Among the Dagara of Burkina Faso there is no distinction between the natural and the supernatural: The living converse with ancestral spirits, and those with the proper knowledge routinely travel to other worlds. Malidoma Patrice Some was born in a Dagara village, only to be abducted as a small boy and taken to a Jesuit mission school, where for fifteen years he was harshly indoctrinated in European ways of thought and worship. When he returned to his people, he had to undergo an initiation so rigorous that it might have killed him. Instead, Malidoma's passage between two worlds resulted in an assignment to convey his people's knowledge to the West, leading to this book of rare healing and wisdom. Of Water and the Spirit is a remarkable sharing of living African traditions, offered in compassion for those struggling with our contemporary crisis of the spirit. "Here is a man who has experienced [ancient initiation] in our time. The spiritual depth of African Culture becomes clear." -Robert Bly