Message from Forever: A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom [Hardcover]

Marlo Morgan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 1998

Following her modern classic and worldwide bestseller Mutant Message Down Under, Marlo Morgan's long-awaited new novel is a tale of self-enlightenment about aboriginal twins separated at birth and the search for roots that reunites them form opposite sides of the globe.

Once more Morgan unveils the inspiring aboriginal worldview while pointedly exposing the plight of an ancient race rapidly becoming extinct as a result of more than two hundred years of systematic discrimination.

Message from Forever follows the lives of Australian aboriginal twins who were taken form their young mother by Christian missionaries. The baby boy is sent to a huge sheep ranch, where he grows up with little adult supervision and random affection. On his own, Geoff develops his talent as an artist, producing work at a level well beyond his five years. The boy is adopted by an American minister and is raised in New England with little sense of who he is or of his cultural heritage. His sister is given only the first name Beatrice by the nuns at an Australian orphanage, where she encounters continual racism and experiences shattering looses for the first eighteen years of her life.

Upon reaching adulthood, Beatrice leaves the orphanage to work at a boardinghouse. Beatrice hungers to know more about her ancestral roots. She walks away from her life in the city to strike out into the northern desert nation, where she goes on a walkabout with a small band of Aborigines.

Geoff does not fare so well in America. As a teen, he runs away from home and slips into a life of crime, alcohol, and alienation. His addictions destroy him, and he finds himself on Death Row with little sense of how he got there. After decades of learning about people in the Outback, Beatrice leaves her nomadic life to become a "runner between both worlds." She returns to the Mutant world as a political activist fighting for aboriginal rights of citizens arrested and convicted of crimes in foreign countries, as well as a champion of the rights of adults who were taken from their native culture as children. Her life's work bring her into contact with her lost brother, though neither is aware of their relationship.

Beatrice gives Geoff the "message from forever," which outlines aboriginal philosophy and principles of good living, along with an offer to return to Australia. As we read the message with Geoff, we are challenged to stretch our concepts of identity, spirituality, and openness transcends injustice and degradation, directing us to live our lives in accordance with ageless values and simple wisdom.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A warmed-over account of an Australian woman's walkabout in search of her aboriginal heritage and the meaning of existence, this latest offering from the author of the bestselling Mutant Message Down Under is more of the same: rage over the aborigines' disenfranchisement, touchy-feely eulogies for their nomadic wisdom and dire predictions of an ecological doomsday for the civilization that did them in. When Beatrice Lake is separated the day after her birth from her teenage aborigine mother and twin brother, she begins a lifelong journey that will take her back to her ancestry and ultimately reunite her with her twin, Geoff, who is serving a life sentence in a Florida prison. After 36 years in the wilderness, Bea decides to return to civilization and repatriate Geoff. Overflowing with intimations of "Oneness," "Foreverness," "Knowingness" and such icons as the Rainbow Snake from the mythic Dreamtime, this humdrum little walk on the wild side is unworthy of Morgan's real-life concerns with the plight of the aborigines and the environment.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Based on aboriginal beliefs, a yea-saying wisdom book by the author of the originally self-published Mutant Message Down Under, which, by 1994, had sold 370,000 copies in Australia alone. In the 1930s, an aboriginal pair of twins is born in the Australian outback. Neighboring whites, English-born and established in a mission settlement, are bent on improving the lives of native dwellers: For forty years, the church had been building mission stations to house adult indigenous people extracted from the wilderness to civilize, educate, and save their souls. As ruthless as they are righteous, the white folk forcibly remove the infant twins from their native mother. For the boy, named Geoff, this means that at the age of seventy-two hours, the twin had severed all connection to his blood heritage. . . and would now become the ward of a wealthy, white rural family. Meanwhile, his sister Beatrice struggles to make do in a ghastly Catholic orphanage. Shes denied an education, shes molested by a priest, and shes compelled to have a hysterectomy at age nine before graduating to a slave-labor job in a boardinghouse. By his mid-20s, the boy--now an alcoholic--has received a life sentence without parole, having been falsely accused of a double murder. The story is then given back to Beatrice. Dropping everything and hungry to understand her origins, she heads for the outback, where she ends up living with the Karoon (first, original, unchanged) tribe of Real People for 30 years. Coming from a Christian civilization, she fears that her forebears, whom shes disposed to like, will disappoint her as models of human life. Instead, she enters their Dreamtime, becomes spiritually politicized to the Forever, and eventually reenters the outside world to work for the return of aborigines being held in foreign prisons. Morgans unflamboyant, matter-of-fact prose tends to keep euphoric philosophizing in check. Overall, her version of aboriginal life sounds much less presumptuous than New Ageism, and far more attractive. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (June 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060191074
• ISBN-13: 978-0060191078
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marlo Morgan is a retired health-care professional. She lives in Lee Summit, Missouri. Her first novel, Mutant Message Down Under, was a New York Times bestseller for thirty-one weeks and was published in twenty-four countries.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Message From Forever" is a Gift, November 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Message from Forever: A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom (Hardcover)

Dr. Darryl Pokea l998

I begin writing this review in the moment of having finished reading, "Message From Forever" by Marlo Morgan. The gentle process of transformation and return to what we really are is renewed and refreshed for me in reading this work. The book emphasizes the reverence and respect we are to show for ourselves and others. Throughout the story, we are reminded that each of us is guided in our path by the Creator if we let ourselves. For many of the characters, replacing fear with the courage to trust Oneness, models the Guidance available to each of us as we let go of fear. When we despair by separating, this work of fiction "re-minds" us of the connection we have with our Self, one another, and the Creator. Through this literary vehicle, Marlo Morgan captures the process of recovery from woundedness, the joy of real healing, and genuine transformation that we all eventually find.

