1. About Black Elk
Black Elk (1863–1950) was a renowned medicine man,
heyoka and holy man of the
Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Native American tribe. When he was nine years old, he became ill and lost consciousness. As he lay dying, his face and limbs swelled up severely and he was unresponsive for several days. During this
time he had a
near-death experience (NDE) in which he was visited by two men, known as “Thunder Beings”, coming from the clouds. These beings then took Black Elk to a council of “the six Grandfathers” who are spiritual representatives of the six sacred directions: west, east, north, south, above, and below – known to the Lakotas as the “Powers of the World.” Black Elk found himself at the “axis” of these six sacred directions. Mythologist
Joseph Campbell described it as the “
axis mundi, the central point, the pole around which all revolves … the point where stillness and movement are together.” Campbell viewed Black Elk’s vision as key to understanding
Native American myth and symbols. Black Elk’s worldview shaped his near-death experience using sacred Native American cultural symbols such as rainbows, clouds,
mandalas and light. During his NDE, the Grandfathers each gave Black Elk special powers not unlike
Platonic forms or
Jungian archetypes: life, death, healing, awakening, peace, renewal, transcendent vision, Black Elk stated:
“And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the
sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”
Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife profiles Near-Death Experiences and Native Americans . Did you enjoy reading this post, we have more!
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e-Karl May.ogg">ⓘ</a>; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author known for writing often in first-person narrative about travels and adventures, mostly set in the American Old West or the Orient and Middle East, but also in Latin America, China and within Germany. For a time he insisted that he actually had travelled to the West and was called Old Shatterhand there, while in the Ottoman Empire he was called Kara Ben Nemsi, and posed in costumes.
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