The Wizard Paradigm : Aṣẹ and the Metaphysics of Creativity: Mapping the Cognitive Cosmos of Toyin Falola
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
The Wizard Paradigm
Aṣẹ and the Metaphysics of Creativity
Mapping the Cognitive Cosmos of Toyin Falola
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Cover image
Visualizing the Self and its Metaphysical Other
“Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art” (The Art Bulletin, 83, 3, 2001, 498-526), the title of an essay by Babatunde Lawal, is invoked here by me in exploring the symbolism of the cover image of Toyin Falola's Yoruba Metaphysics.
The juxtaposition of the conventional human face and a mask may evoke Lawal's title but may be better appreciated as a projection of the unified distinctiveness of the self as understood in classical Yoruba thought-the “outward head”, ori ode, visible through its embodied form, and the invisible essence of the self, ori inu, “the inward head”, emerging from the ultimate source of existence, often inexplicable to the conventionally understood self even as it influences that everyday self, ideas resonating with similar conceptions across space and time.
The image of the bespectacled man is of Falola's face, thereby suggesting his own dramatization of the idea of the self as a hybrid construct.
Falola describes his creativity as inspired by spiritual currents. Such dynamisms may be associated with the essence of the self, a point made for various schools of thought, including Yoruba spirituality and Western magic. This comparative perspective is central to the argument of this work.
I've been, half playfully, half seriously, writing an essay describing the scholar and writer Toyin Falola as a wizard.
Why so?
I find the wizard paradigm useful for integrating the scope of his cognitive identity and professional culture.
What do I mean by "cognitive identity" and by "professional culture"?
Cognitive identity
By "cognitive identity" I refer to a person's style of developing and using knowledge.
In Falola's case, this cognitive identity consists in an oscillation between intellectual work and what he describes in a personal communication as "spiritual direction" and “spiritual journeys”, along with entry into trance states, trance as fully alert mentation, yet deeply focused in an activity, perhaps to the exclusion of anything else, both orientations facilitating creativity.
Professional Culture
A professional culture is a person's approach to carrying out activity involving a high degree of skill, my definition of the term "profession".
With Falola this involves a self-facing style of scholarship, in which his focus is on subjects centred in his own explorations of phenomena, as different from a focus on such explorations by another person, even though scholarship necessarily involves engaging with the contributions of others.
Falola's style of scholarship also involves an other- facing mode of exploring subjects, in which the attention is on examining the thought and career of another person, exemplified by Falola’s essay and poetry collection on diverse people, In Praise of Greatness: A Poetics of African Adulation and his essays and books on individuals, such as Citizenship and Diaspora in the Digital Age: Farooq Kperoqi and the Virtual Community.
Why Wizard? Why Magic?
A particular conception of magic is useful for interpreting Falola's cognitive identity and professional culture because it embraces the orientations of these points of focus in his life and relates those orientations to metaphysical directions in his work, directions relating to engaging the essence of existence.
A wizard is a practitioner of magic. Am I stating or suggesting that Falola practices magic?
If so what do I mean by magic and why do I think it applies to such a scholar and writer as Falola?
I am stating that Falola’s creative culture represents a form of magic which seeks knowledge through the alignment of conventional and unconventional cognitive faculties, a unified or integral cognitive culture.
I am arguing that his cognitive identity and professional orientation may be interpreted in terms of what may be described as the conception of unified cognition and self-transcendence in Western magic and a correlative cognitive orientation from Yoruba spirituality.
Yoruba spirituality is the knowledge zone Falola is better associated with through his work and life story but which is better appreciated in comparison with other schools of thought as a distinctive expression of a global network of ideas and practices.
Àjẹ́ and Oṣó
The foundations of this analogical interpretation of Falola's cognitive and professional culture are in the literal and metaphorical interpretations of the Yoruba terms " àjẹ́ "and " oṣó ", which, carefully contextualized in terms of their points of convergence with and divergence from the closest English expressions, may be translated as "witch" and "wizard".
