Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual, Magic, and Initiation in the Life of an African Shaman (Compass)

For all the naysayers, this magic is indeed real - I have worked with Malidoma (he is now in the glorious land of the Ancestors from December 2021), and I have visited Burkina and witnessed a small amount of this physical magic, but the Dagara physical-miracle type magic today is not practiced by most. To the reason: the incredible tradition of Initiation presented in this book: The Dagara for the most part sadly do not have initiation time anymore, as Western life with school and work in the world economy has taken root there. This has made the miracles presented in this book even more rare or now extinct. The people of his homeland mostly no longer learn the technology -- the techniques . There are some shaman in most areas of Burkina, and there are a few remote villages away from main highways who still undergo initiation, but they are hard to find (being hard to find is why they survive the Westernization of thought and continue with initiations; I have witnessed one such remote group during their initiation time). Also many of the spirits who made this magic possible (for it was all done with the aid of spirits) are mostly not attended to today, or the magical formulas have been lost. The Kontomblé portal gates reported in this book, are far less in number today than at the time of Malidoma's initiation experiences., what he writes about in this book It could all be resurrected there if they worked at it, but rare is the magic worker there today. Full resurrection of the magical arts of this book look doubtful at this time. For the naysayers who say "why do we need airplanes" etc -- the entrances into the portal gates talked about in this book do indeed allow one to exit at a different place, BUT the way once inside those portal entrances is fraught with confusion. Finding the exit to say, Australia from Burkina is perhaps impossible, and getting lost permanently inside those gateways is the far greater risk. The further traveled from the entrance, the greater the likelihood of becoming forever lost. For the nayayers who say "why do they need to work, just make gold and treasure appear"-- That is not how magic works, it all takes offerings and sacrifice to make anything manifest, to keep the spirits happy. Malidoma did not write much about all the animal sacrifice (food slaughter but presented to the spirits first) that was done for all those initiation experiences. These works do not manifest out of thin air from no human input. The better use of magic today, rather than asking for a treasure chest to appear that will require a treasure chesst of offerings and exacting formulas of technique - is to support your personal career work with INFLUENCE magic, have a strategy where your physical work is supported by the magical work. Then the gold coins shows up in the form of paychecks or sales. It is possible a gold coin could show up at your feet there in Burkina, or more likely a gold nugget, but no one is offering so much to a spirit that they return with a treasure chest. The ROI does not work. For all the Naysayers who say this is not real, you are speaking from zero experience.. I and others have witnessed some, and it is absolutely real. Physical miracle type magic is incredibly rare but it is real. It is also possible in other places, like Tibet or Nepal, or the Andes., by near-enlightened shaman work. More common, actually very common today - is magic that INFLUENCES physical reality. How do you think David Bowie got so famous ? In one of Malidoma's books, he writes of the rainmakers, those whose crop fields were consistently green when the neighboring and *touching* fields were brown. THAT is how magic is best used -- make what you have magnetic to what it needs to thrive, and then feed your loved ones, don't hoard it all. THAT brings ever-growing reward. And THAT is the true source of the term "Rainmaker"!! To the book review, it is written so incredibly well. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be astonished and you will be fulfilled reading this book. You will long for the indigenous in your own being, the part of yourself that could have had these experiences. This book -- It is crafted with such beauty! This man is such a genius untold. It truly is amazing that English was Malidoma's THIRD language ! The emotion and clarity of vision, the way he tells his story could be a blockbuster movie. It is a MUST read for many genre, for many reasons ! Malidoma stopped writing bbooks ecause so many in his homeland did not want the secrets told and were very angry with him about his crafting these stories for the public to take in. What they still don't realize is that he never told the true secrets -- HOW this magic was done. He only told of the effects of the magic, the amazing things he experienced and saw. His homeland people don't know the stories yet because they do not speak English (though in the last couple of years it has begun to be taught there; they speak French and Dagara and many other languages like Dioula/Jula). This book is impossible for his family to read, his fellow initiates to read, the younger generation there to read. The younger generation there do not even know these stories ! They would have been lost to them had he not written them, and now hopefully in a few years some of the people there will know enough English to read this miracle book and tell the stories of old. When I was last there, a twenty-something came up to me to talk about his hunger for this magical knowledge, that he "knows nothing, we're taught nothing, how do you learn these things?"... They are just as hungry there now as we are in the West, for the great spiritual secrets !! Meanwhile we in the West have been gifted incredible secrets of initiation, secrets that were never told in other cultures and were lost to Christiantity's purging in Europe and the North. All cultures used to practice some form of spirit communication and technology-work, and many had miracle level possibilities such as the Dagara, but thanks to Malidoma, we have an INCREDIBLY RARE story upon the planet. No matter our heritage, we should read this book and imagine what our blood ancestors might have known, the miracles they might have accomplished. And we can know that if we go back far enough in the genome, we are all of Malidoma's tree, down the branches of humanity where we all meet, and the great miracles were then commonplace. Malidoma considered all of humanity to be his brothers and sisters. He gloried in people finding their path of greatest fulfillment. He would want that for you the reader. His book is blessed for that intent. Ashé to you Malidoma Patrice Somé. I will forever love you and honor your work. May it continue to fruit upon the planet, under the direction of your stunning powerful wife Fati Somé when she is ready, and as you would say "may it fruit within the cargo of your being, all of you who read this work."

