zulú dreamscapes:senses, media, andauthentication incontemporaryneo-shamanism

David Chidester is Professor of Religjous Studiesand Director ol the Institute (or Comparative Religionin Southern Africa (ICRSA) at the University ot CapsTown in South Africa. His publications include SavageSystems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion inSouthern Africa (University of Virginia Press. 1996);Christianity: A Global History (Penguin, 2000):Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temf^.and Jonestown (Indiana University Press, revisededition 2003); ano Authentic Fakes: Reiigion andAmerican Popular Culture (University of CaliforniaPress, 2005).

ABSTRACTReinterpreting indigenous traditions under globalizingconditions, Zulu neo-shamans have developed new reiigiousdiscourses and practices for engaging dreams, visions,and extraordinary spirituai experiences. Dreams, which wemight assume are immaterial, are interpreted through thesenses, electronic media, and material entailments thatrequire embodied practices of sacrificial exchange andancestral orientation. Accordingiy, in Zulu neo-shamanism,dreams become the embodied, sensory basis for a materialreiigion. That embodied religion, however, has been radicallyglobalized through electronic media. Considering the caseof the Zulu shaman, Credo Mutwa, we find that this materialreligion has entaiied the sensory extravagance of extremepieasure in eating and the extreme pain of being abductedby aliens from outer space. Sensory derangement andgiobal mediation merge in Credo Mutwa's vivid accounts ofhis encounters with extraterrestrials that circuiate throughvideos, DVDs, and the internet. While Credo Mutwa hasbeen globaiizing the material reiigion of dreams, other neo-shamans, including white South African expatriates such asthe surgeon David Cumes and the singer Ann Mortifee, havefoilovi/ed the path of dreams to come home to the indigenousauthenticity of Zulu religion. Whether dreaming of globalexchanges or local homecomings, these Zulu neo-shamansregard the human sensorium and electronic media as crucialregisters of indigenous religion because senses and mediaset the iimits, evoke the potential, and provide validation forspirituai authenticity.

Keywords: dreams, extraterrestrials, media, neo-shamanism,senses, Zulu religion

Material Religion volume fl. issue 2. pp. 136-159DOl: 10.2752/175183408X328271

Dreams must seem the most insubstantial of media, nothingmore than "subjective apparitions," as the Anglican missionaryand ethnographer Henry Callaway described Zulu dreamsin 1871, a medium of sensory experience, "brain-sight" and"brain-hearing," without any materiai referents {Callaway1872). But the Zulu interpretation of dreams documentedby Callaway showed that dreams were often understood ascalls to aotion. Through the medium of dreams, ancestorscalled for sacrificial offerings (Cailaway 1868-70: 6), whichwould affirm ongoing relations of material exchange betweenthe living and tiie dead, or an ancestor might call for theperformance of homecoming rituals that would bring him"back from the open country to his home" (Callaway 1868-70: 142). Dreams, therefore, were not merely sensory mediato be interpreted. Although they were rendered meaningfulthrough a hermeneutics of dreams, they were also given forcethrough an energetics of dreams that demanded practicalresponses with material consequences. As a result, dreamswere thoroughly integrated into the material relations ofexchange and orientation in Zulu anoestral religion.

Now, under globalizing conditions, Zulu dreaming is ^ .undergoing transformation. Global ciaims are being madeon Zulu dreams. For example, Afrika Bambaataa, the AfricanAmerican godfather of Hip Hop, whose musical group, ZuluNation, which was not African, Zulu, or a nation, neverthelessmoved symbolically into South African space to identifytwo kinds of religion: On the one side, Afrika Bambaataaidentified the "go to sleep slavery type of religion." the religionof the dream, the religion of the oppressed that sealed theiroppression. On the other side, there was the "spiritual wakeup, revolutionary," religion of conscious, positive aotion,"like the prophets," in which "knowledge, wisdom, [and]understanding of self and others" inform a "do for self andothers type of religion" (Chidester 2005: 230-1}, At the sametime, indigenous Zulu dreams are going global, as in the oaseof the Zulu witchdoctor, sangoma, sanusi, and now shamanCredo Mutwa, the master of Zulu "dreams, prophecies, andmysteries" {Mutwa 2003}, who has emerged in the globalcircuit of neo-shamanism (see Townsend 2004) as thebedrock of African indigenous authenticity to underwrite avariety of projects, including New Age spirituality alternativeheaiing, and encounters with aliens from outer space | ¿

138 (Chidester 2002). S sIn this new globalizing terrain, olectronio media have

dramatically expanded the Zulu dreamsoape. Zulu dreaming,along with religious or spiritual interpretations of Zulu dreams,visions, and mysteries, has been proliferating through filmand video, musical CDs and DVDs, and the expanding globaldreamscape of neo-shamanism on the Internet. Nevertheless,in all of these media, we can find echoes of the nineteenth-oentury Zulu energetics of dreams that was based onsacrificial exchange and ancestral orientation.

First, we find echoes of sacrifioial exchange, but nowsituated in the dilemmas posed by a global economy Notonly defined by the increased paoe and soope of the flows

of money, technology, and people, the global eoonomy isalso an arena for new mediated images and ideals of humanpossibility (Appadurai 1996), including the possibility thatoccult forces are both shadow and substance of globaleconomic exchange (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). In hisown way, as we will see, Credo Mutwa has dealt with thesedilemmas of the global economy by identifying aliens fromouter space as the nexus of a sacrificial exchange into whichhe personally has entered by eating extraterrestrial beings in asacramental meal and by being their sacrificial victim.

Second, addressing the demand for bringing ancestorshome and reinforcing the sacred orientation revolving aroundthe ancestral homestead, Credo Mutwa has tried for manyyears to establish a "Credo Mutwa village" in South Africa—inthe township of Soweto during the 1970s, in the apartheidBantustan of Bophuthatswana in the 1980s, in the game

I reserve of Shamwari during the 1990s—but none of these' homes turned out to be sustainable. On the Internet, however,! Credo Mutwa found a home. Mediated by the global network

of neo-shamanism, he gained new credibility. While CredoMutwa was going global. North American enthusiasts forNew Age spirituality, including some white South Africanexpatriates, found in this new global media an avenue forcoming home to Africa by entering the "house of dreams" asa Zulu shaman.

In 1994 the American author, James Hall, describedhis initiation as a Zulu sangoma as "a journey to becomethe house of dreams" (Hall 1994: 202). In 2004 the SouthAfrican expatriate, David M. Cumes, who had establisheda medical practice in California, underwent his initiation asa Zulu sangoma, obsen/ing, "I had heard the term 'a houseof dreams' applied to aspects of the thwasa [initiation]experience" (Cumes 2004: 84). How should we understandthis new "house of dreams" that is emerging in a new,globalizing arena?

