RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Modern African Witchcraft: Theory ,Practice, Ethics
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Modern African Witchcraft
Theory , Practice, Ethics
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Painting by Victor Ekpuk of a bird ascending on a delicate white line into a cloud of enigmatic script evoking
mysterious knowledge.
I am using the image in suggesting the idea from Nigerian witchcraft lore of witches moving across space
as birds. The bird evokes in this context, movement within and across dimensions in quest of ultimate
reality.
Contents
1. What is Modern African Witchcraft?
2. The Reasons for the Creation of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Actualizing the potential of the female centred spiritualities of Orisa cosmology in Iyami Aje concepts and the institutions of Ifa, Gelede and Ogboni.
B. Developing the possibilities of Benin nature spirituality on trees as energy batteries facilitating psychic acceleration, a process also known as initiation into witchcraft.
C. Working towards the elimination of superstitious approaches to witchcraft and their outcomes in the demonization of women and children.
3. Philosophy of Modern African Witchcraft
A. The quest for the ultimate source of possibility as a fundamental goal.
B. The pervasive presence of spirit, understood as self consciousness unrestricted to material forms.
C. The pervasive presence of cosmic force, ase in Yoruba, ike in Igbo.
D. The activation of psychic powers through nature in the quest for the ultimate reality.
4. Inspiration of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Yoruba Iyami Aje, Ogboni and Gelede theories of feminine power.
B. Benin nature spirituality as psychic catalyst.
B. Personal experience of Benin nature spirituality.
4. Ethics of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Christian principles of love of God, love of others and of humanity above possessions.
B. Ogboni vision of unity of humanity as children of Earth.
C. Unity of all beings in Buddhism, Yoruba origin Orisa, Igbo Odinani and other animistic spiritualities.
5. Practice of Modern African Witchcraft
A. The quest for the ultimate through self and nature.
B. Cultivating relationships with nature, facilitating movement within and across dimensions.
C. Using trees, forests and other natural formations as points of entry into other dimensions.
Mode of Delivery: Audio Recording
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Modern Western Witchcraft is one of the world's fastest growing religions, thriving across the West, from the UK to the US and beyond, after it was founded by Englishman Gerald Gardner.
So, witchcraft is growing rapidly at the centres of global scientific culture.
Parallels and divergences exist between pre-modern Western conceptions of witchcraft, modern Western witchcraft culture and those African ideas that may be associated with their counterparts in pre-modern and modern Western witchcraft conceptions.
Scholars often argue that the Yoruba Iyami and Aje concepts, for example, are different from Western witchcraft conceptions, referencing the greater complexity of attitudes, at times valoristic, towards women in the Yoruba ideas, and grounded in a rich metaphysics, in contrast to the demonizing of women in pre-modern Western witchcraft ideas.
The concept of ''psychic batteries'' is my own construction, interpreting my experiences with trees and forests, often those described as sacred, in Benin-City.
Such intellectual strategies are vital to moving away from superstition, which may be understood as belief that is not critically examined.
The terms I am using ''psychic'' and ''batteries'' indicate ideas about consciousness and energy, ideally precisely defined.
In developing such conceptual definitions, one is developing an approach to the beliefs about relationships between witches and trees, such as the belief that they meet on trees.
This is my interpretation of my own experience which suggests to me the belief in Southern Nigeria that witches meet on trees.
I am of the view that this experience of mine represents general human capacity activated by intimate relationship with the trees in question.
Such actions inimical to one's humanity include the suggestion to sacrifice other people to the entity, akin to the belief that witches sacrifice people, particularly their loved ones, at their meetings.
All these conclusions are based on my personal encounters, represented by suggestions made to me in the course of my explorations.
These suggestions were not made by any human being, since I work on my own nor was I initiated into these explorations by anyone, only through my own self cultivated relationships with nature.
The spirits can communicate with you mind to mind. You can be in your room and yet be in their location at the same time. You don't need a shrine or the accustomed paraphernalia of many African spiritualities. You are the shrine. This emphasis on internalized spirituality is correlative with the belief in the embodied nature of witchcraft in Southern Nigeria.
Recognizing these possibilities for good and evil, I am insisting on the centrality of Christian ethics as well as of a focus on God as central goals of this form of witchcraft.
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
This is spirituality and philosophy, not science.
