Practical Exploration of Controversial African Spiritualities: Update on Undergoing Iya Mi Aje Yoruba Witchcraft Self Initiation Procedure
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Practical Exploration of a Controversial African Spiritualities
Update on Undergoing Iya Mi Aje Yoruba Witchcraft Self Initiation Procedure
The symbol of odu irete owonrin from the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge,
consisting of four pairs of vertical marks, inscribed in sacred iyerosun powder,
which is then mixed with specific pounded plants and ritual black soap, and bathed
with, constituting the self-initiation process into Iyami Aje as described in Pierre Verger's
Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society. The inscribed powder is here pictured
on my study table.
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
“Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge”
Abstract
An account of my experience with undergoing a procedure for self initiation into Yoruba Iyami Aje spirituality as described in Pierre Verger's Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society.
As I described in a previous post, on the 3rd of June 2022, I underwent a procedure for self-initiation into Yoruba Iyami Aje witchcraft using instructions from Pierre Verger's book Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society
( USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group; Facebook).
Who Are Iyami Aje?
The Iyami Aje are perhaps the most fearsome figures in classical Yoruba cosmology. Even the ajogun, personifications of the various biological and other misfortunes that can befall human beings, are not responded to with the combination of awe and dread in terms of which the Iyami are referenced. Death himself may be characterized in comic terms, but not the aje.
Their ears are understood to be everywhere and so must be spoken of only with respect for their awesomeness, of those who can take life silently and inscrutably, yet referred to as ''Our Mothers,'' for they represent the creative and destructive possibilities of the feminine principle.
''Do you understand what you would be getting yourself into?'' a woman I met at Awolowo Market in Lagos where I went to buy the ritual items for the initiation asked. '' Do you know what it could cost you?'' she queried, in the intensity of her belief in the foolhardy dangers I was inviting to myself.
'' I want to undergo the experience and write about it,'' I responded. ''But having undergone that experience, you would no longer be as you are now,'' she declared, before suddenly stopping her mouth with both hands, in the spirit of a person who has said more than is right for them to say.
Another woman I met the market, one of the traders in Yoruba ritual items there, exclaimed that my aspiration to such initiation was anathema, something she appealed to me to desist from in the name of Jesus, urging me to pray for the well-being of my family, alluding perhaps to the association of witchcraft in Nigeria with members of witchcraft covens spiritually feeding on members of each other’s families, leading to the deaths of those fed upon.
As far as I was concerned, it was all hearsay. One needs to investigate these issues for oneself and a self-initiation procedure, involving only bathing with certain items, looks safe and does not suggest one is committing oneself to anything one cannot examine critically when it presents itself or one placing one’s health in danger by ingesting questionable substances.
Having had some exposure, in other, related contexts of spiritual exploration, to such negative possibilities as the woman urging concern for my family counselled, as well as the positive potentials of related encounters, and being able to choose between them, I was eager to explore the claim of entry into a new spiritual identity claimed by the initiation procedure, confident that there is much of value in Iyami Aje conceptions that needs to be sifted from the negativities associated with them.
I had done this sifting in various writings. I now needed to go beyond theory into practice, as far as that was possible. I was encouraged by the trader I bought the items from in my ability to manage whatever outcomes might emerge, through her descriptions of such outcomes as being hinged on the choices I make, understanding she described herself as getting from Yoruba movies which she sees as dramatizing facts revealed by members of Iyami covens.
The Self Initiation Procedure and its Immediate Outcome
The self-initiation procedure involved the pounding of specific plants, along with a particular kind of ritual soap and powder, into a mix after inscribing particular sacred symbols on the powder and bathing with the mixture.
Having done that, I awaited the outcome.
What I have experienced so far is an elevation of mood starting from the night when I conducted the procedure and subsisting to this moment, on the 6th of June, 2022, after a superb, dreamless sleep on that night.
I feel like a person who has arrived home. Since that day, I have been undergoing an almost continuous sense of emotional balance and centring, a sense of calm wholeness, a sense of being positioned on a pivot of possibilities from which various positive developments could occur as situations unfold.
