The Voice of the Thunder

From the beginning, Laurens Van Der Post has been aware of a dimension in life far larger and more significant that the outer eventfulness of everyday living. He has never lost his sense of the over-riding purpose and awesome continuity of life, and the ultimate wisdom lodged in its keeping. His perception of life's mysterious power began with the Bushmen, the first people of his native Africa. It grew in his exploration of the imagery of dreams, the legends and stories of ancient civilization, the teaching of the prophets and poets, and other pioneers, among them Carl Gustav Jung, explorer of mankind's "collective unconscious" with whom he shared a close friendship and rapport. In this book he has brought together two of his most far-reaching essays, reissued here as "The Little Memory" and "The Great Memory" in which he traces "the Odyssean pattern that exists in the unconscious of every human being" - for each to fulfil their individual destiny. This book is an urgent manifesto for renewal of the human spirit, a clarion call for recognition of life's great imperatives and a vision of hope for the world.