Science deals with phenomena or aspires to deal with them in so far as they are empirically assessable, quantitively measurable and open to mutual verification using conventional human cognitive faculties.
Spirituality and philosophy are different, dealing with ideas and practices the nature and effects of which often cannot be quantitively measured, may represent forms of subjectivity that can't be reduced to their objective effects, deal with the more subtle and abstract aspects of the human world and material universe than the physical aspect of the material universe, even when this material universe is constituted by the human body.
This ideationally and subjectively centred universe of experience represents the core of the meaning of human existence, a core that is not replaceable by, though it is enhanced, by the enablement of science and technology.
What is being described here is not an objective phenomenon, one accessible through the senses as ordinarily operative.
It is best described as inter-subjective, in the sense that it represents a mode of perception accessible largely to those who have cultivated the necessary cognitive faculties, or, in exceptional cases, accessible to everyone in environments of particularly high density of this energy.
I am writing from experience of such development. I cultivated it through meditation, achieving a degree of what the English poet William Wordsworth in ''Tintern Abbey'' describes as 'with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony...We see into the life of things''.
My approach is a form of aesthetic mysticism, a quest for intimate encounter with the essence of being through the appreciation of beauty. My approach is inspired by the English occultist Dion Fortune on two major approaches of access to spirit as being through appreciation of nature's beauty and through ritual.
I have cultivated this aesthetic orientation through the stimulus of sacred trees, groves and forests in Benin-City. I explain the outcome of this effort through Yoruba theory of perception, which I use in subsuming related Western and Asian theories of perception in "Theories and Practices of Cognition: Sense Perception and Metaphysical Integration in Western, Asian, Islamic and African Thought."
I don't get the impression that the development of extra-sensory perception, or of mystical perception, intimate awareness of the source of existence, is an aspect of Ifa as traditionally understood. If you think otherwise, do let me know why you think so.
Expanding the traditional scope of Ifa as I understand it, I develop Ifa in terms of mystical theory and practice in "Exploring the Mystical Potential of the Ifa Divination System,'' soon to be published in a book.
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Dr. Oohay
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Could you share more on this?
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Lets take your points one by one.
Along those lines, how can what is known as philosophy be science? Is it possible to decouple science from quantitative measurement? Does any philosophy center in such measurement? Is Oohay referring, perhaps to the interface between scientific and philosophical cosmology, the kind demonstrated by Newton in Principia Mathematica and by such contemporary scientists philosophers as Paul Davies?
Newton's philosophical spirituality and Davies philosophy are not identical with their science although they are intertwined.
I anticipate Oohay's clarifications.
Between the Philosophy of Science, a Branch of Philosophy, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Science, an Academic Degree in the Sciences
I also doubt he was referring to ''What is more each science today has its philosophical aspect and when a scholar has worked extensively to impact that philosophical component of their discipline they are given the title PhD or doctor of philosophy in that scientific / liberal discipline'', a summation that needs clarification.
A PhD/Doctor of Philosophy in a scientific discipline is likely to be centred on the quantitative and mutual verificatory methods central to science.
The philosophical and the quantitative aspects of a subject may be successfully correlated through an appreciation of their points of convergence and divergence.
An example is the work of Tian Yu Cao, as in his Conceptual Development of 20th Century Field Theories, which begins with a historical survey of the intersection of the occult and science in creating the modern scientific world view, examines the implications of questions of the nature of existence for science and continues, in the body of the book, to present the quantitative techniques through which 20th century field theories were developed.
Metaphysics and spirituality are intertwined and, truly, all issues of spirituality may be discussed as metaphysical questions, questions of the character of existence.
That is problematic because the very humans who make those measurements are not themselves completely subjectable to measurement. One may measure the workings of the human body but to what degree can the mind be measured? Without the mind, of what value is the body?
The Humanities and Social Sciences as Beyond Quantitative Measurement
The humanities and the social sciences address those aspects of human existence centred in the individual mind and the workings of minds in groups. The human mind, not being circumscribable by quantitative measurement and empirical methods, cannot be fully studied by scientific methods.
The humanities and the social sciences, like the sciences, employ the full complement of human cognitive powers, from the intellect to imagination, intuition and the emotion driving the enquirer, but they employ them in ways that define the distinctiveness of their constitutive disciplines.
