AIPR Information Sheet:Psychic and Mystical Experiences of the Aborigines
The Dreamtime The term Dreamtime was first used in 1896 by Spencer and Gillen as a rough translation of the Aranda term "alcheringa". Aborigines later adopted "Dreamtime" as their own word (5,p.9). Other tribes use words such as bugari, djugurba, tjukurpa, wongar and ungud. The Dreamtime is at least three things in one (16,17,35):
A sacred heroic time long ago when spirit beings set the sun, moon and stars in their courses, and created the earth, material life and spiritual life. The spirits also created laws (rituals) to provide meaning and to perpetuate this way of life.
The storage of spirit power into plants, animals and sacred sites, for example, a rocky outcrop or waterhole. It provides a meaning for, and a way of life both to individuals and society.
The term "The Dreaming" refers to an Aboriginal's awareness and knowledge of the Dreamtime. The term "dream" is a metaphor suggesting that awareness is enhanced by dreamy, quiet, vague, visionary, fantasy or trance states. The land and ritual serve as reminders; monuments and churches are not needed.
I loved Ainslie Robert's paintings of the Dreamtime. I was most fortunate to be one of his dinner guests when he was awarded the Order of Australia. I do believe he had psychic abilities himself.
That is a great link Paul.. just went in a read a little over my morning cuppa. I was reading the section about how the 'doctors' can produce 'a cord' from their body and use it to do things in the physical world.
The Kahuna's often use a cord also when performing their magic. It is referred to as the Aka cord from memory.
I read also that the witches broom originated from them using a cord to connect to their destination. When they 'rode' along the cord it splayed out behind them.. hence the image of the besom broom.
The bible (and Masonry) also make reference to a silver cord... the same thing do you reckon?
Thank goodness your average man or women does not know how to use this cord... havoc! It would produce the same problem as nuclear power.. useful in the right hands and destructive in the wrong hands, I would think.
Do you think that mental telepathy uses a mental cord to connect with the target... is this the sort of thing that the aborigines and other shamans use?
I guess it is no different to praying to God when you think of it... one is hopefully connecting by some means to something the other end (if one believes God is elsewhere).
Just having a quick skim of the book I notice references to cords connected to:
- testicles - stomach - mouth.
This suggests cords emanating from chakras.
The most complicated cord I have seen had 18 strands and it connected me to a friend. For 3 days after that his girlfriend and mine got our names confused while they learned to re-distinguish our energies.
The 18 strands were 7 physical, 7 emotional and 4 lower mental subplanes - i.e. the whole structure of the persona.
Generally it is possible to project a line of energy from a chakra to another entity or place. Other people can then project their consciousness fairly easily along that line. If the line is on an etheric subplane and the consciousness is suitable then there will be a clear experience of flying over the landscape.
This technique is also suited to prayer - although it is useful to make the connection at levels beyond the persona.
Interesting you mentioned the mouth. Would that have anything to do with 'the Opening of the Mouth' ceremony they used to perform on the recently deceased in Ancient Egypt?
I have heard of the silver cord being associated with the crown, heart and solar plexis.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
The opening of the mouth amongst ancient Egyptians was (symbolically) done on the dead or their images.
"…your mouth is split open by Horus with this little finger of his with which he split open the mouth of his father Osiris." Here there is a reference to Horus opening the mouth of his dead father before resuscitating him
I suspect however that there is an inner correspondence as I have a vague recollection of experiencing something similar several times in group meditation.
The lower mental subplanes are focussed around the upper and lower jaw. When those subplanes are congested or dysfunctional they produce the usual symptoms of grinding teeth, jutting chins and TMJ troubles.
There may be an intervention to loosen up the subplanes and allow greater flows between the mental structures of related entities.
In describing Aboriginal Men of High Degree, Prof. Elkin wrote:
The point to be stressed is that while the medicine man is considered to possess great power and specially developed faculties, none of his power is regarded as extraordinary or abnormal. It is possessed and exercised against an accepted background of belief, and in some degree, though usually in a very slight degree, it is possessed by all. Everybody may have dream experiences of occult significance, though only the “trained” man may fully understand them. Everybody may have intimations of what is happening at a distance, although only the medicine man may be able to seek and obtain such knowledge by occult means. In many tribes, an individual’s totem will bring him information and help in the waking or in the dreaming state; but it is usually only the medicine man who has an individual totem, or familiar, all to himself that assists him in various aspects of his profession. In some tribes, almost any person who cares to learn can work black magic but it is only the doctor who can withdraw the effects of the magical rite from the victim.
The medicine man, for his part, simply possesses these and other faculties in a developed degree, the result being gifted, of having passed through an experience of making, which gave him power and confidence, and of specializing and training. Moreover, he was first of all a fully initiated member of the tribe, disciplined by preparation for custodianship of tribal mysteries and indoctrinated with a respect for tribal sanctions and norms of life. Only after this did he pass through a ritual experience with its consequences of further power and knowledge. As such a man of high degree, he is a more complete exponent of normal life than those with less appreciation and understanding of the background of that life—a background that is mystical and psychic, magical and animistic. Moreover, unless a man were capable of such a high degree of normality, it is unlikely that he would receive the necessary training and insight from other doctors, and, in any case, he would not enjoy the confidence, respect, and prestige that are essential for a successful career. At least, there is no evidence of any person, except of this type, becoming a man of high degree. Aboriginal culture does not put any premium on the epileptic or abnormal of any sort. It is rather an expression of a world of order and normality, deriving from the long-past dreamtime of the culture-heroes, through the present, to the future.
Finally, emphasis should be placed on the fact that a medicine man’s life is one of self-discipline, preceded by training, of social responsibility, and of contact with powerful forces or spiritual beings. He must work coolly and deliberately when his services are required, and not as some mental disturbance dictates or disposes. He does not seek the necessary knowledge or power through drug or violent dance but rather thorough quietness and receptivity, meditation and recollection, observation and inference, concentration and decision. His is a profession for which he has been duly prepared and trained. It is not a kink, though it is possible that sometimes a man may be misled into believing that he “was made” in some dream experience, but that alone will not accredit him. In the same way, we must distinguish among ourselves the well-trained and accredited psychotherapist and analyst from the amateur with a psychoanalytical or similar kink. It is the latter who is usually somewhat abnormal, and who seems unable to see through himself, or to realize that he should do so.
In other words, the real medicine man is a professional individual of special training whose personality, from the point of view of the community, reaches a high degree of normality.
