Table Of ContentDREAMTIME
INN ER S PAC E
@ THE WORLD OF THE SHAMAN &
a: *
HOLGER KALW EIT
MB FOREWORD BY ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS
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DREAMTIME
&
INNER SPACE
DREAMTIME
W&
INNER SPACE
The World of the Shaman
Holger Kalweit
Translated from the German by Werner Wiinsche
FOREWORD BY ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS
SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
1988
For Julia and Amelie
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
©1984 by Holger Kalweit and Scherz Verlag, Bern and
Munich (for Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag)
Translation ©1988 by Shambhala Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3
FIRST EDITION
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed in the United States by Random House
and in Canada by Random House of Canada Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kalweit, Holger.
Dreamtime and inner space.
Translation of: Traumzeit und innerer Raum.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Shamanism. 2. Shaman. 3. Psychical research.
I. Title.
BL2370.S5K3513 1988 291.6'2 87-28842
ISBN 0-87773-406-2 (pbk.)
CONTENTS
FOREWORD VI
INTRODUCTION
Snake Does Not Bite Man; Snake Bites What Man Thinks XI
PART ONE
The Religion of the Twice-Born
1. A Geography of Death
2. Life beyond Birth and Death
3. The Reality of the Soul 2]
4. Soul Journeys and Teachings about the Beyond 3]
5. The Body/Spirit Connection: Ropes of Air and Invisible Threads 48
6. The Out-of-Body Experience 52
7. The “True Earth” 56
PART TWO
Shamanic Initiation 73
8. Suffering Kills, Suffering Enlivens: Sickness and Self-Healing 75
g. Rituals of Dismemberment and Bone Displays in the Underworld 94
10. Imaginary Friends, Partial Personalities, and Genuine Spirits
of the Dead 111
l. Sacred Weddings, Spirit Marriages, and Dream Sexuality 127
12. The Song of Power: Joy, Joy, Joy! 144
13. Sacred Drugs: Where the World Is Born 160
14. The Acquisition of Power by Inheritance, Transmission, and
Change of Sex 175
15. The Rejection of Power 182
16. The Loss of Power 187
PART THREE
Transformative Symbols of Consciousness 193
17. In the Bowels of the Earth 195
18. Experiences of Light and Balls of Fire 201
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CONTENTS
19. Ascending the World Tree 209
20. Portals to Heaven and the Underworld 213
21. Rulers of Nature and Givers of Life 216
22. Crystal Came Whirling, Crystal Came Raining 220
23. The Rhythm of Life 225
24. Walk in Balance, Walk in Beauty 229
PART FOUR
Religion and Science 233
25. When the Anthropologists Arrive, the Gods Leave the Island 235
EPILOGUE
Too Much Think about White Man, No More Can Find Dream 253
APPENDIX: Tribes and Their Locations 257
NOTES 261
BIBLIOGRAPHY 267
INDEX 293
° Vile
FOREWORD
his book gives an astonishingly comprehensive account of the prac-
tices and experiences of many different types of tribal healers and
shamans from the most diverse regions of the world, ranging from so-
called primitive African tribes, to Eskimos, Australian aborigines, North
American Indians, and many others.
Their narratives are, at first sight, rather difficult to comprehend, be-
cause in their descriptions of initiatory experiences shamans frequently
make use of extremely unfamiliar and symbolic language. Perhaps one
would have to be a shaman oneself to appreciate them in their full depth.
After all, these are reports about extraordinary experiences in a “fourth di-
mension” penetrated by these men and women, who went through enor-
mous inner struggles and great sufferings in their search for paranormal
powers, for an ability to heal and/or foresee the future.
On the other hand, I am grateful and happy that a book such as this
should remind me that always and all over the world people have known
about an existence after death and endeavored to prepare themselves by
preempting it—an existence in which we no longer have need of a physi-
cal body and can communicate by a kind of telepathy rather than words.
This mode of “being” enables us to travel through other realms, and on
our passage to these other planes of reality we have to overcome many an
obstacle. Here, in fact, we reap what we have sown—a person who has led
a good and compassionate life is able to cross the river of death without dif-
ficulty, whereas others, according to the degree of self-perfection and
goodness they have attained in the course of their lives, have to struggle for
either a short or apparently endless period of time before reaching the
other shore.
Only a few of us who live in modern Western civilization understand
that benevolent “helping spirits” and “imaginary friends” are by no means
projections of an imagination gone riot. The critically ill children in my
eVile
FOREWORD
care refer to these spirits as their “playmates.” They are very real compan-
ions to them—guides and helpers at a time of isolation, loneliness, and suf-
fering. Such companions are known by children everywhere. Only when
children grow up in an unbelieving world, that tends to laugh at such fol-
lies, do they as a rule lose their ability to recognize these helpers.
It is extremely important that our modern Western culture subject its
values and opinions to a critical examination—particularly its views about
sickness and suffering. In order to promote such a reexamination I have
founded a worldwide organization called Shanti Nilaya, that has taken the
following statement for its basic motto: “If we were to protect all ravines
against all storms and avalanches we would never be able to admire the
beauty of their scarred surfaces.” People who have gone through great tri-
als and tribulations in their early life—like the shamans, whose experi-
ences are recorded in this book—often are particularly gifted, believing
that they are guided, that there is a life after death, and that the whole of
life is a school for spiritual growth.
If we can, at least occasionally, sever the chains that bind us to our mate-
rial world and turn inward, we are rewarded by an expansion of our con-
sciousness and a corresponding insight into the realities beyond this
three-dimensional world. We will then become aware of our true spiritual
potential, of what has been called the “divine spark” that dwells in every
one of us.
Those who have experienced revelations of this kind will be aware of the
remarkable similarities between them and the shamanic experiences dealt
with here. They will thus find confirmation of what they already know:
namely, that the basic experiences of humanity all over the world are the
same and that we all have acommon source, to which we shall return when
we have learned our lessons and overcome our trials. For we all are chil-
dren of the same God.
ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS
- Ville