The belief that the scientific method is adequate to addressing all enquiries is an extremist valorisation of science differing from the orientation of not only the Western centres of modern science but the global scholarly community.
Can psychoanalysis be described as a science?
Psychoanalysis may be better described as a combination of empathetic identification, imaginative and ratiocinative analysis but certainly not a science.
Efforts to use science in studying the mind focus on methods of empirical measurement which psychoanalysis does not engage in.
Does Ifa Provide a Basis for Science in Sub Saharan Africa ?
It would be great if you were to take the trouble of examining your own assertion and trying to demonstrate its validity, subjecting yourself to the careful, patient work of trying to ground what is a potentially significant contribution to the understanding of endogenous African thought, whatever the scope of validity of your claim.
I am of the view that such sentient agents not completely circumscribed by matter- my definition of spirits- because I have experienced what I understand as communication between myself and such entities. Such communication could be telepathic, through a sense of disembodied presence or through inspiration.
I am also of the view that such entities are responsible for or related to unique atmospheres in particular environments, atmospheres that cannot be accounted for purely by material conditions, atmospheres related to what Rudolf Otto describes as the ''numinous'', described by Webster's as ''an invisible but majestic presence that inspires both dread and fascination and constitutes the non-rational essence of vital religion.''
These atmospheres can be sensed by others when the atmospheres are sufficiently strong but the attribution of these phenomena to spirits or the experience of encounter with such entities is more of a subjective and personal orientation and experience than something that can be proven to others, since it's not a material phenomenon even though it may be related to the material world.
The best one might be able to do is present how one came to one's conclusions and suggest how others may employ similar exploratory methods and draw their own conclusions from the outcomes.
Lawal provides a range of expressions of this cognitive capacity, from sense perception to imagination to ratiocinative thinking to intuition, telepathy, extra-sensory perception and witchcraft, moving from conventional to unconventional forms of perception. This theory of knowledge therefore incidentally subsumes but goes beyond the link between the brain and the sense organs.
He does not define witchcraft, but i'm intereteting it in terms of the Southern Nigerian belief that a witch can leave their body and travel elsewhere.
Do you think Ifa deals with this aspect of reality and if so why do you think so?
I developed mine through meditation, one of the oldest methods of cognitive development across the world. It works through creating resonance between the mediator and what is being meditated on.
A good number of the world's great spiritual figures, mystics and philosophers were self taught. This goes for two of my central inspirations in nature mysticism, the English poet Wiliam Wordsworth and the French poet Charles Baudelaire.
In relation to my development of modern African witchcraft, this approach is correlative with the verbally expressed view of Osemwegie Ebohon, central figure of Benin/Edo spirituality and self described witch, that ''some trees can initiate you into witchcraft,'' which I interpret in terms of the acceleration of extra-sensory perception through meditation on trees emitting powerful atmospheres, described by myself as fields of ''energy'' catalyzing the development one's psychic powers, culminating in my encounter, neither physical or imaginary, but in another dimension, as I understand it, with the woman in the strange place I found myself in as I meditated on the Ogba forest in Benin, opening my eyes to find myself back in my study where I was meditating, an experience I think explanable in terms of the AMORC/Rosicrucian term ''projection of consciousness.''
Ifa cosmology and epistemology can be described simply. You don't need to achieve the impossibility of studying all ese ifa to map this cosmology and epistemology. The scope of Ifa emerges from the expansion of these simple foundations, an expansion represented by the grounding of the 256 odu or organisational structures and active agents of Ifa on a binary principle, developed from the first binary, Eji Ogbe, into a structure of 256 binary units each representing a modification of the first binary.
Mystical theory and practice range from the simple to the complex but are often subsumable in terms of a few simple images or ideas.
Between Forms of Perception: Intuitive, Imaginative, Extra-Sensory and Mystical
Fortune was referring to what she described as the mind side of nature, nature as demonstrating consciousness in inanimate forms. That is related to but is not subsumable by intuition.
I'm puzzled by your describing ''the power of the human mind to make imaginative projections based on previously recorded matter in the mind'' as representing a ''scientific material base''.
What is the ''scientific, material base'' represented by imaginative projections? Are such projections quantitatively measurable? Are they replicable under appropriate conditions, as in a scientific experiment? When referencing ''matter'' recorded in the mind, are you referring to material forms or to non-sentient forms of energy such as electricity? Even if so of electrical impulses in the grain, can they fully explain imaginative projections?
