African Esotericism and the Challenge of Cultural Capital : Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

                                                                                   

                                                             

Edan ogboni,Ogboni sculptural evocation of men and women as children of Ile, Earth.  The sculptures are also vessels for spirit invoked into the edan to act as guides and protection for Ogboni members to whom the edan are consecrated, as described by L.E. Roach in “Psychophysical Attributes of the Ogboni Edan”, “African Arts, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1971, 48-53+80.

Such African esoteric fraternities as the Yoruba origin Ogboni and the Cross-River Ekpe/Mgbe pride themselves on their tight secrecy, keeping their systems of knowledge largely within their membership. 

What is the ultimate value of this level of secrecy?

I think Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe, whom I deeply admire, are overdoing it, and thereby denying their originating civilizations, the country where those civilizations are located, Nigeria, people of African descent everywhere and the world at large the vital cultural capital represented by their achievements.

Cultural capital, in this context, refers to the significance of the achievements of an individual or group to humanity's efforts in  adding value to the raw materials provided by nature.

The kind of value represented by Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe is ideational, artistic and performative.

These groups embody ideas about the meaning of existence and humanity's role within the cosmic scheme. They dramatize these ideas through powerful visual, verbal and vocal imaginative creations, creativity significantly demonstrated through ritual and other forms of symbolic action.

Ekpe/Mgbe has developed one of the world's richest and perhaps most complex multi-expressive symbol systems, covering visual and gestural art and object organization but no more than 1% of this knowledge is readily known to the world from the various general information  and PhD theses as well as book articles  I have read online about the group. Ekpe/Mgbe shares with the world its rich masquerade tradition, and its Nsibidi art and script are well known, but the meaning of much of its gestural symbolism is unknown and its corpus of ideas is largely kept carefully shielded from the public while I am yet to see any images of its art of organizing objects. 

Ogboni is the Yoruba version of veneration of Earth, particularly strategic in an age of increasing ecological awareness. Their metal art often demonstrates an absolutely unique handling of the human form,  achievements evident in the various scholarly essays I have read about them, but of their rituals and the individual perspectives of their members on the ideas and practices of the group, there is almost total silence, except for the particularly rich fragments from such an Ogboni initiate as Susan Wenger in her books and interview/s  and the brief summations by Olori Abiyeola Olakisan and Oba Ogboni Abalaiye Agbaiye, among others visible online.

For Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe, I am yet to read any member's account of their journey as an initiate, no matter how carefully pruned such an account might be.

These extensive restrictions imply that most of the world is deprived of what these systems have to offer since everyone cant aspire to join these groups, even though the knowledge they have developed has significant value for everyone as demonstrations of humanity's development of the possibilities provided by nature.

Is it not more realistic to preserve a core of secrecy while exposing a good part of other knowledge and practices to the world?

Asian martial arts were significantly cultivated by monks but have now become part of global culture. The Indian discipline of Hatha Yoga, physical Yoga, is part of the larger spiritual discipline of Yoga, but has become integral to ideas about human well being. Alchemy was once an esoteric Western practice, but has deeply shaped science and imaginative literature.,

 

 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju:

Re - their "this level of secrecy"

 If they were to reveal these precious secrets to you - and you were to broadcast them to the whole world, then you would have robbed the Ekpe of their mystique.  

You’ve got to respect that. It’s that simple. 

There are many such Brotherhoods. 

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

do you remember camara laye's lament, pseudo lament, in l'enfant noir, where he revealed the secrets of his initiation, and then concluded melancholically, these are secrets--but do we have any secrets any more?

the secrets are not the esoteric knowledge, whose time has passed; but rather the times themselves in which such secret might have held a meaning, and if you want to posit a power, only in those times.

there is a time when such knowledge and power are gone--they can't exist out of their world, their context.

the end of achebe's Arrow of God was on that theme; the key scene in Cisse's Finye, with the gods speaking to the old man, saying, our time has passed, now it is up to you; the same in sembene's Emitai.

all those texts i am citing are 70 years or 60 years or 50 years old.

i want to say, it is time to accept that modernity--not Europe, not the West, not France--but African modernity means a changed world, and there is no corner of Africa where that change in knowledge has not prevailed.

sure people pay their dues to the magic man; they ought to stop, their money should be spent on other things they need.

maybe i should add that rather than dismissing the ogboni, what i am saying presents the only way to save them. i read them like alan roberts's reading of mouridism, with profound respect. the only way such respect can work is to move within the world we now collectively inhabit. that is hard for some who want to privilege the we into their own small dispensations; but that will only augment the alienation.

anyway, enough for now.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Esotericism and the Challenge of Cultural Capital : Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe

 

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Thanks Cornelius.

From Social Esotericism to Public Enrichment

Much of what is now central to global human culture, as I referenced in my post, was once esoteric in terms of what I call 'social esotericism', the limiting to particular persons or groups,  of information that has value beyond that group, to give a rough  description of this idea.

Classified information in various domains, such as  technology and government, is esoteric in that sense.

My focus, though, is on philosophical and religious/spiritual esotericism, dealing with questions of the meaning of existence, of cosmic structure and dynamism and how to shape those configurations.

Those who wish to keep the knowledge they have developed exclusive to their members may be justified in doing so for various reasons, but the scope of secrecy needs to be recurrently reviewed for the good of the esoteric group as well as for the good of society.

Such creativity has proven fundamental to the development of the widespread culture of writing in various civilizations and the spread of other bodies of knowledge, as in mathematics and healing and is critical to the success of the West in developing alternatives to its dominant religion, Christianity, thereby unleashing the cultural harvest known as modern Western esotericism and new versions of Paganism and witchcraft, creative responses to enduring human needs and challenges.

The Significance of Ogboni in Ecosystemic and Humanistic Thought

In today's world, environmental concerns and  the ecosystemic character of the world and the cosmos are increasingly understood as strategic,   which the unity of humanity is increasingly appreciated,  the unity of men and women as children of Earth, is increasingly dramatized, as demonstrated most tellingly in the current Coronavirus pandemic.

These are values at the core of Ogboni, yet classical Ogboni, Ogboni as it traditionally exists between the older groups represented by the Aboriginal Ogboni and newer groups represented by the Reformed Ogboni Society, to the best of my knowledge, is silent on these subjects, meaning that a central African contribution, the central Yoruba contribution, to these questions of perennial global significance  is little known    because classical Ogboni is yet to develop the culture of its members sharing its philosophical insights with the world.

