smohalla religion.
Although the Ghost dance religion was the most notorious for what it led to as a tragedy. There were many other Indian religions that partook in the trance and hypnotic practices of the new religion and who had been clearly influenced by Christian denominations, such as the Catholic and Protestant influence on the Shaker religion, which was even for a time officially endorsed by the Presbyterian Church.[51]
Mooney writes:[52]
“In 1881 there originated among the tribes of Puget sound in Washington a new religion…[which] deserves special attention for the prominent part which hypnotism holds in its ceremonial. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the Paiute messiah himself, and through him all the apostles of the Ghost dance, have obtained their knowledge of hypnotic secrets from the ‘Shakers’ of Puget sound.” [emphasis added]
John Slocum, who was the chief high priest of the Shakers, claimed he had died one morning and remained in that condition until mid-afternoon. When he awoke he claimed he had been to heaven and had been allowed to return back to earth to teach others what they must do in order to enter heaven. It was said that because he had been to heaven himself, he and his followers had no use for the Bible, for he had received the direct word from God.
Here is an account by Reverend Myron Eells:
“This was a mixture of trying to perform miracles, as in Bible times, to prove the divinity of their religion, and some of the ceremonies of their old black tomahnous. This was a secret society of their savage days, in which persons went into a hypnotic condition, in which they became very rigid, and out of which they came in the course of time. The followers of this new religion dreamed dreams, saw visions, went through some…ceremonies a la mode the black tomahnous, and were taken with a kind of shaking. With their arms at full length, their hands and arms would shake so fast that a common person not under the excitement could hardly shake half as fast. Gazing into the heavens, their heads would also shake very fast, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for hours, or half the night.
…In connection with this they held church services, prayed to God, believed in Christ as a savior, said much about his death, and used the cross, their services being a combination of Protestant and Catholic services, though at first they almost totally rejected the Bible, for they said they had direct revelations from Christ, and were more fortunate than the whites, who had an old, antiquated book.
…about Skookum bay, Mud bay, and Squaxon the shaking continued, and it spread to the Nisqually and Chehalis Indians. It seemed to be as catching, to use the expression of the Indians, as the measles. Many who at first ridiculed it and fought against it, and invoked the aid of the agent to stop it, were drawn into it after a little, and then they became its strong upholders. This was especially true of the medicine-men, or Indian doctors, and those who had the strongest faith in them. The Shakers declared that all the old Indian religion, and especially the cure of the sick by the medicine-men, was from the devil, and they would have nothing to do with it, those who at first originated and propagated it having been among the more intelligent and progressive of the uneducated Indians. Very few of those who had learned to read and had been in Sabbath school for a considerable length of time were drawn into it. It was the class between the most educated and the most superstitious who at first upheld it. They seemed to know too much to continue in the old-style religious ceremonies, but not to know enough and to be too superstitious to fully believe the Bible. Consequently, the medicine-men were at first bitterly opposed to it. About this time, however, an order came from the Indian department to stop all medicine- men from practicing their incantations over the sick…This was done, and then the medicine-men almost entirely joined the Shakers, as their style was more nearly in accordance with the old style than with the religion of the Bible.
…They have also prophesied very much. Several times when a person has died they have told me that someone had foretold this event, but they have never told me this until after the event happened, except in one case. They have prophesied much in regard to the end of the world and the day of judgment. Generally, the time set has been on a Fourth of July, and many have been frightened as the time drew near, but, alas, in every instance the prophecy failed. Like Christians, they believe in a Supreme Being, in prayer, the sabbath, in heaven and hell, in man as a sinner, and Christ as a savior, and the system led its followers to stop drinking, gambling, betting, horse racing, the use of tobacco, and the old-style incantations over the sick. Of late years, however, some of them have fallen from grace.
It has been a somewhat strange freak of human nature, a combination of morals and immorals, of Protestantism, Catholicism, and old Indian practices, of dreams and visions — a study in mental philosophy, showing what the mind may do under certain circumstances. Yet it is all easily accounted for. These Indians have mingled with the whites for a long time, nearly ever since most of them were small. All classes of whites have made sport of their religion — the infidel, the profane man, the immoral one, the moral one, and the Christian — and they have been told that God and the Bible were against it, consequently they lost faith in it. But the Indian must have some religion. He can not do without one. They were not ready to accept the Bible in all its purity. They wanted more excitement. Like the Dakota Indians more recently, they saw that Christ was the great center of the most powerful religion of the most powerful, intelligent, successful, and wisest nations with whom they came in contact. Consequently they formulated a system for themselves that would fill all their required conditions, and when a few leaders had originated it, a large share of the rest were ripe to accept it…”[53] [emphasis added]
Mooney writes:[54]
“They are much addicted to making the sign of the cross – the cross, it is hardly necessary to state, being as much an Indian as a Christian symbol – and are held in great repute as doctors, their treatment consisting chiefly of hypnotic performances over the patient, resulting in the spasmodic shaking already described. In doctoring a patient the ‘blowers’ usually gather around him in a circle to the number of about twelve, dressed in a very attractive ceremonial costume, and each wearing on his head a sort of crown of woven cedar bark, in which are fixed two lighted candles, while in his right hand he carries a small cloth, and in the left another lighted candle. By fastening screens of colored cloth over the candles the light is made to appear yellow, white, or blue. The candle upon the forehead is white, typical of the terrestrial light, while the third is blue, the color of the sky.
