Thank you Oohay. I am sure I have in the past put it to Toyin Adepoju ( and the listserv in general) that most of what we call science in the 19th century were all lumped together in classical period as philosophy e. g psychology.
What is more each science today has its philosophical aspect and when a scholar has worked extensively to impact that philosophical component of their discipline they are given the title PhD or doctor of philosophy in that scientific / liberal discipline.
Psychologically Toyin Adepoju has imbibed that culture that is why he wrote of ' batteries' while writing about spiritualities in trees. It is the malapropism of usage that I pointed to, and not that there cannot be convergence in the objects of study.
When I queried whether modern witchcraft is relevant in the age of science, it is because we generally know science has provided alternative and more satisfying answers to questions covered by spiritualities in medieval and ancient period through refinement of scope and investigation of such areas with relevant tools to produce more satisfactory answers.
Let me tell Toyin Adepoju that in my undergraduate studies I deliberately chose three areas in which I probed in depth until my final year so I could get combined honours degree in the three: English Studies, History and Philosophy.
The aspect which has preoccupied Toyin Adepoju relentlessly on this forum i.e. spiritualities is properly dealt with under Metaphysics one of my two most beloved traditional branches of Philosophy ( the other one is Ethics) Logic and Epistemology completes the traditional philosophical quartet when you consider Philosophy as the scientific grounding to modern science.
Together with the formation of new disciplines in the 19th century ( such as Sociology, Psychology, Geography, Psychoanalysis
e.tc. the discipline of Philosophy went through its own internal reorganisation into sub fields such as Political Philosoohy, Philosophy of Religion ( where issues like the existence of God are examined.) under which the doctrines of people like Thomas Aquinas et al are placed and Philosophy of Language.
Adepoju states that spiritualities deal with ideas and practices whose nature and effects cannot be quantitatively measured. If that is the case, as far as science is concerned the Philosophy of Science poses the question how then do you know that they exist? It is such gobbledygook that Africans use to deceive and defraud each other and thereby hold back their own scientific development. Toyin Adepoju daily decry the backwardness of Africa in this forum yet contributes psychologically through his insistence in promoting the non- scientific method in his writings.
Psychoanalysis deals with these unmeasurable aspects of human experience within the purlieu of the welthanchauung of science. (The roots of Psychoanalysis as compiled by Sigmund Freud is world wide from Egypt to Mesopotamia and beyond. Ifa among others supply the traditional scientific basis in sub Saharan Africa which was not covered in the scope of Freud's work.)
Epistemology also assists in sorting out Toyin Adepoju's conceptual breakdown by positing the law of universal causation. It posits the questions: How are you certain the 'spirits' in the trees caused the experience attributed to them? How can you vouch for the existence of such ' spirits' in the trees in the first place so others( be they French, Fulani, Spanish Yoruba or Ibibio) apart from yourself can agree with you they are there? (i.e intersubjectivity of experience)
When you come to the citation of Babatunde Lawal's ' oju inu' Epistemologians and philosophers of language will assure you this is only a question of language usage. A metaphorical ascription of abstraction of a physical attribute, the eye, to a non physical context the mind. ( what the Yoruba ancestors science probably meant is that which is recognised by modern science today: that the external eye has a regulating counterpart in the medula cortex of the brain, and this postulation was subjected to further fabulation by succeeding generations.)
If you argue certain cognitions and energy fields are available -now we are coming home- to only those who have cultivated the necessary pre- requisite cognitive developments ( i.e. Ifa priests) you will be asked under whose tutelage and institution did you cultivate these since it cannot be done in DIY mode? ( who regulates the standard and provides accreditation in DIY mode?)
Toyin Adepoju, you cannot develop Ifa mystical mode and theory.- who are you to do that without studying the whole corpus!- It has always been at the foundation of the praxis. But that is a problem for you and your publishers.