The only person known to me as striving to demonstrate the global significance of Ogboni  thought is myself, as demonstrated by my work visible at "My Journey in Developing Universal Ogboni Philosophy and Spirituality, a New School of the Ogboni Esoteric Order"    (Facebook; academia.edu PDF), a person who has never been a member of Ogboni, relying on the relatively little but strategic information available in the scholarly literature, taking forward the existing scholarship providing insight on Ogboni ideas and practices by interpreting and applying to broader concerns the significance of this painstakingly won understanding shared with the world by such intrepid scholars as Peter Morton-Williams, Henry John Drewal and Margaret Drewal, Babatunde Lawal, Hans Witte, Dennis Williams, John Pemberton III, among others.

In a world keenly sensitive to each people's contribution to the global cultural patrimony, cross fertilized by this patrimony in creating a globalized universe, Ogboni verbal art, represented by its ritual, is virtually unknown, its visual art is significantly studied, but it exists outside the cultural gaze of even those in its native country, the field of ideas about Ogboni in Nigeria being taken over largely by fantasies of evil, dubious wealth schemes and ignorance of the rich and complex history of one of the world's rich combinations of social organisation  and spirituality.

Ekpe/Mgbe and the Scope of Symbolism

Studies of symbolism enrich humanity's understanding of how the universe may be interpreted. Investigations of the relationship between abstraction represented by the symbol, and concreteness, dramatized by the material form through which the symbol is communicated, drive entire disciplines, in fact, are central to all communication systems, because communication from natural language to mathematics to art, is symbolic.

Ekpe/Mgbe have developed Nsibidi, a symbol system that correlates human gestures and movement, representational, semi-representational and abstract graphic art and object organisation, and a rich masquerade tradition, a body of knowledge rich in  philosophical, artistic and spiritual values, but I get the impression that the public is allowed to perceive largely the entertainment factor in these displays while the hermeneutic logic, the symbolic meanings of individual elements and their interrelationships are largely restricted to members and even then, revealed in stages of ascent within the group.

I understand this to be the case in spite of what I have learnt about Ekpe/Mgbe, enabling me compose the essays constituting  the Nsibidi/Ekpuk Philosophy and Mysticism : Research and Publication Project ( Facebook; academia.edu PDF).

Rethinking the Flexibility of Esoteric Systems

What is the ultimate value of rigidly pursuing this policy?

What do we gain by keeping up to 90-95% of such knowledge systems as Ekpe/Mgbe and Ogboni secret?

Can the value of secrecy not be maintained by enlarging the scope of what is shared to the public while keeping some rather than most of this knowledge exclusive to members?

The challenge faced by the cultural marginalization of classical African spiritualities is another factor that necessitates a rethinking of the scope of secrecy in African esoteric orders. 

Western modernity, represented by Christianity, science and technology and new educational and economic systems imply that the older systems of knowledge development represented by such African esoteric systems as Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe could increasingly have fewer and fewer people willing to immerse themselves in the discipline required to master their various levels of symbolism and application, meaning that these intricate bodies of knowledge could be in danger of dying out in a world in which their relevance to perennial human concerns is unknown, with the situation being compounded in Ogboni my massive misinformation associating Ogboni with inhuman magic and dubious forms of wealth creation.

Africans spend huge amounts of money studying in the West, at times going to the West to study Africa, while Western scholars travel to Africa to study Africa, yet some of the most highly developed of African knowledge systems conceal within a relatively small group of people, bodies of knowledge that constitute organic models of the cosmos elaborated in terms of detailed expressive forms, from ritual to visual and verbal art.

What is the ultimate value of that?

With the Chinese annexation of Tibet and the flight of many Tibetan monks, including the head of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, into exile,  the Tibetan religious hierarchy is described by one account as realizing that if they sustained ancient ideas of esotericism in relation to their intricately developed system, one of the richest  in history, this cultural wealth might slowly become diluted or become extinct  and so they allowed the dissemination of what has become a flood of literature on Tibetan Buddhism, even as the monastic systems continue to thrive, even in the West and in Asia, outside Tibet.

In a different but similar context, Christian monasticism thrives in  its seclusion from the world,   but its finest flowers are well known to the public, such as the work of the mystical writers St.John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, even as  members of the public are allowed to have retreats within the monastic walls.

In fact, the literature on African spiritualities as practised in Africa over the centuries is understandably weak in first person accounts, in the absence of a writing culture in earlier times and from my random explorations, I wonder how much exists even now in these spiritualities of first hand accounts like the work of Patrice Somme?

The story of African spiritualities still needs strategic forms of telling to unveil its full power and the creative rethinking of African esotericisms is crucial to that.

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

To Kenneth,

How factual  is it that 

''the secrets are not the esoteric knowledge, whose time has passed; but rather the times themselves in which such secret might have held a meaning, and if you want to posit a power, only in those times.

there is a time when such knowledge and power are gone--they can't exist out of their world, their context.''

'' it is time to accept that modernity--not Europe, not the West, not France--but African modernity means a changed world, and there is no corner of Africa where that change in knowledge has not prevailed.''

''sure people pay their dues to the magic man; they ought to stop, their money should be spent on other things they need.

maybe i should add that rather than dismissing the ogboni, what i am saying presents the only way to save them. i read them like alan roberts's reading of mouridism, with profound respect. the only way such respect can work is to move within the world we now collectively inhabit. that is hard for some who want to privilege the we into their own small dispensations; but that will only augment the alienation.'' 

 I would like to understand this better

  ''the only way such respect can work is to move within the world we now collectively inhabit'' 

On the Complexity of Modernity 

Does modernity in any form preclude the contemporary and timeless significance of such esoteric systems as Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe?     

Spirituality and philosophy are always powerful forces across the world,  in their  practice, their theorizing and their  fictional expressions.

The Western magical tradition is perhaps the most vigorous in the world, fed by an industry of writers, books and magazines, specialized publishers, academic programs, festivals, sacred places, pilgrimages, famous figures etc, all thriving within and symbiotic with the scientific and technological enablements of Western modernity.

This symbiosis between scientific and technological culture and spiritual cultures is demonstrated by scientists thinking and expressing their ideas in terms formerly exclusive to spiritual thinkers and the spiritual workers using science and technology as fundamental to their work, from such basic enabalemnts as books and computers and possibly to the creation of contemplative and magical systems based on computational and digital systems.

Within this efflorescence of public study of esotericism, of exposure of esotericism to widespread practice, represented by the study of Western and Jewish esotericism as entire academic industries, of the explosion in such forms of spirituality as Western Paganism and modern Western witchcraft, African esotericisms such as Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe remain socially localized even when exported to the US, closed to interaction with the wider world.

