Profiles of Healing series releases ground-breaking book/DVD
Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe
Over the years, cavalcades of anthropologists have faced the brutal heat and blinding sun of the Kalahari Desert to investigate one of the oldest living cultures on the planet-the Bushmen. Their traditions have been studied and written about with great passion, and there is vehement disagreement about the meaning of their culture. Cultural anthropologist, psychologist, shaman, author (Shaking out the Spirits, Everyday Soul and numerous professional books on psychotherapy) Bradford Keeney has been dancing with the Bushmen for over a decade. Because he has experienced their spiritual universe firsthand, the Namibian Bushman men and women doctors represented in Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe have entrusted him with detailed accounts of their experiences of the mercurial mystical realms of light that interconnect all things (the "Ropes to God").
They have also allowed him to photograph inside the Bushman men's and rarely-seen women's healing dance-arguably the oldest healing ceremony alive today. The highly illustrated book includes a DVD (photographed by a camera strapped to Keeney's head as he held onto the backs of various Bushman doctors during a ceremony), stills of the dance, and rock art provided by the Rock Art Research Institute of the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, along with a ground-breaking discussion of its meaning. "In order to understand, you must first interact," said cybernetician Heinz Von Foerster. "This axiom runs counter to the view of traditional social scientists as well as much of Western culture who believe, 'In order to act, you must first understand,'" explains Keeney in the scholarly discussion that follows the Bushmen's first person stories. "Bushmen do not value conceptual explanations or any form of written or spoken orthodoxy.
They rely on their immediate experience-what they smell, taste, feel, hear, and see. The more their sensory experience is amplified, the closer they are to their truths. The only stable thing in a Bushman's experience is the process of movement itself." Since the Bushmen's world is defined through movement rather than oral or written history, western anthropologists have believed that much of their wisdom is lost to memory. This and other misconceptions are addressed in this unique presentation of the Bushman experience. "You must learn to wake up God," says Bushman doctor Cgunta lelae. "This is the most important thing we have to teach. We believe that many people have forgotten this truth. We want to remind them to wake up God. We hold the truth of God while the rest of the world is in trouble. We wish that everyone would start dancing and wake up God. We pray for the other people of the world. We hope that they start dancing with us." Ropes to God: Experiencing the Bushman Spiritual Universe is the eighth volume in the Profiles of Healing book/audio CD series, an unprecedented encyclopedia of the world's healing knowledge through the stories of traditional shamans and medicine people.
Edited by: Bradford Keeney, Ph.D.
Pub. Date: Jan. 2003
ISBN 978-0-9800543-9-2 hardbound
ISBN 978-0-9666509-3-8 softcover
176 pages
66 b&w, 117 color photos; & dvd
7X10 inches
$18.95 SC/$39.95 HC
anthropology/religion/complementary medicine
RINGING ROCKS PRESS
Contact: Sharon LaDriere at