Frequently also they carry in their hands or wear on their heads garlands of roses and other flowers of various colors, yellow, white, and blue being the favorite, which they say represent the colors of objects in the celestial world. While the leader is going through his hypnotic performance over the patient the others are waving the cloths and swinging in circles the candles held in their hands. In all this it is easy to see the influence of the Catholic ritual, with its censers, tapers, and flowers, with which these tribes have been more or less familiar for the last fifty years.” [emphasis added]
Mooney goes on to describe what is very similar to rituals conducted by Protestant faith healers:
“As he entered the chief doctor [from the Shaker religion] stepped up to him [the medicine-man] and looking intently into his face, said, ‘I can see your heart within your body, and it is black with evil things. You are not fit to live. You are making this woman sick, but we shall take out the badness from her body.’ With the cloths and lighted candles the two doctors then approached the sick woman and commanded her to arise, which she did, although she had been supposed to be too weak to stand. Waving the cloths in front of her with a gentle fanning motion, and blowing upon her at the same time, they proceeded to drive the disease out of her body, beginning at the feet and working upward until, as they approached the head the principal doctor changed the movement to a rapid fanning and corresponding blowing, while the assistant stood ready with his cloth to seize the disease when it should be driven out. Then, going up to the medicine-man, with a few rapid passes they fanned the disease into his body and he fell down dead. The woman recovered, and with her sister has recently come up to the Yakima country as an apostle of the new religion, preaching the doctrines and performing the wonders which she has been taught by the Nisqually [Shaker] doctors.
This is the Indian [account of this] story…The hypnotic action described is the same which the author has repeatedly seen employed in the Ghost dance, resulting successively in involuntary trembling, violent spasmodic action, rigidity, and final deathlike unconsciousness. The Ghost dancers regard the process not only as a means of bringing them into trance communication with their departed friends, but also as a preventive and cure of disease, just as we have our faith healers and magnetic doctors [Mesmer]…It is unlikely that death resulted to the medicine-man. It is more probably that under the hypnotic spell of the doctor he fell unconscious and apparently lifeless and remained so perhaps for a considerable time, as frequently happens with sensitive subjects in the Ghost dance. The fact that the same process should produce exactly opposite effects in the two subjects is easily explainable. The object of the hypnotic performance was simply to bring the mind of the subject under the control of the operator. This accomplished, the mental, and ultimately the physical, effect on either subject was whatever the operator wished it to be.” [emphasis added]
This story clearly reminds one of such religious sects that often have a heavy Protestant coloring such as the Ranters, Quakers (who were originally named because they also shaked), the Fifth-Monarchy Men, Jumpers, the Methodists, the Kentucky Revival and the Adventists who all used trances, and hypnotic techniques in association with divine visions and experiences.
However, it should be kept in mind that of all Christian denominations who used such techniques, there is but one master and that is the Jesuit Order.
As William Sargant, pioneer of Tavistock and MK Ultra mind control techniques would share in his Battle for the Mind:
“In 1859…a Protestant priest, the Rev. George Salmon, later Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, had warned the Catholic writers, and especially the Jesuits of his day, that they could not afford to be too critical of the excitatory methods used by other sects:
‘And the person, perhaps, who best understood the art of exciting religious emotion, and who reduced it to a regular system, was the founder of the order of Jesuits. Any person who knows anything of the system of spiritual exercises which he invented, how the disciples in their retreats, assembled together in a darkened chapel have their feelings worked up by ejaculations gradually lengthening into powerful descriptions, first, of the punishment due to sin, of the torments of hell and purgatory, then of the love of God, of the sufferings of the Saviour, the tenderness of the Virgin; how the emotion heightens as the leader of the meditation proceeds, and spreads by sympathetic contagion from one to the other: — anyone who knows anything of this must be aware that the Roman Catholic Church has nothing to learn from anything which the most enthusiastic sects of Protestants have invented’.” [emphasis added]
It also makes one wonder about Mooney’s earlier report that “ambassadors” of the new revelation of the Shawnee prophet would appear in different villages, acting strangely and with their faces painted black – Mooney says perhaps to signify their character as messengers from the world of shade – or perhaps it was to cover their very white faces….