What can Ogboni contribute to appreciation of humanity's unity as children of Earth, its philosophical core, to explorations of relationships between creator, creation, purpose and life in aesthetics, ideas central to their metal art?

How  can Ekpe/Mgbe enrich understanding of humanity's development of symbolism?

Humanity is always fascinated by ideas about the supernatural,  by ideas of transgression of  the known laws of nature, by explorations of the scope of human potential, as represented by such literary genres as magical fantasy, demonstrated by the spectacular success of the  Harry Potter series of novels and the constant reworking of the idea of alchemy in Western literature, expressions of central aspects of cultural capital.

What may African esotericisms contribute to such imaginative explorations of possibility, engaging the boundaries of the probable and the impossible through imagination? 

How can such opportunities be explored if these systems are not better known?

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Toyin.

The tight secrecy is the age old patent/cooyright of organisations like Ogboni.  Period!  Without it people like you will wangle some kind of "magomago" self- initiation ( which you have tried several times on this forum) and sell intellectual property that does not belong to you for gains in the name of collective patrimony.

Thus their is knowkedge for initiates and as Oga Cornelius maintains there is another level of knowledge for outsiders.  No matter how you trawl online you will never find such knowledge there unless you join and are initiated and partake the vow of silence on such knowledge.  It is deliberate.  They are not stupid.

A parallel exists in today's educational world.  If you join a university online course ( as I did in graduate school and many are required to do now because of COVID19) you will not be given the password to access the course unless you pay your school fees and you will not be able to read the requisite materials and submit assignments online.  Thats how the professor and the university make their livelihood.  That ought to be obvious

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Oga Agbetuyi,

As long as you insist on bringing bolekaja-Nigerian pidgin for 'come down, let us fight', tactics to a serious discussion about the  expansion and contraction of access to cognitive property in relation to its ripple effects on  cultural capital in the context of  intersections between esoteric and exoteric knowledge, particularly in the African context, you are on your own.

When you are ready for a serious discussion, perhaps after reading what I have written so far, I am here, as usual.

I would have loved to expound on the diachronic-across time- and synchronic- contemporary- differences between the globally dominant Western academic system and various kinds of esotericism, Western, African and Asian, referencing the opening up of such Western esoteric systems as the Pythagorean, the contributions of such Western esotericisms as alchemy, Rosicrucianism and Hermeticism to modern Western science and philosophy,  the role of newer esotericisms as the Golden Dawn to modern Western culture, and the development of Western esotericism as a full fledged academic discipline with its own academic departments, programs, journals, conferences, academic chairs and book industry, with same for Jewish and Western esotericism,  in contrast to the void left in African cultural space by the extreme secrecy of its esoteric systems.

But...heee...heeee 😎 

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

For me to respond significantly to you, you need to change the tone and orientation of your response, taking it to the level of a scholarly rejoinder.

You would need to explain why the scope of secrecy in Ogboni is critical to ownership of their cognitive property in contrast to the possibility of enriching society through the relaxation, rather than outright elimination, of the scope of that secrecy.

You would need to explain why you think my efforts at developing self initiation systems are fraudulent.

We could then proceed to examine the relationship between the widespread dissemination, through books,  journals, websites,  open lectures, talks, and conferences, of the content of academic disciplines in the Western educational system and the systems of gate-keeping in such systems, such as academic programs and journal databases available only to paid subscribers and the similarities and differences between this system and various kinds of esotericism, such as that of the Western school AMORC, which runs  publicly and freely accessible books,  journals and websites while keeping its central teaching organ, its monographs, exclusive to paying subscribers and such systems as Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe that practice a much stricter seclusion of knowledge, with Ogboni interacting little with the external community in terms of sharing its knowledge while Ekpe/Mgbe seems to emphasize the sharing of its entertainment systems, downplaying the public view of its philosophy and spirituality.

In such a  spirit, we are better positioned to contribute to the development of knowledge arising from rethinking the known.

thanks

toyin

On Sat, 21 Mar 2020 at 10:39, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

hi oluwatoyin,

it isn't factual. it is my speculation on how we think of such forces, within our social structures. social structures are amenable to different kinds of beliefs, thoughts; different orders are propitious for some, and not others. we don't generally believe in witches, in most parts of the world, but some do in others. why is it different? either the social orders are different, or some know this secret knowledge and others don't. well, i opt for the social order being an explanation. social order isn't quite enough: the material order, the order of knowledge, which change, like the way it is described in Foucault's The Order of Things.

the order of our knowledge changes beliefs. how could they not?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 4:23 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

oh, olatoyin, i see i missed what you wrote below where you quote me.

generally speaking, i think your take on the value, and existence, of mysticism is a nice one. i would offer a few small critiques, or observations.

first, you are conflating a whole lot, too much i feel, under the heading of spiritual or mystical. you probably need to be much more precise about what these categories all entail.

a critique, from the modernist perspective, is that you need to allow room for where such beliefs carry threats to others. witchhunting in zambia, killing albinos, or even eating body parts of albinos, and the like ought to be condemned. i recently read a study (in a piece that was sent to african studies review) about the large numbers of people in ghana who set aside a bit of money every month to pay their "witchdoctor," to ward off evil.

if this is wrong, you might say, how is it different from tithing, or donating to churches and synagogues or zadak and the like in mosques. in my synagogue people offer prayers to heal the sick. and why should we bother critiquing these practices?

i don't really think there's a point in getting excited about condemning any practices or beliefs, unless they cause harm to others. using beliefs to kill others is abominable, even if one believes such "sacrifices" are necessary. that has to end, not to salvage modernism but on moral grounds.

but where i do want to disagree with what i think you are saying about esoteric systems or knowledge is that they are static systems. i am not really interested in seeking value in any notions of "truth," i.e., invariable systems. including notions of science as absolute. we once thought newton offered absolute truth about the world; turns out not, it is relative (i.e. not true on level of particles or quantum).

we need to be open minded, to all systems of knowledge, only to the extent to which they offer us values, and most do, even if only aesthetic or affective.

my ideal for this is alan roberts's wonderful book on sufi Mouridism, its value, beliefs, and beauties, which are considerable.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 4:23 AM

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Lord Connoisseur Olayianka Agbetuyi & Scholar Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

I intuit our predicament. My own personal & sympathetic understanding of the situation transports me back in time to early February 1970 and to the Institute of African Studies, Legon, Ghana, to the genesis of my own dilemma, the dilemma that is generating my current sympathy and understanding. Apart from a short spell at the Excelsior Fraternity I had never in my life been a neophyte in anything remotely like a “Secret Society” or some cloak and dagger skulduggery. I was a total and complete novice to cultural anthropology, with a background in English studies with philosophy as a minor, preceded by studies in Greek and Roman Culture and a smattering of political systems.

