isn't the issue, with newton, not the mysticism of alchemy, but the approach of experiment and reflection leading to logical/rational postulations, i.e., scientific thought. no real difference between that and chemistry, in the end.
k
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020 3:30 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Understanding and Shaping LifethroughStudying and Creating Yoruba Poetry of Laughter, Delight and Wonder
Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2020 3:30 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Understanding and Shaping LifethroughStudying and Creating Yoruba Poetry of Laughter, Delight and Wonder
OAA,
Your description of esotericism represents a helpful starting point but it needs to be refined for accuracy in terms of its specific points and its application to Yoruba spirituality.
Newton is a good example of an esotericist but I doubt if his achievements, beyond his work in alchemy specifically, can be described the way you have, as linking the Bible and alchemy through letter/word/image correlations.
To gain a clearer idea of the character and scope of Newton's alchemical work, one could see Richard Westfall's 1992 Encyclopedia Britannica essay on Newton, the best summation known to me on the complex interweaving of Newton's work across Hermeticism and its alchemical expression, his work in Biblical interpretation, mathematics and physics, a distillation of Westfall's monumental work, represented by his Never at Rest : A Life of Isaac Newton and the shorter A Life of Isaac Newton.
It might be the same article in the online Britannica on Newton.
It might be the same article in the online Britannica on Newton.
For a short and yet rich examination of the same subject, one could see Rob Ilfe, Isaac Newton : A Very Short Introduction.
Your claims about Moses and Aaron I understand as best described as popular speculation not grounded in any definitive investigation of those two great figures, speculations that try to describe them as workers of arcane knowledge outside Biblically described devotion to God.
The Western esoteric tradition, however, as represented by such a seminal figure as Aleister Crowley, who described his magical system as centred in the goals of religion pursued through the methods of science, has devoted itself to the project of exploring and describing how magic works, with the use of imagination, often allied to metaphoric language, as you reference, being at the core of this understanding.
The Western esoteric tradition, however, as represented by such a seminal figure as Aleister Crowley, who described his magical system as centred in the goals of religion pursued through the methods of science, has devoted itself to the project of exploring and describing how magic works, with the use of imagination, often allied to metaphoric language, as you reference, being at the core of this understanding.
Denotative and connotative registers of language are basic to studies of language. It is well known that connotation is the core of evocation and invocation, the central operations of magic.
Your argument would have been better helped through a discussion of kinds of connotation.
The connotative level of ofo and ese ifa look quite straightforward to me and are the subject of various studies.
The more esoteric kind of connotation is represented by sounds the significance of which cannot be understood unless divulged by the cognoscenti.
Ese ifa and ofo, in contrast, operate largely within the realm of everyday suggestive fields. Their diction and evocative values are drawn from language as conventionally understood, even when adapted in poetic ways.
In contrast, examples of the restricted landscapes of signification I refer to are what are known in Hinduism as beeja, beej or bija mantras, which are not drawn from the lexical field of the language as used in any other context.
Examples are the following sequence which opens the main body of the Sri Devi Khadgamala Stotram ritual, dedicated to the Goddess Tripurasundari, as presented by the Shakti Saddhana group:
om aià hréà çrém aià kléà sauù
Those sounds, taken individually, have no meaning in Sanskrit, the original sacred language of India, outside their specific meaning in ritual, meanings that won't be understood unless divulged, in which context ''om'' is understood as the sound through which the cosmos came into being and through which it is sustained, while the other sounds embody the Goddess understood as essence of being and cosmic manifestation, from the dust of whose feet the vast multiplicity of worlds constituting the cosmos was created, as declared by the Soundaryalahari, the Billowing Waves of the Ocean of Beauty.
According to Douglas Renfrew Brooks in Auspicious Wisdom :Texts and Traditions of Sri Vidya Sakta Tantrism in South India, in the chapter ''The Srividya Mantra'', as understood by devotees, those sounds do not refer to the Goddess, they are the Goddess in her identity as sound.