The literal understanding of àjẹ́ is a complex mix of colloquial and more specialized interpretations ultimately pointing to belief in access to powers shaping the spiritual foundations of existence ( Teresa Washington, Our Mothers, Our Powers, Our Texts: Manifestations of Aje in Africana Literature; The Architects of Existence: Aje in Yoruba Ontology, Existence and Orature).
The literal meaning of oṣó operates along similar lines and I expect Barry Hallen and Olubunmi Sodipo's Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft is a useful starting point for exploring the intersections of the female centred àjẹ́ concept and the male focused oṣó idea.
Understood metaphorically, “àjẹ́” and “oṣó” may be used to describe unusual and mysteriously potent creativity in any aspect of human activity, suggesting a phenomenal level of creativity that is beyond full understanding, without necessarily ascribing that creativity to a spiritual or supernatural force, as in the literal interpretation.
The Aṣẹ Bridge
The literal and metaphorical interpretations of these ideas may be correlated through the Yoruba concept "aṣẹ", indicating a life force emerging from Olodumare, the creator of the universe and imbuing each existent or conscious entity ( I'm not sure if a distinction is made between those aspects of existence) with unique creative power (Henry John Drewal, John Pemberton III and Rowland Abiodun, Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought).
Whether understood literally or metaphorically, àjẹ́ and oṣó conceptions may be perceived as describing how human beings take advantage of the unique creative power they are imbued with, their aṣẹ, an idea described by John Mbiti as universal in classical African thought ( African Religions and Philosophy), the Igbo version of which is described by Chinua Achebe as "ike" ( “The Igbo World and its Art", Hopes and Impediments).
Falola’s Aṣẹ Individuality
How does Falola demonstrate his own aṣẹ or ike, an idea that may also be interpreted literally or metaphorically, from the conventional understanding of a pervasive spiritual enablement issuing from the creator of the universe or simply as the agency, the potential for action, whether mental or physical, embodied by every conscious entity?
He demonstrates this capacity through an omnivorous scholarly and writing culture which he describes as facilitated by spiritual direction, implying a movement between such mysterious empowerment and broad ranging and intense reading and scholarly exchanges.
From Falola’s Creative Individuality to the Wizard Paradigm
Cognitive Practices
How does Falola’s creative identity relate to ideas of witchcraft and wizardry?
The relationship emerges in the idea that using such fundamental cognitive powers as sensory perception, intellect and imagination while being able to go beyond them or go beyond their conventional use, is a form of magic or is strategic to the practice of magic.
This perspective may be described as the unified cognition orientation of Western magic, of which Aleister Crowley was a particularly influential modern exponent with his vision of magic as pursuing the goals of religion using the methods of science, as evident in the intellectual direction of his magnum opus Magick: Book Four: Liber ABA and his autobiographical The Hagiography of Aleister Crowley.
This idea is all the more compelling in the similarity between the cognitive processes it highlights and those described by Babatunde Lawal in terms of classical Yoruba epistemology, ranging from sensory to extra-sensory perception, from critical thinking and imagination to trance ("Aworan: Representing the Self and its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art").
The Unified or Integral Cognition Culture of Western Magic
The magician, adapting Crowley and such fellow Western magical theorists and practitioners as Israel Regardie ( The Tree of Life: A Study in Magic), Dion Fortune ( The Training and Work of an Initiate; Applied Magic; Sane Occultism; The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage) and Bill Whitcomb ( The Magician’s Companion)operates at the nexus of conventional cognitive faculties- senses, emotion, intellect and imagination- and unconventional cognitive possibilities such as trance- in exploring the metaphysical foundations of existence, its spiritual sources, an approach I describe as the unified or integral cognition culture of Western magic, which may be understood as the primary alignment of this body of thought and action.
Is this what Falola is doing? To a degree.