 On that fateful day, some date in February,  Eric O. Ayisi was  waiting for me to deliver on the assignment “The  Rites of passage in the Poro Society among the Mende of Sierra Leone.”. I thought that it was a cruel assignment that had been unnecessarily imposed on me and that my discomfiture about the matter was commensurate with my prior complete ignorance about the Mende or indeed about the Poro or the Wende Society, since I am not of Mende ethnicity and secondly, I had not belonged to either of them. I think that Ayisi’s presumption was that I was of Mende ethnicity and that he was therefore going to be regaled about life in the bush, directly from the horse’s mouth, the horse in question being yours truly. Fact is that nothing could have been further from the truth. To make matters worse and unbeknownst to me, just at that particular moment and sitting in the Seminar room to listen to what I had to say  was his special guest, Kenneth Little , the numero uno expert on the Mende, the veritable author of  “The Mende of Sierra Leone” – who had just arrived from Merry England and was visiting the Institute, for which reason ( the august presence of our famous guest)  also present in the seminar room, considering the size of the room, there was a large crowd assembled there to listen to what I had to say and the inevitable questions and discussions to be initiated by Dr Little,  and among the audience were the other Ogas of the Africana faculty, Abiola Irele , Jawa Apronti , the director Kwabena Nketia himself, Richard Greenfield the Secretary at the Institute, was the only major Oga that wasn’t present to ( I presume) listen to some exciting first-hand account, some, uncensored witness testimony about the inner workings of  Sierra Leone’s Poro Secret Society.  To my chagrin and my eternal sadness, they were all terribly disappointed. Had I been Mende and a Poro initiate and adept, I would have carried the day. In fact, my fame would have probably spread beyond the confines of our little institute.

 Back in those days, there was no internet, no digital libraries, not even the sometimes-unreliable Wikipedia to begin with. And the library was not that well stocked either, because all that I could find about the Poro was what Professor Little had written in his “The Mede of Sierra Leone.” It was not the day of the cell-phone either, in which case I would have phoned my senior friend  Arthur Abraham for some brotherly succour. Since that terrible day, I have of course gone deep into the mystery - and what I know remains secret, dear Adepoju.

 By the way how come you don’t mention Ulli Beier and Susanne Wenger ?

Today,  as an investigative journalist, researcher,  initiate, practitioner, Oluwatoyin is in a much more advanced category  in terms of  consummate interest, commitment,  first-hand experience, and  - with a burning desire for ultimate fulfillment – all he has to do is to take the next step in   - into the mystery  - just as  Van Morrison sings  : The Mystery

“Let go into the mystery

Let yourself go

You've got to open up your heart

That's all I know”

 So, somebody wants to attain to what the Sufis call Al-Insan al-Kamil ?

A certain Dr. Azmayesh himself an accomplished Sufi guided by our Qutb  has written a few books about this.

However, reading about it, or writing a Ph.D. about Buddha enlightenment is not the same as having experienced it, is not the same as being it and knowing it.

 There is the classic case of Carlos Castaneda, and perhaps Oluwatoyin  Vincent Adepoju could pull off something like that if only he set his mind to it. To the glory of the Ogboni, Ifa, Ekpe ; Nigeria, Africa, etc

 In the secret societies, cults, brotherhoods, that I know of,  let’s say that you are initiated at level 1  -  not necessarily at level 1 , Allen Ginsberg for example, says that his heart chakra was already open ( alive) so he didn’t start at the Muladhara chakra level  -  and I know that when the Muladhara opens, you will know that the Mulhadara has kick-started its journey simply because it’s such a cataclysmic experience such as what I experienced in India in 1977 – there was no mistaking it, even if previously  all kinds of light phenomena may have deluded you  into thinking that you were  already enlightened (like the Buddha)

Secondly, there are several levels of initiation, so if you haven’t been initiated at level one (kindergarten) how do you expect to be initiated into level seven - or to even understand level 2?

 I’m told that with some schools of Kabballah at level 2, the angel asks you for the password, to get to level 3, and so on until you get your Ph.D. in heaven at level eleven.

“Well, I don't know, but I've been told

The streets in heaven are lined with gold

I ask you how things could get much worse

If the Russians happen to get up there first…”

 

 

On Sat, 21 Mar 2020 at 10:39, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29823624000579438255D2A2A6F20%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

thanks Ken.

is an esoteric school or esoteric thought necessarily a static system?

Between Dynamism and Fixity in Conceiving Awo, Esoteric Knowledge in Yoruba Thought

That relating to the metaphysical foundations of existence, which is not readily grasped by conventional perception, is the esoteric, awo,  as understood in Yoruba thought.

Can it be fixed by human understanding? Can its character be legislated? How readily definable is it?

My exposure so far, as with Awo Falokun's superb summation on the awo in  "Obatala: Ifa and the Chief of the Spirit of the White Cloth",  and Susanne Wenger's analysis of the cognate Yoruba concepts èèwọ̀-taboo and  àṣírí, 'secret' in A Life with the Gods in their Yoruba Homeland ( 1983, 199),  in "The Oshun Grove of Oshogbo" in Character is Beauty: Redefining Yoruba Culture and Identity ed,Wole Ogundele, Olu Obafemi and Femi Abodunrin, (2001, 35),her review of Harold Coulander's Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes  (  African Arts, Vol.7, No.1,  1976, 74-76, 74) can suggests awo can be be approached in terms of mystery beyond full human grasp rather than of ideological control, although it can also be used in that context to block enquiry and creative change, the tension between ideas of the dynamism and unstructured character of spirit as opposed to the human need for categorization and control being central to the history of spirituality,  a tension described by Protestant theologian Paul Tillich in terms of the tension between the Protestant and the Catholic Principles.  

    The Intrinsic Range and Intercultural Scope of Yoruba Epistemology

While noting the existence of a variety of esotericisms across the world, it may be argued that epistemic esotericism, the understanding of access to knowledge as a specialized activity requiring moving beyond conventional cognitive approaches,  is at the core of human knowledge, a spectrum represented by  Yoruba epistemology as described by Babatunde Lawal in "Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art" (The Art Bulletin, Vol. 83, No.3, 2001, 498-526, 516) in terms of categories that may  be be organised into a continuum ranging from conventional perception represented by visual cognition,  memory, intention, thinking, critical analysis, insight, intuition, imagination, empathy, benevolence,  malevolence  and dreams   to unconventional cognition  demonstrated by trances, telepathy, hypnotism, prophecy, divination, healing,  extra-sensory perception to witchcraft, the last item of which he does not define.

