--Dear Baba Kadiri,
As you may have noticed, I have not called you since I posted that which you quoted. I have not called you because my conscience has been accusing me of having touched a very sensitive or a very sacred nerve, when I wrote that "Baba Kadiri (mature holy virgin up to a late age) offers a different perspective, that too has to be addressed, appropriately"
The conscience was pricking me because I know how highly you elevate Yoruba ethics , Yoruba morality and Yoruba sexual morality to the extent that you believe that in the pre-colonial period there was no Yoruba word or even euphemism for the world's oldest profession , for the simple reason that nobody belonged to that professional guild anywhere in Yorubaland.
Anyway, I'm sure that you've heard of the Biblical Rahab
I really shouldn't have said anything about "mature holy virgin up to a late age". Too late. It was only after I had pushed the send button that I began to realize that had I written thus about e.g. Mr Inyang ("heng-an-dey") our geography teacher in the third form ( he was of Efik ethnicity, from Calabar) – I'm sure that he would have reserved a special cane with which to deliver a dirty dozen on my thinly, Khaki-covered buttocks, as a result of which I'm sure that I would not have been able to sit on the aforementioned bottom for at least a week – and of course, as a result of which – and indeed, that would have taught me, I'm sure , that I should never ever say such a thing again. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was probably the motto from the jungle that he came from. (The "Heng-an dey" was the nickname that we had given him, because back then he wore Michael Jackson style trousers, with the hem hanging about six inches above his ankles/ shoes. He also had a unique way of pronouncing "vary" as "vah -ri")
But concerning "mature holy virgin up to a late age" – with regard to a woman, plain or beautiful, she would have been regarded as an "old maid". With regard to Baba Kadiri, to begin with, let me tell you unequivocally that I really admire your personal feat of maintaining your equilibrium - defeating lurid temptation ( and "provocation is next to madness" – my grandmother used to say since I assume that many a Swedish Eve must have flaunted her charms at you many a time – on the dance floor, at the beach, at her place, at your place, not least of all in what some boast was the sexually liberated Sweden of the 1960s in the midst of which I believe you arrived as a very masculine Yoruba youth in the full glory of manhood – surrounded by an endless bevvy of hungry young and willing damsels.
Concerning modesty, about a year ago the Orthodox Rabbi in Stockholm ( Amram Maccabi Hayun) when extrapolating on a certain section of the Shulchan Aruch advised that in all modesty, the male should undress under the blanket (at which precise moment I thought, " but the Almighty Himself can see through any blanket, anyway ")I understood the rabbi to mean that in the name of modesty the male should not go around waving his penis at his woman, like a serpent, or slapping her face with it, that he must undress under the blanket. (I almost wrote "under the carpet"
Indeed, I believe that orthodox Judaism would agree with you fully about what you say is the purpose of sex – not merely enjoyment, but more importantly, procreation. The very first time I met a conversion rabbi ( circa, 1997) the very first thing he said to me, even before "Shalom", or "how are you?" and other pleasantries, the first thing he said to me, almost shouting at me, was " You must be fruitful and multiply !" – at which point I also thought, " Yeah! Stay on the scene, like a sex machine! Indeed, we must replenish the earth, especially after the Holocaust during which world Jewry lost six million souls - not to mention earlier and later pogroms."
Well if you want to really know how it's supposed to be, by all means, you must watch this documentary : Sacred Sperm
One last thing Baba Kadiri: methinks that you are being too hard on Oluwatoyin. Thou shalt not exaggerate. In my opinion and relatively speaking, that is a photograph of a rather modestly dressed female. I'm sure that in this day and age, for all your puritanical, holier-than-thou talk about "large buttocks stuffed inside trousers", you have most probably seen worse.
On Friday, 8 November 2019 23:09:41 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:Baba Kadiri (mature holy virgin up to late age) offers a different perspective, that too has to be addresses, appropriately - Rabbi Hamelberg. I have never proposed that virginity should be kept up to late age. What I said , rather, is that sexual intercourse, whether for pleasure or procreation, should only take place between a married or cohabiting man and a woman. It is in marriage or cohabitation that a man or a woman should lose his or her virginity. Writing in her 1999 book, A RETURN TO MODESTY, Wendy Shalit informed her readers that ''Modesty isn't about snubbing men, but about postponing sexual pleasure until the time is right (p. 84)."