His explicit engagement with such a cognitive range is demonstrated by the dream vision at the conclusion of Malaika and the Seven Heavens: A Memoir of My Encounters with Islam and the imaginative meditation on the Yoruba origin deity Eshu in "Ritual Archives", both of which are explicit explorations of spiritual ideas, and his descriptions of his spiritual direction and spiritual journeys in his personal communications, suggesting an oscillation between intellectual work and those spiritual propulsions, enabling the equivalence of highly productive trance states, where ideas emerge in a flood, leading to writing at a pace similar to jumping vast distances as opposed to walking across such spatial breadth.
These cognitive fusions, the intellectual and the spiritual, fuel an omnivorous practice of reading, writing, editing, conferencing, and mentoring that has produced over 200 books and hundreds of essays.
The wizard in certain Western esoteric traditions, and as may be developed for Yoruba thought, adapting Lawal's account of classical Yoruba epistemology, is precisely the figure who systematically traverses the entire spectrum of cognition—from sensory perception and critical reason to imagination, emotion, and extra-sensory or trance states—without subordinating any register to the others.
This essay correlates these conjunctive elements of Western esoteric traditions and Yoruba spirituality in demonstrating how creativity, spirituality, and scholarship may converge in the making of an “intellectual and artistic magician.”
Bill Whitcomb’s “Magic and Science” reflects this culture in the Western context most eloquently:
[ I do not believe that] magic can be “explained” by science and psychology, but …I believe that science and magic are complimentary approaches to the world, like two sides of the same coin.
As modern magicians, we are less and less allowed the luxury of belief untroubled by intellectual analysis. It is part of the task of the new age to synthesize previous knowledge, and to develop new, more sophisticated models that engage our hearts and satisfy our intellects.
The analytical world of the scientist, the experiential world of the mystic, and the analogical world of the magician need not conflict, but can be reconciled by greater understanding of each.
To approach magic without logic, empiricism, and discipline invites delusion and obsession. To seek the mysteries without intuition, passion, and belief may yield only stagnation and academicism. One must be able to both observe and participate.
I hope that this book will aid all magicians in utilizing the knowledge and methodology of science while assisting psychologists in understanding and assimilating the symbols and uses of magic.
(The Magician’s Companion: A Practical and Encyclopedic Guide to Magical and Religious Symbolism, Llewellyn, 2004, 3).
Self-Transcending Scholarship
Equally striking is Falola’s decades-long practice of writing about, editing for, and institutionally elevating other scholars and artists. From In Praise of Greatness (a poetic and exxpository celebration of African achievers) to monographs on individual intellectuals such as Farooq Kperogi, and from organizing landmark conferences to editing multi-volume textual companions, Falola consistently decentralizes his own voice in order to amplify others. This outward gesture mirrors a core ethical injunction in a particular strain of the Western esoteric tradition: the magician must eventually transcend egoic concerns and work for the larger pattern of existence. In that context, self-mastery without service is incomplete magic.
Falola's professional culture of self-facing and other-facing scholarship thereby also aligns with the unified cognition thrust in Western magic in suggesting self- transcendence, going beyond the centralization on one's own engagement with subjects to include, at an equal scope of engagement, exploring, celebrating and promoting other scholars and creatives, self-transcendence being a primary quality to be pursued by a magician as an explorer of the intersection between self and cosmos, an explorer of the unity of existence, transcending the limitations of a focus on oneself to embrace humanity and beyond humanity, the universe.
The Fascination of the Wizard/Witch/Magic/Creativity Nexus
Why am I drawn to discussing Falola in terms of conceptions of magic and wizardry?
Because magic and wizardry in Western imaginative arts and magical practice are fundamental to my understanding of creativity, readily correlative with my appreciation of exceptional creativity.
I might not necessarily associate genius, as Regardie seems to do, with the mystical quest for the ultimate source of existence, and particularly with the exploration relationships between that source and the essence of the self, even though that quest is a primary driving force of my life.
I am fascinated, though, with explorations of the further ranges of human possibilities, particularly in the development of knowledge and mental creativity.
I see mystical quest and such explorations at the circumference of human possibilities as correlative, plumbing the self at its depths, engaging its furthest possibilities in various fields.
Hence the mystic, the magician, the artist, the scholar, the writer and the scientist, among others, are among those figures I am keenly interested in understanding.
