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Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing
• Explores the lifestyle of indigenous peoples of the world who exist in complete harmony with the natural world and with each other.
• Reveals a model of a society built on trust, patience, and joy rather than anxiety, hurry, and acquisition.
• Shows how we can reconnect with the ancient intuitive awareness of the world's original people.
Deep in the mountainous jungle of Malaysia the aboriginal Sng'oi exist on the edge of extinction, though their way of living may ultimately be the kind of existence that will allow us all to survive. The Sng'oi--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, semi-nomadic--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules in a lush green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. Yet these indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--possess an acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the living beings who populate it, and trustingly follow this intuition, using it to make decisions about their actions each day.
Psychologist Robert Wolff lived with the Sng'oi, learned their language, shared their food, slept in their huts, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these basic qualities of life. Much more than a document of a disappearing people, Original Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing holds a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the intuitive and trusting Sng'oi, and challenges us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover this humanity within ourselves.
• Reveals a model of a society built on trust, patience, and joy rather than anxiety, hurry, and acquisition.
• Shows how we can reconnect with the ancient intuitive awareness of the world's original people.
Deep in the mountainous jungle of Malaysia the aboriginal Sng'oi exist on the edge of extinction, though their way of living may ultimately be the kind of existence that will allow us all to survive. The Sng'oi--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, semi-nomadic--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules in a lush green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. Yet these indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--possess an acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the living beings who populate it, and trustingly follow this intuition, using it to make decisions about their actions each day.
Psychologist Robert Wolff lived with the Sng'oi, learned their language, shared their food, slept in their huts, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these basic qualities of life. Much more than a document of a disappearing people, Original Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing holds a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the intuitive and trusting Sng'oi, and challenges us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover this humanity within ourselves.
208 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
August 13, 2019
First hand take of an individual's experiences in a hunter gatherer tribe. Nothing crazy here. There were some nice heart warming chapters and a few very weird ones. For a better exposition on the experience of being in touch with nature, I recommend the book “becoming animal”.
I recommend this for people who are interested in non- western perceptions of reality and nature/anthropology fans
I recommend this for people who are interested in non- western perceptions of reality and nature/anthropology fans
September 15, 2008
Robert Wolff writes about his experiences with native Malay and Sng'oi people while working in Malaysia. He's from another generation; one that didn't grow up reading Carlos Casteneda or having seen videos on Australian Aboriginal cultures. It's important to keep that in mind as he describes his transition from a very Western way of thinking and understanding the world to one rooted in the earth and in our inherant oneness with it.
I wasn't coming from the same place. I've been reading about shamanism and don't consider myself ingrained into American 21st century culture in any way. Still, his experiences resonated with me, and brought me back to a part of myself that I was so distant from, I had thought I was already there.
I now dream of going to live in the jungles with the Sng'oi, or, failing that, to allow myself to open to the divine around me and let my instincts lead me where I need to go. A wonderful read - inspiring, humanistic and brave. I recommend it to anyone, even if you think you're beyond it.
I wasn't coming from the same place. I've been reading about shamanism and don't consider myself ingrained into American 21st century culture in any way. Still, his experiences resonated with me, and brought me back to a part of myself that I was so distant from, I had thought I was already there.
I now dream of going to live in the jungles with the Sng'oi, or, failing that, to allow myself to open to the divine around me and let my instincts lead me where I need to go. A wonderful read - inspiring, humanistic and brave. I recommend it to anyone, even if you think you're beyond it.
December 9, 2010
I loved this book! One of my all time favorites. I keep having to buy it because everyone I lend it to refuses to return it.
May 2, 2015
Original Wisdom is an unforgettable book. Like all humans, author Robert Wolff was born a wild animal, ready to enjoy a pleasant life, romping around in a tropical wilderness. He grew up in Sumatra, the son of Dutch parents. His father was a doctor. The young lad suffered the misfortune of being educated by the dominant culture. It trained him for an unnatural life of schedules, destinations, and anxiety. His wildness was paved over, and his consciousness became disconnected from All-That-Is.
Wolff was interested in healing, and hoped to become a doctor, but World War II interrupted his plans. After the war, he became a social psychologist, and worked on a number of government projects. Work included numerous visits to rural villages in Malaysia, where life was very laid back. The people were “soft, gentle, polite.” Villagers were the opposite of city people, who tended to be “crude, loud, insensitive.”
Oddly, the patients in Malaysian mental hospitals included whites, Indians, and many Chinese — but no Malays, who were half of the population. Malay villages had a healthy sense of community. They accepted the presence of people who were odd; there was never a thought of sending them away. Everyone knew the village thief, and no one reported him to the police, because he belonged where he was. Malays respected one another.
Wolff was grateful that he had learned to speak several languages, because this ability expanded his awareness. Languages are unique products of the cultures in which they evolve. Different cultures perceive reality in different ways, and many ideas cannot be accurately translated from one language to another. Consequently, it was clear to him that the Western worldview was not the one and only way of interpreting reality. Most Western people never learn this. Insanity seems perfectly normal to the inmates of the loony bin.
His career began in the 1950s, the dawn of the most horrific era in human history. Population grew explosively, as did the ecological blitzkrieg. Traditional cultures were being exterminated by a plague of bulldozers. Wolff worked hard to learn and record the knowledge of traditional healers. He believed that their skills were the time-proven results of thousands of years of trial and error. A tremendous treasure was on the verge of being lost forever.