A related kind of non-lexical sound occurs in the Yoruba/Edo oral poem "Abababalona," in the refrain "ma mu ma mu awo okatakpiri awo!" in which ''okatakpiri," according to Sonya Olatayo in a personal communication, if I recall his name accurately, has no lexical meaning, its rhythmic combination of forceful consonants, used in combination with the evocation of the numinous in ''awo,'' hidden occult knowledge and power and its agents, to suggest overwhelming power, a threat issued by the man poised on the tree top as he addresses the various animals come to drink at the river where all animals come to drink, urging them not to drink but to respond to his question if the animal being addressed is the one who killed his father.
Even then, such a sound can be interpreted in terms of the associative values of its rhythmic pronunciation, an associative value that does not exist for the mantras I reference.
In trying to understand esotericism, in general, and the embryonic field of African esotericism, in particular, we need to discriminate carefully between various kinds of understanding, different kinds of knowledge, identifying their ontological implications-the kind of reality they relate to and their epistemic significance, the understanding of how the particular kind of knowledge they represent is gained.
Ese ifa and ofo may involve the kinds of sounds I describe as beeja mantras in Hinduism, but the examples of these literary forms I have seen so far do not indicate such sounds constitute the whole of the poetic form or even its operational core.
In trying to understand esotericism, in general, and the embryonic field of African esotericism, in particular, we need to discriminate carefully between various kinds of understanding, different kinds of knowledge, identifying their ontological implications-the kind of reality they relate to and their epistemic significance, the understanding of how the particular kind of knowledge they represent is gained.
Ese ifa and ofo may involve the kinds of sounds I describe as beeja mantras in Hinduism, but the examples of these literary forms I have seen so far do not indicate such sounds constitute the whole of the poetic form or even its operational core.
People are at times too much in a hurry to describe Yoruba spirituality in esoteric terms, when in fact, it has become a highly textualized tradition, such that it can be effectively practiced purely from its written literature.
In such contexts, the esoteric contracts, moving further away from secret information- social esotericism- as I describe it- moving further into representation by epistemic esotericism- knowledge that is unsharable because it can only be experienced in an individual manner, not passed from one person to another, regardless of the river of words and communicative devices employed, hence the Buddha described his teaching as being like a finger pointing to the moon, urging you to look at the moon for yourself.
We should study Yoruba esotericism, not assume we know what it is.
We should explore the spectrum of meaning of the Yoruba terms dealing with the esoteric, such as ''inu'' inwardness, and "awo."
Through such explorations, we would better positioned to cultivate sensitivity to the points of intersection of esoteric and exoteric knowledge in Yoruba and Orisa thought and practice, within the global matrix of the subject.
It could also be helpful, if along with intellectual and theoretical study, we explored these ideas in experiential ways.
We could explore the possibility of experiencing ''oju inu,'' the inward eye, for example, a central concept of Yoruba epistemology, as a literal experience rather than purely a metaphorical idea.
We could engage the possibility of encounter with ase, another strategic concept, as a presence, intangible but palpable, rather than only as an abstract concept of cosmic force.
We could try to access the possibility of experience with orisa and ancestors as interactive encounters rather than only a set of people's beliefs in deities and ancestors.
We should explore the spectrum of meaning of the Yoruba terms dealing with the esoteric, such as ''inu'' inwardness, and "awo."
Through such explorations, we would better positioned to cultivate sensitivity to the points of intersection of esoteric and exoteric knowledge in Yoruba and Orisa thought and practice, within the global matrix of the subject.
It could also be helpful, if along with intellectual and theoretical study, we explored these ideas in experiential ways.
We could explore the possibility of experiencing ''oju inu,'' the inward eye, for example, a central concept of Yoruba epistemology, as a literal experience rather than purely a metaphorical idea.
We could engage the possibility of encounter with ase, another strategic concept, as a presence, intangible but palpable, rather than only as an abstract concept of cosmic force.
We could try to access the possibility of experience with orisa and ancestors as interactive encounters rather than only a set of people's beliefs in deities and ancestors.
Such correlative theoretical and practical explorations could be priceless in shaping the embryonic field of study of African and Yoruba/Orisa esotericism.
thanks
toyin
On Thu, 17 Dec 2020 at 17:51, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
Thank you prof.