Lastly it should be noted that amongst all of these prophets of the new religion described thus far, it has been a reoccurring theme, without fail, to attack the medicine-men who refuse to become adherents to the new religion. It should be understood that besides the chieftains, the medicine-men were the most politically powerful and were often more powerful than the chieftains themselves since their influence could carry over into many different tribes.
Thus, a medicine-man is somewhat comparable to the station of the augur during the time of the late Roman Republic. The augurs, there were only two stations allowed, were the only ones who were thought to have the power of “visions” and were granted the top position of advisor due to this power. A discerning reader may understand this as men who hold wisdom though where it comes from is mysterious to the common person. Cicero, for instance, was granted the station of augur at the end of his career. It is clear that he did not rely on hallucinogenic or other-worldly visions in order to affect his wisdom in counsel.
Thus, not all medicine-men should be regarded as equal in their wisdom, or even their method in acquiring wisdom, though it cannot be doubted that those who were viewed as most wise and knowledgeable about things, were often seen as a medicine-men. Thus, the fact that the new religion attacked all medicine-men meant essentially, that they were attacking all the selected wise men who refused to follow the new doctrine.
It worked effectively as an internal coup of the governing structure of the Indian tribes who had allowed themselves to fall into Catholic, or more specifically Jesuitical influences.
Mooney continues:
“…Until the advent of [the woman who was cured by the Shaker doctor]…such hypnotic performances seem to have been unknown among the Yakima and other eastern tribes of the Columbia regions, the trance condition in the Smohalla devotees being apparently due entirely to the effect of rhythmic dances and songs acting on excited imaginations, without the aid of blowing or manual passes.
…About this time the two blower doctors appeared at Woodland, other apostles of the same doctrine, or it may have been the same two men…teaching the same system and performing the same wonders among the tribes of that region [central Oregon]. And here comes in a remarkable coincidence, if it be no more. It is said among the northern Indians that on this journey these apostles met, somewhere in the south, a young man to whom they taught their mysteries, in which he became such an apt pupil that he soon outstripped his teachers, and is now working even greater wonders among his own people.
This young man can be no other than Wovoka, the messiah of the Ghost dance…”
In Part II of this series we will review the Ghost dance religion and its outcome, its connection to the Mormons, as well as Freemasons. We will also review the origin of Modern Anthropology and its connection to the Society for Psychical Research as well as the Scottish Rite. We will end by reviewing the careers of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead and her husband Gregory Bateson who directly worked for MK Ultra. As well as the work of William Sargant and Aldous Huxley in bringing about a New World Religion which would first take form via the Counter-Culture Movement.
Cynthia Chung is the President of the Rising Tide Foundation and author of the book “The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set,” consider supporting her work by making a donation and subscribing to her substack page Through A Glass Darkly.
On matters of geopolitics, counterintelligence, revisionist history and cultural warfare.
Footnotes:
[1] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 658
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid
[4] ibid
[5] W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (1873)
[6] G. Bancroft, History of the United States of America (1884).
[7] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 663
[8] Ibid, pg. 663
[9] Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian war after the conquest of Canada (1886).
[10] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 663-667
[11] Ibid, pg. 699
[12] Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh and of his brother the Prophet (1841).
[13] Francis Parkman, The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian war after the conquest of Canada (1886).
[14] Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh and of his brother the Prophet (1841).
[15] John Tanner, A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner (1830).
[16] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 678-679
[17] Ibid, pg. 679
[18] Ibid, pg. 676
[19] E.A. Kendall, Travels through the northern parts of the United States in the years 1807 and 1808. In three volumes (1809).
[20] Ibid.
[21] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 677
[22] Ibid, pg. 684
[23] Ibid, pg. 685
[24] Benjamin Drake, Life of Tecumseh and of his brother the Prophet (1841).
[25] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 689
[26] Ibid
[27] H. Boehmer, Les Jesuites (1910), pg. 14
[28] Ibid, pg. 34-35
[29] Edmund Paris, Secret History of the Jesuits (1983), pg. 21
[30] Ibid, pg. 21
[31] Ibid, pg. 22
[32] Ibid, pg. 24
[33] Ibid, pg. 28
[34] Ibid, pg. 28
[35] Gaston Bally, Les Jesuites (1902), pg. 9-17.
[36] Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma (1871), pg. 1177
[37] Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook (1931), pg. 147
[38] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 701
[39] Ibid, pg. 703
[40] Ibid, pg. 703-704
[41] Ibid, pg. 705
[42] Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary pf the Interior.
[43] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 717
[44] Ibid, pg. 718
[45] Ibid, pg. 719
[46] Ibid, pg. 720
[47] Major J.W. MacMurrary, The Dreamers of the Columbia River Valley in Washington Territory (1886).
[48] James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion (1896), pg. 726
[49] Ibid, pg. 727
[50] Ibid, pg. 737-738
[51] Ibid, pg. 746
[52] Ibid, pg. 746
[53] Ibid, pg. 748
[54] Ibid, pg. 761
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