“God of Holy Dreaming”: A Retrospective Appreciation of an Aboriginal Prayer and Spirituality in <i>A Prayer Book for Australia</i>

Abstract 2025 sees the thirtieth anniversary of Revd Auntie Lenore Parker’s ‘God of Holy Dreaming’ being included in the Anglican Prayer Book for Australia. In this article, she explores and describes the dreaming process which birthed this prayer. The analysis which follows compares the value of dreams in aboriginal culture with the privileged place given to dreams and visions as altered states of consciousness in the foundational texts of emerging Christianity. This comparison raises the question of how such experiences may be valued within Christian theology and spirituality, not least because Western and Northern resistance to such phenomena in the modern period has made such visions seem suspect.