He remembered the days before antibiotics, when Western doctors were little better than witch doctors. He detested modern healthcare, where doctors practiced medicine, not healing. They were highly skilled at temporarily postponing death via extremely expensive treatments — even if the additional weeks or months of existence were meaningless. Not long ago, most of those with fading spirits would simply have been allowed to pass to the other side in peace.
In his crusade to preserve ancient knowledge, he met a number of healers who had not been the apprentices of venerable elders. They acquired their skills via inner knowing. Intuition told them what herbs to use, and the way to prepare them. These healers told Wolff to relax; a treasure was not being lost. The wisdom was always accessible. When it was needed, someone would find it. This notion gives Western folks cramps, because they process reality via thinking.
One day, Wolff learned about a tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in a remote mountain forest — the Sng’oi (or Senoi or Sakai). Meeting them opened the door to a series of life-changing experiences, a great healing. They were masters of intuition and inner knowing. They lived in a spiritual reality, “where things were known outside of thinking.”
Their camps were not close to the road. Whenever Wolff arrived unannounced for a visit, one of the Sng’oi would be waiting for him in the forest. The guide would stand up and, without a word, lead him to the village. This baffled Wolff. How did they know he was coming? When asked, they told him that they had no premonition of his arrival. They had experienced a feeling to go to a place and be there. When Wolff appeared, they understood why they were there.
They knew each other’s unspoken thoughts, communicating telepathically. Their shaman could sometimes foresee future events. In the mornings, the Sng’oi discussed their dreams. Once, Wolff described a dream. Its message, they told him, was that he was needed at home. He returned to his family, and learned that a child had had a medical emergency.
“They had an immense inner dignity, were happy, and content, and did not want anything.” They loved to laugh and joke. They were often singing and smiling. Angry voices were never heard. Each new day was a blank slate — no plans, no jobs, nothing that had to be done. They floated, inspired by feelings. Life in a tropical rainforest was not a tough job.
One evening, while sitting in a group, Wolff went into a trance, and spoke to the others, an experience he did not remember. A Sng’oi shaman recognized that Wolff had shamanic powers, and offered to open spiritual doors for him. His name was Ahmeed, and his job description was “to bring new knowledge to the People.” Wolff accepted his offer.
The learning process involved long, silent walks in the forest, with no food or water. Wolff was frustrated, because he was thinking like crazy. It was impossible to still his furiously roaring mind. He could not hear his inner voice. At the end of the walks, he was exhausted; his mind fried.
Eventually, his thinker got more and more flaccid, and he learned to pay attention. Some days, he could float away from his mind, and vividly experience the sounds and smells of the forest. Everything changed. The world became intensely alive. He ceased being an observer, and became a living part of All-That-Is.
After months of practice, he gradually remembered how to be a human being. “The all-ness was everywhere, and I was part of it. I cannot explain what went on inside me, but I knew that I had learned something unbelievably wonderful. I felt more alive than I had ever felt before. All of me was filled with being.” He felt great love for the people. The trees and mosquitoes were his family.
Back in the civilized world, Wolff was no longer the same person. Inner knowing could be painful, and sometimes had to be turned off. He could sense the feelings of the people around him, and this could be overwhelming. “It was frightening to discover how many people think nothing at all, but feel waves of anger, resentment, and bitterness — although they act as if they are deaf and blind to their own feelings.”
As the years passed, Wolff became whole and confident, as his humanness recovered. Being human was so much healthier than being civilized. That’s his message. Even adults can heal. It’s never too late to try. “Knowing inside is not something unusual; it is how we are. All humans can have that connection with All-That-Is. The connection is within us.” Cultures without the connection are on a bleak path.
Wolff’s website is here, and many of the stories in his book are here.
Wolff was interested in healing, and hoped to become a doctor, but World War II interrupted his plans. After the war, he became a social psychologist, and worked on a number of government projects. Work included numerous visits to rural villages in Malaysia, where life was very laid back. The people were “soft, gentle, polite.” Villagers were the opposite of city people, who tended to be “crude, loud, insensitive.”
Oddly, the patients in Malaysian mental hospitals included whites, Indians, and many Chinese — but no Malays, who were half of the population. Malay villages had a healthy sense of community. They accepted the presence of people who were odd; there was never a thought of sending them away. Everyone knew the village thief, and no one reported him to the police, because he belonged where he was. Malays respected one another.
Wolff was grateful that he had learned to speak several languages, because this ability expanded his awareness. Languages are unique products of the cultures in which they evolve. Different cultures perceive reality in different ways, and many ideas cannot be accurately translated from one language to another. Consequently, it was clear to him that the Western worldview was not the one and only way of interpreting reality. Most Western people never learn this. Insanity seems perfectly normal to the inmates of the loony bin.
His career began in the 1950s, the dawn of the most horrific era in human history. Population grew explosively, as did the ecological blitzkrieg. Traditional cultures were being exterminated by a plague of bulldozers. Wolff worked hard to learn and record the knowledge of traditional healers. He believed that their skills were the time-proven results of thousands of years of trial and error. A tremendous treasure was on the verge of being lost forever.
