Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 233
THE CONCEPT OF GOD AMONG. THE ABORIGINES OF AUSTRALIA access to the elite hierarchy of the Aborigines. The knowledge they have acquired is mostly peripheral. He showed particular disgust at the manner the Aborigines' experience of dreams was treated and portrayed by the. Western researchers. . A tradition of the Holy Prophets, is worthy of note here because it speaks of Divine dreams to be one-fortieth part of prophethood. 4 Though this profound observation indicates that universally it is true dreams with which prophethood begins, they ultimately pave the path for verbal revelation from God, which may, when He so pleases, commission the recipient to be His Messenger. . Returning to the subject of the conclusion drawn by the Western researchers, one must admit that all are not alike in their negative attitude to the spiritual experiences of the Aborigines. Among them are scholars who possessed the clear vision and boldness to admit that Aborigines did have a well-defined faith in a Single Supreme God. Andrew. Lang in The Making of Religion³, argued that 'High Gods' was an authentic Aborigine idea, and because there were very few myths around the 'All-Fathers', Lang justifiably concluded that the myths were born after the idea of the 'High Gods. ". Peter Wilhelm Schmidt, a German Roman Catholic priest, in his twelve volume Ursprung der Gottesidee, written between 1912 and 1925, also supported Lang and asserted that myth came after the idea of ‘High Gods'. . Schmidt's work was first published in French between 1908 and 1910 in Anthropos, a new journal founded by Schmidt himself. A reprint was circulated separately under the heading, L'origine de Dieu. Etude Historico-Critique et. Positive. Premiere Partie. Historico Critique (Vienna 1910), a second enlarged German edition appeared in 1926. . Here, Schmidt explained the coexistsence of myth and 227