pocketdaa.blogg.se

This allows him to trace a strikingshift in white attitudes, an exchange of one kind of willful stupidity foranother."-New York Times Book Review, "Jenkins has acquainted himself with the relevant historical materials and also acquainted himself with more New Age manuals, mantras and sales pitches than any human being should have to endure. "Jenkins has acquainted himself with the relevant historical materials andalso acquainted himself with more New Age manuals, mantras and sales pitchesthan any human being should have to endure. Jenkins examines the controversial New Age appropriation of Native sacred places notes that many "white Indians" see mainstream society as religiously empty and asks why a government founded on religious freedom tried to eradicate native religions inthe last century-and what this says about how we define religion.An engrossing account of our changing attitudes towards Native spirituality, Dream Catchers offers a fascinating introduction to one of the more interesting aspects of contemporary American religion. He looks at the popularity of the Carlos Castaneda books, the writings of Lynn Andrews, and the influential works of Frank Waters, and he explores the New Age paraphernalia found in places like Sedona, Arizona, including dream-catchers, crystals,medicine bags, and Native-themed Tarot cards. Jenkins ranges widely, considering everything from the 19th-century American obsession with "Hebrew Indians" and Lost Tribes, to the early 20th-century cult of the Maya as bearers of the wisdom of ancient Atlantis, tofilms like Pocahontas and Dances With Wolves.

In this book, Jenkins charts this remarkable change, highlighting the complex history of whiteAmerican attitudes towards Native religions from colonial times to the present.

Now, in Dream Catchers, Jenkins offers a brilliant account of the changing mainstream attitudes towards Native Americanspirituality, once seen as degraded spectacle, now hailed as New Age salvation.While early Americans had nothing but contempt for Indian religions, deploring them as loathsome devil worship and snake dancing, white Americans today respect and admire Native spirituality.