What you attribute to William Wordsworth and the occultist Dion Fortune can at best be described as the power of intuition. As I investigated during my period of concentrated philosophical enquiries the power of intuition has a scientific material base. It is the power of the human mind to make imaginative projections based on previously recorded matter in the mind. It is what Sigmund Freud described as the ability of the mind to construct dreams from the days residue. As we all know dreams are different from reality. Which masters regulated your access to spiritualities through appreciation of natures beauty as orescribed by Dion Fortune and which ritual guaranteed such access? How can these be intersubjectively verified?
What you Toyin Adepoju, have persisted in force feeding us on in the forum is the substitution of dreams for reality.
In the name of Èdùmàrè please leave out the misrepresentation of Yorùbá civilisation from this shoddy and deceptive scholarship. We need more capable hands in that regard. If they are not yet available let us accept with humility they are not yet available.
OAA
Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------
From: "'Dr. Oohay' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: 04/03/2021 13:55 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com, Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>, Naija Observer <naijaobserver@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: ||NaijaObserver|| RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - ModernAfricanWitchcraft: Theory ,Practice, Ethics
On Wednesday, March 3, 2021, 2:27 PM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Olayinka.
This is spirituality and philosophy, not science.
Science deals with phenomena or aspires to deal with them in so far as they are empirically assessable, quantitively measurable and open to mutual verification using conventional human cognitive faculties.
Spirituality and philosophy are different, dealing with ideas and practices the nature and effects of which often cannot be quantitively measured, may represent forms of subjectivity that can't be reduced to their objective effects, deal with the more subtle and abstract aspects of the human world and material universe than the physical aspect of the material universe, even when this material universe is constituted by the human body.
This ideationally and subjectively centred universe of experience represents the core of the meaning of human existence, a core that is not replaceable by, though it is enhanced, by the enablement of science and technology.
The concept of energy in this context is an adaptation from the scientific concept. They are not identical. Energy in the scientific sense can be mathematically measured. I am not aware that can be done in this case. The correlation between them is that they both enable the carrying out of particular processes.
What is being described here is not an objective phenomenon, one accessible through the senses as ordinarily operative.
It is best described as inter-subjective, in the sense that it represents a mode of perception accessible largely to those who have cultivated the necessary cognitive faculties, or, in exceptional cases, accessible to everyone in environments of particularly high density of this energy.
These ideas are a version of the Yoruba conception of ''oju inu'', the inward eye, understood in terms of extra-sensory perception, an extension of sensory perception beyond conventional awareness, part of the perceptual continuum of this concept as described by Babatunde Lawal in ''Aworan: Representing the Self and its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art.''
I am writing from experience of such development. I cultivated it through meditation, achieving a degree of what the English poet William Wordsworth in ''Tintern Abbey'' describes as 'with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony...We see into the life of things''.
My approach is a form of aesthetic mysticism, a quest for intimate encounter with the essence of being through the appreciation of beauty. My approach is inspired by the English occultist Dion Fortune on two major approaches of access to spirit as being through appreciation of nature's beauty and through ritual.
I have cultivated this aesthetic orientation through the stimulus of sacred trees, groves and forests in Benin-City. I explain the outcome of this effort through Yoruba theory of perception, which I use in subsuming related Western and Asian theories of perception in "Theories and Practices of Cognition: Sense Perception and Metaphysical Integration in Western, Asian, Islamic and African Thought."
I don't get the impression that the development of extra-sensory perception, or of mystical perception, intimate awareness of the source of existence, is an aspect of Ifa as traditionally understood. If you think otherwise, do let me know why you think so.
The closest I have come to that in my exposure so far is in the complex of divinatory systems to which Ifa belongs, within and beyond Africa, similar at times in name and certainly in structure, purpose and methods, from the Igbo Afa to the Dahomean Fa to the Chinese I Ching, is John Anenechukwu Umeh's description in his 2 vol After God is Dibia: Igbo Cosmology, Divination & Sacred Science in Nigeria of the Afa concept ''ose ora'' which is understandable as the Igbo version of ''oju inu'', which he describes as the visual capacity through which one sees both the physical and the spiritual worlds but through which one may also penetrate to the essence of existence, making his description complementary to the more detailed listing of such a perceptual continuum originating in but going beyond conventional sense perception as referenced by Lawal on Yoruba thought, but going beyond Lawal in including mystical perception as the culmination of this process.
