The Spirits Speak: One Woman's Mystical Journey Into the African Spirit World

The search for selfhood leads a middle-aged, expatriate white South African from her initial mystical experience in California to the sangomas (mostly female shamans) of her homeland. Cast against the upheavals of apartheid's end, Arden's story is a Jungian homecoming. Against the advice of some white friends, and with the skepticism of many blacks, the author apprentices herself to a mystical practitioner of the healing arts. At first, Arden finds the herbal ceremonies, Zulu incantations and amulets superstitious, naive and frightening. But she gradually frees her spirits, through ritual repetition of purging, inhalation, dreaming, dancing, drumming and animal sacrifice until she is accepted by her teachers and, more important, by herself as a maternal possessor of the power to heal body and soul. First-time author Arden turns an artful phrase, particularly when she writes about the natural world, and her vision is deeply informed by her feminism and her New Age beliefs. Wistfully, she contemplates the pragmatic endurance of her African tutors, who lead her through her spiritual evolution, grounding her rebirth in the essential mix of the mundane and the sacred. (July)