Crossing into Medicine Country: A Journey in Native American Healing

Of Choctaw descent, David Carson has absorbed and sought out Native American spiritual knowledge since growing up in Oklahoma Indian country.He distilled some of that knowledge in Medicine Cards, the hugely successful divination system based on traditional animal medicine that became a New Age bestseller in the 1990s, and in the more recent 2013 Oracle cards.In Crossing into Medicine Country, he tells the story of his initiation as a conjure man-a ceremonial healer-with the Choctaw medicine woman Mary Gardener.He gives us a mind-bending glimpse into alternate realities in which health and illness express the balance between man and nature. Here Western notions of physics do not always apply.For three years, Carson studied the arts of power plants and medicine animals, how to manipulate the layers of energy surrounding human beings, and how to use sacred tobacco in ritual, curing, and divination."It is a decidedly American song," says Carson of his personal narrative. "It addresses some of the ancient powers of this land."The book is set in southeastern Oklahoma.