This perceptual progression can be expanded with the help of Anenechukwu Umeh's account of Igbo Afa epistemology in After God is Dibia: Igbo Cosmology, Healing, Divination and Sacred Science in Nigeria,which employs similar  broad categories as the Yoruba example provided by Lawal but culminates in a mystical perception of the unity of spiritual and material existence, a unificatory perception similar to that described by Mazisi Kunene for  Zulu cosmology in Anthem of the Decades.

In being grounded in corporeal perception, and moving from that point to embrace a broad  spectrum of cognitive possibilities, the Yoruba framework is open to both critical flexibility and perceptual range,

It can integrate Plato's and Aristotle's emphasis on logic in the search for truth as well as their aspiration to grasp the unity of being in an ultimate zone of possibility.

It can subsume  Western Romanticism, exemplified by William Wordsworth,  and Symbolism, as in Baudelaire's Correspondences,  in their understanding of the mystical possibilities of sensory perception. 

It could therefore integrate various points of emphasis in global cognitive history, an open mindedness ' to all systems of knowledge, only to the extent to which they offer us values', as you put it.

Refining the Moral and Technical Logic of African Esotericisms

As for conflating different possibilities, one certainly needs to frame one's project in a manner that protects against inflaming the demonisations carried out in the name of spirituality, all the more reason why the critical study of African esotericisms is of strategic value for social health. 

When the Witchcraft Act, instituted to protect people against the barbarisms of witchcraft accusations, was repealed in England, Gerald Gardner started modern Western witchcraft, described as one of the fest growing religions in the West.

Africa needs something like that, to help mobilize the positive elements in African witchcraft beliefs and eliminate the negatives, moving, like the West has done,  from the misogynistic character of pre-modern Western witchcraft beliefs to the phylogynistic culture of modern Western witchcraft, positive and negative possibilities conflated, for one, in Yoruba iyami and aje conceptions, the closest to the image of the witch as it has developed from the past to the present in Western history.

It is also vital to openly discuss the logic of spiritual systems, critically examining them for their moral significance and practical effectiveness, something the Western magical community is good at as evident from their rich online activity and density of publications.

Along such lines, its vital to openly examine the logic of such activities as human sacrifice, why it is believed to work, and examine its moral and technical implications, its ultimate effect on practitioner and society and the need to find alternatives and the pros and cons of these alternatives, as I do very briefly in "Human Sacrifice: Incidence, Logic, Effects and Alternatives", an approach that acknowledges the need to appeal to human responses to superior value in pursuing goals rather than dismissing the methods in question because of their  moral negativity.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM6PR12MB34197742EA19E706735BF6ECDAF20%40DM6PR12MB3419.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

deeply intriguing Cornelius.

it would be wonderful to integrate the various African esoteric orders.

could one do a Castaneda without claiming for fact what is imagination?

im doing a series that began with a fictional account but continues with true life experiences, at least for the two being drafted.

ever since i began to experience invisible presences when working on Ifa in an academic context i've begun to wonder if esoteric orders are not both spiritual as well as physical configurations enabling one gain inspiration from the spiritual identity even if one is not an initiate of the physical form.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP_daTFsdFUHNKLzuh49X92i8rbRNknPEPjGRNv6hyx6kg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

They say that “Charity begins at home. “

In this very forum, and in the rest of the African Diaspora West, there are advocates such as dear Baba Kadiri who would feel much more comfortable and more completely at home with the home-grown religion than with foreign language/ foreign culture importations from the Middle East and Babylonia.

There’s the avalanche of news that the African American Sistren currently living in Bible America are flocking to Indigenous African religions in droves.

The very first time in my life, that I became interested in religion was at the Institute of African Studies library where I read an article by Ulli Beier on Yoruba Sculpture - in connection with the Agemo phase  ( in conjunction with dance, used by Soyinka as a theatrical flashback technique)  - that - and a for me very inspirational, albeit a little heady and quite heavy M.A. thesis stored in that library, about Soyinka’s use of cyclical time. Interestingly enough, if my memory serves me right Sweden’s Stefan Jonsson  (great guy) also wrote an impressive thesis on cyclical time  -  which I thought was old hat at the time, maybe because my attention was so unevenly divided because I was immersed in the poetry of Derek Walcott, when I read it.

I’m not sure that you wouldn’t prefer a lucrative academic position; but I think that being as flexible as you strike me as being, I’m sure that you are more adventurous than that, and you probably value your freedom too. What most people are looking for (especially big booty, is security.)  I strongly believe (intuit) that when someone with your background and your passionate intensity is properly initiated into the deep Ogboni - you will do for the Ogboni  what the Hindu proselytisers in the West did and are still doing for Hinduism  - although, unfortunately, some of it is and has been duly commercialised, to feed the materialistic Wild West’s need to escape from its anxiety (it’s is still “the age of anxiety”),  to escape from the materialism and the ennui. The Hindu commercials and marketing strategy is simple: “Give me your money and I will give you peace of mind!”

When I returned to Sweden from Nigeria, I found that Emanuel Fessah , my friend from Eritrea, with whom I had attended some retreats with the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche  - (of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism)  - had become a lama,  one of the first African lamas in the Diamond Way of Tibetan Buddhism.

 That’s how it is and I daresay what’s demanded of you – “to integrate the various African esoteric orders”? -  perhaps the eclectic/syncretic stuff could come later, but first, to move away from the superficial trimmings, claptrap and butterfly decorations, pronunciations etc and to dig deep where you’re standing – just like a diamond digger, with sincerity as the main weapon.  That’s what happened with me and Judaism.  Digging and digging, and after some time I could smell the bone, and then the dog started wagging its tail in anticipation, and continued digging and digging… still digging…others prefer the term “ascension” ascending…

You muse, “could one do a Castaneda without claiming for fact what is imagination?”

Well, my understanding is that the imagination – especially the power of visualisation has to be trained. I suppose that if you can visualise something, then you can (almost) materialise it. About the imagination, do you remember Castaneda asking Don Juan, “Did I fly?”  - was he actually flying – and Don Juan’s answer, yes and no?

I’ve known Rivers ?

The African Diaspora West is homesick, nostalgic, longing back to the Garden of Eden. (As you know, I’m “a tribalist”. If I had spent four years in Western of Nigeria – Yoruba home turf, instead of the East, or up North, I’m 101% sure that that’s where I would have remained, through the sunshine and rain, through the thick and the thin, during Abacha and the reign of terror.

