It seems a trend these days that commentaries and essays about current world events quote the prophecies of the Hopi. They do so with good reason and this behooves the serious seeker to look into who these people are and what they have to say. The Essential Hopi Prophecies by John Hogue is a very good place to begin that inquiry.

In seven chapters written in readable, engaging prose, Mr. Hogue gives us an overview of the Hopi as a pueblos-dwelling indigenous people, living in the "Four Corners" region of the US southwest. In their millennia of living there, they produced a folklore that contains stories of three previous "worlds" (which I take to be instances of world civilizations) that reached their zeniths of development and then perished. It also contains predictions concerning the destruction of the fourth world (our world) followed by the birth of a fifth. This coming death-rebirth for humanity is known by the Hopi as "The Great Purification."

These predictions for The Great Purification are the main concern of The Essential Hopi Prophecies and Mr. Hogue expounds upon them with skills gleaned from long experience at interpreting prophecy. For instance, he draws from his knowledge of Nostradamus and Mattias Stormberger to make a compelling case for the Hopi predicting a nuclear-powered World War III. But even without interpretation, what I find remarkable about these prophecies is their relatively unambiguous language. For example, a Gourd of Ashes along with: "The white brother will bring the symbol of the Sun, which makes a great explosion shaking the Earth," sounds a lot like a nuclear explosion. And then descriptions of the Sun, the Swastika and the Red, are readily seen as an allusion to the World War II conflict between the West and Japan, Nazi Germany, and Communist Russia.

Interpreting such images, Mr. Hogue is able to present a list of signs that the Hopi say will precede the Great Purification. These include atomic bomb drops, World War II, the telegraph (mass communications), trains (rapid transportation), cobwebs in the sky (indicating air travel), and even the obtaining of rocks from the moon and human residence in a "teepee in the sky" (the "international" space station). There are other signs that Mr. Hogue deals with at some length, like the blue star that "Falls with a great crash." This one is not as straightforward as others and so Mr. Hogue gives us some leading speculations as to its meaning.

Another sign is "a great red power wearing a red cloak will come by a road in the air from the east." This has been interpreted, apparently by the Hopi themselves, as an influx of Buddhist thought from red-robed practitioners into western countries (and even the American southwest). Mr. Hogue makes a good case for this being indicative of the Tibetan diaspora from Chinese oppression. He also makes an interesting case for the prophecy alluding to the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (an Indian mystic also called Osho) who built a commune in Oregon (Mr. Hogue has some personal experience with that bit of history).

Other topics touched on in the book include a discussion of the Hopi "Prophecy Rock" that expresses male-female potentials in a sense that reminds me of similar thought in Daniel Quinn and Riane Eisler's works. Then there's a section on fulfilled Native American prophecies, centering on the coming of the white man. And there's a discussion on various messianic traditions in the folklore of indigenous American peoples. Such traditions that touch on, and even arguably transcend, classic western thought, belie Hollywood images of "savage Indians," though Mr. Hogue's essay on the Thanksgiving Day holiday (Chapter 4) might indicate they were not so much "savage" as "pissed off."

As you can see, there's a lot of ground covered in this little book. Even so, it's not an exhaustive text, but is rather a launching pad that can take the seeker down a number of enlightening paths. A lot of the material is based on previous works by Mr. Hogue and he refers to those via links in the text of this ebook. They are good paths to follow in your studies along with Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, which Mr. Hogue quotes.

We live in a time of converging calamities bearing towards a near-future that even nonreligious people see as apocalyptic. People seem to sense this even as they deny it with actions that say "tomorrow will be like today." The fear that tomorrow may actually be different, even much worse, prompts us to look for some sane direction through the anticipated storm. So we turn to what seers have written through the ages, looking for clues to help. Among that literature, the Hopi prophecies stand out as especially deserving of our attention. The Essential Hopi Prophecies will point you to them.