My exploration of Falola is in terms of this complex of human possibilities.
The figure of the wizard offers an unusually capacious lens through which to view Falola’s cognitive identity and professional culture. Unlike the more common academic metaphors—“polymath,” “public intellectual,” “encyclopedist”—the wizard paradigm preserves the sense of mystery, potency, and boundary-crossing that characterizes Falola’s six-decade-long career. It integrates three normally separated registers: (a) prodigious intellectual output, (b) explicit reliance on what he calls “spiritual direction,” and (c) a scholarly ethic that alternates between intense exploration of self-constructed ideas and generous celebration of others’ work and lives.
The wizard paradigm proves particularly useful because it embraces multiple orientations simultaneously: the intellectual and the spiritual, the self-directed and the other-directed, the analytical and the transcendent. These seemingly disparate modes of engagement find synthesis in conceptions of magic that bridge Yoruba spirituality and Western magical theory.
The wizard metaphor restores to African scholarly practice the metaphysical horizon that has been de-emphasized in much of contemporary academic culture shaped by Western intellectual modernity, while simultaneously revealing the spiritual depth that the best Western esoteric traditions always recognized in the act of knowing. In an era that increasingly risks reducing knowledge to information, Falola’s life-work reminds us that scholarship at its highest pitch remains a magical operation: the disciplined transmutation of àṣẹ into form, self into cosmos, and private insight into public possibility.
Why Am I So Keen on Writing about Falola?
I am drawn to Falola’s work by my fascination with creativity, particularly mental creativity, scholarship and writing, with particular reference to Africa and efforts to present the continent in the most expansive manner, in its cosmic contexts, which Falola’s work does in terms of the interlocking values of his books and essays, within diverse subjects, from history and economics to philosophy and spirituality.
Studying and writing about Falola’s work helps me organize my knowledge, map the landscape traversed by my cognitive explorations, unifying these journeys into various syntheses, exposing the scope and limitations of my understanding and further vistas to be explored.
Through my Falola scholarship, I am therefore moved to "measure human potential [with reference to myself] against the human condition”, as stated by Arnold Toynbee on the motivations of monasticism.
Mapping an Essay through Another Essay
Why am I writing this essay describing my efforts in another essay?
The other essay has become a forest of ideas which I am trying to structure to achieve coherence.
This essay is my way of trying to lay out part of the essential ideas of that other essay for easier mapping.
That other essay is "From Wizard to Cyborg: The Journey of Toyin Falola". I expect to share it after this one.
Abstract/Summary
This essay explores the intellectual and professional life of Toyin Falola—historian, writer, teacher, and cultural thinker—through the metaphor of wizardry.
The essay employs a comprehensive theory of magic that unifies elements of Western esoteric traditions and Yoruba spirituality in demonstrating how creativity, spirituality, and scholarship may converge in the making of an “intellectual and artistic magician.”
I argue that Falola’s intellectual output and creative style demonstrate an exceptional command of aṣẹ (unique life force/creative power), manifesting in a cyclical oscillation between what he terms "spiritual direction" (akin to trance states) and intense intellectual work, a scholarly practice that aligns conceptually with the cognitive culture pursued by initiates in Western magical thought, positioning his work as a quest to map African worlds within their broadest cosmic contexts.
By examining Falola’s cognitive identity—his mode of generating, organizing, and deploying knowledge—and his professional culture—how he conducts scholarship as both a self-facing and other-facing vocation—the essay argues that the metaphor of wizardry provides a productive lens for understanding his intellectual and artistic productivity.
By correlating Falola's methodology with the literal and metaphorical understandings of wizardry as understood in a trans-cultural theory of magic, this framework offers a productive lens for interpreting exceptional creativity, particularly scholarship that engages the spiritual and material as co-inherent dimensions of existence. The essay concludes with reflections on why studying Falola’s work clarifies not only his genius but also the author’s own effort to navigate the outer limits of mental creativity.
Also published in
Studying Toyin Falola blog
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