 The African Diaspora – and that includes all of Africa-America, Afro-Europe, the Afro-Caribbean, the Africans in South America is homesick and thirsty – and that’s where you come in as a redeemer.   The Christian Missionaries won’t like it, the Muslims will hate and deride it as “Shirk”  - but if you are brave and committed and truly motivated, that’s where you come in as the catalyst of the spiritual return and regeneration and as the great explicator, the medicine man, the witch-doctor, the Juju High Priest, the Ogboni agent,  the dispenser of Olodumare’s grace.

I’m an idiot when it comes to the Ogboni, but I don’t suppose that you have to be the Supreme Head of the Ogboni organisation or one of their most advanced practitioners in order to qualify as one of their agents. I also suppose that they don’t necessarily want to popularise or commercialise the secrets of their path.

 In the future, when someone tells you something you don’t like send him something like this    

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

Wow, Cornelius, you've been around.

So you have attended retreats with  the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche  - (of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism)?!

My exposure to to Kagyu has been through Jetsun Milarepa as presented in  Evans Wentz great edited autobiography of him and Garma Chang's translation of his songs.

I take Milarepa as one of my gurus and practice meditation on him, imagining myself sitting with him in his cave in Tibet, as suggested by Bernard Bromage in Tibetan Yoga.

I'm working on this-

'dig deep where you’re standing – just like a diamond digger, with sincerity as the main weapon.  That’s what happened with me and Judaism.  Digging and digging, and after some time I could smell the bone, and then the dog started wagging its tail in anticipation, and continued digging and digging… still digging…others prefer the term “ascension” ascending…'

At the same time, I find it vital to theorize, developing the philosophical implications of a spiritual practice, feeding intellect, imagination, emotion and spirit, exploring how the body of ideas and practices fits into the human quest for meaning, facilitating its appreciation beyond spiritual practice so it may speak to people in terms of  different kinds of appreciation. 

I don’t suppose that you have to be the Supreme Head of the Ogboni organisation or one of their most advanced practitioners in order to qualify as one of their agents. I also suppose that they don’t necessarily want to popularise or commercialise the secrets of their path.

ive got some support from two or three Ogboni members.

but if you are brave and committed and truly motivated, that’s where you come in as the catalyst of the spiritual return and regeneration and as the great explicator, the medicine man, the witch-doctor, the Juju High Priest, the Ogboni agent,  the dispenser of Olodumare’s grace.

I really need that. There is so much to do. I am also convinced I can develop a theory and practice of witchcraft in terms of the Yoruba and Benin paradigms of iyami, aje and azen.

I strongly believe (intuit) that when someone with your background and your passionate intensity is properly initiated into the deep Ogboni - you will do for the Ogboni  what the Hindu proselytisers in the West did and are still doing for Hinduism  

That would be interesting but I have a problem with learning systems bcs I often prefer to learn in my own way and also, it seems Ogboni has no interest in proselytizing or sharing info, so one could find oneself shackled by such membership.

I’m not sure that you wouldn’t prefer a lucrative academic position; but I think that being as flexible as you strike me as being, I’m sure that you are more adventurous than that, and you probably value your freedom too. What most people are looking for (especially big booty, is security.)

That has been my enduring challenge with academia. I admire the system but I have difficulty fitting in.

In this very forum, and in the rest of the African Diaspora West, there are advocates such as dear Baba Kadiri who would feel much more comfortable and more completely at home with the home-grown religion than with foreign language/ foreign culture importations from the Middle East and Babylonia.

I am actually a Christian, baptised and confirmed in the Catholic church and Born Again in the Pentecostal sense. My Christian experience and exposure to Christian theology, literature  and history are foundational to my spirituality and philosophy.

Even as I question such ideas as God having a son or needing to sacrifice him, the religion has planted something deep in me, like other spiritualities also have.

I see claims of exclusive truth from any religion as human fantasy. I am pleased the Catholic church after Vatican II, in line with a particular orientation in Christianity, thinks the same way.

Some of the best works on classical African philosophies and religions are written by Christian priests- Placide Tempels' Bantu Philosophy, John Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy, Bolaji Idowu's  Olodumare : God in Yoruba Belief and Nimi Wariboko's (former pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God) comparative explorations of Kalabari thought in relation to European philosophy and Christian thought, from The Depth and Destiny of Work to possibly his entire philosophical and theological oeuvre.

Thanks for your goodwill on the shared journey to the peaks of human possibility where time meets the infinite.

toyin

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

i've said it before, we all need and should want to read an autobiography by cornelius. he's been there where it mattered from the start.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2020 10:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Esotericism and the Challenge ofCultural Capital : Ogboni and Ekpe/Mgbe

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTRREOm3QzLF6txB3GzaR%3DkX6N-EcjuPARZMtHLBzdG-2w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

And now the most serious issue of all: The Coronavirus is upon us all.

 I never did like this song.

It’s not easy to be the president of any country right now. All kinds of people are saying that Brer Buhari is dragging his feet and keeping mum/ dumb about the matter even though just like me, age-wise we are in the same terrible danger zone and could get carried away unceremoniously, at any moment. (A sobering thought:  it’s not over till it’s over: if, God forbid, the virus takes Biden away then Bernie will have to stand in for him as the Democrat who will challenge Trump.)  

 What does Don Kperogi want President Buhari to say to the nation?  Mr. President can say, “Let us pray!” and that would sit well with Pastor Adeboye.

 He could also make this type of reassuring announcement: “We are making preparations to deal drastically with any contingency that may arise, Ojare !” Which is what I believe he must be doing right now. Preparing. Making plans, consulting and coordinating with his Federal Governors of both the APC and the PDP, with the Sultan of Sokoto, with Bishop Kukah and with the new Emir of Kano., even with your friends and fellow countrymen in the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria.

Soon enough Mr. President will have to announce some draconian measures, such as the impossible and bound to be unpopular “Everybody has to stay home” – and that everybody would normally include the Fulani Herdsmen. No more Friday Jummah prayers at the Mosque. Stay at home and pray. God will hear you. Just face Mecca and pray. Otherwise, all he can say is that if we’re not very careful the coronavirus devil is going to wipe us out. But of course, he can’t say that and he shouldn’t say that. He should give us all hope. Not false hope.

Here is Koffi Olomide’s heartfelt message to the people

Oluwatoyin , you’re not selfish. Everybody here knows that you care about other people and that’s why you are always on the grind, grinding your axe against the Boko Haram and giving voice to the voiceless, forever expressing so much humane concern about the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, the Godfathers, patrons, sponsors, and protectors of the roving Fulani Herdsmen and the trails of mayhem, trials, and  tribulation that they are said to leave behind them as they pass through other people’s farms, churchyards and private property. What say the pastors? May the Lord have mercy on them?