The subject being discussed is the Beauties of Lagos epitomised two pictures of a faceless person depicting a woman with large buttocks stocked inside trousers. I regard the pictures as a pimp's distorted view of women being sexual objects. The display of sociopathic lifestyle conveyed by the two pictures of a faceless woman stocked in trousers with protruding large buttocks has nothing to do with IFA or OGBONI cult. When glaring defamation of Nigerian womanhood has occurred it is the duty of those of us, sons and daughters women, who are not nurtured or natural fools to register our objection and protest strongly. Wendy Shalit noted in : A RETURN TO MODESTY thus, "As one 27-year-old Orthodox (Jewish) woman put it to me, with a toss of her long black hair, 'there is a saying that goes *Ein b'not yisrael hefker.* It means that the daughters of Israel are not available for public use (p.131)." Similarly, I say to who ever it may concern that the daughters of Nigeria are not available for sexual exploitations by men. In my previous contribution on the Beauties of Lagos, I pointed out that the environment from which the photographer
sneaked behind the woman to take pictures of her buttocks without her consent was inhabitable for humans and animals. Tastes may be different from persons to persons and that is why some people, like magotts, see pit latrines as five-stars hotell habitat. And the beauty of Lagos was demonstrated by the death of husband and wife, caused by cholerea. They lived in one room in a house containing 14 rooms and shops with no water and two pit toilets for the tenants.S. Kadiri
Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com > för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 5 november 2019 23:13
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beauties of Lagos: Meeting Kantinthe MetropolisThis evening I attended this lecture at the Paideia Institute, on "The History of Hasidism" by Prof. David Biale . As it turns out, the 850-page work is actually authored by eight people working in concert, in itself a miracle of co-operation to have eight people writing as one and speaking/singing as one voice when we already have the saying " two Jews, three opinions"
Given the notorious flimflam of the 419ers and the magnetic flux of the ethnic mix, the 250-plus ethnicities, religious and political identities, persuasions, indigenous philosophies, it's about time we coin the saying, "Three Nigerians, five opinions!" – as is being amply demonstrated in this thread.
Personally, I look forward to Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju's forthcoming magnum opus which will no doubt be on the Ogboni Society or on Ifa, I look forward to that publication seeing the light of day as much as I look forward to as to both the critical acclaim for his fresh perspectives and no doubt, the kinds of critical perspectives that we are to expect, will be brought to bear upon it by other experts, semi-experts, not to mention fellow ignoramuses like yours truly.
It is to be expected that Adepoju's work should attract critical attention for precisely the reasons he is being criticised and forewarned by some of his traditional enemies and precisely because of the fresh insights he is likely to bear on the subject matter - from the vantage cross-cultural viewpoints of comparative mythologies, mysticisms, secret schools.
Nowhere has Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju declared that he is setting himself up as the Qutb, , the Rebbe or a Rebbe, or Satguru , or Babalawo or Moshiach or the king of kings of the Ogboni or the Ifa - in which case even the not so righteous might regard him as a " charlatan", so, as Gloria In Excelsis Emeagwali herself is asking, why should anyone (erudite scholars included) be in agony just because Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju proposes a study, "If Adepoju planned to formulate a new aesthetics, vision, school, interpretation, theology or model- why not?"
Baba Kadiri ( mature holy virgin up to a late age) offers a different perspective; that too has to be addressed, appropriately...
On Tuesday, 5 November 2019 15:14:00 UTC+1, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:Thanks Gloria.
I appreciate your contributions to such criticism.
toyin
On Tue, 5 Nov 2019 at 11:18, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria....@gmail.com> wrote:
An interesting debate. Goodbibliographic references.
If Adepoju planned to formulate a newaesthetics , vision, school, interpretation,theory, theology or model- why not?We don't have to be perpetualconsumers of the theories ofothers - especially since some of thelatter (Kant included) areperpetuators of prejudice andbigotry and are often over valued.
That does not exempt the finalproduct from the kind ofscrutiny that is being applied.
In the long run incisive criticism andcautionary noteswould assist in the improvementof Adepoju's proposed theory.
GEafricahistory. net
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 4, 2019, at 4:49 PM, 'Dompere, Kofi Kissi' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Greetings ALL,
Interesting discussions. These are SPIRITUAL GODS of Yoruba according to the formulation and retention
from BAHIA, BRASIL
KOFI
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2019 2:10 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>; usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beauties of Lagos: Meeting Kantinthe MetropolisExternal Email Warning WARNING! Please proceed with caution as this message could be a scam. The sender's account may have been compromised and used to send malicious messages. If this message seems suspicious, please DO NOT CLICK any of the links and/or attachments. If you believe the contents of this email may be unsafe, please send it as an attachment to the ETS Information Security Team: ets-i...@howard.edu.
