Introduction

Mutant Message Down Under is the fictional account of an American woman's spiritual odyssey through outback Australia. An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan's powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.

Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia's bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.

By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.

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Excerpt

Honored Guest

It seems there should have been some warning, but I felt none. Events were already in motion. The group of predators sat, miles away, awaiting their prey. The luggage I had unpacked one hour before would tomorrow be tagged "unclaimed" and stay in storage, month after month. I was to become merely one more American to disappear in a foreign country. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

From the Publisher:

1. Mutant Message Down Under opens with an ominous prediction: "I was to become merely one more American to disappear in a foreign country." What were your expectations as you began reading this book? When the narrator leaves her hotel and goes off in a Jeep into the Outback, what did you imagine would happen to her? Were you surprised by her willingness to relinquish her clothes and all of her material possessions?

2. Who is Ooota? How does he mediate between the narrator and the Aborigines? When he tells her that they are going on walkabout, how does the narrator respond? What explanations does Ooota give for why she must follow?

3. What did you think of the palm reader's revelation that the narrator was destined to come to Australia to meet someone who was born at the same instant as she was? "The pact was made on the highest level of your eternal self." How is this fortune borne out in the narrator's experience? Who is the person she was destined to meet, and how is this same destiny foretold by the Aborigines she accompanies on walkabout?

4. What aspects of discrimination against Aborigines does the narrator witness prior to her adventure? How does the narrator strive to improve employment opportunities for young, urban Aborigines? To what extent do her good works gain her recognition in the Aborigine community at large?

5. Why do the narrator's Aborigine companions call her Mutant? How do the members of the Real People tribe treat her at the beginning of their journey? Were you surprised by the living and traveling conditions the narrator describes? How would you characterize the relationship the Aborigines have with nature?

6. How do the Real People communicate with one another when they are separated by long distances? Were you impressed by the sophisticated techniques they have learned over time for healing? How was their collective healing knowledge put into practice in the case of the injuries sustained by Great Stone Hunter?

7. The narrator writes of the Real People: "They believe how you feel emotionally about things is what really registers. It is recorded in every cell of the body, in the core of your personality, in your mind, and in your eternal self." Did you find this vision of human experience resonated for you? What other aspects of the Real People's spirituality appealed to you?

8. The narrator writes of the Aborigines: "It is truly amazing that after 50,000 years they have destroyed no forests, polluted no water, endangered no species, caused no contamination, and all the while they have received abundant food and shelter." What are some examples of the way in which they respect their world? Were you surprised by their knowledge of life outside of the Outback?

9. When the narrator is escorted into the sacred underground area, what does she experience? How does her exposure to the history of the Real People reveal her own role in their development as a people? Why do the Real People conclude that they must leave the Earth in order to save it? What is the narrator's responsibility for securing their legacy?

10. How does the narrator change over the course of Mutant Message from Down Under? Which of her attitudes change? What kinds of experience is she willing to embrace? Would you describe her transformation as total?

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Weblinks

»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Author Interview from the publisher
»	Wikipedia article on author Marlo Morgan

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by patchilds (see profile) 08/30/09

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