He remembered the days before antibiotics, when Western doctors were little better than witch doctors. He detested modern healthcare, where doctors practiced medicine, not healing. They were highly skilled at temporarily postponing death via extremely expensive treatments — even if the additional weeks or months of existence were meaningless. Not long ago, most of those with fading spirits would simply have been allowed to pass to the other side in peace.
In his crusade to preserve ancient knowledge, he met a number of healers who had not been the apprentices of venerable elders. They acquired their skills via inner knowing. Intuition told them what herbs to use, and the way to prepare them. These healers told Wolff to relax; a treasure was not being lost. The wisdom was always accessible. When it was needed, someone would find it. This notion gives Western folks cramps, because they process reality via thinking.
One day, Wolff learned about a tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in a remote mountain forest — the Sng’oi (or Senoi or Sakai). Meeting them opened the door to a series of life-changing experiences, a great healing. They were masters of intuition and inner knowing. They lived in a spiritual reality, “where things were known outside of thinking.”
Their camps were not close to the road. Whenever Wolff arrived unannounced for a visit, one of the Sng’oi would be waiting for him in the forest. The guide would stand up and, without a word, lead him to the village. This baffled Wolff. How did they know he was coming? When asked, they told him that they had no premonition of his arrival. They had experienced a feeling to go to a place and be there. When Wolff appeared, they understood why they were there.
They knew each other’s unspoken thoughts, communicating telepathically. Their shaman could sometimes foresee future events. In the mornings, the Sng’oi discussed their dreams. Once, Wolff described a dream. Its message, they told him, was that he was needed at home. He returned to his family, and learned that a child had had a medical emergency.
“They had an immense inner dignity, were happy, and content, and did not want anything.” They loved to laugh and joke. They were often singing and smiling. Angry voices were never heard. Each new day was a blank slate — no plans, no jobs, nothing that had to be done. They floated, inspired by feelings. Life in a tropical rainforest was not a tough job.
One evening, while sitting in a group, Wolff went into a trance, and spoke to the others, an experience he did not remember. A Sng’oi shaman recognized that Wolff had shamanic powers, and offered to open spiritual doors for him. His name was Ahmeed, and his job description was “to bring new knowledge to the People.” Wolff accepted his offer.
The learning process involved long, silent walks in the forest, with no food or water. Wolff was frustrated, because he was thinking like crazy. It was impossible to still his furiously roaring mind. He could not hear his inner voice. At the end of the walks, he was exhausted; his mind fried.
Eventually, his thinker got more and more flaccid, and he learned to pay attention. Some days, he could float away from his mind, and vividly experience the sounds and smells of the forest. Everything changed. The world became intensely alive. He ceased being an observer, and became a living part of All-That-Is.
After months of practice, he gradually remembered how to be a human being. “The all-ness was everywhere, and I was part of it. I cannot explain what went on inside me, but I knew that I had learned something unbelievably wonderful. I felt more alive than I had ever felt before. All of me was filled with being.” He felt great love for the people. The trees and mosquitoes were his family.
Back in the civilized world, Wolff was no longer the same person. Inner knowing could be painful, and sometimes had to be turned off. He could sense the feelings of the people around him, and this could be overwhelming. “It was frightening to discover how many people think nothing at all, but feel waves of anger, resentment, and bitterness — although they act as if they are deaf and blind to their own feelings.”
As the years passed, Wolff became whole and confident, as his humanness recovered. Being human was so much healthier than being civilized. That’s his message. Even adults can heal. It’s never too late to try. “Knowing inside is not something unusual; it is how we are. All humans can have that connection with All-That-Is. The connection is within us.” Cultures without the connection are on a bleak path.
Wolff’s website is here, and many of the stories in his book are here.
February 19, 2024
This book makes me wonder whether the Western world view is the one least compatible with being authentically human.
February 3, 2015
Some books stay etched in your mind, revealing their wisdom even long after you have shut them, making you question your own beliefs. This is one of those.
This book led me down a path of explorations of shamans, indigenous tribes, and old and ancient magic: the magic of intuition and connection. It has colored my writing in subtle ways, and the image of the Malays waiting on the path for the narrator – either because they knew that he specifically was coming, or knowing that someone would come- has stayed in my mind for over a year and eventually landed in one of my novels.
He also speaks of, and is echoed in other narratives I have since read, the ability of the Malay to know or sense things that would happen in the future. They even share these knowing with each other via dreams. When he tells of how dreams are shared and writes of the stories that emerge when everyone wakes and shares their dreams together, it is almost as if he is speaking of some primordial knowing that we once had but is now lost to us. He tells of a dream of a flower that was shared, and of how he wondered when a child says later in the day, “Come, let us go and see the flower.” And then, when they find the mysterious flower – one that is extremely rare, large and smells of dead meat (few people have ever even seen a Rafflesia), he questions how they knew where the flower was.
He doesn’t offer any answers, but his telling of this is just one more example of the intrinsic knowledge or foresight these people carried with them, the almost merging of the people with each other and nature around them. Indeed, he goes on to become a shaman of the Sng’oi himself, but even here, he confounds us with the simplicity and honesty by which this happens. His teacher tells him to that “you do not have to understand. You will just learn.” But these instructions are hard for all of us in the West to understand, I think.