So many of the paradigms that we have wrestled with from the past in these changing times are dissolving because of their failure to bring about peace of mind and heart. Even the least bit of contemplation, brings us to the realization that something is out of balance in the way we treat one another, the earth, and all the diversity within Creation. "Message From Forever," not only raises consciousness of the imbalance, but assist in looking at the many paths that can heal and transform our species towards healthy equilibrium.

One cultural paradgm illustrated in the book, is the assumption that the Aborigines, "needed to be rescued from, 'themselves'." This assumption is still made towards Native Americans and other cultures. We not only judge cultures, but we judge one another. We each have known others who do not accept us because we do not think or behave according to their expectations. Throughout the book, the Aborigines are respectful and reverent of the many talents in each human being. They respect each person's decision to express those talents, or even change and express different ones any time of their life. This is in contrast to Western culture which suggest only one career or talent for an entire lifetime.

As illustrated in the book and throughout history, prejudice, which is motivated by deep underlying fear, leads to attempts to compartmentalize people and hinder the multi-dimensional expressions of the Creator possible in all of us. These mind-sets can easly be disguised as "trying to help" others that are "misguided", "unfortunate", or as a "menance" to our culture. The mind-set can consciously, unconsciously, and intergenerationally be passed on until the fear is resisted and replace by courage. Paradoxically, we may need works of fiction to disarm our egos and defenses so that we are "rescued" from the illusions of ourselves.

The Story places the highest value in trusting emotions. This is illustrated in the story where the Aborigines teach that we are to use all six senses, including intuition. Even more profound throughout the story, is the use of the olfactory sense; a sense too often ignored in the process of discernment. Our sense of smell can be used as a powerful tool to know, not only what is healthy for the body, but also to discern whether a particular path or decision smells pleasant or repugnant. The principle illustrated in the story is consistent with our actual neurological makeup. The olfactory bulbs are located just underneath our emotional brain and have some of the deepest connections to emotions and memories. The receptors in our nose are so sensitive that they can actually sense particles as small as several atoms. This sensitivity can help us know whether something is healthy or unhealthy matter.

The lessons in learning to trust one's feelings, via all the senses, were wonderfully express throughout, "Message From Forever." The use of the senses in decisions is not fiction. Many creative people integrate this process into their endeavors, even in the technical and business world. The former president of Sony Corporation, Iwamah Kazuo, made his business decisions through his gustatory sense (sense of taste). He simply noticed whether the idea of a technical product or research was something that he could "stomach" or not. He based decisions on this sensory visceral response. The Aborigines teach that understanding and deepening the senses allows for more conscious awareness. As the story unfolds, it is taught that it is possible for all human beings to become sensitives.

The understanding that certain emotions can make us sick, is illustrated in the story by both drawing and teachings. The clarity and simplicity of the sketches and lessons associated with different types of congested emotions, reminds each of us how every thought and feeling can release chemicals which can damage the tissues of our body or restore them. The main character, Beatrice, is taught how to deal with the residues of emtions, such as hate, rage, and vengeance. She is guided, as is the reader, on how to heal the wounds created when we judge. Marlo Morgon nicely bridges these concepts and their implementation to assist the reader in understanding the process of transformation away from past hurts.

The shift from judgment to observation leaves the reader with the understanding that forgiveness is needed only when there has been judgment. When observation replaces judgment, there is no need for forgiveness. The uncondition Love and acceptance replace the cycle of judgment followed by forgiveness. "Observe without judging" is one of the Aboriginal, "you should/"thou shalt" rules for all humans.

I leave you, the reader, to discover the other nine "you should'/"though shalt" rules that Marlo Morgan presents with beautiful simplicity. As we become One with the Creator words fall away. "Message From Forever," left me feeling reverent and peaceful in my own life circumstances. This message is a gift, for all who are open to receive it

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A most thought provoking story that can change your thinking, July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Message from Forever: A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom (Hardcover)

I came across this book accidently when on vacation and found it to so riveting that I could not put it down until finished. I have told others who would appreciate Marlo's openness to the experiences that unfolded to her. How fortunate she followed...what else could she have done! She was called!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sad, Painful, Uplifting, Flawed, August 11, 2002

By 

Louis N. Gruber "Author of Jay" (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Message from Forever: A Novel of Aboriginal Wisdom (Hardcover)

A young Australian aborigine woman gives birth to twins somewhere in the wilderness. It is a time when the aboriginal culture is rapidly being decimated by well-meaning but oppressive whites. The little girl is shipped off to a cruel Catholic boarding school. The little boy is shuffled here and there but eventually ends up in America, with an adoptive family who treat him with unbelievable insensitivity. Ultimately he finds himself imprisoned on death row.
The struggles of the two children are portrayed with clear, lucid prose in the first half of the book, a tale of great sadness and pain. In the second half, Beatrice, the girl, runs off in search of her ancestral roots, and finds The Real People, a handful of aboriginies who still live in the bush and are trying to maintain the old ways. Unfortunately this part of the book is not believable. The characters are one-dimensional, too, too good; and their coversation consists of long speeches full of new age jargon. The language they use is totally out of character with the simple people they are supposed to be. The author describes a utopian society of people with great wisdom and psychic powers, set against the cruel, intolerant and bigoted white society.
At the conclusion of the book, brother and sister are reunited, at least make contact, and she leaves him with a document that tries to summarize all the wisdom she has learned from the Real People.
In fact, some of it is good. The author has some wisdom to share and it is indeed uplifting. But it is not written in a believable and coherent way. Does any of this really come from Australian aboriginal culture? Or is this Celestine Prophecy Down Under? Hard to say. The presentation is just too one-sided, too slanted, to be really convincing.