Expanding the traditional scope of Ifa as I understand it, I develop Ifa in terms of mystical theory and practice in "Exploring the Mystical Potential of the Ifa Divination System,'' soon to be published in a book.
Why not Google ''modern Western witchcraft''? It is the subject of a rich general book and academic book publishing industry.
Its critical we ground ourselves in the comparative study of religious structure and histories, even as we study African spiritualities, enabling appreciation, for example, of the fact that Western ideas of witchcraft have moved on from their pre-modern, pre-20th century forms, blossoming into fast growing religion generating a very rich ideational and social ecosystem and responded to by a vibrant scholarly exploration industry, developments facilitating comparison with the complexity of related ideas in Africa and particularly their Yoruba expressions.
--On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 at 21:43, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
Toyin Adepiju:
When you state your belief that energy fields represent entities which are either evil or non- evil, scientists in our age of science will dismiss you with a wave of the hand that it is non-demonstrable.
Mutual community of knowers cannot see what you alone can see and this is how modern scientific scholarship works. They wont rely on your word for it. The closest the West got to where you stand philosophically is epiphenomenalism and it is no substitute for scientific knowledge.
Forget about the notion of western modern witchcraft. Its just to find a job for the jobless.
If you went by way of alchemy, the ultimate destination is modern science. If you want to take a parallel Ifa path to that you will have to enrol first as an Ifa acolyte and work your way upwards ( we have been here before.) It cannot be done from outside on mere introspection.
OAA
Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 02/03/2021 18:23 (GMT+00:00)To:Cc: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com, Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, Naija Observer <naijaobserver@googlegroups.com>Subject: Re: ||NaijaObserver|| RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Modern AfricanWitchcraft: Theory ,Practice, Ethics
Thanks, OAA.
Modern Western Witchcraft is one of the world's fastest growing religions, thriving across the West, from the UK to the US and beyond, after it was founded by Englishman Gerald Gardner.
So, witchcraft is growing rapidly at the centres of global scientific culture.
Parallels and divergences exist between pre-modern Western conceptions of witchcraft, modern Western witchcraft culture and those African ideas that may be associated with their counterparts in pre-modern and modern Western witchcraft conceptions.
Scholars often argue that the Yoruba Iyami and Aje concepts, for example, are different from Western witchcraft conceptions, referencing the greater complexity of attitudes, at times valoristic, towards women in the Yoruba ideas, and grounded in a rich metaphysics, in contrast to the demonizing of women in pre-modern Western witchcraft ideas.
The Yoruba ideas, however, in their blend of valoristic and demonising attitudes towards women, have strong parallels in the continuum from the female demonising orientations of pre-modern Western witchcraft to the female valorising orientations of modern Western witchcraft, the latter also richly metaphysically grounded.
The concept of ''psychic batteries'' is my own construction, interpreting my experiences with trees and forests, often those described as sacred, in Benin-City.
The identification of the phenomenon the way I have done indicates an effort to classify it within a clearly defined ontology, a scheme interpreting the nature of various forms in existence and their relation to each other.
Such intellectual strategies are vital to moving away from superstition, which may be understood as belief that is not critically examined.
The terms I am using ''psychic'' and ''batteries'' indicate ideas about consciousness and energy, ideally precisely defined.
In developing such conceptual definitions, one is developing an approach to the beliefs about relationships between witches and trees, such as the belief that they meet on trees.
I hold that some trees emit a form of energy that accelerates the development of psychic powers, powers that may be expressed in terms of leaving one's physical location mentally and converging with others in a dimension enabled by the energy field generated by that tree.
This is my interpretation of my own experience which suggests to me the belief in Southern Nigeria that witches meet on trees.
I am of the view that this experience of mine represents general human capacity activated by intimate relationship with the trees in question.
I am also of the view that the energy field represents the presence of a sentient entity for whom the tree or trees are a physical form, hence one may interact with these entities through cultivating these relationships.
