Primal Awareness: A True Story of Survival, Transformation, and Awakening with the Rar�muri Shamans of Mexico Paperback - 1998

From the rear cover

SELF-TRANSFORMATION / INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS "A philosophical quest for the lost ark, filled with adventure." --Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly "Don Jacobs is a renaissance man who has written an adventure story that reflects his depth of experience as well as his heart. Primal Awareness is compelling reading with a profound impact. Both suspense story and spiritual quest, it embraces realms of psychology, anthropology, and magic. As I turned its pages, I was moved to laughter and tears. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the mysteries of the human mind and heart." --Dan Millman, author of Everyday Enlightenment and Way of the Peaceful Warrior "Don Jacobs has uncovered the roots of indigenous psychology that all people share and that, once found, can lead to harmonious living." --Ed McGaa, eagle man, author of Mother Earth Spirituality In 1983, caught in a violent rainstorm while kayaking the Rio Urique in Mexico's Copper Canyon, Don Trent Jacobs was swept into an impassable catacomb of underwater tunnels toward what he believed was certain death. But instead of panic, Jacobs found himself filled with a strange consciousness that left him feeling at peace and invigorated with a confidence he had never before known. Moments later he was spit from the tunnel alive--not at the end of his journey, but only at its beginning. Primal Awareness tells the story of Don Trent Jacobs's remarkable vision of the human mind and heart and the compelling spiritual quest that brought him to it. Through his initiatic experiences in the tunnel and with the Raramuri people of Mexico, and through his research of other indigenous societies, Jacobs identifies what he calls our "primal awareness," an innate knowledge that exists within us all. Jacobs shows how we can rediscover this primordial mandate that unites all things and that helps us to find our own inner strength and harmony. DON TRENT JACOBS earned a doctorate in health psychology while training wild horses, playing piano in nightclubs, and working as an EMT. He holds a second doctorate in education renewal and is the Education Department Chair of the Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He is the author of eight other books, including The Bum's Rush: The Selling of Environmental Backlash.