The Voice of the Thunder by Laurens Van Der Post

by Laurens van der Post

From the beginning, Laurens van der Post has been aware of a dimension in life far larger and more significant than the outer eventfulness of everyday living. Whatever the demands on him during his long and distinguished career in many parts of the world, he has never lost his instinctive sense of life's preeminent role, its overriding purpose and awesome continuity, 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 the universal imagery of dreams, the fertile legends and stories of ancient civilization, the intuitive teaching of prophets, poets, and other pioneers of human awareness, among them Carl Gustav Jung, explorer of mankind's "collective unconscious". In this book he has brought together two of his most deeply felt and far-reaching essays, reissued here as "The Little Memory" and "The Great Memory," in which he began to explore the concept of life's overall pattern. He has extended their message in a new chapter of great imaginative insight in which he traces the "Odyssean pattern" that exists in the unconscious of every human being - the potential in all men and women to acquire self-knowledge, to fulfill their individual destiny, and to live life according to its fundamental precepts. The Voice of the Thunder is an urgent manifesto for renewal in the human spirit, a clarion call for recognition of life's great imperatives, and a stirring vision of hope for a world increasingly divided, blinkered, and adrift.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Sir Laurens Jan van der Post was a 20th Century South African Afrikaner author of many books, farmer, war hero, political adviser to British heads of government, close friend of Prince Charles, godfather of Prince William, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer, and conservationist.

Reviews

[Annalise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The intimacy with nature is felt in all the books I have read of Van der Post. It is something I cherish so much in his writings - a deep connection which only the desert and certain places can help instil. So refreshing to read yet of course sad to sense the quick deterioration, what seems an unstoppable force eating us all up.

I believe few have experienced such connections with their surroundings and inner being and it is heartwarming to read about them with sincerity and beautiful descriptions.
One of my favourites must be:
"And since the stars, with which the nights of the southern hemisphere are so densely packed that one can hear them straining at the seam of the Milkly Way in the stillness, since they were family too, he naturally addressed the greatest of them as grandfather and grandmother, since there was no discrimination of value and dignity between the sexes. " (The Great Memory)

[Jason West · Rating 5 out of 5]

A special book that I will read every few years, not so much a story, as much as a message to humanity to turn our focus inwards to the primitive loving caring part of our nature, and think and search for the answers through that inner dimension. Only there can we resolve and end the confusion caused by our contradictory nature.

This book was referenced in Freedom:The End of the Human Condition by Jeremy Griffith, who solved the human condition, That's how I became aware of it.

[Connor FitzGerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a while back and should read it again. It’s an absolutely beautifully written essay on humanity. Told with van der Post’s amazing ability to tell stories and use metaphor to tackle some of the big questions underlying mankind.