The Sng’oi that he writes about have no schedule, no sense of hurrying, and have – despite no machines or machinery of any kind – time every day for naps or even just being content. The author definitely destroyed some of my own preconceptions about hunter-gatherers (or in the case of the Sng’oi, mainly gatherers) by explaining that the Malay don’t sit down for elaborate meals. Instead, most people snack and graze throughout the day. These are also a people that encourage laughter. “What remains most vivid in my memory of the Sng’oi is their contentment, their joy. Voices were never raised in anger.
As with any other book I have read on indigenous peoples, the respect and care given to the young is so different and enlightening as to make it almost painful for a Western mother like myself to read. Mr. Wolff tells us that children over the age of around two are never admonished. Instead, they are asked their opinions and allowed to choose for themselves what they do throughout the day. Treated like equals, they act like equals. And, of course, babies are allowed to nurse far longer than we allow them in the West, and are carried and handled and slept alongside of. It’s a sobering treatise on the care little ones, but I know that this is one message that will be hard to internalize.
And, while the Malay encouraged the author to tell them of the outside world, we know that the idealized world he has written of will come to an end, or has already done so. It is like a sharp pain to hear the peaceful people that he met say, “Once we could be lost. Now there is no place left to be lost.”
This book led me down a path of explorations of shamans, indigenous tribes, and old and ancient magic: the magic of intuition and connection. It has colored my writing in subtle ways, and the image of the Malays waiting on the path for the narrator – either because they knew that he specifically was coming, or knowing that someone would come- has stayed in my mind for over a year and eventually landed in one of my novels.
He also speaks of, and is echoed in other narratives I have since read, the ability of the Malay to know or sense things that would happen in the future. They even share these knowing with each other via dreams. When he tells of how dreams are shared and writes of the stories that emerge when everyone wakes and shares their dreams together, it is almost as if he is speaking of some primordial knowing that we once had but is now lost to us. He tells of a dream of a flower that was shared, and of how he wondered when a child says later in the day, “Come, let us go and see the flower.” And then, when they find the mysterious flower – one that is extremely rare, large and smells of dead meat (few people have ever even seen a Rafflesia), he questions how they knew where the flower was.
He doesn’t offer any answers, but his telling of this is just one more example of the intrinsic knowledge or foresight these people carried with them, the almost merging of the people with each other and nature around them. Indeed, he goes on to become a shaman of the Sng’oi himself, but even here, he confounds us with the simplicity and honesty by which this happens. His teacher tells him to that “you do not have to understand. You will just learn.” But these instructions are hard for all of us in the West to understand, I think.
The Sng’oi that he writes about have no schedule, no sense of hurrying, and have – despite no machines or machinery of any kind – time every day for naps or even just being content. The author definitely destroyed some of my own preconceptions about hunter-gatherers (or in the case of the Sng’oi, mainly gatherers) by explaining that the Malay don’t sit down for elaborate meals. Instead, most people snack and graze throughout the day. These are also a people that encourage laughter. “What remains most vivid in my memory of the Sng’oi is their contentment, their joy. Voices were never raised in anger.
As with any other book I have read on indigenous peoples, the respect and care given to the young is so different and enlightening as to make it almost painful for a Western mother like myself to read. Mr. Wolff tells us that children over the age of around two are never admonished. Instead, they are asked their opinions and allowed to choose for themselves what they do throughout the day. Treated like equals, they act like equals. And, of course, babies are allowed to nurse far longer than we allow them in the West, and are carried and handled and slept alongside of. It’s a sobering treatise on the care little ones, but I know that this is one message that will be hard to internalize.
And, while the Malay encouraged the author to tell them of the outside world, we know that the idealized world he has written of will come to an end, or has already done so. It is like a sharp pain to hear the peaceful people that he met say, “Once we could be lost. Now there is no place left to be lost.”
May 19, 2016
In order to find out what the typical diet is for any group of people, we must also know something about how these people live, what is available to them, what is important in their culture.
By judging others less than ourselves, we cannot learn from them.
Different reality:
My reality is made in my head; I create roles for myself, I create a structure that requires certain activities and prohibits others. I live in time. I have an agenda.
Their existence had no reality until they lived it.
They were very selective in what they could use from our world.
Westerners are so used to thinking of training, learning, and teaching as verbal activities that we forget that much perhaps most - learning happens without verbal instruction.
Deep inside I always knew, but so much that I learned smothered that knowing.
By judging others less than ourselves, we cannot learn from them.
Different reality:
My reality is made in my head; I create roles for myself, I create a structure that requires certain activities and prohibits others. I live in time. I have an agenda.
Their existence had no reality until they lived it.
They were very selective in what they could use from our world.
Westerners are so used to thinking of training, learning, and teaching as verbal activities that we forget that much perhaps most - learning happens without verbal instruction.
Deep inside I always knew, but so much that I learned smothered that knowing.
May 1, 2014
This unassuming, subtle, joyfully sly book contains a powerful kernel of Truth. It guides the reader back to what it means to be human, and explores what it feels like to be fully human, fully present, fully aware. I've already recommended this short, easy, heart-opening book to many family & friends. I continue to encourage everyone to connect with the Gift Robert Wolff is sharing. Many thanks to my father for bringing this book and insight into my life! May we all reconnect with Heart Consciousness, healing our selves and our world.
April 12, 2011
Wolff's experience with the aboriginal peoples of Malaysia and Sumatra, his acceptance by them, and his transcendency into 'shaman-hood' through a great forgetting of humanity's place in the world reveals the ultimate pleasures of the wholly simple life... and is living proof of David Abram's postulate from 'The Spell of the Sensuous' that 'we are only human in contact and conviviality with that which is not human.'