This books stays with me. Unforgettable. I am immensely grateful for Somé putting these words in writing to share. It feels like it was his life's mission to do so. And now it lives on, after his death as statements that guide and shine light on the meaning of living as one's true self. His experience is profound and life-changing, and can help one on their own journey of self-awareness.

I purchased this book after hearing about it on a lecture I was watching. The book came within the timeframe. It said it would and it was in perfect condition. It’s not a long read however it is very thought-provoking and will make the reader question everything they have been taught. It’s a very deep and powerful book that provides a Front seat behind the life of this great author. I love this book so much. I purchased his second book and I am almost done reading that too. Overall, this is a great read for anybody who’s trying to have a greater understanding About African cultures and the journey that people of color have been through by a man who experienced it himself.

This is a Great Book, and a lasting one on the subject of the African Folk Culture. It is a one of the pieces from the Great Line of Cultural research by Patrice Malidoma Some. The Author is verified as an expert on the Topic in the far 1994, when he actually even recorded mixtapes with the oral tradition. The death of this author during The Pandemics is a TRULY unfortunate event. I am aware that his is trying to took it from where his Great Father left. This is truly a HARD Task, when your name brings light to a Culture indeed. This one is from the original author figure. May God show his Mercy on Patrice`s soul ! Deep Regrets to his Family.

Please understand dear reader this is the greatest story I ever read and I consume stories like air. This writer can take anyone and fold them like a piece of paper and fit them in his shirt pocket and carry their soul through his life. A life, most westerners will believe is a fiction because it's filled with what we call magical thinking. I'm different. Even though I'm in a white womans vessel I have known great supernatural truths in this life. I have had psychic abilities and my whole family has "powers" of perception not available to our peers. Powers I was told to mask and understanding my mom has told me from a young age would make it so I was locked up if I ever whispered a word. I know how to astral projection and in communication with ETs and little people. So nothing in the book I think is an exaggeration or a lie. Which makes things so much more fascinating for me as a reader. If the reader can open their mind... just for a moment to believe what he says as truth? Your life could be forever changed by reading this book. This book is so powerful when I found out it wasn't on YouTube I was going to read it and upload it myself but I waited... as I didn't think a white vessel should read African words. Even though I know my spirit is one with all creation. It didn't feel energetically correct. I found it was finally read and uploaded this year!!! So if you are too poor to buy the book at least listen on YouTube. But if you can financially support this book, do so. I'm convinced the channels of money being made will benefit his tribe because he is a great man. I say is, because we never die. One love! <3

This was probably one of the most absorbing books that I have read in a while. I've been so sucked into the world of dry, scholarly histories that I almost forgot how to be excited every day that I wake for the chance to read a book. It also helps that Dr. Malidoma Some is a genius level writer who can effortlessly weave contradictory lifestyles into a tapestry that makes you wonder how can one person embody so much of the colonized struggle. With one foot in the mechanistic and warlike Eurocentric world and the other in the mystical, nonlinear world of Africa, Some makes the impossible look easy as he successfully survives initiation into two opposing ontologies. I had to force myself to stop reading the book after every 4 chapters or so because a book like this should not be devoured. It should be thoughtfully --or better yet, spiritually, savored. This book has helped me make sense of my academic studies and the study of myself on so many levels. I think this book would be a great autobiographical aid to the great works of Cheikh anta Diop, Theophile Obenga, K Kia Bunseki Fu-kiau, Marcel Griaule, and more. In fact, don't worry about comparing or contrasting --just read this man's life and be amazed. 5 Stars

Malidoma, born in what is now Burkina Faso, West Africa, was his shaman grandfather's shadow until age four. That year his grandfather died, and Malidoma was kidnapped from his home by a French Jesuit missionary. For the next 16 years he suffered almost every kind of abuse as he was trained in Western culture. He escaped at age 20 and, walking 300 miles from the seminary, found his way back to his tribal village, where he now was an outsider. The elders offered him the opportunity to participate in an intensive six-week shamanic initiation with younger tribal boys which, if he survived, would reestablish his connection to the tribe. After undergoing the initiation, Malidoma learned that his destiny lay in being a bridge between Western civilization and indigenous culture. Studying in the Sorbonne and Brandeis University, he now holds three master's degrees and two PhDs. Though he returns regularly to his tribal home for renewal, he makes his home in the U.S. where he has taught at the University of Michigan and now leads seminars, intensives, and rituals. Malidoma's open, vulnerable, detailed stories of his experiences in the Jesuit school and in his initiation are riveting. I noticed two major lessons that his culture can teach ours. One is to connect our bodies to our minds. When Malidoma first came to the U.S., he saw with the spirit eyes of his elders that people's heads were not connected to their bodies. There was a blank space where the neck should be. One aspect of this is that we place great importance upon words. Malidoma says: "The speech of silence is achieved when words, and their potential ability to hurt meaning, are done away with. Words entrap meaning, torture it, slice it into pieces the way a butcher cuts the meat of a slaughtered animal and serves it to us. . . In silence, meaning is no longer heard, but felt; and feeling is the best hearing, the best instrument for recording meaning." The second lesson is the importance of wise elders. In Malidoma's words: "Elders and mentors have an irreplaceable function in the life of any community. Without them the young are lost -- their overflowing energies wasted in useless pursuits. The old must live in the young like a grounding force that tames the tendency toward bold but senseless actions and shows them the path of wisdom. In the absence of elders, the impetuosity of youth becomes the slow death of the community." This is a book that changes the reader.

cover was torn on the book received today