As an entry into this new Zulu dreamscape, I want toexamine the role of the human sensorium and electronicmedia. Exploring Zulu neo-shamanism as material religion, Isituate my analysis at the nexus of religious dreaming, sensoryrepertoires, and electronic mediation. Religion, as JeremyStolow has observed, is "materialized in and through themost primary media of all, the human senses" (Stolow 2005:

139 129). If embodied senses are media, then electronic mediacan also be understood as both extensions and limitations ofthe human sensorium. Dreams, our most intimate, embodiedmedia, are also sensory, whether ordinary or extraordinary.Although dreaming has often been regarded as imaginary andimmaterial, as nothing more than "subjeotive apparitions,"dreams are material productions, not merely because they aregenerated by the neurobiology of the brain (see Ueberman2000), but also because they have the capacity to elicitpractical responses with material consequences. In the caseof Zulu neo-shamanism, dreams entail material investmentsin sacrificial exchange and ancestral orientation that echo anearlier Zulu hermeneutics and energetics of dreams but now

FIG1Zulu shaman, Crecki Mulwa, guardian otindigenous Zulu traditions. Photograph byHarold Gees. PictureNET Africa.

140

under rapidly changing global conditions. Within this new Zuludreamscape, indigenous sensory repertoires for arranging(and deranging) the human sensorium merge with the limits(and potential} ot electronic media.

By examining the work of a variety of contemporary Zulushamans, including Credo Mutv>/a and P. H. Mtshali, but alsoincluding James Hall, David Cumes, Ann Mortifee, and otherso-called white sangomas, we can discern basic strategiesfor engaging senses and media. In this new Zulu dreamscape,dreams are a sensory medium, involving "brain-sight" and"brain-hearing," as Henry Callaway suggested, but they alsoincorporate all of the senses, simultaneously, synaesthetically,and expansively, perhaps even expanding to the twelvesenses that Credo Mutv a will claim as the natural sensoriumof human beings. All of ihis sensory experience, however, isthoroughly mediated through new electronic media. As 1 hopeto show, Zulu neo-shamans have developed an ambivalentrelationship to the very media that have made it possiblefor them to be shamans. Media, like sensory experience.

I OÜ)

ilsL£ Z

is engagées in three ways—as limit, as potential, and asvalidation of the reality of this new Zulu shamanism. Withinthe dreamscapes of contemporary Zulu neo-shamanism,the human senses and electronic media are at play, andthe question of authenticity is at stake, in the imaginativeterrain that has opened between global exchanges and localhomecomings.

Extraterrestrial EncountersI Vusama2ulu Credo Mutwa has been described, internationally,

as a Zulu shaman, the keeper of Zulu tradition, althoughhe has often been characterized in South Africa as a fake,fraud, and a charlatan (Friedman 1997; Johnson 1997). Anextremely creative and imaginative author (Mutwa 1964;1966), artist, and sculptor. Credo Mutwa has been celebratedwithin the global network of contemporary neo-shamanismas the High Sanusi of the Zulu nation, the highest grade ofAfrican shaman and the official historian of the Zulu people ofSouth Africa.

Over his long career. Credo Mutwa has been adept atreinventing himself in relation to various alien appropriationsof his authenticity. During the 1950s Credo Mutwa wasused to authenticate African artifacts for a curio shopin Johannesburg, Through his writings in the 1960s, histourist attraction in Soweto in the 1970s, and his culturalvillage in Bophuthatswana in the 1980s, he was used toauthenticate the racial, cultural, and religious separationsof apartheid. During the 1990s, as he acquired the label"shaman" through the interventions of Bradford Keeney(2001), Stephen Larsen (Mutwa 1996; 2003), and otherexponents of New Age spirituality. Credo Mutwa's authoritywas invoked to authenticate a diverse array of enterprisesin saving the world from human exploitation, environmentaldegradation, epidemic illness, endemic ignorance, organizedcrime, or extraterrestrial conspiracy. In all of these projects,the indigenous authenticity of Credo Mutwa added value,credibility, and force because he represented the "purevoice," untainted by modernity, of an unmediated access toprimordial truth (Chidester 2005: 172-89),

One of Credo Mutwa's supporters, the New Ageconspiracy theorist David Icke, produced a five-hour video.The Reptilian Agenda: based on interviews with the Zulu

141 shaman. In this video, Icke expiains, we are introducedto "a unique human being, the most incredible man ithas been my honour to meet," Mutwa is "keeper of theancient knowledge," the truth of history, as opposed to the"nonsensicai version of history we get from universities," Thetrue history confirmed by both Icke's recent research andMutwa's ancient knowledge centered on a global conspiracyof aliens from outer space,

A former sports broadcaster in Britain, David Ickedeveloped a distinctive blend of personal spirituality andpolitical paranoia that he promoted through books, publiclectures, and an elaborate website (Icke 1999; 2002; 2005).Although he seemed to embrace every conspiracy theory.

David Icke identified the central, secret conspiracy rulingthe worid as the work of shape-shifting reptilians from outerspace. According to Icke, these extraterrestrial reptilesinterbred with human beings, establishing a lineage thatcould be traced through the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, theMerovingian dynasty of medieval Europe, the British royalfamily, and every president of the United States. Althoughthey plotted behind the scenes in the secret society ofthe IlluminatI, the aliens of these hybrid bloodlines were inprominent positions of royal, political, and economic power allover the world. Occasionally shifting into their iizard-like form,these aliens maintained a human appearance by regularlydrinking human blood, which they acquired by performingrituals of human sacrifice.

David Icke invoked the indigenous African authoritycf Credo Mutwa to confirm this conspiracy theory aboutbiccd-drinking. shape-shifting reptiles from outer space. AsMutwa declared, "To know the Illuminati, Mr. David, you muststudy the reptile" (Icke 2002). In The Reptilian Agenda, CredoMutwa confirms that extraterrestrials, the Chitauri, were ashape-shifting reptilian race that has controlled humanity forthousands cf years. Subsequent to making this videc, Ickeand Mutwa appeared together on a popular American radioprogram, "Sightings," to explain the alien reptile conspiracy,They also reportedly joined forces on the eve of the newmillennium to prevent an Illuminati ritual of human sacrificeat the Great Pyramid of Cheops, In his lectures, Icke insistedthat Credo Mutwa provided proof for his conspiracy theory,as one observer noted, in the "pure vcice of a primitive beliefsystem" (Molloy 2004). In Credo Mutwa, therefore, David tckefound indigenous authentication for an alien conspiracy (seeIcke 1999).

Authentication of the "truth" took different forms: Eirst,this truth is a dangerous truth. Credo Mutwa is constantlysubjected to death threats, including an attempt on hislife just prior to filming, by those who want to prevent himfrom speaking the truth. The danger inherent in this truth isinherently validating. The conspiracy is not a "theory," Ickewarns, because "theory does not kill people. The conspiracyis real."