A sense of patient stability, of emotional equilibrium, of distance from issues that would normally scratch me painfully, has persisted, of life as shaped by an ultimate rightness, balanced within creative possibilities even in the face of uncertainties in life's challenges.
‘’What is going on?’’, I ask myself?
Am I simply reacting to the satisfaction of having accomplished a years long nurtured goal? Are the plants whose pounded forms I bathed with acting on me, having been absorbed through my skin as I bathed with them, as plants are known to affect mental states in unusual ways, although such plants are either orally ingested or inhaled, as with the famous Ayahuasca?
Whatever may have caused this almost euphoric state, this sense of serenity within unusual inward centring and intensification of sensitivity, without negative pride, to the value of my person, an immersion steadying me within life’s challenges?
How do I reconcile this situation with the fearsome reputation of the mysterious entities, the Iyami Aje, into whose identity the process I underwent is meant to initiate one into?
Was I using the wrong instructions? Did I purchase the wrong plants? Is it possible that I employed the correct procedure but that the identity the procedure is meant to initiate one into is different from the generally held image of the Iyami Aje? Could the Iyami Aje really exist but be different from the better known depictions of them?
Have I stumbled on a formula for cultivation of psychological wholeness, opening one into a contemplative depth, a convergence of the psyche in the vibrant eloquence of one's deepest interior, facilitating communion with unusual wisdoms yet empowering to human wholeness, an ancient developmental process covered up by superstition, its outcome lost in misunderstanding of the creative states it enables?
Does my experience relate to what may be some relative clarity of awareness persisting in aspects of Iyami Aje lore that contradict the vampiric, cannibalistic and utterly destructive character often ascribed to Iyami Aje?
One translation of ‘’Iyami Aje’’ as ''My Mothers Arcane'' suggests the uplifting maternality of this identity as an expression of cosmic creativity centred in women. A creativity expressed in biological and non-biological procreative capacity and distilled with time into powers that advance with age, this being one interpretation of this complex and controversial structure of beliefs in Yoruba cosmology.
Ideally, this initiation procedure should be accompanied by meditation, by periodic withdrawal, perhaps into solitude, to bask in the mental state following completing the process, the better to understand it, to relate it to one's usual psychological states and thereby distinguish it from them, so as to better grasp the change one might be undergoing.
This psychological condition is so enriching, so subtly but potently stabilizing, receding to the background only when I worry about life's challenges but reasserting itself when I am more in control of those issues, I wonder if I should undergo the procedure repeatedly, so as to deepen the process.
But something proceeding steadily, unobtrusively and calmly might not be so easily managed if its development were faster, as I have observed with my previous explorations of spiritual disciplines.
I also wonder if there is any relationship between the procedure I underwent and my experience with a member of my family who complained of a biting pain as they tried to sleep, upon which I placed my hand on the painful spot and prayed for a few minutes, after which they slept off immediately.
Thanks to My Guides
I thank the woman trader at Awolowo Market who carefully helped me assemble the ritual items and encouraged me by shaping my expectation of a manageable outcome to the initiation process. I thank Pierre Verger for his great work.
I thank babalawo, adept in the esoteric knowledge of the Yoruba origin Ifa system of knowledge, Bamigbaye Sunday Onifade, whose discussion with me on my plans for the self-initiation helped put that aspiration in perspective and who directed me to Awolowo Market as where I could find the initiation items.
Even though he is not himself an aje, as he informed me, he carefully explained his understanding of them as extremely powerful agents of divine justice who need to be approached with respect and sensitivity.
I thank Akin Solanke for encouraging me to undertake the experiment and for suggesting I seek understanding of the effects of the ritual procedure in outcomes different from the dramatics often associated with Iyami Aje.
I thank Oluseyi Ogunfuwa for his sensitivity to the initiative and for indicating that the resultant psychological states could be vital developments projecting entry into new realities. I thank all who responded to my earlier account of undergoing the initiation procedure.
We salute they who created or discovered these ancient wisdoms we now seek.
Also published on Facebook
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
I am informed, however, that the odu ifa inscription I have used is wrong.
If I establish that I shall repeat the process using the correct odu signature.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfNrN1kcJboFddKkKxVgd6bcJ_Nw3BJpR4xkyHyqAah0ww%40mail.gmail.com.