February 17, 2017
Some parts of this book were very moving and beautiful but for the most part, I felt like the author was doing what he chastised others for doing. He was assuming he could confine the people he was meeting into his own narrow understanding of the possible. He forced them to meet his expectations. That being said I did find some commentary enlightening - namely, did we figure out which mushrooms were deadly by trial and error...it's a thought that will stick with me beyond this book.
January 1, 2021
I just read this for the second time. I needed the inspiration that I remembered it gave me before. The author writes of his experiences with an aboriginal tribe in Malaysia, and how they were in touch with an "inner knowing" that modern, "civilized" people have forgotten. They know that they are one with everything that lives, and this knowledge makes them peaceful and cooperative. They live in the present and don't worry about the future. I believe that the "inner knowing" that the author writes about is the same thing as the "Holy Spirit" in the Christian tradition, and that the answer to all the world's problems is to remember how to hear this Voice. Our minds are always chattering, planning for a future and recalling the past, making up stories. I believe that "Adam's Fall" and "expulsion from the Garden of Eden" are metaphors for how modern people have forgotten this connection to Grace, forgotten how to listen to that Inner Voice. We believe that we are separate and cut off from nature and from each other. It was fascinating to read about a human culture that is nonviolent, unselfish, and joyful, in which mental illness is nonexistent. It is my goal in life to remember how to hear this Voice through reading books like this that inspire me, as well as meditation.
December 22, 2021
It's hard for me to write a review of this book. This book needs to be read...absorbed...pondered...and probably read again. It needs to get inside of you. It needs to make you think. How can I review that? The one thing I can say is that this is probably one of the most important books I've read. I will have to sit with what I've learned and open myself to KNOWING in the ways that are shared in the book. I definitely will read this again. It's too good and there's too much here.
This book is part Cultural Anthropology and part Shamanism. If you are open to something other than a Western mindset, this book will challenge you and inspire you.
This book is part Cultural Anthropology and part Shamanism. If you are open to something other than a Western mindset, this book will challenge you and inspire you.
June 19, 2021
I really thought I was going to like this one more than I did. Some of it is great but overall there's just too much romanticism and pseudo-science for me to say that it's actually useful. Anybody that doesn't already agree with the main message will never take this guy seriously. They'll most likely just feel even more annoyed by these ideas than they were before, which is obviously kind of a problem.
February 26, 2018
i feel like i have been filtered through the finest sieve. i still know nothing but my ignorance.
June 8, 2017
The story of a man who befriended a group of indigenous hunter-gatherers in the jungles of Malaysia and in the process learned what it means to be human. There is so much beauty between theses pages. A rare gem of a book.
September 30, 2020
Book Review – Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing by Robert Wolff, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2001.
I came to read and review Original Wisdom because of the description of the Sng’oi’s dream life as described in Philip Shepherd’s previously reviewed book Radical Wholeness. Also, while attending the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Dreams I frequently heard of the dream life of the Sng’oi, or as they are sometimes called, the Senoi. Kelly Bulkeley often told of how this peaceful tribe of people of the interior mountains of Malaysia would share their nighttime dreams each morning and how this dream sharing brought peace to the community. Also, Patricia Garfield in her book Creative Dreaming describes how the Senoi children are taught to face the dangers in their dreams/nightmares to overcome their fear.
Robert Wolff, growing up in Malaysia and spending much time in his adult life with the Sng’oi, tells of their Ancient Ways of Knowing. These ancient ways of knowing spoke deeply to me in my belief that in order to save the Earth we must again begin to listen to the Earth as did our hunter-gathering ancestors. The Sng’oi consider the world of their dreams as the real world, and their waking world as the shadow world with their daytime activities reflecting what they learned from their nighttime dreams.
Wolff’s stories open the door to Sng’oi’s way of knowing, stories that go beyond the anthropologist’s way of describing such indigenous cultures. When he would ask the people of the Sng’oi village a question, their response would be silence, silence that would last for a considerable length of time before one person of the group would provide a brief answer. It seemed to Wolff that they were deliberating to find an answer though there was silence in this deliberation as if they were reading each other’s minds. Also, on each of his visits he would have to walk an hour or more to reach the village from where he parked his car. Since the village often moved, he would find a member of the village waiting for him along the trail to show him the way, though they had no way of knowing that he was coming. When he asked how they knew, they said that they didn’t know, but in their day’s wandering someone would just know that he had to go and wait at a certain place.
On one occasion Wolff was to drive to Port Dixon on the Malaysian coast. Upon leaving the village he asked if anyone would like to go with him. After a lengthy silent deliberation Ahmeed, the village bomoh or shaman, said he would go. These mountain people had never been away from their mountain home. While in Port Dixon Wolff saw Ahmeed just standing silently looking out over the endless water. Upon returning Ahmeed to his jungle home Wolff was invited to stay another night because of a celebration that was being planned that evening for the people to hear Ahmeed’s story. They all retreated to a hut where Ahmeed enthusiastically told the story of the Great Water with the Lord of the Great Water telling him to not be afraid. These aborigines had some fear of the water of the rivers of the jungle. In telling the story, Ahmeed told of the mountains under the water, the giant animals that lived in the water, and though he had not ventured near or into the water, he knew it was salty. His stories were again a mystery to Wolff since Ahmeed again had no apparent way of knowing these things.
