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Product Description
Product Description
Maliodoma Patrice Some was born in a Dagara Village, however he was soon to be abducted to a Jesuit school, where he remained for the next fifteen years, being harshly indoctrinated into european ways of thought and worship. The story tells of his return to his people, his hard initiation back into those people, which lead to his desire to convey their knowledge to the world. Of Water and the Spirit is the result of that desire; it is a sharing of living African traditions, offered in compassion for those struggling with our contemporary crisis of the spirit.
About the Author
Malidoma Somé was born in Burkina Faso in 1956. At the age of four, he was forcefully taken from his family to be educated at a French Jesuit boarding school. At the age of twenty, he escaped from the school and was reunited with his family. He now lectures on his experiences.
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First Sentence
The story I am going to tell comes from a place deep inside of myself, a place that perceives all that I have irremediably lost and, perhaps, what gain there is behind the loss. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The story I am going to tell comes from a place deep inside of myself, a place that perceives all that I have irremediably lost and, perhaps, what gain there is behind the loss. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Malidoma's extraordinary, brilliant, mindblowing book should be read by everyone. It is the only book I have ever read that has given me what I can describe as a deeply spiritual experience through the actual process of reading.
The book is essentially an autobiography. It tells of Malidoma's birth among the Dagara of Burkina Faso, his kidnap by Jesuit missionaries, their attempt to indoctrinate him with the Christian God, his escape and then initiaion back into the Dagara.
However, its main value for the West is in comprehensively destroying the rationalist materialsim which is in the process of destroyign nature. For Malidoma tells of so many extraordinary - and magical - events that anyone who is not a dyed-in-the-wool cynic will have their worldview permanently altered.
If you want to see how corpses can walk back to their own funeral ceremonies, how people can go into different dimensions and see their previous incarnations, and how they can understand themselves as they were before their birth and as they will be after death - if, in short, you want to enter an entirely different - and genuine - spiritual worldview, having got fed up of the bankrupt one we are force fed in the Wst - this is the book for you.
Please buy this book it will change your life, for the better.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This brilliant book not only puts religious colonialism firmly in its place without being over emotional about it but also tells many wonderful things about tribal west Africa. It was a revelation to me. I had imagined that most missions these days confined themselves to good works and hoped that some indiginous peoples might take up the baton. Far from it! Religious brainwashing and colonial thuggery seems to be either alive and well or has only stopped within the last 20 years. But Far more importantly. While elements of what is left from the native american culture abound and Maori, and Australian indiginous knowledge is there for the finding, I had heard or nothing comparable from tribal Africa except wonderfully told albeit second hand information from Laurence van der Post about the bushmen. Here Malidoma redresses the balance magnificently from West Africa. The writing is excellent, the experiences sometimes mind-boggling and the descriptions of village life really wonderful.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This beautiful book deserves to be far better known. Malidoma's writing is precise, personal and very powerful - the account of the month-long initiations he underwent upon returning to his tribe woke me up to a whole new vision of African shamanism. Read this book to hear a first-hand account of a man bridging the gap between the contaminated 'Western' mind and the nature-companion mind of a Dagara shaman. And should we ever forget, his account of the brutality of the missionary schools reminds us of the debt the so-called developed world still owes to the countries and people it brutalised for so long.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An extraordinary book; a must for anyone interested in soul-work
This book relates an epic journey in which the indomitable truth of the spirit conquers the falsehood and violence of false, man-made gods. Read more
Published on 26 May 2010 by observer
Unvarnished truth
Marvellous, heart-rending, joyful and intensely moving, If found it hard to put this book down. This book should be compulsory reading in Western High Schools.
Published on 8 Nov 2009 by J. Farrer
Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic and Initiation in the Life of...
Really interesting read for those who wish to gain insights into African beliefs and traditions. Time to 'willingly suspend disbelief'. Read more
Published on 5 July 2009 by J J Pale
Brilliant
Malidoma's book is fantastic,it gives you and insight into everyday african life,and proves just how spiritual african life is,as a african diasporan i am glad i got this book,it... Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2009
what a story!
excellent, took me into another world (literally)
A story of triumph
against adverse conditions (and conditioning)
An insight into a culure... Read more
A story of triumph
against adverse conditions (and conditioning)
An insight into a culure... Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2006 by both of us
Words cannot describe...
This book was amazing...when I read the last page and closed the book I was left in awe. The message was powerful. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2006 by Kammy
challenge
This book is hard to battle through, because its message is so difficult to ignore and to digest. I feel its power. Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2004 by Mwara Kungu
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