I also hold that some of these entities are evil while others are divine. Some of them may suggest certain actions inimical to humanity in order to facilitate one's relationship with them while others enhance one's humanity.
Such actions inimical to one's humanity include the suggestion to sacrifice other people to the entity, akin to the belief that witches sacrifice people, particularly their loved ones, at their meetings.
All these conclusions are based on my personal encounters, represented by suggestions made to me in the course of my explorations.
These suggestions were not made by any human being, since I work on my own nor was I initiated into these explorations by anyone, only through my own self cultivated relationships with nature.
The spirits can communicate with you mind to mind. You can be in your room and yet be in their location at the same time. You don't need a shrine or the accustomed paraphernalia of many African spiritualities. You are the shrine. This emphasis on internalized spirituality is correlative with the belief in the embodied nature of witchcraft in Southern Nigeria.
Recognizing these possibilities for good and evil, I am insisting on the centrality of Christian ethics as well as of a focus on God as central goals of this form of witchcraft.
Defining one's understanding, constantly examining the logic of one's understanding, explaining one's understanding and engaging with queries about or challenges to one's understanding, one moves away from uncritical belief, developing a rationality that may be both critical and imaginative, at the nexus of the objective and the intersubjective, as the awareness one develops is corroborated by others one has never met, in the spirit of the Yoruba, Igbo and Kalabari beliefs that one may cultivate an inward vision that enables one see into the otherwise hidden identities of phenomena.
thanks
toyin
--On Mon, 1 Mar 2021 at 20:12, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
Toyin Adepoju:
Arent 2 B & C contradictory?
How can you reconcile spiritualities on trees as psychic batteries with eliminating superstition from witchcraft?
Can the concept of witchcraft be modernised in the age of science?
OAA
Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>Date: 01/03/2021 16:36 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yorubaaffairs@googlegroups.com>, Naija Observer <naijaobserver@googlegroups.com>Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Modern African Witchcraft: Theory ,Practice, Ethics
--
Modern African Witchcraft
Theory , Practice, Ethics
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"
Painting by Victor Ekpuk of a bird ascending on a delicate white line into a cloud of enigmatic script evoking
mysterious knowledge.
I am using the image in suggesting the idea from Nigerian witchcraft lore of witches moving across space
as birds. The bird evokes in this context, movement within and across dimensions in quest of ultimate
reality.
Contents
1. What is Modern African Witchcraft?
2. The Reasons for the Creation of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Actualizing the potential of the female centred spiritualities of Orisa cosmology in Iyami Aje concepts and the institutions of Ifa, Gelede and Ogboni.
B. Developing the possibilities of Benin nature spirituality on trees as energy batteries facilitating psychic acceleration, a process also known as initiation into witchcraft.
C. Working towards the elimination of superstitious approaches to witchcraft and their outcomes in the demonization of women and children.
3. Philosophy of Modern African Witchcraft
A. The quest for the ultimate source of possibility as a fundamental goal.
B. The pervasive presence of spirit, understood as self consciousness unrestricted to material forms.
C. The pervasive presence of cosmic force, ase in Yoruba, ike in Igbo.
D. The activation of psychic powers through nature in the quest for the ultimate reality.
4. Inspiration of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Yoruba Iyami Aje, Ogboni and Gelede theories of feminine power.
B. Benin nature spirituality as psychic catalyst.
B. Personal experience of Benin nature spirituality.
4. Ethics of Modern African Witchcraft
A. Christian principles of love of God, love of others and of humanity above possessions.
B. Ogboni vision of unity of humanity as children of Earth.
C. Unity of all beings in Buddhism, Yoruba origin Orisa, Igbo Odinani and other animistic spiritualities.
5. Practice of Modern African Witchcraft
A. The quest for the ultimate through self and nature.
B. Cultivating relationships with nature, facilitating movement within and across dimensions.
C. Using trees, forests and other natural formations as points of entry into other dimensions.
Mode of Delivery: Audio Recording
Contact info- email at toyin.adepoju@gmail.com;WhatsApp and text at 002348051439554.
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