Second, this truth is a "bizarre story," loke admits, but itis confirmed by Credo Mutwa's "unique knowledge," which

142 is drawn from secret traditions of "Africa, this enormousand astonishing continent." Icke advises: "as bizarre ...and as seemingly ridiculous as this story might seem" it isauthenticated by the fact that Credo Mutwa "tells exactly thesame story."

Third, this truth, in its African authentication, is aprecarious tradition, since Credo Mutwa is one of only twoZulu Sanusi left alive, but this truth, at risk of vanishing,will be preserved on video "for as long as the electronicmedium exists." Sc, while Credo Mutwa provides indigenousconfirmation for Icke's "bizarre story," Icke, in return, promisespermanence for Zulu tradition through modern electronicmedia.

S 1 1K o E

IffflO

FIG 2Zulu shaman, Credo Mutwa, expert on aliens fromouter space. Photography by Obed Zllwa, AssociatedPress.

143

In his video interviews for The Reptilian Agenda, CredoMutwa describes his encounters with extraterrestrialswith meiicuious attention to the senses, creating a vividimpression of seeing, hearing, smeliing, tasting, and touchingaliens in two contexts—eating them and being violated bythem.

According to Mutwa, African tradition provides wisdomon how to prepare, cook, and eat aliens from outer space.In 1958, he recalls, a UFO crashed in a mountainous area ofLesotho. A friend invited Mutwa over for a meal, promisinghim that they would be dining on "something holy," whichturned out to be the meat of an extraterrestrial known as aGrey. Following African tradition, they had to eat this meal ina deep hole in the ground. As Mutwa reports, the meat of thealien was tough and dry, requiring muoh chewing, and it hadthe "same taste as a copper coin." After eating this "flesh of agod," Mutwa and his companion became deathly ill, sufferingintense pain for a week, which seemed like a hundred years,blinded, deaf, and unable to breathe. After a week, they went"stark, raving, laughing mad." Then, suddenly, Mutwa recalls,he was "a person reborn." All of his senses were expanded,"i could see colours beyond colours," he recalls. "I could heara voice in my head." His taste buds were "souped up," sothat ordinary water tasted extraordinary. In the ecstasy of thisextraordinary sensory experience, Mutwa recalls, "We wereone with the entire universe." By eating the alien, Mutwa hadacquired an extraterrestrial sensorium. "Do you think thosesenses you experienced are the senses of the Chitauri?" Ickeasks. "Yes," Mutwa responds. "Senses like no human beinghas."

By contrast to this extraterrestrial ecstasy, in 1959 Mutwaunderwent the alien agony of abduction. While locking formedicinal herbs in what is now Zimbabwe, Mutwa was takeninto a space ship of the Chitauri, disappearing for a periodof four days. Again, his account of alien abducticn paysmeticulous attention to the senses, the "strange hummingsound," the images of destroyed cities as "pictures floodedmy mind," and the horrible metallic, chemical smell of theChitauri, the Greys, and other extraterrestrials. "I have seenthe Chitauri," Mutwa assures us. "I have smelled them. Ihave personal experience with them." But that personalexperience was entirely terrifying, an "eternity of pain" inflictedupon him by aliens who tortured him, experimented uponhim, and forced him to have sexual intercourse with a femaleextraterrestrial. Throughout all of these ordeals, Mutwarecounted, he felt like the victim at a sacrifice. Returningto earth saturated with a "horrible non-human smell," andmissing his trousers, Mutwa was attacked by dogs butwas saved by villagers who recognized by his odor thathe had been abducted by aliens. Although eating themhad heightened his senses, being abducted by aliens hadconfused his senses. "Since that time I have become a veryconfused creature," he confides. "Since that time my minddees not seem to be my own."

FIG 3David M. Cumes, surgeon and shaman.Photograph by permisson of David M.Cumes.

144

Transatlantic ExchangesIn a blurb on the back of the recent book by David M.Cumes, Africa in My Bones: A Surgeon's Odyssey intothe Spirit World of African Healing (2004), Credo Mutwapraises the author, "who walks along two roads" as bothWestern medical specialist and African ritual specialist, asboth surgeon and sangoma, but also as someone who hasdeveloped a kind of double vision. "The world needs suchpeople," Mutwa advises, "who see Africa through two eyes,the African eye and the Western eye." Born in South Africa,Cumes relocated to the United States to study medicine atStanford and establish a successful practice as a urologistin Santa Barbara, California. Although he often visited theplace of his birth, Cumes reported that he felt like an alien inAfrica, which he described as a problem of vision, noting thatin Africa he "felt like an onlooker rather than a participant."This problem of alienated vision, this subjectivity of thespectator, was resolved for Cumes through dreams that ledhim to undergo initiation as a sangoma. "The fact that mydreams were often quite prophetic," he recounted, "gave mereason to believe that I might be able to master this ancientdiscipline." In dreams, he was "called" by the ancestors toenter into the ancient discipline cf "seeing" (Cumes 2004: ix),Now, as a Zuiu sangoma, he practices divination as a kindof dreamwork. As Cumes explains, "reading the bones is alittle like unraveling the metaphor of a dream... Divining is likeinterpreting someone's dream" (Cumes 2004: 7, 18).

On his website, Cumes features a video of his life story,his initiation, and his plans for a healing village in SouthAfrica (Cumes 2006). To the sounds cf rhythmic Africanmusic, the video begins with an image of an African woman,traditionaily attired, her eyes and mouth wide open. Movingthrough rural and urban scenes, Cumes, in voice-over,proceeds to use tactile metaphors to describe his early lifein South Africa, weighted down under the "heaviness ofthe apartheid system," alienated from "connection with thenative" and "connection with Africa." Following his dreamsand the advice of author Susan Shuster Campbeil (2000:2002), he was led to an "old Zulu teacher in Swaziland," P.H. Mtshaii. Undergoing a rigorous, although abbreviated,initiation, Cumes graduated as a Zulu sangoma, Now, runninghis life based on messages "from the dreamworld," Cumesreports, "I just head wherever the dreams and bones tellme," One place the dreams told him to head was the SouthAfrican province of Limpopo, where he is establishing ahealing center, Tshisimane, in which visitors can benefit frommassage, yoga, Reiki, and consultations with sangomas. "Isaw the place in a dream," Cumes reveals.