We’re constantly standing at the precipice of decision-making and it’s always about The Road Not Taken. Maybe even the Herdsmen will have to change their route…

Seriously:  Since the continent of Africa is still being perceived of as an area of darkness, you have to show that there is light, even spiritual light in Africa – just as Dr. Ben used to say…

In your case too, don’t forget, you’ve got that special calling. You’ve got a job to do. If you don’t do it, who do you think will do it for you? For us? Nimi Wariboko? You know that he’s moving safely, surely and steadily along the straight and narrow path to the Judgment throne of Jesus…

Concerning me, re- “you've been around - retreats with the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche - (of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism)?!”

Well, this all happened here in Stockholm, Sweden, when the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche visited in 1975 during which time many things happened and the retreats at the Tibetan Centre - a villa in Mälarhöjden continued, short retreats on weekends. Sweden being such an atheistic sort of country, you know the joke, “I don’t believe in God but one thing I know for sure is that the Blessed Virgin Mary is his mother!” Pantheism - nature - is the Swedes most popular religion, plus that the Swedes ( big, medium, small,  all kinds of booty) are also naturally endowed with some of the particularly religious virtues such as mercy and compassion for e.g. refugees (when some of them - a tiny minority are not busy being anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic…

You’d be surprised that sometimes Henning Sjöström  who was Sweden’s top criminal lawyer at the time sat in meditation with us. So, you see, some lawyers, even criminal lawyers, develop and have developed a good conscience through Tibetan Buddhist meditation. Some Eritreans too. I didn’t know that my Eritrean friend Emanuel Fessah was so serious that he became a Tibetan lama; but the last time I met him; I was surprised that he wasn’t wearing the traditional robes – he was dressed like an African-American Jazz musician. I had better explain a little about the sexual mores in Tibetan culture – the lamas do not necessarily practice sexual abstinence ( that kind of fasting and starvation and a big no to big booty for Toyin) such as the Hindu brahmacharya / or the celibacy imposed on the pedophile Catholic priests, it was only later on that I discovered this through Trungpa Rinpoche – the man who really got to  me, with his “ Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism “  indeed, while  Cutting through Spiritual Materialism,  he was b also busy spreading joy and planting seed  which if you’re coming from the traditional Judeo-Christian-Muslim cultural background, you’re are apt to think is “haram”, but that is not so in Tibet or with Tibetans. (As for Mother India and The people’s Republic of China, such populations didn’t arrive via any other way.)

On arriving in Sweden and somewhat disoriented I zapped through passivist mystic shit man Hermann Hesse’s oeuvre – all of it minus Magister Ludi which I have tried to complete several times but, because I identify so strongly with Joseph Knecht, I always get stuck at a certain point in that novel and cannot continue.  Perhaps that’s why my South African name Themba Feza (Hope to complete) given to me by Johnny Dyani is so appropriate... – although he was thinking about the fight against Apartheid when he gave me that name.  

One thing leads to another. It’s a very short story: from Hesse to  Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums  and  Desolation Angels etc.  and from that to The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and a lot of other contemporary American poetry of that genre ( Beat etc) leading  to the conclusion that in the United States,  Buddhism was mostly a literary movement and  a head movement  with other electrons such as your good friend Alan watts. Lastly, just a few years ago, Matthieu Ricard

Ah, the tyrant of the school teachers!

This was also drilled into us 

About digging where we are standing:

“A little learning is a dang'rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.”

The prognosis for the coronavirus is that at least 50% of the people in Europe are going to be infected. Maybe we are living in the last days after all and will soon be meeting our Creator, as you say, “ where time meets the infinite.”

 Cheer up: : Love is Strong

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTRREOm3QzLF6txB3GzaR%3DkX6N-EcjuPARZMtHLBzdG-2w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

thanks for that ride through your spiritual and intellectual journey, Cornelius.

The Buddha's achievement in developing something so broadly adaptable, even to secular contexts, is a great one. Those who have taken this forward across the centuries have done a sublime job.

Along similar lines, it might be possible to distinguish between Yoruba philosophy and Orisa spirituality, the former based on postulates centred on exploring the nature of the human being rather than on belief in deities, although one could describe the philosophy as including the spirituality, an orientation possibly adaptable to other African systems.

Orisa spirituality is also increasingly developing an individualistic orientation, one of the strengths of Buddhism, though the latter, like Orisa,  is grounded in a strong communal tradition, the Sangha, the community of Buddhist adherents.

What are the chances of an enlightenment like that of the Buddha that continues to empower the various creative mutations- in the spirit of the current biological challenge-of Buddhism?

Have you read Herman Hesses's Siddhartha, retelling of the life of the Buddha? Superb.

 the lamas do not necessarily practice sexual abstinence...such as the Hindu brahmacharya 

A controversial aspect of   Buddhism, sexually active monks, a practice alleged to be both justified by forms of Tibetan Buddhist theology and mired in misogyny, as argued by June Campbell's Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism, later titled Traveller in Space: Gender, Identity and Tibetan Buddhism.

With the influence of Campbell's pioneering work, though, I wonder if those aspects representing or are open to exploitation of others have been decisively addressed.

Tibetan Buddhism seems to belong to what what may be known as the Tantric movement, an Asian origin philosophical and spiritual orientation, though with parallels in Western esotericisn,  that not only perceives the cosmos as an organic unity but understands this unity as expressed in the ability of the human being to direct cosmic creativity through the human body, one of these approaches being through sex,  one view on the complex body of what is understood as Tantra , a view related to that presented by David Gordon White in his edited  Tantra in Practice  and by Philip Rawson in The Art of Tantra.

An ultimate achievement in this philosophy and spirituality is Hindu Tantra, in its varied elaborations of the relationship between the God Shiva and the Goddess Shakti, the orgasmic force from their conjoining generating the cosmos, as described in the introduction to the Shakti Sadhana group's translation of the awesome poetic ritual the Sri Devi Khadgamala Stotram, in honour of one manifestation of Shakti, the Goddess Tripurasundari, with buttocks as hillocks, as depicted in the Tripurasundari Ashtakam, between whose jar like breasts snakes a strand of hair rising from her cavernous navel like the waters of the blue Yamuna, whose glance, falling on a decrepit old man, unskilled in the arts of love, so transforms him in the eyes of women they race after him, their clothes bursting asunder, as described in the Soundaryalahari, The Billowing Waves of the Ocean of Beauty, she holding a sugar cane bow with arrows of flowers signifying the delights of the senses, as portrayed in the Khadgamala,  yet from a strand of whose skirts the cosmos was created, as portrayed in the Soundaryalahari, the dot in the centre of the triangle climaxing her  geometric form, the Sri Yantra, depicting the point of cosmic origination where she frolics with Shiva, the erotic ascetic, as he is characterized by Wendy O'Flaherty in her book of that name.