Intuition and imagination may be related but are distinct because intuition represents a form of knowing the rationale for which is not understood by the experiencer while imagination deals more with extrapolations from the known to the unknown, from the experienced to the unexperienced.
Unjustifiable Summations?
Won't it be better also developing and sharing your own explorations of Yoruba civilization as consistently and as broadly distributed as Adepoju does his instead of limiting your commentary in the larger public media to responding to Adepoju's work?
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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Lets take your points one by one.
Philosophical Contexts of Modern African Witchcraft
Can You Measure the Mind and its Varied Scope of Activity?
Along those lines, how can what is known as philosophy be science? Is it possible to decouple science from quantitative measurement? Does any philosophy center in such measurement? Is Oohay referring, perhaps to the interface between scientific and philosophical cosmology, the kind demonstrated by Newton in Principia Mathematica and by such contemporary scientists philosophers as Paul Davies?
Newton's philosophical spirituality and Davies philosophy are not identical with their science although they are intertwined.
I anticipate Oohay's clarifications.
Between the Philosophy of Science, a Branch of Philosophy, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Science, an Academic Degree in the Sciences
I also doubt he was referring to ''What is more each science today has its philosophical aspect and when a scholar has worked extensively to impact that philosophical component of their discipline they are given the title PhD or doctor of philosophy in that scientific / liberal discipline'', a summation that needs clarification.
A PhD/Doctor of Philosophy in a scientific discipline is likely to be centred on the quantitative and mutual verificatory methods central to science.
Does the Yoruba Origin Ifa System of Knowledge Provide a Basis for Science in Sub Saharan Africa ?
It would be great if you were to take the trouble of examining your own assertion and trying to demonstrate its validity, subjecting yourself to the careful, patient work of trying to ground what is a potentially significant contribution to the understanding of endogenous African thought, whatever the scope of validity of your claim.
OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Lets take your points one by one.
Philosophical Contexts of Modern African Witchcraft
Can You Measure the Mind and its Varied Scope of Activity?
Along those lines, how can what is known as philosophy be science? Is it possible to decouple science from quantitative measurement? Does any philosophy center in such measurement? Is Oohay referring, perhaps to the interface between scientific and philosophical cosmology, the kind demonstrated by Newton in Principia Mathematica and by such contemporary scientists philosophers as Paul Davies?
Newton's philosophical spirituality and Davies philosophy are not identical with their science although they are intertwined.
I anticipate Oohay's clarifications.
Between the Philosophy of Science, a Branch of Philosophy, and the Doctor of Philosophy in Science, an Academic Degree in the Sciences
I also doubt he was referring to ''What is more each science today has its philosophical aspect and when a scholar has worked extensively to impact that philosophical component of their discipline they are given the title PhD or doctor of philosophy in that scientific / liberal discipline'', a summation that needs clarification.
A PhD/Doctor of Philosophy in a scientific discipline is likely to be centred on the quantitative and mutual verificatory methods central to science.
It would be great if you were to take the trouble of examining your own assertion and trying to demonstrate its validity, subjecting yourself to the careful, patient work of trying to ground what is a potentially significant contribution to the understanding of endogenous African thought, whatever the scope of validity of your claim.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Lets take your points one at a time.
Modern African Witchcraft as a Multidisciplinary Exploration of the Cosmos
Newton's Philosophical and Scientific Spirituality
Kant's Example and Modern African Witchcraft
Mysticism in the West since the 17th Century Scientific Revolution
Complementary Divergences in Science and Mysticism in Relation to Modern African Witchcraft
Deploying Knowledge Beyond Schooling
Between ''Bad Belle'' Arguments and Genuine Demonstrations of Knowledge
Defining and Engaging Comparative Rationalities in Relation to Superstition
Can the Scope of the Mind be Measured?
Between Empathetic, Imaginative, Speculative and Ratiocinative Procedures in Psychoanalysis
Examining the Logic of Animism/s
On Scholarly Identity as Demonstrated by Online Presence
Concepts like ''energy,'' however, may be describe qualities of the universe that may be measured. What is being measured in terms of how much energy is emitted by the sun in a day or generated by a vehicle's engine or employed by a cyclist in pumping the pedals of a bicycle, is a relationship between action and effect, not the concept that names that relationship.
