Observations placeholder
Vignoli, Tito - On Sacred groves
Identifier
003271
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Paul Devereux – Sacred Places
The tree .. was often associated with shamanic practise……. Trees make a sound when the wind blows through their foliage, so they were resorted to for oracular purposes such as at Dodona
In Pagan Celtic Ireland a sacred tree was known as a ‘bile’ and there were said to be one such sacred tree for each of the country’s four provinces [the four directions], with the fifth on the slope of Uisneach, the central sacred hill of old Ireland, beside the natural rock known as the Stone of Divisions …..
The Druids … worshipped in sacred groves and the oak was especially sacred to them. The oak was said to attract lightning and so was favoured by the gods.
A description of the experience
Tito Vignoli – On Dreams, Illusions, Hallucinations, Delirium and Madness
The worship of trees and groves is universal; peculiar trees, groves and woods are worshipped in Tahiti, in the Fiji Islands, and throughout Polynesia; in barbarous Asia, in Europe, America and the whole of Africa. Cameron, Schweinfurth, Stanley and other modern travellers in Africa give many instances of this. Schweinfurth describes such a worship among the Niam-Niam who hold that the forest is inhabited by spiritual beings.
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The Old Testament speaks of the worship of groves at Ashtareth in Canaan, of sacrifices under the green trees, and we know that such worship occurred in the Semitic races of Numidia and elsewhere….
The intense character of the worship of groves in Italy appears from Quintilianus, who says, in speaking of Eunius Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremusi