Editing Panentheism (section)

=== In Pre-Columbian America ===
The Mesoamerican empires of the [[Maya religion|Maya]]s, [[Aztec religion|Aztecs]] as well as the South American [[Religion in the Inca Empire|Incas]] ([[Tahuatinsuyu]]) have typically been characterized as [[polytheism|polytheistic]], with strong male and female deities.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Murphy|first1=John|title=Gods & Goddesses of the Inca, Maya, and Aztec Civilizations|date=2014|publisher=Rosen Education Service|location=New York|isbn=978-1622753963|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYwgBAAAQBAJ|access-date=17 August 2015}}</ref> According to [[Charles C. Mann]]'s history book ''[[1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus]]'', only the lower classes of Aztec society were polytheistic. Philosopher James Maffie has argued that Aztec metaphysics was panentheistic rather than pantheistic since [[Teotl]] was considered by Aztec philosophers to be the ultimate all-encompassing yet all-transcending force defined by its inherited duality.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Maffie|first1=James|title=Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion|date=2013|publisher=University Press of Colorado|location=Boulder|isbn=9781607322238|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2JK-AwAAQBAJ|access-date=17 August 2015}}</ref>

[[Native American religion|Native American beliefs]] in [[Native Americans in the United States|North America]] have been characterized as panentheistic in that there is an emphasis on a single, unified divine spirit that is manifest in each individual entity.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Solomon|first1=Robert C. and Kathleen M. Higgins|title=From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World Philosophy|date=2003|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|location=Lanham, MD|isbn=978-0742513495|pages=51–54|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gVgdAAAAQBAJ&q=native%20american%20panentheism&pg=PA53|access-date=17 August 2015}}</ref> (North American Native writers have also translated the word for God as the Great Mystery<ref>[[Russell Means]], ''Where White Men Fear To Tread'' (Macmillan, 1993), pp. 3–4, 15, 17.</ref> or as the Sacred Other<ref>[[George Tinker]], ''Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation'', 2004, p. 89.  He defines the Sacred Other as "the Deep Mystery which creates and sustains all Creation".</ref>). This concept is referred to by many as the [[Great Spirit]]. Philosopher [[J. Baird Callicott]] has described Lakota theology as panentheistic, in that the divine both transcends and is immanent in everything.<ref>{{cite book|title=Earth's Insights: A Multicultural Survey of Ecological Ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback|date=1994|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=9780520085602|page=122|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SvG8Sqq1FbIC|access-date=17 August 2015}}</ref>

One exception can be modern [[Cherokee]], who are predominantly [[monotheism|monotheistic]] but apparently not panentheistic.<ref>[http://www.peoplesoftheworld.org/text?people=Cherokee ''The Peoples of the World Foundation. Education for and about Indigenous Peoples: The Cherokee People'']. Retrieved 24 March 2008.</ref> Yet in older Cherokee traditions, many observe both pantheism and panentheism and are often not beholden to exclusivity, encompassing other spiritual traditions without contradiction, a common trait among some tribes in the Americas. In the stories of [[Keetoowah]] storytellers Sequoyah Guess and Dennis Sixkiller, God is known as ᎤᏁᎳᏅᎯ, commonly pronounced "unehlanv," and visited earth in prehistoric times, but then left earth and her people to rely on themselves. This shows a parallel to [[Vaishnava]] cosmology.