The Science of the Physical Sciences and the Science of the Human Sciences
They certainly do, particularly in terms of the interpretation of economics in terms of quantifying relationships between economic factors, but what is the scope of such quantifications as analyses of human behavior? To what degree may such quantificatory methods as statistics explain the scope of human social activity?
The concept of ''science'' in the study of the humanities and at times the social sciences is not identical with that of the study of those sciences centred in physical phenomena.
Science in those other contexts may be better understood in terms of ratiocinative thought generally understood and more specifically in the application of quantitative methods in the study of some human behavioural phenomena.
At the core of these overlaps and distinctions is the question of when to apply which methodology. Whatever the decision, the humanities and the social sciences are not primarily quantitative disciplines, although economics may be understood as existing at the boundary of qualitative and quantitative methods.
These questions apply to the philosophical contexts of Modern African Witchcraft in the understanding that questions of consciousness, at the centre of this new school of thought, are not circumscribable by quantitative understanding.
Newton's Philosophical and Scientific Spirituality
Westfall's Encyclopedia Britannica article describes Newton's contemporaries as claiming that his theory of gravity was a reworking of occult ideas. Westfall and other scholars describe Newton as deeply influenced by occult and Biblical ideas in terms of both general inspiration and cosmological framework, in the process, feeding his development of both a ratiocinatively constructed and mathematically structured scientific cosmology, ultimately grounded in a rationally described but faith centred religious cosmology, as represented by his
''General Scholium'' the
conclusion of his masterwork, the Principia, where, after constructing, through philosophical and mathematical reasoning, his theory of gravity, he leads the reader into a description of God as the ultimate explanation of the cosmological structure he has ratiocinatively developed, and concludes that the knowledge available to humanity is knowledge of effects, not of the essential nature of phenomena, suggesting that the ultimate explanation represented by God is beyond human grasp though open to human intellectual construction within the limitations of human mind, a mental construction which is not identical with knowing God.
In building both a ratiocinatively constructed and mathematically structured scientific cosmology, ultimately grounded in a rationally described but faith centered cosmology beyond mathematical justification, Newton develops a philosophical and spiritual style of doing science while clearly bracketing the epistemic and metaphysical categories represented by the diverse but complementary components at play in that model.
Its a great piece of work, readily available free online. I salute across the distance of time and space the Cambridge market bookseller who sold me the book, a magnificent collection of the masterworks at of the early scientific cosmology that created modern science, Stephen Hawking's edited On the Shoulders of Giants: The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy. That bookseller knew how to collect serious books and sell them cheap. Every human habitation needs such people.
Modern African Witchcraft and Newton's Example
How does the Newton example relate to Modern African Witchcraft? Does it suggest an effort to steadily push back the scope of the empirically assessable while inspired by ultimate realities that encapsulate such endeavors? If Newton was able to interpret occult ideas of action at a distance without physical intermediaries in quantitative terms, is it possible that even phenomena that are centred in consciousness, related more to abstractions such as beauty, atmosphere and sense of presence may be rationally described even if not fully ratiocinatively analyzed?
Reflexive Rationality Amidst a Plurality of Rationalities
Reflexive rationality is the key. The epistemic coordinates of all claims must be stated and clearly examined. Nothing taken for granted. What is known but not understood should be so described. What is not known but believed in, so recognized. What is believed in but not understood, so defined. Thus the scope of human response to the universe is recognized and brought under the purview of a critical rationality that recognizes that scope without claiming to be able to adjudicate upon it all.
Between Isaac Newton and Immanuel Kant
Newton's 17th century example in scientific cosmology leads to Immanuel Kant's 18th century example in philosophical cosmology.
"What is the scope of human cognitive capacity within the varied modes of response to the universe of which the human being is capable?", Kant may be understood as asking across the range of his three major Critiques, reinforced by his complete body of works.
"In exploring the material character of the universe, what is the relationship of the mind of the explorer to the phenomena being investigated?
Does the character of one influence the other, thereby shaping the outcome of the investigation?
To what degree is it possible to understand the nature of phenomena as they are in themselves as different from how they appear to the perceptual capacities of the explorer?
Are the categories of space and time that structure human experience of materiality purely qualities of the external world?
