This over-rated book is no spiritual classic!
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After finishing this book - which is predominantly a history of the American Indians as they began to suffer at the hands of the White Man in the late 19th century - I found myself wondering how on earth anyone could call it a spiritual story. It's not. In fact, for the first 150 pages there is hardly anything spiritual at all to speak of in the story; except for a "vision" of bisons, eagles and horses that Black elk has whilst sick with a delirious fever, which he and the assistant writer John Neihardt somehow insist has a spiritual connotation. Yet the book is crammed mostly with lurid recollections of massacres and confusing descriptions of tribal ceremonies, and none of it seems to speak to the global community about the Oneness of Mankind. Instead, it's an angry, bitter rant against modern man for taking the plains away from the Indians, with Black elk himself even admitting a lust for revenge toward the end of the book! Sound spiritual? Okay, the Indians were indeed robbed and brualised, but for a book to be considered a spiritual classic you'd expect a lot more insight and wisdom that what you find here. Vastly over-rated, read it only if you're interested in the history aspect. Neihardt and his publisher did well financially out of this book, peddling it as some kind of neo-religous revelation, which it isn't - and it pains me to suspect that this was actually the intention all along.
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You must read this book
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My gut feeling is that at the height of our folly we have been killing the goose that lays the golden egg - in this case killing off those with the vision and wisdom to get us out of our present predicament. Solomon, when given the opportunity to choose anything he wanted, asked for wisdom - wisdom alone. But with that gift he became the wealthiest man of his era and everything else was given to him. We also lack vision and Proverbs tells us that a nation without vision shall perish. Today our shortcoming is that we lack vision and wisdom and what is more we are so ignorant that we don't even suspect that we lack vision and wisdom. And in that ignorance and the greed, arrogance and contempt that it generates we have almost destroyed the last remaining semblance of a people who had the vision and wisdom that the wise would have traveled the earth to receive. Fortunately, we have this book and through these most wonderful writings the wise of today can tap into that vision and wisdom. Humans have two natures - the materialistic and the spiritual. In the west today our materialistic side has grown big and bloated while our spiritual side has shrunk to an almost imperceptible size through non-use. Black Elk was a person where the materialistic and the spiritual were in balance. We, too, can regain that balance if we are willing to listen to Black Elk. As the back cover tells us this book was named one of the ten best spiritual books of the 20th century, I am not alone in thinking that this is a good book to read, study, absorb and implement - but only if we are wise enough to understand that, of course. Black Elk had visions of the unity of humanity and the author tells us of his first visit in August 1930: "It was not of worldly matters that he spoke most, but of things he deemed holy and of 'the darkness of men's eyes'" and that "from early youth he had lived in and for a world of higher values than those of food and shelter, and his years had been one long, passionate devotion to those values as he conceived them" and that Black Elk had said "As I sit here, I can feel in this man beside me a strong desire to know the things of the Other World. He has been sent to learn what I know, and I will teach him." At this point I could not help but think that the author and Black Elk were both exceptional people. How is it that a near-blind man could feel the author's goodness radiating out? Having arrived at noon and with the sun now setting, Black Elk said: "There is so much to teach you. What I know was given to me for men and it is true and beautiful. Soon I shall be under the grass and it will be lost. You were sent to save it, and you must come back so that I can teach you." Neilhard returned the following spring and listened to the old man talk because he wanted this great vision to be saved for you and me. The author then faced the difficult task - and the sacred obligation - to re-create for us in mood and manner the old man's narrative. Stephen Covey in "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" told me to imagine that I have just died and people are gathered together to talk about me, reflect on my life and provide ideas of what might be written on my tombstone. What, in a few words, would I want a visitor 100 years from now, to know about me? I think that I would be content if my gravestone said: "Here lies a man who lived the vision and wisdom of Black Elk in his every thought, word and deed."
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a book for everyone
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What a great man black elk was and still is through this book,
john has done a great job writing this account of a great nation
of people that if we followed today the world would be a better place,it is a beautiful book i loved every part of it.
not for "wasachus".or maybe so?
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A spritiual and factual history
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On buying this book, I was surprised that it had put in a catergory of 'Philosophy', as I imagined it to be simply an Indian history of the Sioux wars of Black Elks lifetime. However this book proves to be more than a history, it offers a look into the mind and beliefs of the Indian and his sorrow with the loss of his native life. One must read this book with a very open mind as, at first, it will seem far fetched etc. though the one gets into the book the more they would read into Black Elks words. This book on a historical note is very good for a student of American West history, if paired with a modern book about the conflicts of which Black Elk speaks as one can really explore the attitudes of the Indians and Whites in an interesting detail. I have always trusted the books I buy from the Nebraska Press and this one has not let me down.
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