The many stories told in Original Wisdom were of the Sng’oi’s way of knowing that was a deep mystery to Wolff. Because of his close relationship to this village of the Sng’oi, Ahmeed invited Wolff to learn the ways of a bomoh. Wolff agreed with some apprehension, and upon his next visit to the village Ahmeed offered to take him on a walk each day of his visit. Upon leaving the village and returning home Wolff felt that he learned nothing from these silent walks.
The next time he visited and Ahmeed again took him on a daylong walk, at one point Ahmeed indicated to Wolff to be silent and not move. After a few minutes a large snake crawled out of the jungle and across the path. Again Wolff could not imagine how Ahmeed knew that the snake was there. Snakes resided in the trees and are rarely seen on the ground. The next day they again walked and Wolff’s mind was racing, searching for answers as to how Ahmeed knew. When noting how his mind was racing he stopped his thinking and listened instead from the heart. The jungle turned bright and was full of sounds and smells. He was thirsty and Ahmeed said “do not talk” meaning “do not think.” Wolff opened his heart and saw in a leaf a small pool of water. This new ability of seeing amazed Wolff. He saw the jungle very differently: “the leaf-with water in it, attached to a plant that grew in soil surrounded by uncounted other plants, all part of the same blanket of living things covering the soil, which was also part of a larger living skin around the earth. And nothing was separate; all was one, the same thing: water-leaf-plant-trees-soil-animals-earth-air-sunlight and little wisps of wind. The all-ness was everywhere, and [Wolff] was part of it (p. 157).” When he next looked up, Ahmeed was not in sight, but Wolff felt no fear. He intuitively walked in the direction of the village led by a sound, a soft growling purr of a tiger, who he knew was saying, “I am tiger, I am here.” The tiger was his new spirit guide just as the snake was Ahmeed’s spirit guide. Wolff had learned the ancient way of knowing, knowing from the heart and not from the many words of the brain.
From my 50 years of using hypnosis and more recently ecstatic trance of listening from the heart, my frequent encounters with what could be called “mind-reading” have shown me the beautiful reality of the Sng’oi way of knowing. As a practitioner and teacher of ecstatic trance, I see that trance brings us into the state of oneness with all that is of the Earth, brings us to the Sng’oi way of knowing. Wolff’s experiences of finding this oneness with the Earth shows us the way of saving the Earth from the devastation of global climate change by again learning the ways of the hunting and gathering cultures of the Earth. For our salvation into the future, this book is a must read.
I came to read and review Original Wisdom because of the description of the Sng’oi’s dream life as described in Philip Shepherd’s previously reviewed book Radical Wholeness. Also, while attending the conferences of the International Association for the Study of Dreams I frequently heard of the dream life of the Sng’oi, or as they are sometimes called, the Senoi. Kelly Bulkeley often told of how this peaceful tribe of people of the interior mountains of Malaysia would share their nighttime dreams each morning and how this dream sharing brought peace to the community. Also, Patricia Garfield in her book Creative Dreaming describes how the Senoi children are taught to face the dangers in their dreams/nightmares to overcome their fear.
Robert Wolff, growing up in Malaysia and spending much time in his adult life with the Sng’oi, tells of their Ancient Ways of Knowing. These ancient ways of knowing spoke deeply to me in my belief that in order to save the Earth we must again begin to listen to the Earth as did our hunter-gathering ancestors. The Sng’oi consider the world of their dreams as the real world, and their waking world as the shadow world with their daytime activities reflecting what they learned from their nighttime dreams.
Wolff’s stories open the door to Sng’oi’s way of knowing, stories that go beyond the anthropologist’s way of describing such indigenous cultures. When he would ask the people of the Sng’oi village a question, their response would be silence, silence that would last for a considerable length of time before one person of the group would provide a brief answer. It seemed to Wolff that they were deliberating to find an answer though there was silence in this deliberation as if they were reading each other’s minds. Also, on each of his visits he would have to walk an hour or more to reach the village from where he parked his car. Since the village often moved, he would find a member of the village waiting for him along the trail to show him the way, though they had no way of knowing that he was coming. When he asked how they knew, they said that they didn’t know, but in their day’s wandering someone would just know that he had to go and wait at a certain place.
On one occasion Wolff was to drive to Port Dixon on the Malaysian coast. Upon leaving the village he asked if anyone would like to go with him. After a lengthy silent deliberation Ahmeed, the village bomoh or shaman, said he would go. These mountain people had never been away from their mountain home. While in Port Dixon Wolff saw Ahmeed just standing silently looking out over the endless water. Upon returning Ahmeed to his jungle home Wolff was invited to stay another night because of a celebration that was being planned that evening for the people to hear Ahmeed’s story. They all retreated to a hut where Ahmeed enthusiastically told the story of the Great Water with the Lord of the Great Water telling him to not be afraid. These aborigines had some fear of the water of the rivers of the jungle. In telling the story, Ahmeed told of the mountains under the water, the giant animals that lived in the water, and though he had not ventured near or into the water, he knew it was salty. His stories were again a mystery to Wolff since Ahmeed again had no apparent way of knowing these things.
