Head of the Cow

By: Andrew Sakach

Out of class Reading: 1

In Primal Religions we saw a movie, Cabesa De Vaca about a shaman who was a Spanish man that had been captured by Native Americans after the ship he was on wrecked. As the story progresses his crucifix becomes a medium of his power and is used in part as a sacred symbol and as a sacred object.

It's interesting to think that outside of his current circumstances those items may not have had as much power as they gained through his use of ecstatic states of being. As a Spanish man in the New World or Spain he probably would never have experienced such altered states of perception and if he had would probably been persecuted for them, as is brought up in the movie.

There are many ways in which to gain an altered state of consciousness however Western religions only typically 'allow' but a handful while prohibiting the majority. Why is this?

When we had our class with the co-teacher who taught us about other societies forms of communication through music brought up how she believed that the reason why Christianity limited the things that happened was in order to differentiate it from the majority of other religious traditions. But could this be the only reason... I don't know why I'm so sceptical, maybe I'm slightly cynical when it comes to majoredly dogmatic religions but meh.