Successful Execution of Procedure for Self Initiation into Iyami Aje Witchcraft as Known in Yoruba Thought
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Successful Execution of Procedure for Self Initiation into Iyami Aje Witchcraft
as Known in Yoruba Thought
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
“Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge”
I have at last successfully carried out the procedure for self initiation into the esoteric spiritual identity in Yoruba thought known as iyami aje, which, with some qualifications, may be understood as witchcraft, as this procedure is described in Pierre Verger's Ewe: The Uses of Plants in Yoruba Society, presented below in Yoruba and English from the book :
What follows next?
I'm eager to find out.
Will the conclave of iyami appear to me in my dreams?
Will one among their members visit me?
Will I experience something more dramatic?
Changes in my person?
Will I encounter suggestions to choose or conform to particular kinds of behavior?
I intend to share whatever happens with the world.
Yoruba iyami aje spirituality in Yorubaland shares the quality with pre-modern Western witchcraft as existing more as hearsay than as verifiable fact.
Modern Western witchcraft, however, beginning with the pioneering efforts of Gerald Gardner, is a religion, it's character open to study and practice by any who wish.
African witchcraft beliefs continue to exist in the shadows, often feeding fear more than inspiration, leading to cruelty to the particularly vulnerable populations represented by children and women as they are accused of witchcraft, often seen as evil.
African witchcraft beliefs, as evidenced by Yoruba iyami aje and Benin azen beliefs, though, are at times more complex than such black and white pictures, those two examples embodying rich ideas about the feminine, nature, humanity's relationship with nature and human spiritual capacity.
Iyami and aje spirituality have become a beacon for people in the Americas wishing to connect to this central form of female focused spirituality from Yorubaland.
Since this spirituality may be seen as existing, even in Yorubaland, more as belief in it's existence than as identification of it's practitioners and their methods, the techniques employed to build a spirituality round these ideas are likely to be significantly speculative. Claims may be made of access to esoteric knowledge but the sources of such knowledge might not be available for examination.
In this context, why not try the self initiation method Verger describes in his book, compiled from years of interaction with Yoruba spiritual experts, particularly babalawo, adepts in the esoteric knowledge of Ifa?
Hence my journey yesterday to Awolowo Market at Mushin, Lagos, to which I was directed by a babalawo, in response to my question of how to find the materials indicated in the Verger book as vital for the self initiation.
Asking around the section of the market dedicated to traditional herbal and spiritual materials, I at last found a seller who stated she could get everything in the list, assembling them both from her shop and those of other traders, and getting a professional to pound the plants and the soap together into a homogenous mix as directed by the Verger book.
Returning home with the iyerosun powder I also got from the same seller, I spread the iyerosun on my study table and inscribed the visual Ifa symbols recommended by the instructions on it, scraped the powder off the table and placed both powder and plant/soap mixture into a bucket, filled the bucket with water and using part of the plant/soap mixture as soap, bathed with the water.
An aspiration of years has at last been fulfilled on the 3rd day of June, 2022.
Attached to this mail is an essay I wrote on this subject some years ago, an essay also in my Cognitive Diary blog. Other writings of mine on iyami aje and witchcraft can be found at my academia.edu account, through a Google search linking my name and those terms, as well through such searches on Facebook and the USAAfrica Dialogue Series Google group, two of my primary publishing platforms.