The many stories told in Original Wisdom were of the Sng’oi’s way of knowing that was a deep mystery to Wolff. Because of his close relationship to this village of the Sng’oi, Ahmeed invited Wolff to learn the ways of a bomoh. Wolff agreed with some apprehension, and upon his next visit to the village Ahmeed offered to take him on a walk each day of his visit. Upon leaving the village and returning home Wolff felt that he learned nothing from these silent walks.
The next time he visited and Ahmeed again took him on a daylong walk, at one point Ahmeed indicated to Wolff to be silent and not move. After a few minutes a large snake crawled out of the jungle and across the path. Again Wolff could not imagine how Ahmeed knew that the snake was there. Snakes resided in the trees and are rarely seen on the ground. The next day they again walked and Wolff’s mind was racing, searching for answers as to how Ahmeed knew. When noting how his mind was racing he stopped his thinking and listened instead from the heart. The jungle turned bright and was full of sounds and smells. He was thirsty and Ahmeed said “do not talk” meaning “do not think.” Wolff opened his heart and saw in a leaf a small pool of water. This new ability of seeing amazed Wolff. He saw the jungle very differently: “the leaf-with water in it, attached to a plant that grew in soil surrounded by uncounted other plants, all part of the same blanket of living things covering the soil, which was also part of a larger living skin around the earth. And nothing was separate; all was one, the same thing: water-leaf-plant-trees-soil-animals-earth-air-sunlight and little wisps of wind. The all-ness was everywhere, and [Wolff] was part of it (p. 157).” When he next looked up, Ahmeed was not in sight, but Wolff felt no fear. He intuitively walked in the direction of the village led by a sound, a soft growling purr of a tiger, who he knew was saying, “I am tiger, I am here.” The tiger was his new spirit guide just as the snake was Ahmeed’s spirit guide. Wolff had learned the ancient way of knowing, knowing from the heart and not from the many words of the brain.
From my 50 years of using hypnosis and more recently ecstatic trance of listening from the heart, my frequent encounters with what could be called “mind-reading” have shown me the beautiful reality of the Sng’oi way of knowing. As a practitioner and teacher of ecstatic trance, I see that trance brings us into the state of oneness with all that is of the Earth, brings us to the Sng’oi way of knowing. Wolff’s experiences of finding this oneness with the Earth shows us the way of saving the Earth from the devastation of global climate change by again learning the ways of the hunting and gathering cultures of the Earth. For our salvation into the future, this book is a must read.
December 12, 2016
What I loved about this book is the journey of awakening Robert wolff embarks on. His time spent with the Indigenous Sngoi of Malaysia is a delightful and modest account of a realisation that we live in a world where our deepest knowing is buried beneath the clutter of our over 'educated' minds.
The message is simple, that through spending more time in nature and allowing ourselves to listen inwardly a return to a deeper relationship with the earth and our spirituality is inevitable. Honestly written and subtley convincing.
The message is simple, that through spending more time in nature and allowing ourselves to listen inwardly a return to a deeper relationship with the earth and our spirituality is inevitable. Honestly written and subtley convincing.
February 5, 2008
I love the message, but I only like the book. I do recommend it. The premise is that modern society in disconnected from nature, and that we suffer from many ailments that indigenous are free from. We work way too hard. Technology has made our lives more complicated, not simpler. Not only are we suffering, but we have lost the capacity for true spirituality. This is by far Wolff's best book.
September 2, 2012
Great story of some tribes that have not changed their style of living, while our culture catapults in every direction. Amazing insight into our untapped intuition I believe we all posses. Innate knowledge that transcends time and space explained in terms we all an understand. "Do we dream the life we live, or live the life we dream?"
April 30, 2008
This book literally fell into my hands...so I had to read it. It was great. I highly recommend reading this book. It will absolutley deepen your personal relationship with yourself and with the earth.
October 20, 2015
It was a nice book, really easy to read, the Malaysian natives have some great wisdom to share.
We lost contact with nature in this western civilization, we need to learn from the roots, from the animals from the trees
From with in us.
We lost contact with nature in this western civilization, we need to learn from the roots, from the animals from the trees
From with in us.
November 25, 2019
Robert Wolff provides us with a glimpse into a different way of looking at the world, one which perhaps we once shared but now hardly recognise. I found his recollections and style of writing both deeply affecting.
July 20, 2011
Beautiful...if you are alive, please read this book.
October 9, 2017
A gift from Alistair. More proof of universal energy and the power that we all share. It came to me at the same time as "One Mind." No coincidences here!!
March 26, 2018
Cosy account of a beautiful people. It's one of those books where you gotta take his word for it. But if you do, a certain nostalgia emerges for something you never experienced.
January 31, 2019
Finally got round to reading this rather short book that had sat on my 'to read' shelf for years. I am afraid there was not much wisdom to be gained from it, if you already have a good idea of the lifestyles of hunter gatherer societies. Instead of imparting concrete tribal knowledge and going into the technicalities of how to survive and live off the land, which I had subconsciously expected to read about, this book is more of a diary of the time the author had spent immersed in the communities of aboriginal peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. I found his description of their way of life quite cliched to the extent of romanticizing it. Sure they had no use for reading and writing, no schedule or clock to govern their daily activities and appear joyful at most times but isn't this akin to how wild animals live - without advanced cultural thought and technology? Having now experienced the comforts and leisurely pursuits of our modern industrial civilization will anyone willingly trade it for a life of 'ignorance' and simplicity, staring at trees, flowers and insects all day long and huddling together in tiny huts come nightfall? Don't get me wrong, I am one who loves nature and being outdoors and have respect for all lifeforms, understanding the complexity of connections between every living thing. But I also value the depth and immensity of humanity's knowledge passed down the centuries in the form of books, the intricacies and marvel of modern technologies that give us a life of physical comfort and convenience.
