Question by kennymoab: vision quest? what is your basic understanding of the vision quest?
where did it originate, what are the benefits spiritually and physically? thanks for your comments
Best answer:
Answer by MichaelMN
A vision quest entails putting yourself under extreme physical stress (often by fasting) to enhance your spiritual awakening. I think there is a fairly strict definition if you are undertaking a native american vision quest, but it can be looked at in a more general way. A marathon runners high, for instance, could be considered similar to the vision quest in terms of changing the way the brain thinks. Monks fasting and chanting. Meditation. All these things could be related to the same thing as the vision quest. It is a physical way to open a mental doorway to different paths of perception.
What do you think? Answer below!
My basic understanding of visage quest is that you think positively about your future and mentally envisage; what and where you want to be in the future and then, working backwards, plan-out how to achieve your goal/s, i.e. if you wanted to be a Psychologist with a doctorate, then working backwards you’d need; PhD, MSc, BSc, college, school. It’s a step-by-step guide to achieve anything.
There are many definitions of these words. I assume you man the native American pre-puberty quest for enlightenment.
The vision quest is undertaken by young men (at the point of pubescence) in many Native groups in the US. It usually involves the young man going off by himself and fasting until hallucinations set in. (In recent centuries this has been speeded up by the use of payote, which is also the hallucinagenic basis for the Native American Church.)
In the hallucination, the young man “sees” something (a symbol, an animal, just about anything) that becomes the personal totem/symbol that will help center his life as an adult.
I was told all this by several Dakota, Ree, and Mandan men on the rservation where I was a minister. So far as they knew, no young men in their tribes had gone on a vision quest since the 1930s. Instead, they went on to college!
On one occasion I went to a farm in the Badlands to visit a family who were members of the church. There were about 25 cars in the yard. I parked and got out…and was immediately met by a man who asked my business. “I’m the minsiter…here to see Mr. and Mrs. _____” He said, “They’re not here; no body’s here today. Try again later” and turned away to return to the house.
The next Sunday after church, I asked the man I’d gone to visit. He said they were having a meeting of the Native American Church and using peyote to receive “messages.”
This was back in 1958, when use of peyote was illegal even among Native Americans who used it for religious purposes. So of course they didn’t want a white man, even if a minister, to see them doing what was illegal.
This was now the way for the native men to achieve the enlighenment of the vision quest. — Dr. Bob