What is the relationship between the physical character of nature and human response to nature as represented by the experience of the beautiful and the sublime?
To what degree can knowledge be gained of phenomena that are beyond the scope of the spatio-temporal structuring of human understanding of the world, such as ideas about God?
Of what significance are such ideas regardless of the scope of knowledge that may be gained about them?
In the midst of a universe shaped by such open questions, how may a person best live in the oscillation between the internal world of the mind and the external universe, in the vast distance between the immense spatial and temporal scope of the structure and revolutions of the celestial bodies and the relative minisculity of the Earth housing the relatively short lived creature known as the human being?
The body is eventually merged with Earth but what is the fate of the self that was active in that body?
Can it reach into infinity?
How may this infinity be understood?
So may be summed up Kant's response to the tension between the external world and the human mind in a culture deeply shaped by the scientific vistas of the 17th century of which Newton's world picture and investigative methods through which that picture is constructed are central.
Kant's Example and Modern African Witchcraft
How may these issues relate to Modern African Witchcraft?
The witch in this context is an explorer of the nature of reality, employing such questions within that exploration, open to varied ways of approaching them.
Mysticism in the West since the 17th Century Scientific Revolution
''Would Wordsworth have been of the mystical orientation he had if he had been born today?''
Your question suggests that contemporary mystics do not exist and do not exist because of what is understood as the dominance of science and technology on the modern mind, particularly in such industrialized countries as Wordsworth's England.
Why not Google ''mysticism'' and possibly begin with Wikipedia, likely to be an excellent resource?
On completing such foundational study, you would be better prepared to explore the classics in the scholarly study of mysticism, from William James to Maurice Bucke to Stephen Katz and the primary texts of the various spiritual traditions.
Contrastive but Complementary Goals and Methods of Science and Mysticism
One may
thereby learn that mysticism relates to the idea of an intimate grasp of
ultimate reality, an aspiration that scientists do not claim their knowledge
covers, being focused largely on the material universe in its quantifiable
qualities, leaving out questions of value, of purpose beyond that which
can be ascertained through its intellectual systems, and certainly not
venturing into claiming to direct human beings to experience unity between the
self and the Ultimate or to direct people as to how to gain access to intimate
knowledge of that Ultimate and its manner of integrating the totality of
existence, these being the inspiration of mysticism.
Even
then, scientific cosmology shares a border with mystical theories in provoking
questions of how to go beyond the cognitive barriers unfolded by science in
studying the physical universe and the human mind, to the degree that it able
to.
Tian
Yu Cao's ''Ontology and Scientific Explanation''( 2004), for example, describes the ''Quantum
Nothing'' representing the limits of scientific understanding of cosmogenesis,
a Nothing, however, that he describes as the source of the structure and
dynamism of the cosmos.
How
may one explore this Nothing, such as whatever it was that provided the
circumstances enabling the Big Bang, the cosmological explosion that generated
the universe?
Can
mysticism do it, though its outcomes are often not predictable and are largely
subjective?
20th
century paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin was also a mystic who interpreted
the material development of the cosmos, in relation to the development of
humanity, in terms of a synthesis of possibilities leading to the actualization
of ultimate possibility, a form of evolutionary mysticism on a cosmic scale.
Scientific
cosmologist Stephen Hawking's concluding line in his A Brief History of Time (
1988) is inadvertently mystical, as he aspires to knowledge of the
structure and dynamism and rationale for existence of the cosmos in terms of a few simple,
scientifically described principles, indicating a knowledge of the mind of God,
a formulation, however, provoking questions of the relationship between
understanding of cosmic structure and dynamism and understanding the character
and purposes of an intelligence behind this scientifically graspable
phenomenon, questions similar to those that influence such works as Paul Davies
The Mind of God (1992) and God and the New Physics (1984).
Western mystical systems from the 19th century onward and Asian mystical
systems, the latter building on the integratability of their expansive and
dynamic cosmologies with scientific cosmology, have significantly
operated in relation to the scientific world view. Fritjof Capra's The
Tao
of Physics: Parallels Between Eastern Mysticism and Modern Science ( 1975
with a succession of later editions) is particularly famous long these lines.
Wordsworth was an 18th century Romantic poet, described as responding, through a return to nature, to the increasingly scientifically understood universe as created by the 17th century Scientific Revolution.