Toyin
Thanks for this long winded piece which conflates so many issues. If I may start from the end what is univeral Ogboni and on whose behalf was it established since there is a specific organisation within Yoruba land with that mame who have sole authority to use that name?
Have you applied to the Ogboni as constituted in Yoruba land in western Nigeria and have they invested you with the authority to establish a universal Ogboni on their behalf?
If not your activity is clearly fraudulent!
You also stated that you have created your own ese Ifa. if you know the origins of the traditional ese Ifa you will realise that name dropping Wande Abimbola will not enable you to be a bonafide person capable of creating even a single line of ese Ifa. I am afraid this is another 419 on your part. Only bonafide Ifa priests who have gone through the proper novitiate and gone through the proper rankings create genuine ese Ifa. So whatever you created is fake and must be treated as such. No wonder your prolegomenary gambit of self initiation priest hood. ( no such thing exists except perhaps in the charlatanry of the border lines of pentecostalism -which is why they are rife with scandals including sex for grades.) Proper religions have good organisational structures with strictures on how progress and not your abracadabra method.
You cite Orisa culture in diaspora. This is another 419 gimmick. Those who started Orisa culture in the diaspora took it from Yoruba land in the Middle passage and adapted it to their new locales ( same with the West African coast line.) But here is Toyin Adepoju seated in the original home land of Ifa and Ogboni culture in Yoruba land where he should defer to the authorities for these organisations faking residency abroad after ejection from the United Kingdom, the locus of his original plans. Are you adapting Ifa and Ogboni to their home lands in Lagos or Benin? To delude the world along these lines of self delusion you state:Yoruba origin spirituality, (sic) Orisa spiritualityis better understood as a world spirituality,not an ethnic spirituality, on account of itsintercontinental and intercultural breath...
Yes, it is but it has an extant ethnic cote and those who live within that ethnic core practice the ethnic variant. An American can not stay in the UK since child hood ( I actually had such students in the UK) till adulthood and start broadcasting abroad American iEnglish as international English!Let me ask you a wuestion: Why have you not chosen to adapt Islam and lets see if a fatwa will not be pronounced ? You said:
What religious and other organisations do iscreate systems of access to suchpossibilities. These systems are often theinnovation of a person or a group eventuallyadopted by others.
You stated that you were not trying to describe African aesthetics but depicting your own aesthetics, Is your name Immanuel Kant? Everyone on this listserv knows you by the name Vincent Oluwatoyin Acepoju.
Your translation of " Oju loro wa" as well as Adesanmi's misses the point of what the Yoruba mean by its usage. What is more, the image of the woman you posted showed no face but the hips: what is the correlation?
You have been missing the point in much of your studies because you refuse to seek the guidance of experts. Do not pass on the ignorance!
OAA
Sent from Samsung tablet.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>Date: 04/11/2019 16:59 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beauties of Lagos: Meeting Kantinthe Metropolis
Thanks OAA.
Great thanks for your response linking various aspects of Yoruba esotericism and philosophy in relation to aesthetics.
Dialogue Between Exoteric Surfaces and Esoteric Depths
You state:
"Let me start with your oxymoron' open study of the sacred.' Your statement has inadvertently summed up the cogency of my position!
If it is sacred why indulge in its OPEN study?"
But, the open disclosure and study of the sacred is the foundation of most of what we know of religion.
Religions thrive significantly through scriptures, largely verbal, but also visual and gestural, symbols encoding the inspirational core of those spiritualities.
Most scriptures are publicly accessible, while the esoteric dimension of the religions in question represent ways of interpreting and applying those scriptures.
The Zohar, central to Jewish esotericism, is an imaginative interpretation of Jewish scripture as publicly understood.
Regardless of whatever esoteric depths the babalawo may enter into, ese ifa, Ifa literature, accessible even to non-initiates before the advent of widespread writing and now widely accessible globally through a constant stream of written texts, is the primary cognitive system of Ifa.
Christian Apophatic Theology and Public Christian Discourses
Various Christian mystics reference the divine transcendence of all cognitive categories, apophatic theology, with the image of the cloud of simultaneous obscuration and enlightenment dramatizing this perspective, an image possibly derived from Moses' encounter with God in the cloud within which he received the ten commandments, a picture interpreted in cognitive terms in such images as St.John of the Cross' "the dark cloud that illumines the night".
