Table of Contents
Lionel Friedberg tells Paul Wallis that filming led him into African spiritual practice. He was in Northern Rhodesia as it was about to become Zambia in 1964, after a youth under apartheid farther south. Later documentaries moved among many communities. Healers, he says, name illness, find the missing, and foresee events, always with help from ancestral spirits. At one lake the crew removed their shoes, which he compares with the command to Moses. A small elderly woman predicted turns in his life that came true over sixty years. He also describes a silent craft in cloud, film he believes reached an American military study, and Zimbabwean children who ran toward a hovering object and spoke of beings with long dark eyes. The personal climax is a drumming ceremony in a round hut, where a healer paused at kidneys a specialist had called failing. Friedberg believes that night, with ordinary medicine, truly helped keep him alive. The two men later set Hebrew lines beside older Mesopotamian flood stories. This is his account of African practice, not a ranking of peoples.
Key points
- Friedberg dates his path to the end of colonial Northern Rhodesia and to years of filming African communities.
- He describes healing, searching, and foreknowledge as work done with ancestral spirits.
- A lake ritual of removing shoes and a woman’s accurate long range predictions anchor his respect for that practice.
- He reports sky objects, official interest in the film, and children who described hovering beings with elongated eyes.
- A night ceremony is tied, in his belief, to surviving a serious kidney illness alongside standard medicine.
- With Wallis he also hears biblical creation order and the flood as kin to older Mesopotamian accounts.
Short quotes
they were all getting independence and so northern rhodesia was slated to become zambia in 1964.
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
He places his early television work at the moment Northern Rhodesia was about to become Zambia. Watch at 3:34
everything is done the paradigm in africa is it's all done with the help of the ancestors
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
Diagnosis, prophecy, and cures, he says, are done with help from the ancestors. Watch at 7:56
do when we reached the lake was to remove our shoes like the biblical commandment to moses
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
At a sacred lake the crew removed their shoes, which he likens to the command given to Moses. Watch at 18:07
kidney now i have had developed a serious chronic kidney condition affecting both of my kidneys they were both
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
He had a serious illness in both kidneys before the night ceremony he describes. Watch at 1:03:01
part and it's not just a mental belief that i have nurtured in order to convince myself that i'm
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
He insists the recovery is more than a belief he talked himself into. Watch at 1:06:07
experienced their cultures their spiritual beliefs africa is an extraordinary continent it's absolutely fascinating
Lionel Friedberg, Lionel Friedberg with Paul Wallis
He calls the continent’s cultures and spiritual lives an enduring fascination from his filming years. Watch at 1:20:01
Video by The 5th Kind. Watch on YouTube.