As a white sangoma, David Cumes represents a recentlyemerging trend in contemporary neo-shamanism in whichaspiring Euro-American shamans are turning to Africantraditions as a source of authentic dreams, visions, andconnections. The West African, Malidoma Patrioe Some, hasplayed an important role in this recent development (Some1993). John Hall, the American biographer of the great

Sli'i «ID C p«) O Ec s en

M c O

US E 5

3 « o 10N£UO

ISSo

South African singer, Miriam Makeba, was a pioneer in takinginitiation as a Zulu sangoma {Hall 1994). But South Africanshave also played a part. While Credo Mutwa has somewhite initiates, such as the "white Zulu" C. J. Hood, who hasrepresented him at events in the United States, calling uponeveryone to return to their ancestral traditions (Heart HealingCenter 2001 ; Wellness eJournal 2001), P. H. Mtshali hasshown a particular interest in training white sangomas whoare currently practicing in South Africa, like Claudia Rauberin Cape Town (Anonymous 2000; Viall 2004), or in NorthAmerica, like Gretchen McKay in Orange County, California{Mtshali 2004: 58-64).

In some cases, however, white sangomas in the UnitedStates have not required formal initiation to claim indigenousAfrican authenticity. For example, Kenneth "Bear Hawk"

I Cohen, who claims to have been adopted by the Cree,studied with the Zulu shaman, Ingwe, who was born in1914 as M. Norman Powell in South Africa, but moved tothe United States to establish his Wilderness AwarenessSchool. On his website, "Bear Hawk" announces that thisassociation with Ingwe places him "in the lineage of the HolyMan, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa" (Cohen 2006). Similarly, Tom"Biue Wolf" Goodman, who ciaims to be a Native Americanshaman, the "Faith Keeper of the Star Clan, Y'falla Bandof the Lower Creek People," also ciaims to be heir to thespiritual lineage of Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa. "I am keeperof my Grandfather's dream," he reveals. "My grandfather'smedicine songs have been dreamed in South Africa bySangoma spiritual leaders," spiritual leaders who are all led by"Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, High Sanusi {High Priest) of theZulu Nation" (Goodman 2004).

In North America, defenders of the integrity of indigenoustraditions have labeled these white shamans as "plasticshamans" (Aldred 2000; Kehoe 1990). Websites identifythem and scorn them (Anonymous 2003). Although theseinnovations in neo-shamanism might very weli be "plastic," inthe sense of invented or even fake, they nevertheless suggestreal religious issues of location, dislocation, and relocation inthe Atlantic world. Just as the South African David Cumes,who became a medical doctor in California, underwentinitiation as a Zulu sangoma to establish "connection with thenative" or "connection with Africa," other expatriates have

145 entered the dreamscape of Zulu neo-shamanism as a way ofcoming home. In Canada, two South Africans, one black, onewhite, but both having established careers in the creative andperforming arts, followed their dreams into Zulu shamanism.

Sibongile Nene describes herself as a singer, actor,and consultant for individuals, businesses, and communitybuilding. She also describes herseif as a sangcma. As anactress, she appeared in the feature fiim. Jit {1993). The plotof this film anticipated her later vocation as a ritual specialistin African ancestral reiigion: "Jokwa, a pesky ancestral spirit,"wants the main character "to look after his aging parents, andkeep her supplied with beer." Moving to Canada, SibongileNene continued acting and singing, but also moved into

business consultancy. Returning regularly to South Africa,she took initiation as a Zulu sangoma, a prooess she conveysthrough music on her musical CD, Sangoma. On her website,Sibongile Nene offers her sen/ices as an "African SpiritualityConsultant in the Sangoma tradition of the Bantu peopie ofsouthern Africa" (Nene 2006).

Ann Mortifee, described in the press as "one of Canada'smost extraordinary vocalists, composers, and playwrights,"but also as a "musical shaman," guided and inspired byCredo Mutwa, was born and raised on a sugarcane farmin Zululand, In 2005 she released a CD, Into the Heart ofthe Sangoma, dedicated to Credo Mutwa, which musicallyconveyed her journey from her experienoe of inauthenticityin exile to the authenticity of home. In her successful creativeand performing career in Canada, as Mortifee revealed inan interview, "I had created a persona, but felt ! had nothingauthentic to give to the world." Here, once again, dreams ^ | |

intervened. "For two years," she recalled, "I had recurring 11 gdreams about a black woman and stars." Then she read g f ^Credo Mutwa, Song of the Stars. "I discovered the Zulu i ^ 51"Song of the Stars" and learned about the sangoma, shamen I - "• ^[sic] of the Zulu nation." She flew to South Africa and herdreams eventually led her to Credo Mutwa (Weyler 2005).

Although she has told her story in interviews, AnnMortifee's journey into Zulu shamanism is best conveyedby the music and commentary of her recording. Into theHeart of the Sangoma. Opening with the song, "Africa," shebegins with her birthplace but also with her dreams, "Voicesfrom my childhood linger in me still, voices that come fromthe dreamtime," she says. "It is the old Sangoma, Sikhowe,leading me deeper into the mystery," The next song, "IDream," also evokes both Africa and the dreamtime. "One ofmy earliest recotlections is of iying in my bed listening to thesounds of the African night," she says. "Something was outthere beckoning to me, weaving a spell, which had the power,in some essential way, to mark my soul forever."

The next song, "The Stars Are Holes," finds her lookingup into the night sky, but this song also directs her vision backhome to South Afrioa, "Two years after writing this song," shesays, "I found the very same story I had written in a book byVusamazulu Credo Mutwa, the head Sangoma of the ZuluNation, This strange oocurrence caused me to go to South J %

146 Africa and find him." Returning to South Africa, staying at agame reser\/e, she saw a herd of elephants that inspired thesong, "Indlovu" (the elephant), and that night, she recalls, "Idreamed ... there walked a man whcm I later knew to beCredo Mutwa, in the dream he said to me, 'Go to Shamwaritomorrow.'" Proceeding to this private game resen/e in theEastern Cape, where Credo Mutwa was employed for awhile as a cultural advisor, she partioipated in "an ancienthealing ceremony" at which she sang a song that she had 15just composed. "Who taught you this song?" the sangomasasked. When Mortifee replied that she had just made it up,the sangomas objected. "You did not make this up," theyinsisted. "This is the song we Sangomas sing when we go in i o

FIG 4

Ann Mortifee. musical shaman. Photograph byTim Matheson, published by permission.

147

search of spirit." Having estabiished this connection in songand spirit. Mortifee's dreams v^ere fulfilled by meeting CredoMutwa. As musicaliy represented in the song, "For There AreLoved Ones," Mortifee learned from Mutwa that her dreamsrevealed that she was connected to his ancestral lineage. AnnMortifee explains:

When I finally met Credo Mutwa. he said: "Tell me about theSangoma of your dreams. What is her name?" "Sikhowe," Ianswered. "And tell me, what do her eyes look iike?" "Weil, oneis black and the other is completely white." "And which one iswhite?" "The right one," I said. "And tell me what do her legs looklike?" "They look like the trunks of a tree," I replied. "That womanis my grandmother," Mutwa said. "She had a cataract in her righteye, whioh turned it completely white. And she had elephantitis,which made her legs look like the trunk of a tree. So you see, it ismy grandmother that has brought you to me.