The primary inspirational point for these journeys to and from the readily accessible, however, is the exoteric core of Christian spirituality, the Bible, made available to all through great sacrifice, even of life, as with William Tyndale who was executed for translating the Bible into English, a risk taken by Tyndale, in the understanding adapted from St. Jerome, that ignorance of the Bible is ignorance of Christ, as the Encyclopedia Britannica 1971 sums up Tyndale's vision, a vision eventually proving critical for the Protestant Reformation, a further democratization of Christianity marked by translating the Bible into indigenous European languages, as with Martin Luther's seminal translation into German.
The Face as External Expression of Inward Being in Yoruba Thought asDemonstrated in Odu Ifa
This understanding of scripture as both the face, the outward expression and the concentration of an infinite essence that may be deduced through continuous study of that outward expression is suggested by Wande Abimbola's characterization in either Ifa Divination Poetry or An Exposition of Ifa Literary Corpus, of the visual expression of odu ifa, the primary organisational forms of Ifa.
Abimbola describes these visual mathematical permutations as "oju odu ifa", "the face/s of odu ifa", a description in keeping with the understanding of the significance of the human face in classical Yoruba thought.
These conceptions of the face are summed up in the expression "oju loro wa", translated by Pius Adesanmi as "the face is the abode of discourse".
They are also subsumed in the expression "oju inu", "inward vision/ eye or inward, penetrative perception". Oju" in Yoruba may represent either the face or the eyes embedded in the face.
"Oju inu" signifies a progression into the ontological depths of phenomena. This cognitive movement begins from "oju lasan", basic perception, or the outward eye which perceives only the externals of phenomena.
I discuss this ideational continuum in "Oju L'Oro Wa : From Physical Vision to Witchcraft and Mystical Insight: An Intercultural Exploration of the Face as Epistemological and Metaphysical Matrix in Yoruba Thought" (USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google Group) and "Adapting Yorùbá Epistemology in Educational Theory and Practice in Nigeria" ( Yorùbá Studies Review).
That characterization from Abimbola suggests the odu ifa are best understood in terms of a progressive apprehension of their symbolic and existential depths, from an exoteric surface to esoteric foundations, from their mathematical visual structures to the literary expressions those visual forms symbolise, ese ifa, the scriptures of Ifa, perhaps the best known of what may be described as scriptures of the Orisa tradition to which Ifa belongs.
The study of these "faces " of odu ifa would further proceed from the identity of these symbolic matrices as human cultural constructs represented by mathematical visual forms and literary structures to their understanding as expressions of entities whose essential identity is beyond the scope of human culture even while it embraces that scope.
At this foundational level, the odu ifa are understood as spirits, sentient agents described as emerging from orun, the world of ultimate origins, into Earth, as depicted by Abimbola, akin to Nyornuwofia Agorsor's reverential address to these forms, as I compile this in "Performative, Visual and Lyric Spirituality: Nyornuwofia Agorsor" and reinforced by Benin babalawo Joseh Ohomina, who, in a personal communication, describes the odu ifa as pre-human entities, embodiments of all possibilities of existence, a small fraction of whose significance as accessible to humanity is encoded in Ifa and whose non-human language the Yoruba pioneered the translation of into a human language, Yoruba, as I describe this perspective in "Cosmological Permutations : Joseph Ohomina's Ifa Philosophy and the Quest for the Unity of Being".
Transforming Theology into Scripture
Beyond scripture's role in terms of a dialogue between exoteric surface and esoteric depths, beyond what may be understood as that first order discourse in spirituality, "faith seeking understanding" is one definition of theology, an often public wrestling with the meaning of faith, with theological texts at times proving
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Saturday, November 9, 2019
Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beauties of Lagos: Meeting Kantinthe Metropolis
Cornelius the Wise,
Thank you for that last link.The DNA
geneticists are going to be on her trail
and would eventually market her
butt genes- without her consent
of course.
Adepoju is probably on
his way to Ivory Coast, right now.
But Kadiri, let us be fair. Adepoju
has his weak points. I went strongly
against him in his anti- Fulani rants
and I agree with you that he is guilty
of not even asking for permission
from the subject of his butt eulogy -
and much more.
BUT let us not downplay his brilliance.
He has the capability to go beyond
the Germanic.
GE
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