Reply To Comment By D. Sandner

I Am Very Appreciative of Dr D. Sandner's empathic understanding of my research and his illuminating comments.

I only read his book Navaho Symbols of Healing after I had completed my series of articles. I was most excited and was struck by many of the similarities but also considerable differences, and I felt that is how it should be in view of the incredible complexity of the human psyche.

I must re-emphasise the fact that I am researching a particular group of indigenous healers. At the moment I have no means of assessing how representative they are. What I do know is that the general principles and beliefs are widely accepted and practised, but with variations, and it seems not with the same orderliness, meticulous attention to detail and the dignity of all participants as is the case in my group. The shamanistic form of ecstasy is absent. I have seen it and am acquainted with ‘spirit possession’ in other groups of black people living in Southern Africa.

With Dr Sandner I am also of the opinion that the most important question is whether they point to a deeper archetypal pattern beneath cultural variations. As a perhaps purely subjective opinion I would regard that to be the case. The rituals and ceremonies had such immediate, powerful and meaningful impact on me that they must have touched on a layer common to myself and the black participants. I now experience myself as living in two worlds, the rational scientifically oriented Western one, and the more non-rational, intuitive archetypal world of my black amagqira friends.

On a few points I have been misunderstood. The statement ‘This ritual is called vumisa’ is misleading. Vumisa means divining, diagnosing, ‘smelling out’. It is used in a large variety of situations, not only in connection with illness or during an intlombe. It is an altered state of consciousness which permits extrasensory perceptions to operate freely. It can be taught, especially to gifted people. There is support for this claim in the literatu