In this affirmation and connection, driven by dreams, AnnMortifee could finally feel as if she were at home in Africa. She

o

. SO

o to

had been called by the maternal ancestor, herself a sangoma,of the highest shaman of the Zulu nation. But she could alsoreturn home to North America unburdened by any guilt. "Iwant you to listen to me," Credo Mutwa reportedly said to her,"Never again be ashamed of the privilege into which you havebeen born. And never, never be ashamed of the great giftsthat the gods have given you."

Ann Mortifee's greatest gift, by her own account, is musicthat opens to the sacred, which provides both a zone ofprotection and a vehicle for entering the numinous. "Sacredmusic has been a way of my stopping the world and enteringinto a place of deep protection," she explains. "Music is avehicle through which we've always been able to contact thenuminous" (Frymire 2003).

01

Senses and MediaIn his classic treatment of "the holy," Rudolf Otto disagreedwith this proposition that music, or any artistic medium, couldbe a vehicle for direct contact with the numinous. Pointing tothe mistake of "confounding in any way the non-rational ofmusic and the non-rational of the numinous itself (1923: 49),Otto insisted that music and other arts could only suggest thenuminous indirectly, coming most closely to representing thenuminous through two methods that "are in a noteworthy waynegative, viz. darkness and silence" (1923: 68). Accordingto Otto, therefore, not seeing and not hearing—or better:seeing nothing, hearing nothing—were sensory experienceswithin the productions of artistic media that most closelyapproximated the numinous. Arguably. Otto's Protestantsensibility ied him to engage aesthetic media through thisnegative theology of the senses.

By contrast, indigenous Zulu sensibility was activelyengaged with sensory media of dreams and visions,exploring their potential as avenues for communicating withancestors and responding to the energetics of exchange andorientation. In contemporary Zulu neo-shamanism, however,we find an ambivalent relationship to both the senses andelectronic media, as vehicles for the numinous, which mirrorsan understanding of the senses as limitation, as potential, andas validation for the extraordinary experiences of a shaman.

These three ways of dealing with senses and media areall registers of authenticity. By representing limits, senses and

148 media stand as obstacles to authentic spiritual experience.But they also represent the boundary that is necessary tomark the transition from ordinary, everyday awareness tothe extraordinary capacities of a shaman. In marking outlimits, therefore, senses and media incorporate the classicambivalence of liminality, as both wall and threshold, defininga boundary that simultaneously constrains and containspossibilities. Accordingly, senses and media also registeras transcendent potential, serving as means for achieving,modes for expanding, or metaphors for signaling shamanicawareness. Authenticity, in this respect, is marked by | grealizing the potential of the human sensorium and electronic ^ ^media as meaning-making resources. Extraordinary sensory ~ ™

FIG 5Credo Mutwa, Zulu shaman, is skeptical about thesenses because they limit awareness. Photograph byDanny Hoffman, PictureNET Africa.

149

experience, including the intensification, rearrangement,and merger of the senses, is directly related to the capacityof electronic media to capture meaning like a cameraand transmit meaning like film. In the process, shamanicauthenticity is reinforced by activating the latent potentialin senses and media for the production and reception ofextraordinary meaning. Finally, human senses and eiectronicmedia provide validation, obviously, since "seeing is believing,"in cognitive terms, but also in forensic terms when thetestimony of intense sensory experiences or popular mediarepresentations provide confirmation for shamanic claims.By engaging senses and media in these three ways, as limit,potential, and validation, Zulu neo-shamans have sought toauthenticate new Zulu dreamscapes.

Senses and Media as LimitsThe five conventionally recognized human senses, accordingto Credo Mutwa, are limits, blocking awareness of spiritualrealities. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching areinadequate for engaging this higher awareness. Fortunately,Mutwa assures us, these five senses are only part of a moreexpansive sensorium that extends to a total of twelve senses.As Mutwa insists, without explaining, "We in Africa know—and please don't ask me to explain further—that the humanbeing possesses twelve senses—not five senses as Westernpeople believe. One day this will be accepted scientifically—tweive." These additional seven senses, whatever theymight be, are part of the natural sensory capacity of humanbeings. Although they transcend the five senses, theseadditional senses are simply human nature. Accordingly,Mutwa maintains that "we must not call those as yet unknownsenses, supernatural" (Mutwa 1996: 30).

Neo-shaman John Hall also finds that the five senses arelimits. They cannot account for his intense encounters withthe lidloti. the ancestors, which he experienced in dreamsand visions during his initiation as a sangoma. Reflecting onordinary sensory limits. Hall cites the authority of Augustineof Hippo, who observed, "I can run through all the organsof sense, which are the body's gateway to the mind, but Icannot find any by which some facts could have entered" (Hall1994: 61). Although Augustine used this argument to posit aninterior sense, or seminal reason, as a capacity for knowledgethat was independent of ordinary perception. Hall concludesthat this acknowledgment of the iimits of the senses opensthe possibility of extrasensory perception. Augustine, Hallfound, "Might have been describing my puzzlement followinga lidloti experience" (Hall 1994: 61).

Like the five senses, electronic media can be regardedas placing limits on awareness. At one point. Credo Mutwaadvises anyone who wants to be a sangoma, with propheticvision, to stay away from electronic media. As Mutwawarns, "People who are aspiring to develop their gifts ofprophesy should avoid exposing themselves over much toelectronic devices such as television sets, radio sets, andother electronic gadgets of this day and age because, for

FIG 6Credo Mutwa, Zulu shaman, has realized thepotential of the senses, "like no human beinghas," by eating extraterrestnals. Photographby Harold Gees. PictureNET Africa.

150

some reason, these electronic devices emit an inaudiblesound that blankets all psychic power." This unheard sound,as an undercurrent of electronic media, supposedly blocksthe extrasenscry perceptions of a sangoma. Accordingly,a sangoma should develop his or her psychic powers in arural area, not merely to be closer to an ancestral home, butalso to be free of the limits to awareness generated by themodern netv^ork of electronic transmission and reception ofmedia. "! have noticed over many years of close observation,"Mutwa reports, "how difficult it becomes for a witch doctorfrom Soweto, for example, to foretell events in the future.This is unlike a witch doctor who has lived in an environmentwhere these electronic devices do not exist. So there must besomething in our electronic world that is destroying our God-given talents..." (Mutwa 1996: 29).

John Hall also finds limits to electronic media. In a kind ofallegory marking his independence from electronic media, herecalls that during his initiation he felt cut off from any newsabout the world outside. He acquired a radio, but it stoppedworking when its wiring was eaten by dozens of cookroaches.

» ç a

"They scrambled over my hands and arms and I dropped theradio In surprise and disgust," Hall recounts. "It smashed topieces on the floor" (Hall 1994: 112). Television, as weil, wasan unnecessary medium, as Hall reflects, "Not that I had seena television image in over a year and a half. Ncr had I neededto. Lidloti-vision had kept me enthralled" (Hail 1994: 196).The limits of television, therefore, had been transcended by aspiritual medium, ancestor-vision, which provided Hall with allof the information (and entertainment) he could desire.

