"An unprecedented account of the shaman's world and the way it is entered." -- STANLEY KRIPPNER, PH.D., coauthor of Personal Mythology: The Psychology of Your Evolving Self and Healing States Black Elk opens the Lakota sacred hoop to a comic humanism for everyone. His book will stretch the common definition of shamanism and lift the Buckskin Curtain to the characters behind the great visions." -- KENNETH LINCOLN, author of Native American Renaissance, in the San Francisco Chronicle Simply one of the most inspiring and authentic books I have had the delight to read this decade." -- TOM BROWN, JR., author of The Vision Both the personal story of Black Elk and the teachings woven into the narrative are a rare gift to contemporary western peoples." -- JOAN HALIFAX, PH.D., president, Ojai Foundation WALLACE BLACK ELK, a Lakota elder and shaman, was born in 1921 on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He has traveled widely throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, addressing large groups and conducting healing ceremonies. Anthropologist WILLIAM S. LYON has taught at Ashland College in Oregon and at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked with Wallace Black Elk for more than ten years.