.What we need to appreciate is that, what is characterised as magic: that which principle of operation are closely guarded by a few knowledgeable elite. Their decided secrecy was their 'patent' and 'copyright'
One of such elites in Biblical times was Moses. He, together with Aaron and others knew the principles of what was represented as 'magic' to outsiders, which the Rabbinical class embellish with fantastic tales to confound and assert their magical nature. The Inner circle knew how to crack the code of information encoded in the lore wrapped in agreed metaphors. We must remember that the etymological roots of the word magic was the word 'magi', a select group like the the Ifá priesthood or the Ògbóni cultists.
Isaac Newton was reputed to have through diligent studies cracked the code of such Biblical lores and established the basis of alchemy which later grew to modern Chemistry by substitution of letters and number codes for the literary and lexical codes. Biblical codes entail use of what we literary comparatists would call agreed Metonymical and Synechdochal words by such closely knit knowledgeable guilds. For example the head of an antelope was discovered to refer not to the actual animal but was stand- in name for a precious metal. ( Ifá uses this strategy a lot!)
As for Ifá and Ofò they would never agree to demonstrate the basis to a western trained outsider like the late ' Baba Dean' ( as my sibling who was at the Ogun State University said they called the late Oyin Ògunbà.) What would be the point of demonstrating the basis of their ' patent' to him and losing their exclusive rights to the products, thus undercutting themselves.?
Adepoju's proposed Ofò project does not fit in into the traditional use of Ofò as you said. It hoes beyond the ordinarily literary because the guild had evolved an idiolect specific only to them and not shared by the Yoruba generality. So even if Adepoju is generally proficient in Yoruba ( which he is not) it would still be an un-doable project for him unless he belonged to the guild that composed the Ofò. What is crucial here is that words were not used in their denotational level but in their exclusive concentrated connotational level ( language within a language if you wish.)
When Àwíse Wândé Abímbólá for instance was doing a literary analysis of sixteen poems of Ifá, he would limit himself to this denotational use and would not reveal the deeper connotational meanings shared with fellow members of Ifá guilds with the public.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: segun ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com>Date: 17/12/2020 11:48 (GMT+00:00)Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Understanding and Shaping LifethroughStudying and Creating Yoruba Poetry of Laughter, Delight and Wonder
I know Ofo works very effectively in a very limited way if used by a competent practitioner as a medicine man and not as a magic wonder.I knew Prof. Oyin Ogunba. He was the Dean of Faculty of Arts at Ogun State University, Ago Iwoye, Ijebu-Igbo campus in the mid 80s. I had worked very closely with him in those days. I knew hehad doubts about the efficacy of African magical powers just as I did then. The question l still grapple with is that, if African ancestors had such magical powers, how come, a handful of Europeans took them into slavery?The practitioners of Ofo, in my view, use it on emergencies.Segun Ogungbemi.
--On Fri, Dec 11, 2020, 9:08 AM OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
This is a misrepresentation of what Ofo as a cosmic force is about.
I remember when I had a tutorial with my HOD the late Oyin Ogunba on the use of Ofo..
He told me he had been invited to demonstrations of the magical efficacy of Ofo and that at the last moment the organisers prevaricated. He said he did not have any evidence of the magical efficacy of Ofo.
I reminded him that he was a ' foreigner' among the practitioners and they would be reluctant to share their secrets with him, like they would not with a westerner knowing he would encourage broadcasting it for gains without a return to the owners of the 'patent' ( I could not believe this came from an Ìjębú professor who were reputed among the Yoruba for their especial proficiency in the magical arts. I thought he was only telling me what western education allowed him to divulge and not what he actually believed. The Awo whom I consulted within the same period for effective remedy which I narrated here was actually in Ìjębú land.)
I reminded him that the verbal arts which he wanted to treat merely as literature has an esoteric side involving actual psysical potencies. He merely chuckled in his characteristic style.
What Toyin Adepoju seems to be misrepresenting falls along the same pathway: that the words alone will produce magical power. I do not believe this is possible.
How is Toyin Adepoju going to use the literary power of words to change the life of participants in a seminar? The Awo I consulted did not just heal me with the power of words contained in the Ęsę Ifá he chanted. He handed me a bottle containing herbs and tree bark in solution which actually did the healing.