Senses and Media as PotentialAlthough senses are limits, they also represent the potentialfor extraordinary experience. Eyes mighf be limited, butin distinguishing an authentic shaman, as P. H. Mtshalireveals, "the important thing is that they can 'see'" (Mtshali2004: 22). Here the senses, as metaphors, represent thepossibility of transcending the limits of ordinary perception.Credo Mutwa might have regarded the five conventionalsenses as limitations, but he also claimed to have enteredan extraordinary trans-sensory ecstasy, an intenseexpansion of all the senses, after eating the meat of an

I extraterrestrial. Acquiring the sensory capacity of the reptilianextraterrestrials—"Senses like no human being has" —Mutwasaw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched beyond ordinaryperception.

This intensification and expansion of all the sensesrecalls the role of synaesthesia, the convergence, merger,or trans-modal transfer of the senses, in religious discourseand practice. In religious discourse, synaesthesia canevoke perception that is intense, unifying, and extraordinary(Chidester 1992). In ritual synaesthesia, ordinary perceptionis transcended in and through the senses, as when thepersistent sound and visceral percussion of drumminginduces shamanic "seeing" (Suliivan 1986).

During his initiation as a sangoma, John Hall experienced, this synaesthetic merger of viscerai percussion, sound, and

sight. "The loud drums had once more beaten my mind intomyself," he recalls. But he immediately turns to media asmetaphor, noting, "I had no more self-consciousness viewingthese images than a person does watching an involving

I movie." The next day, when he related his experience to anelder sangoma, she observed, "Sometimes, it is like you are

151 watching television. It's that way with me. Things come atyou, like the bhayiskhobho." As Hall realized, this SiSwatiterm, bhayiskhobho, was derived from the antiquated term,"bioscope," which had been widely used in South Africa forthe "motion picture process" {Hall 1994: 54),

Similarly, David M. Cumes represented the potential ofshamanic perception as electronic media, Sangomas areconnected to a communication network like the Westerncommunication network cf "satellite phones, fax machinesand the Internet." Since this sangoma communicationnetwork is based on a "sophisticated psychospiritualtechnology," Cumes advises, the "ancient African wisdcmhas a lot to teach us about communication" (Cumes 2004: 6).

Although Cumes contrasts modern Western and traditionalAihoan communication networks, sometimes it seems as ifboth share the same "cosmic field," since Cumes observesthat "light, sound, radio, TV, electromagnetic pulses ... aresome of the knowable signals that travel through the cosmicfield" (Cumes 2004: 105).

During his initiation, Cumes also had dreams and visionsthat drew upon modern media technology as metaphors forancient spiritual wisdom. "One night," he reports, "I dreamtthat I was given a new shiny black Mamiya camera, I wastold the lens I needed was 150 to 16—more powerful on thewide angie than on the teiephoto side." Relating this dreamto his teacher, P. H. Mtshali, Cumes asked if the ancestorswere instructing him to buy this type of camera to keep aphotographic record of his initiation. But Mtshali interpretedthis dream not as request but as gift from tine ancestors,revealing to Cumes that the camera was a sign that "you arebeing given tools to give you a broader vision" (Cumes 2004:44).

Senses and Media as ValidationIn his tales of encounters with aliens from outer space. CredoMutwa pays meticulous attention to sensory perception, withparticular emphasis on the sense of smell, as if "smelling isknowing," especially in knowing the foul odor of the Chitauri,Greys, and other extraterrestrials. As Mutwa ciaims, "theyare tangible, they are smeliabie." By his own account,Mutwa was close enough to smell them; he was closeenough to be infused by their odor; and he continued tobear that alien odor when he returned to earth and villagersrecognized the extraterrestrial stench. Such sensory detals.

.H«

« t; ^ ai0) < "

152

FIG 7Satirical advertisement celebrating CredoMutwa's account of eating extraterrestrials,from httpi/Zstrangegrub. blogspot.com, bypermission of R. D. Brock.

Also t/y CredosSpicy Grey NitggAvailabfe inyo

grocer's f.seciioni

Ô E

EQ

153

we might assume, are cited to lend an aura of credibility to anunbelievable story. They provide a kind of visceral validation ofthe narrative.

Similarly, Hall, Cumes, and other white sangomas validatetheir accounts through vivid sensory detail, suggesting thattheir initiations revolve around a recovery of the senses. Intheir accounts, they see and hear extraordinary things, butthey also smeli fragrant herbs and foul concoctions, taste sourbeer and disgusting medicines, and ccnvulse in excruciatingpain and induced vomiting in validating their initiations.

Electronic media aiso provide validation, not only asmetaphors for spiritual perception, but also as enduringforms for transmitting indigenous spiritual wisdom. Therelative perrnanence ot video, as David Icke declared,promises to preserve the authentic Zulu wisdonn ot CredoMutwa for "as Icng as this electronic medium lasts."Traditionally, according to Mutwa, this wisdom was keptsecret, reserved for a small circie of initiates, and transmittedorally within a lineage of initiates from generation togeneration. But now, as Mutwa declares, "Africa is dying,"facing destruction from epidemic disease, endemic poverty,and global conspiracy. In this crisis, traditional ways cftransmitting ancient wisdom are no longer viable. Urgently,everycne must know things that were previousiy known cnlyby a few. Mass media, such as videc, film, and the Internet,are now necessary for broadcasting the truth and survivingthis crisis. Accordingly, modern media become valid modes ofdisseminating ancient wisdom.

At the same time, mass media content can be invoked tovalidate ancient Zulu tradition. According to Credo Mutwa, theextraterrestrial reptilians, the Chitauri, will soon be returning toearth to exercise their oppressive domination and exploitationof humanity directiy. The Chitauri have been content tcexercise their power in disguise, operating thrcugh devious,shape-shifting reptilians such as George W. Bush, Tony Blair,and other Illuminati who maintain their human-like appearancethrough regular rituals cf human sacrifice and bicod drinking.Very scon, however, the alien Chitauri will appear on earthin their true, hidecus forms. According tc Credo Mutwa, animportant feature cf this global conspiracy cf extraterrestrialdomination of humanity can be found in Hollywood films.

Recent movies, beginning with ET: The Extraterrestrial,have been preparing humanity to accept the Chitauri andwillingly submit to their authority. According tc Mutwa, oneStar Wars character, Darth Maul, "is exactly what the ChitauriIcck like," while Stargate depicts "a slimy, cream-coloredcreature" that Mutwa finds is the "speaking likeness cfMobaba, emperor of the Chitauri." Discovering the Chitauriand their evil empercr appearing in Hollywood films, Mutwademands: "Where do filmmakers get their information?"

On the one hand, Hollywood filmmakers appropriateancient African traditions. For example. Men in Black,according to Mutwa, has appropriated indigenous Africantraditions about how to deal with aliens and hew to disposeof extraterrestrial rubbish. Thrcugh these popular films, Mutwa

RGBCredo Mutwa and Virginia Rathele, Zulushamans, surveying l ie Sutherlandia plantthey promote as an indigenous Africanresource for curing HIV/Aids Photograph byHenner Frankenfeid, PictureNET Africa.

154

complains, the authentic traditions of African "Men in Black"have been stolen and Westernized by Hollywood,

On the other hand, fiimmakers draw their informationdirectly from the Chitauri, or indirectly through the hybridliluminati. because Hollywood is v^orking on behalf of theirglobal conspiracy by familiarizing audiences with the strangeappearance of the aliens, By suspending disbelief, Hollywoodfilms are preparing audiences all over the v^orld to accept theirimminent subjugation to reptilian extraterrestrials,

Going Global, Coming HomeAithough Credo Mutwa is an acknowledged expert on aliensfrom outer space, acknowledged not only by New Ageconspiracy theorist David Icke but also by Harvard researcherJohn E. Mack (1999), this feature of his indigenous Zuiuwisdom is not mentioned by white Zulu sangomas, such asJohn Hall and David M. Cumes, nor by the "musical shaman,"Ann Mortifee. who has been guided and inspired by CredoMutwa. As we have seen, while Credo Mutv ia is going global,they are interested in coming home.

In developing a cultural and political analysis of Zulupopular music, Louise Meintjes has tracked mediationsbetween the local and the giobai in which artists work in thestudio on "performing Zuluness" while "imagining overseas"(Meintjes 2003). Similarly, Credo Mutwa has been situated inmediations between the local and the global by performingan indigenous Zulu vision of the world while looking overseas

for a global audience. In the process, even if he displaysa remarkable capacity for imaginative invention, Mutwa

, nevertheless suggests important features of a changing Zuludreamscape,

During the nineteenth century, to tell a dream meant"to tetch" the dream, to go back to the piace where thedream was originally experienced, its originating location,and carry it to the new place of telling. A dream, therefore,was portable, but it was situated in a specific landscape. Itcould be located and relocated, horizontally, within a terrainof human habitation. However, under colonial conditionsof dispossession and dislocation, it became increasinglydifficult "to fetch" dreams within an embattled terrain. As itbecame harder "to fetch" dreams, techniques for blockingdreams, including conversion to Christianity, were increasinglydeployed. Credo Mutwa, I would like to suggest, hasattempted to resolve this longstanding dilemma within theZulu dreamscape by moving dreams, vertically, into the sky.The Zulu word for sleep, butongo, which means "to sleep,"according to Credo Mutwa means "the state of being onewith the star gods." The Zulu word for dreaming, ipupo, whichmeans, "to dream," according to Credo Mutwa, means "tofly." As Mutwa explains, 'The verb "pupa" refers to flight,therefore to say "I dreamt" means "I flew"" (Mutwa 1996:173). These imaginative etymologies, whatever their validity,effectively shift the hermeneutics and energetics of Zuludreaming from the land to the sky.

"We need to develop a relationship with the dream reality,"urges Zulu sangoma David Cumes (Cumes 2004: 92). As awhite South African expatriate, Cumes dreamed of cominghome to South Africa. His initiation as a sangoma enabledhim to establish "connection with the native" and "connectionwith Africa." In his dream reality, these connections entaileda fundamental reorientation in South African space. Althoughblack South Africans had suffered under a long history ofcolonialism and apartheid. Cumes now saw that whitesin South Africa had also suffered. "Without our knowingit," he observes, "the apartheid system had discriminatedagainst us too. As whites we had been forbidden access toanother realm—we were not worthy and had been justifiablydeprived. There were no signs to tell us, 'Whites not allowed,'but we were excluded all the same. We skirted around the

155 authenticity of a magical continent thinking we were partof it when in fact we were not." Called by the ancestorsto become a sangoma, Cumes was able to overcome thediscrimination and alienation under which whites had sufferedin South Africa. "Now the spirits had mandated and thingshad changed," he declared. "I was no longer underprivilegedand would never be again" (Cumes 2004: 30).

Clearly, this testimony evokes a reorientation that is not otthe sky but of the land. Locally, within South Africa, Cumesadvances the argument that apartheid had disadvantagedwhite people by separating them from access to indigenousAfrican spiritual traditions. Now, coming home, not as anobserver but as a participant, he embraces the people and

156

the land. Accordingly, Cumes represents his reorientation notas flying in the sky, expanding his global vision, but as a tactileconnection, as being "blessed and touched by an unseenhand through a channel I did not even knovi/" (Cumes 2004:30). Here also, media, as a "channel," is evoked as metaphor,but the metaphor evokes the embodied reorientationestablished by a tactile connection with home.

In tracking Zulu dreamscapes, I have tried to shov i thatdreams are not merely "subjective apparitions" or "brain-sensation." Nor are dreams only "texts" to be interpreted.Involved in an energetics of sacrificial exchange andspatial orientation, dreaming can be a reiigious practice,a practice that can be dramaticaily altered by the shiftingsocial fields in which dreams are situated. In responseto economic dispossession and social dislocation duringthe nineteenth century, Zulu dreamers increasingly turnedto ritual techniques, which arguably included conversionto Christianity, for blocking ancestral dreams, seeking toturn off this sensory media. By contrast, contemporaryneo-shamanism cultivates a sensory extravagance, anoverabundance of sensory engagements with things thatare not there, from alien reptilians to ancestral spirits, whichdemand ritual response. Any apparitions that might appear,therefore, must be regarded as real and engaged accordingly.

Global in scope, this new Zulu dreamscape is saturatedby media. Despite expressing occasional concerns thatelectronio media might block dreams and visions, neo-shamans dwell in a mediated world, a world shaped bymedia technoiogy, possibility, and authentication. As bothdreamscape and mediascape, Zulu neo-shamanism isemerging within a new energetics of global exchange andglobal orientation.

references

Aidred. usa. 2000. PlasticShamans and AstroturiSundances: New AgeCommercialization of NativeAmerican Spirituality, AmericanIndian Quarterly 2^{3y. 329-52.

Anonymous. 2000. WhitesEmbrace Traditional Healing inSwaziland. Panafrican NewsAgency (August 9. 2000),httpy/www.ancestraiwisdom.Gom/whitethwasas.html (accessedFebruary 14. 2007).

Anonymous. 2003. NativeReligions and Plastic MedicineMen. http://www.wiiliams-edu/go/native/natreligion.htm (accessedFebruary 14. 2007).

