The Fourth Level and the Fourth Kind

One of the most interesting books I have read recently is "TREADING LIGHTLY The hidden Wisdom of the world's oldest people" (2006) by Professor Karl-Erik Sveiby (a specialist in Knowledge Management) and Tex Skuthorpe (an aboriginal Nhunggabarra cultural custodian).

The book represents "a unique journey into traditional Aboriginal life and culture, and offers a powerful and original model for building sustainable organisations, communities and ecologies. It is a compelling message for today's world."This central message of the book is well worth your time to explore. Indeed it is of vital importance.

The different explorations of Karl-Erik Sveiby and I intersected rather unusually in 2004 when he approached me and researcher Steve Walters to get our opinions on a strange photographic anomaly - a possible aerial anomaly - he had recorded during April 2004 at Mount Oxley near Bourke New South Wales while in the company of Tex Skuthorpe and his partner. Karl-Erik presents the unusual photo in the book as a possible manifestation of the Fourth Level of meaning in aboriginal stories - the spiritual realm. Through the fascinating aboriginal story of How the Nhunggabarra got flowers Mount Oxley (or Wubi-Wubi) was a focus of shamanic contact between aboriginal men of high degree (or wiringins) and the ancestral being Baiame (Baayami) .

Mount Oxley had already become an interesting place for me. I visited it back in September 2003 exploring its fascinating sense of presence and its enigmatic lore of strange phenomena. I was already aware of the legend of the flowers through the renderings of K. Langloh Parker of local aboriginal tales she collected in the late 1890s and it was fascinating to see the story retold through the words of local custodian Tex Skuthorpe and its "Fourth Level" of meaning, and its beautiful evocation through Tex's great paintings.

While prosaic explanations may be evident for the photo anomaly Karl-Erik recorded it is fascinating to consider the context he and Tex explore in their important book. I certainly do not want to distract from the central message of "Treading Lightly" given its significance as a potent intersection between a remarkable old culture and modern knowledge management theory.

However I suspect there are fascinating resonances between the concepts of "Fourth Level" (through "Treading Lightly" - shamanic spiritual interactions) and "Fourth Kind" (through "alien abductions") - intersections I have been contemplating for some time. See for example my article "Alien Abductions: A Shamanic Perspective of UFOs" in Nature and Health magazine (August 1990) see: http://www.theozfiles.com/ufo_shaman.html

Most importantly though there are powerful and important matters that need to be focused upon by our modern culture. Explore some of these in the book "Treading Lightly" and through the related web site. See: http://www.treadinglightly.sveiby.com/TheLearningTracksPaintingsandphotos/7THEFOURTHLEVEL/tabid/134/Default.aspx
The book and its message is worth your detailed exploration.

Photos: the mysterious rock "craters" on Mount Oxley (September 2003) and Mount Oxley in view (photos copyright Bill Chalker).