Seriously:  Since the continent of Africa is still being perceived of as an area of darkness, you have to show that there is light, even spiritual light in Africa   

Already done by the pioneers. All subsequent efforts build on theirs.

In your case too, don’t forget, you’ve got that special calling. You’ve got a job to do. If you don’t do it, who do you think will do it for you? For us  

   May it be so. 

Nimi Wariboko? You know that he’s moving safely, surely and steadily along the straight and narrow path to the Judgment throne of Jesus,

  

May we learn from  fellow workers in the vineyard, such as he mentioned directly above, for whom Christianity and Kalabari thought, Continental philosophy and the  journeys of thought and faith running from Galilee across the world, along with the mental peregrinations flowing from the Niger Delta, are varied but unified choruses of one song.

Great thanks, journeyer between Legon and Stockholm, trekking through "the months and days....travellers of eternity [ as ] The years that come and go are also voyagers. [May we be ] stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming" between being and becoming, between death dealing pandemics and the will to live, between the inevitable transmutation of the flame of life and the continual sustenance of the empowering fire, as we buy time through washing hands and social distancing, adapting Matsuo Bashō's The Narrow Road to the Deep North in the light of the current challenge from the Grim Reaper who seeks to send as many people as possible to the beyond before their time.

Let us join Jetsun Milarepa, united to us beyond space and time,  in his cave in 12th century Tibet, projecting compassion to all beings, wishing to all, freedom from suffering and enlightenment about the ultimate meaning of existence, until our efforts transcend thought, as he urges in Evans Wentz' edited Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa, in the spirit of 20th century US Christian monk Thomas Merton, writing in ''The Cell'' about the invisible but potent influence of the hermit on society, seeding the lives of people he will never know, as Merton puts it in The Seven Storey Mountain. 

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Cantor Zevulun (Zavel) Kwartin sings Tiher Rabbi Yishmael

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

Tibetan Buddhism is said to be the most Shamanistic of the Buddhisms, and very ceremonial too  - you have to have the stamina to do so many prostrations and other rituals.

I understand that they have a ritual in common with  Swedish Sami Shamanism, namely a practice which the Tibetans call Tummo – of raising the body heat.

I asked you to contact Mikael Gejel, an emperor of the esoteric, but you haven’t done so. Lucky me, I have known Mikael for a few decades now and two years ago he introduced me to another man of Knowledge, I call him the High Priest of Swedish Shamanism – and a radio broadcaster, namely Jörgen i. Eriksson. You could share insights…

 I had the pleasure of getting to know him a little better over a delightful vegetarian lunch with him and Mikael.  Talking about “infinity” check out these book reviews.  His review of Rabbi Gershon Winkler’s book in  “Jewish shamanism lifts the veil of illusion”  is also very interesting, especially since he goes as far as to associate Israel’s greatest Prophet  with shamanism: https://www.facebook.com/jorgen.i.eriksson/posts/10156176515747328

In reaction to which I felt truly Nigerian. You know that Nigerians are not good at making understatements. It is not a Nigerian forte, and that's why my very measured response to that review has mysteriously disappeared from that Facebook page. In all intellectual honesty, and at all costs and based on ignorance some writers want to "protect" their works from what they perceive as " negative"  criticism. It's the sort of thing that Pope brilliantly satirizes here

Re - “Christianity and Kalabari thought” 

You have whetted my interest.  I spent eighteen wonderful months in Kalabariland, so, ““Christianity and Kalabari thought”? Naturally at the top of the mind, Akaso - I suppose, roughly corresponding to Oya who as I understand it, is roughly the equivalent of The Blessed Virgin Mary, in Yoruba mythology?

( By the way , as a big booty tantra specialist like you must know,  just like the Wolof woman, the Kalabari women don’t practise clitoridectomy, for which reason  Kalabari male chauvinism ( you may also call it something else) fears  the Kalabari woman “ is not easy to  control”, resulting in many Kalabari men marrying and have married Igbo women,  in other words, there are quite a few Kalabari men whose mothers are Igbo…

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

intriguing harvest of references Cornelius. Great thanks.

i find shamanism intriguing from the little i know about it. it would be great to know more.

as for Kalabari women, interesting....

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Guru Adepoju

Re- This is a fine poetic line from you, the opening spiel that your tantric student would like to hear, paving the way to the absolutely clear ( as Jarreau sings - Susan’s Song :

“But if you could just hold me,

Warm me, girl

The way you did today

And tenderly anoint my eyes

Then I may see the way” ….

And understand, just as Big Daddy, Shiva Lingam Guru Adepoju says to his intended Parvati,

“…that not only perceives the cosmos as an organic unity but understands this unity as expressed in the ability of the human being to direct cosmic creativity through the human body, one of these approaches being through sex.”  Indeed.

Tallies with these lines from Sweet Baby James’ song,  Gorilla :

“He comes from the heart of darkness a thousand miles from here

Now that's the land where they understand what a woman might like to hear

You know that he loves you, baby, for what you really are

His love is a-burning hot as a big old ten-cent cigar.”

 BTW,  back then ( 1977) when I left the Shree Gurudeva Siddha Peetha in Ganeshpuri, after three monsoon months of Siddha meditation, chanting, vegetarianism, working in the garden and strictly observing Brahmacharya without even thinking about it, except maybe briefly, once, when Diana Ross turned up at the Ashram, the tourist guide first took me for a midnight tour of the Red Light District in Bombay. We drove in state on a horse and carriage, causing my curly hair to uncurl, stand up straight and tall, after which he wanted to know if I would like to relax for a while at Rajneesh’s place at Poona. I politely declined.

 BTW, I don’t know what it’s like for the  Sir John Woodroffe scholars, but in my own personal experience back then, stage one of meditation consisted in  shutting up and closing down that incessant, speculative monkey chatter coming from the brim-full of unhelpful  philosophical clutter  calming it down and stopping it altogether with the aid of Baba’s Chaitanya mantra, activated through “shaktipat”

 Our Alagba -in-Chief posted this some time ago…

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[Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju]

wow, Cornelius, this is rich exposure-

  ''back then ( 1977) when I left the Shree Gurudeva Siddha Peetha in Ganeshpuri, after three monsoon months of Siddha meditation, chanting, vegetarianism''  

  thanks for sharing  

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