An etymology of Awo comes in handy here. It means a covenant not to divulge the workings and formula of the products of a particular guild and therefore represents humanity's first attempt to evolve a copyright and patent system before western modernity. It was primarily evolved to prevent abuse by the laity and protect the earnings of members from activities of fakes.
What Adepoju is misrepresenting is what psychoanalysis describes as the fallacy of the omnipotence of thought. The literary effects of words cannot procure the remedy which Adepoju is using this forum to falsely disseminate.
Oyin Ogunba never told me that the literary effects of words can achieve the transformation in the problems in the lives of anybody. He never advocated that people should be taught how to construct Ofo so that it can provide a remedy for human problems..
Adepoju has gone a step further as usual in presenting himself as an expert in what he does not fully understand in order to make a fast buck.
The proposed seminar is therefore sham and a money making gimmick.
If he wants to teach literature and literary analysis of Ofo as Oyin Ogunba did then that is a straightforward issue. But he does not belong to any guild that knows the full circumstances of producing either Ìjálá or Ofò.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 11/12/2020 10:28 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, wolesoyinkasociety@yahoogroups.com, Bring Your Baseball Bat <naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com>Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Understanding and Shaping Life throughStudying and Creating Yoruba Poetry of Laughter, Delight and Wonder
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (toyin.adepoju@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
1. Mobilize Cosmic Force in Nature to Empower Your Life and Pursue Your Goals through Ofo, Yoruba Poetry of Incantations--
Would you like to learn to use affirmations that draw on the cosmic force that pervades nature in energizing your life and pursuing your goals?
Masters of verbal art among the Yoruba of West Africa developed powerful systems for this purpose, ancient methods this course will teach you how to understand and use.
Mobilizing patterns in nature through powerful imagery, they directed ase, creative, cosmic force, for the achievement of specific goals.
You can do the same too, with the guidance of this course.
The course will be taught in English.
2. Studying and Creating Ese Ifa, Literature of Laughter and Worship, Adventure and Delight
Some people, somewhere, laugh at their gods.
Yet they worship them.
No humans, no gods, they say.
Earth existed before the gods, they assert.
In this world, no one fights to defend any god or belief.
The sheer beauty of the celebration of nature in this world, the delightful variety in their depictions of the divine, funny and sublime, are glorious.
This is the world of ese ifa, one of the world's great bodies of literature.
It comes from the Yoruba people of West Africa.
Encounter this ancient and magnificent tradition and learn how to create such literature as those inspired masters.
No literary background is required.
The course shall be taught in English.
3.Forest as Cosmos
Learning from and Constructing Ijala, Yoruba Poetry of Hunters
Poised to bring down the magnificent beast, I yet marvelled at it's amazing grace within such brute power.
Hidden in the forest, lying flat with my gun pointing at at the baboon, I seemed to be doing him homage.
Is the life of a hunter a life for a thinking man?
This is a description from "Salute to the Baboon," a poem of Ijala, poetry of hunters from the Yoruba of West Africa, with a reflection on it's implications.
Wole Soyinka describes Ijala as celebrating the deity Ogun, as well as "animal and plant life, the relationships of growing things and the insights of man into the secrets of the universe.'
Abiola Irele depicts Ijala as expressing the world of the hunter seen as a navigation of the forest, peopled by animal and spirit powers, reflecting the variety and complexity of the cosmos.
Learn how to draw upon such rich insights, ancient yet ever fresh, in an increasingly complex world, as the world of work replaces the forest, the daily commute the navigations of the hunter, lockdown isolation replaces his long hours waiting for animals to appear.
You will learn how to understand this art and use it in making sense of your life, shaping it's meaning and outcomes.
The seminar will be conducted in English.
All interested parties may contact me for directions at to how to take advantage of these courses.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTQ54njscUuLM6JCQVx9VhkV7vSkzSnHkVN4%2BiuCciCkCw%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29820949F698B349A078520EA6CA0%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAB0J%2BvrSokd4KpHzu2M-SLRbHN%3DDYf7zUdrzbYJoYcRB%3DTtPLQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/VI1PR04MB2989D5A07AB0F3CAC817FDEBA6C40%40VI1PR04MB2989.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTSSi01PGuw1Jx%2Bcze%2B1be8YE%3Dk%3DVAQfEtUePkhJucWg1Q%40mail.gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment