Observations placeholder
Laubscher, B J F – The diviners or isanuses among the Amaxosa people
Identifier
023297
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
B J Laubscher – Where Mystery dwells
It is of interest to note that the diviners or isanuses among the Amaxosa people, also the witchdoctors or amagqira place great reliance on their dream communications. They believe that the ancestral spirits communicate by means of the dream mind. In their dreams they usually describe visions of their ancestral spirits.
These communications could of course be telepathic contact with discarnate members of the tribe. Some of the visions were described as objective and clear portraying features and characteristics known during physical life. One wonders whether these Amaxosa dream communications with the dead are not perhaps a form of contact on the astral plane.
These dreams and forms of psychic communication show that the events of tomorrow are intimately linked with one's instinctive concern for self-preservation. The evidence suggests that those who are intimately emotionally associated with one's life somehow find channels of communications which bypass the sensory faculties.
The isanuse may go to sleep with his problem, or the desire for knowledge of something required by someone. Then in his dreams he receives a communication from one he acknowledges as an ancestral spirit. I think this has the same significance as what is known as a guardian spirit. Hence he is shown events which will come about in time. These are always seen in the dream in the same manner as they eventually take place.