Literature in our Collection
(A-L)

Cowan, James: Mysteries of the Dream-Time. The Spiritual Life of Australian Aborigines, Lindfield 1989, ISBN 1853270385

Table of Contents        ¦         Cover Text        ¦         Book Review

Table of Contents

Introduction -1-

Spiritual Discipline and Psychic Power -5-

Landscape as Tradition and Metaphor -23-

The Dream Journey -43-

Pilgrimage of the Soul -57-

Nature as Numen -71-

The Metaphysics of Space -87-

The World of Totems -105-

Towards a New Dreaming -117-

Select Bibliography -127-

Cover Text

For centuries, the mysterious spiritual life of Aboriginal Australians has lain concealed behind a veil of misunderstanding and prejudice. Whether making a Dream Journey in search of his ancestral roots, or painting his body in order to recreate his culture heroes, the Aborigine partakes of an intense spiritual reality that can only be expressed through a complex calendar of ritual and ceremony. The Dreaming - that mythical time when the world was first created - became the embodiment of this world. The Aborigine was able to invest this heraldic event with a luminous beauty that gave his life purpose and meaning for over 50,000 years. Now, the world's oldest religion is brought to life in all its breathless majesty. Men of Power, celestial journeys, meditational techniques and the role of the body as a spiritual icon are all explored.