Wordsworthian cosmology, however, bears closer relationship, in its cosmic sweep and abstraction, to the demythologized character of scientific cosmology than it does to the deity shaped universe of previous Western nature spiritualities.
In contemporary times, however, the resurgence of Western Paganism has seen the rise of beliefs in a deity shaped universe as well as a sensitivity to cosmic sweep and dynamism, as represented, for example by Starhawk's The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess ( 1979, third ed.1999).
Complementary Divergences in Science and Mysticism in Relation to Modern African Witchcraft
How do these issues relate to Modern African Witchcraft?
The divisions of space and time in terms of coordinates of the spatial and the temporal and the infinite in Benin Olokun igha-ede symbolism, as described by Norma Rosen and related symbolic forms in African thought, as these resonate with expressive forms from other cultures, may assist the witch as a contemplative template in seeking motion between dimensions.
Deploying Knowledge Beyond Schooling
''To answer whether any aspect of philosophy deals with quantitative measurement I would emphatically say that is the province of Logic. I took two semester long courses devoted solely to Logic. I took two semester long courses for an in depth study of Metaphysics and another two semester long courses for an in depth study of Ethics (transcripts are still available for independent verification.)''
I wonder what the significance of this declaration is in this context. How many years ago did you engage in this schooling?
To what degree have you updated your knowledge since then?
How informed are you on kinds of logic within and across disciplines, within Western, Asian and African philosophies, for example, with their distinctive developmental contexts?
What understanding do you demonstrate of divergences and convergences between imaginative and ratiocinative logic, a complementary polarity that is the foundation of all creative critical enquiry as imagination facilitates the conception and creation of the heretofore unknown and uncreated and the ratiocinative facilitates its construction and interpretation?
Is it not more helpful in a debate to share your knowledge as it may be applied to the questions at play than to declare to your readers the academic courses you have taken in the relevant subjects? This not being a CV presentation, your readers need the demonstration of your understanding, not statements of certification in being trained to understand.
One has to be careful not to be chained to an uncritical relationship with schooling, increasingly out of place in the increasingly growing global exposure to knowledge enabled by the Internet and the sharp rise in open access scholarship, developments accelerated by the rise of emphasis on online learning and virtual knowledge networks generated by COVID-19.
Defining and Engaging Comparative Rationalities in Relation to Superstition
A central approach to defeating superstition is that of demonstrating its relative and unhelpful irrationality, within the context of various kinds of rationality, in which the rationality that one describes as superstitious is unhelpful to human well being.
Are you really able to do something along such lines?
How well do do you demonstrate understanding of interdisciplinary logics as you try to navigate between science, the humanities and the social sciences in analyzing the logic of my presentations on Modern African Witchcraft?
How well do you demonstrate understanding of comparative spiritualities and their intersection with various disciplines as relevant to this subject?
Between ''Bad Belle'' Arguments and Genuine Demonstrations of Knowledge
If you believe my quoting Lawal does not employ his ideas adequately, using them uncritically, explain why.
If you believe Lawal's description of Yoruba epistemology has been superseded by later developments, do share your understanding of those supervening developments.
Can the Scope of the Mind be Measured?
Its possible to measure, even quantitively, aspects of human mental functioning. What is the scope of such quantitative measurements? To what degree can they measure emotion, human sensitivity to beauty and the total orientation of a person?
The depth of love or hate can be measured but is the concept of measurement in that sense not more metaphorical than literal? Its certainly not the same as measuring the depth of a well.
One may measure electrical impulses in the brain or the effect of certain mental states on part of the brain. What is the scope of such measurement? Can it measure the structure and development of the human mind?
Between Empathetic, Imaginative, Speculative and Ratiocinative Procedures in Psychoanalysis
That would depend on what you understand by science and the relative validity of that understanding compared to dominant and marginal perspectives on the nature of science.
Does psychoanalytic therapy work the way the chemical therapy of medication works? No.
The science of chemical therapies as a means of managing brain and emotional functioning is different from psychoanalytic therapy which is based on interaction between the therapist and the patient rather than through chemicals and medication even if those may play a complementary role in the therapeutic process in psychotherapy.
Surgery on the brain is an invasive procedure involving physically opening up the brain. Psychoanalysis is an empathetic procedure involving understanding the patient by empathetically and yet critically studying the expressions of their minds.
