Where Dreams Come Alive: The Alchemy of the African Healer

Where Dreams Come Alive documents the initiatory patterns embedded in the journey of a Zulu woman's heroic confrontation with her calling to be a healer. The rich symbolic world of the African healer can be considered an image of a creative individuation that demonstrates the autonomy of deep psychic processes. Archetypal phenomena in the cosmology of the African healer are amplified through the stages of the alchemical opus and the psychology of C.G. Jung. These phenomena arise when there is a serious attempt to engage with the autonomous psyche. This in turn, suggests a return, with consciousness, to the instincts, to an inner numinosity, to the phenomenon of psyche and matter, and spirit in nature. A main focus in this work is the idea that there is a remarkable parallel between the valences given to dreams in the African healing realm as there is in the psychology of C.G. Jung. In a similar fashion to the analyst, the healer approaches the dream with respect for the numinosity of the dream images and messages. Attention to dream material is understood as essential for healing. The author's direct and personal collaboration with various indigenous healing communities in South and Southern Africa, Namibia and Botswana provides a rich backdrop to and foundation for her work. The meeting of two cultures in the therapeutic temenos and the ceremonial rituals of the African healing initiation provides the vessel for the transformation necessary for the emergence of something new and as yet largely unarticulated.