The book also has a very spiritual aspect to it in describing how the author gained the knowledge of his surroundings, for instance which plant could be used for his particular ailment, by simply exposing himself to the environment and becoming at one with it after taking many long walks with a shaman in the forest. Obviously the western system of knowledge based on science has no way of explaining how tribal knowledge comes into existence, requiring the reader to simply believe and have faith in the truth of what transpired, which I found difficult.
In this quite short book I also did not expect many chapters to be about Malay culture and traditional village life and values, which the author went into and was less interesting since it was not what the book promised to be about. Here I found the roundabout and indirect form of communication practiced by the villagers rather frustrating. Yes communal harmony is prioritised above all else and perhaps a practical cultural trait for living without western laws and its law enforcement apparatus, but can also come across as hypocritical and could breed resentment if people are not being truthful and direct.
The book also has a very spiritual aspect to it in describing how the author gained the knowledge of his surroundings, for instance which plant could be used for his particular ailment, by simply exposing himself to the environment and becoming at one with it after taking many long walks with a shaman in the forest. Obviously the western system of knowledge based on science has no way of explaining how tribal knowledge comes into existence, requiring the reader to simply believe and have faith in the truth of what transpired, which I found difficult.
In this quite short book I also did not expect many chapters to be about Malay culture and traditional village life and values, which the author went into and was less interesting since it was not what the book promised to be about. Here I found the roundabout and indirect form of communication practiced by the villagers rather frustrating. Yes communal harmony is prioritised above all else and perhaps a practical cultural trait for living without western laws and its law enforcement apparatus, but can also come across as hypocritical and could breed resentment if people are not being truthful and direct.
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October 23, 2025• Explores the lifestyle of indigenous peoples of the world who exist in complete harmony with the natural world and with each other.• Reveals a model of a society built on trust, patience, and joy rather than anxiety, hurry, and acquisition.• Shows how we can reconnect with the ancient intuitive awareness of the world's original people. Deep in the mountainous jungle of Malaysia the aboriginal Sng'oi exist on the edge of extinction, though their way of living may ultimately be the kind of existence that will allow us all to survive. The Sng'oi--pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, semi-nomadic--live without cars or cell phones, without clocks or schedules in a lush green place where worry and hurry, competition and suspicion are not known. Yet these indigenous people--as do many other aboriginal groups--possess an acute and uncanny sense of the energies, emotions, and intentions of their place and the living beings who populate it, and trustingly follow this intuition, using it to make decisions about their actions each day. Psychologist Robert Wolff lived with the Sng'oi, learned their language, shared their food, slept in their huts, and came to love and admire these people who respect silence, trust time to reveal and heal, and live entirely in the present with a sense of joy. Even more, he came to recognize the depth of our alienation from these basic qualities of life. Much more than a document of a disappearing people, Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing holds a mirror to our own existence, allowing us to see how far we have wandered from the ways of the intuitive and trusting Sng'oi, and challenges us, in our fragmented world, to rediscover this humanity within ourselves.
January 22, 2022
A beautiful book documenting the ways of aboriginal peoples primarily in Malaysia as seen through the eyes of a man trying to understand and immerse himself in their ways and languages. These gentle cultures that practiced knowing through the heart and intuition strike a melancholy chord when compared to our cold, Western cultures.
I was sad to find that a Google search for the Sng’oi practice of keening renders no results of audio recordings.
This book makes one long for a simpler way of life and more integrative ways of interacting with our environment and those who people it. Much has been lost by the eradication of these ancient, gentle, and valuable cultures. We owe Robert Wolff a debt of gratitude for documenting his experiences, and for his unique way of approaching the subject matter.
I was sad to find that a Google search for the Sng’oi practice of keening renders no results of audio recordings.
This book makes one long for a simpler way of life and more integrative ways of interacting with our environment and those who people it. Much has been lost by the eradication of these ancient, gentle, and valuable cultures. We owe Robert Wolff a debt of gratitude for documenting his experiences, and for his unique way of approaching the subject matter.
August 7, 2018
Very much enjoy Wolff’s book as I had much the same emotional responses to it as when reading another favorite, David Abrams’ The Spell of the Sensuous. Both presented a taste of other ways of knowing which we in the industrialized West often never experience. As do many others, I fear we are quickly moving to a point where old ways of knowing will be forever lost. Each day indigenous peoples, like other animals, are being driven to extinction by encroaching ‘civilization’ and the commodification of everything and everyone. What is most troublesome to me is what Vandana Shiva calls Mononcultures of the Mind.
August 3, 2017
This book provided an intimate perspective. Mr. Wolff lived in Malaysia as a psychologist. His experiences with The People of Malaysia were well described. The chapter on choice was enlightening. I had not thought of choosing as a Western way of life, but it makes total sense. I would be intetested in trying to drift... What would it feel like to set aside an agenda, a calendar, a clock? We need to look past our Western ways of thinking and realize the value of different values and different ways of thinking and learning to be.
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