Does the level of trial and error and speculation this involves, even with centuries of understanding in the field, not suggest a tension between the scientific roots of Freud and the more speculative and imaginative terrain represented by psychoanalysis which he founded?
Examining the Logic of Animism/s
Wonderful.
Please do share your understanding of animism and how it may be intersubjectively verified.
But, are you not hereby lifting my ideas and presenting them as yours?
Have you not been demanding empirical, objective verification, as is central to science, while I have been developing, in contrast, the idea of intersubjective verification, citing the correspondence between my experience of extra-sensory perception leading to the identification of qualities in phenomena related to values perceived by others whose understanding are independent of mine and which I have not encountered before?
Are you able to produce such a community of knowers that validate your beliefs in animism? If you have not been able to are you therefore a fantasist?
Between you and I as animists, who is more of a scholar?
Have you made any effort to examine and present the sources and logic of your animism, opening it up to critical scrutiny as I am doing with mine, comparing it with other non-animistic rationalities, such as the scientific, as I am doing?
If you have not done any of this, how may you be described?
Most communities of knowers, however outlandish their self described knowledge may be seen by others and by dominant worldviews, validate each others beliefs.
In insisting on mutual validation of intersubjective perspectives as the primary criteria for defining knowledge, what kind of knowledge are you referring to?
Knowledge of the universe as seen by a group of people or knowledge of the universe as it exists independent of human subjectivities and biases, to the degree that such knowledge is possible?
Will you commit yourself to developing your understanding of these ideas, as Adepoju is doing in examining the various aspects of the epistemic and social logic of the community of knowledge he is developing in the name of Modern African Witchcraft?
Or will you wait as usual for Adepoju's efforts to catalyze you as you have done before now, even as you refuse to acknowledge that Adepoju functions for you as a catalyst for the development of ideas you have been unable to develop on your own?
On Scholarly Identity as Demonstrated by Online Presence
I'm concerned by the fact that you dont seem to have a significant online scholarly footprint, odd for a person who is vocally proud about his academic education and scholarly identity, using that as a point of reference against Adepoju who is often self taught in the various disciplines he has has engaged in and did not pursue an academic career though he was an academic for a time.
I can find only three scholarly publications by you and nothing on the major academic journal databases Project Muse and Sage and two uncertain references on JSTOR-
''Micere Mugo, History, and the Quest for Justice and
Human Rights''
"From Orature to Literature:The Dynamics of Translating Fagunwa and Faleti."
''Representing the Foreign as Other: The Use of Allegory in Fagunwa's Novels''
A Google Scholar search for your work does not provide more than two of those publications.
There is no Google Scholar page, no academia.edu page, no university faculty page, no personal website, no evidence of significant activity on your LinkedIn page, no Facebook page-with reference to Olayinka Agbetuyi.
Googling ''Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju'' on the other hand, and the first first hit out of 111,000 gives you the Google Scholar organized for Adepoju by the search engine, taking you to some of his academic publications, yet Adepoju is not an academic and academic fora are not his primary means of publication. Other hits on the general Google page take you to other academic publications by the same Adepoju and links to various online platforms he uses.
His LinkedIn first page leads you to his scholarly essays on that platform. A Facebook search for his name brings up various examples of his more than 1,000 Facebook essays, a good number of them serious scholarly pieces, many groundbreaking while an Amazon books search takes you to his one book on Amazon. His Amazon reviews, some quite rich, may also be accessed.
His academia.edu and Scribd accounts are also rich, as his YouTube account with educational films he has made while his more than 80 blogs on Blogger cover various disciplines, containing original and often groundbreaking essays, all these platforms led to by his central website Compcros, even though the site needs updating and some links updated particularly on account of changes of content placement by Facebook.
Olayinka Agbetuyi, on the other hand, seems to have little footprint in the world of knowledge and one of the first Google page hits for his name is to the current debate on USA-Africa inspired by Adepoju's work.
A search for Barry Hallen, whom Olayinka describes as his teacher from UI, and whose scholarly career spans decades since the 80s and perhaps before, brings up a splendid panoply on hits mapping his scholarly career, but almost nothing, in comparison comes up for Agbetuyi.
What is going on?
Thanks.
Toyin
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