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Paul Devereux – Sacred Places

 There is a deep ancient but now almost extinct tradition of Aboriginal ‘clever men’, ‘men of high degree’ or ‘doctors’ who practised sorcery, magic and healing, sometimes in the context of shamanism. 

Such people might enter a trance in order to send their ya-yari or spirit out of their body, to travel long distances to gather information, fly through the sky on invisible ‘aerial ropes’ or dive into waterholes to contact the rainbow serpent.  Such activities are similar to those recorded of shamans in other cultures and the ability to fly up to the heaven-world or dive down into the underworld is a classic expression of the shamanic ‘Three World’ Cosmology.

Some aboriginal ‘clever men’ also developed X ray vision while in trance, another hallmark of shamanism and this might relate to the X Ray style of rock art …

Clever men could also see spirits, known as Mimi in parts of northern Australia.  The Mimi are still present, but they are very thin and so are able to slide into cracks in the rocks