French language, a male community arts and diversional-therapy youth worker, and
a male flight attendant.
I had previously worked with the two female teachers, both very senior
teachers, for many years and was often amazed by the depth and extent of their
reading and the intense delight it gave them. The male English teacher became a
friend after we met at a meeting of the Australian Transpersonal Association in
Sydney and, he too, revealed himself to be an avid reader; one with a distinct
inclination to classical European literature but I was also fascinated by his avowed
and somewhat ironic scepticism of the paranormal. I had also worked with the
community-arts youth-worker who fascinated me with his intense creative drive and
energy besides his enormous knowledge of a wide range of literature. The flight
attendant was a member of a reading group who wrote me and completed a
research questionnaire following a suggestion by the convenor of the group who
knew of my research work. This seemed to be an excellent group with which to
investigate the extent to which concentrated reading, of what I defined as
mythopoeic literature, facilitates an altered state of imaginal consciousness that has
archaic or archetypal elements.
The second phase of the research involved administering a slightly modified
version of the questionnaire to three published authors and two shamans. The
authors were David Malouf, Thomas Keneally and Colleen McCullough and I also
interrogated selected writings of these writers to clarify specific aspects of their
responses that may have needed elaboration through reference to their work.
With regard to the empirical research and the identity and number of writers
selected; they were chosen because the three authors exemplified best the type of
mythopoetic author that I was studying. All three are prominent in the Australian
literary scene and have spoken publicly about the significance of the role of the
author. I selected only three writers because of the methodological importance of
depth rather than a shallow coverage of many authors. As will be seen, the
combination of textual analysis of their very substantial oeuvre and analysis of their
responses to the questionnaire generated a very considerable amount of qualitative
data. With regard to the shamans and readers the same determinant, worth rather
than number, was paramount.
I t must also be noted that Thomas Keneally preferred to be interviewed
over the telephone rather than complete the questionnaire that was sent to him. I
readily agreed to his suggestion, considering that it could enable more of his
ron
(Ron)
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