Black Elk (1863-1950), the Lakota holy man, is beloved by millions of readers around the world. The book Black Elk Speaks is the most widely-read Native American testimony of the last century and a key work in our understanding of American Indian traditions. In Black Elk, Lakota Visionary, Harry Oldmeadow draws on recently discovered sources and in-depth research to provide a major re-assessment of Black Elk's life and work. The author explores Black Elk's mystical visions, his controversial engagement with Catholicism, and his previously unrecognized attempts to preserve and revive ancestral Sioux beliefs and practices. Oldmeadow's lively and highly readable account also examines the controversies that have surrounded Black Elk and his collaborators, John G. Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown. Oldmeadow judiciously explains why both Black Elk Speaks and The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk's Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux are to be ranked amongst the most profound spiritual documents of the twentieth century. Black Elk, Lakota Visionary will command the attention of every reader who is interested in the American Indians, providing fascinating insights into their ancestral traditions prior to the reservation era, the subsequent destruction and revival of their traditional ways, and the vital lessons which the contemporary world might draw from their spiritual legacy.

Often spoken at the end of a prayer, a well-known Sioux phrase affirms that we are all related. Similarly, the Sioux medicine man, Brave Buffalo, came to realize when he was still a boy that the maker of all was Wakan Tanka (the Great Spirit), and . . . in order to honor him I must honor his works in nature. The interconnectedness of all things, and the respect all things are due, are among the most prominent--and most welcome--themes in this collection of Indian voices on nature.

Within the book are carefully authenticated quotations from men and women of nearly fifty North American tribes. The illustrations include historical photographs of American Indians, as well as a wide selection of contemporary photographs showing the diversity of the North American natural world. Together, these quotations and photographs beautifully present something of nature's timeless message.

This late work of Frithjof Schuon represents a general survey of his metaphysical perspective, which is that of the Sophia perennis, or perennial wisdom found at the heart of the world's religions. This new edition of The Play of Masks features a fully revised translation from the French original as well as over 50 pages of new material, including previously unpublished selections from the author's letters and other private writings. Also included is an editor's preface, extensive editor's notes, a glossary of foreign terms and phrases, an index, and biographical notes. Composed of short independent treatises, this book presents readers with fundamental keys for understanding the nature of God, the world, and the human situation. Throughout his writings, Schuon emphasizes the centrality of three elements: Truth, Way, and Virtue. The Truth is what we must know; the Way is what we must do; Virtue is what we must love, become, and be.