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996.Disjuncture and Difference inthe Giobal Cuiturel Economy.in Modernity at Large: CulturalDimensions ofGlobaiization.Minneapoiis; University ofMinnesota Press, pp. 27-47.

in

V ^ f

» o c

in •£ ogj OÍ «S-J: Z I

157

Callaway, Henry. 1868-70. TheReligious System of the Amazulu.Springvale: Springvale Mission;reprinted Cape Town: Struik, 1970.

Callaway, Henry. 1872. OnDivination and AnalogousPhenomena Among the Nativesof Natal. Proceedings of theAnthropological Institute 1 :163-83.

Campbell, Susan Schuster. 2000.Called to Heal: African ShamanicHealers. Twin Lakes, Wl: LotusPrBSS.

Campbeil, Susan Schuster. 2002.Spirit of the Ancestors. Twin Lakes,Wl: Lotus Pr ess,

Chidester, David. 1992. Wordand Light: Seeing. Hearing, andReiigious Discourse. Urbana:University of liiinois Press.

Chidester, David. 2002. CredoMutwa, Zulu Shaman: TheInvention and Appropriation ofIndigenous Authentioity in AfricanFoik Reiigion. Journal for the Studyof Religion 15(2): 65-85.

Chidester, David. 2005. AuthenticFai<es: Religion and AmericanPcpuiar Cuiture. Berkeley:University of California Press.

Cohen, Kenneth, 2006, AboutKenneth "Bear Hawk" Cohen.http://www, kennethcohen. com/sacred_earth/about.html (accessedFebruary 14, 2007).

Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff,John L, 1999. Occult Economiesand the Vioience of Abstraction;Notes from the South AfricanPostcolony, American Ethnologist26(2): 279-303.

Cumes, David M. 2004. Afnca InMy Bones: A Surgeon's Odysseyinto the Spirit World of AfricanHeaiing. Ciaremont, South Africa:Spearhead,

Cumes, David M. 2006. HolisticUroiogy and Surgery, Psycho-Spiritual Healing. http://www.davidcumes.com/ (accessedDecember 18. 2006).

Friedman, Hazel, 1997. Of Cultureand Visions. Mail and Guardian(March 27).

Frymire, Ange. 2003. Whaf'sSacred Cot fo Do With It?

Common Ground (November),http://commonground ,ca/iss/0311148/music_festival.shfml(accessed December 18, 2006).

Goodman, Tom "Blue Wolf." 2004,Rekindling the Ancient Fires:Sacred Journey to South Africa,Aquarius: A Sign of the Times,http://www, aquarius-atlanta.com/augO4/baiance,shtml (accessedDecember 18, 2006).

Hall, James. 1994, Sangoma: MyOdyssey into the Spirit World ofAfrica. New York: G. P Putnam'sSons.

Heart Healing Center. 2001.Heart Heaiing, http://www,hearthealingcenter.com/earth-healers.htm (accessed September27, 2002).

Icke, David. 1999. The BiggestSecret. London: Bridge of LovePublications.

Icke, David. 2002, The ReptilianBrain. http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles2/reptbrain. html(accessed December 18. 2006).

Icke, David. 2005. TheReptiiianAgenda. Venice, CA: UFO TV.

Johnson, Angeia, 1997. TheAngela Johnson interview. Mail andGuardian (My 18).

Kehoe. Alice. 1990, Primal Gaia:Primitivists and Plastic MedicineMen. In The Invented Indian:Cultural Fictions and GovernmentPolicies, ed, James Clifton, NewBrunswick, NJ: Transaction, pp.193-209.

Keeney, Bradford, ed, 2001,Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa: ZuluHigh Sanusi. Stony Creek, CTLeete's Island Books.

Liebemian, Philip. 2000. HumanLanguage and Our Reptilian Brain:The Subcortical Bases of Speech,Syntax, and Thought. Cambridge.MA: Harvard University Press.

Mack, John E. 1999. Passportto the Cosmos: HumanTransformation and AlienEncounters. New York; ThreeRivers Press.

Martin, Rick, 1999. Great ZuluShaman and Elder CredoMufwa; A Rare, AstonishingConversation. Tfie Spectrum

158

Newspaper. October, http;//www.(hespeGtnjmnews.com/images/sb/1999/sb3-100599.gif(accessed April 14, 2004).

Meintjes, Louise. 2003. Soundof Africa! Making Music Zulu in aSouth African Sfudio. Durham, NC:Duke University Press.

Molloy, Nicky. 1999. David Icke'sLecture: The Biggest Secret-Ufoneî [December 2). http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufonet/message/3019 (accessed April 14,2004).

Mortifee, Ann. 2005. Into thel-leart of the Sangoma. Vancouver;Jabula Music.

Mtshali, P. H, 2004, The Powerof the Ancestors: The Ufe of aZuiu Traditional i-ieaier. Mbabane,Swaziland: Kamhiaba Publications.

Mutwa, Credo, 1964. häaba, MyChildren. Johannesburg: BlueCrane Books.

Mutwa, Credo. 1966. Africa IsMy Witness. Johannesburg: BlueCrane Books.

Mulwa, Credo, 1996. SongoftheStars: The Lore of a Zulu Shaman.ed. Stephen i^rsen. Barrytown,NY: Station Hill Openings.

Mutwa, Credo. 2003. ZuluShaman: Dreams, Prophecies, andMysteries, ed. Stephen Larsen.Merrimac. MA: Destiny,

Nene, Sibongile, 2006, SitmngileNene, Sangoma; African Traditional

Healer http://www.sangoma.ca/(accessed Febaiary 14, 2007).

Otto, Rudolf. 1923, The Idea ofthe Holy. Trans. John W. Han/ey.Oxford; Oxford University Press.

Some. Malidoma Patrice. 1993,Ritual: Power, Healing, andCommunity. Portland. OR: SwanRaven S Co.

Stolow, Jeremy. 2005. Reiigionand/as Media. Theory, Cuiture &Society 22 (4): 119-45,

Sullivan. Lawrence, 1986.Sound and Sense. Towards aHermeneutics of Performance.History of Reiigions 26: 1-33.

Townsend. Joan B, 2004. CoreShamanism and Neo-shamanism.In Shamanism: An Encyclopediaof World Beliefs. Practices andCulture. 2 vois, eds. Mariko NambaWaiter and Eva Jane NeumannFhdman. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, voi, 1,pp, 49-57.

Viall, Jeanne. 2004. Ciaudia UsesOld Ways to Help With the New.Cape Argus (November 22): 13-

We//ness eJoumal. 2001.http://www, compwellness,com/eJournal/2001/0131 ,hfm(accessed April 14, 2004).

Weyler, Rex. 2005. SingerInterrupted by Life: Journeys withAnn Mortifee. Shared Vision, http://www.shared-vision .com/2005/svi 807/viewpointi 8O7.hlml¡accessed December 24. 2005),

¡33 £.a

.2.S

NEU