The Evolution of Aboriginal Spirituality
Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson
President of The New Enlightenment Project
Lloyd is a registered doctoral psychologist with competencies in counselling psychology, educational psychology (including ability assessments) and human resource development. He also has also published on residential school syndrome, the structure of the aboriginal self, the application of memes to self-understanding, the evolution of spirituality and religion, prior learning assessment and recognition, the treatment of suicide ideation and attention deficit disorder.
One of the issues with which we have been grappling in the Aboriginal Circle has been that of spirituality and what that means from a humanist lens. One of our members is a traditional pipe carrier who has considered given up his pipe because ceremonies involve prayers to a god-figure called the Creator. My own belief is that spirituality does not necessarily involve faith based religious belief and that the emphasis on The Creator who seems to resemble Jehovah in some ways, is a recent historical development. In this light, I am re-publishing an article that first appeared in Humanist Perspectives for your consideration: NativeSpirituality.pdf (hawkeyeassociates.ca).
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