Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Classics in Ogboni Studies : Babatunde Lawal, Philosopher of Ogboni

Thanks, Gloria.

Please dont feel bad about your earlier response. It was polite but firm as you thought was needed. It was bracing and actually inspiring bcs you stated the fact of scholarship. Creativity is fed by knowledge and knowledge is generated by investigation, of which reading is strategic. 

I have that Feyerabend text and will also address the others. 

Great thanks for the offer to send me Feyerabend, which I have, but any other book/s we agree on would also be welcome. One cant have too many books. 

Back to my comment on book recommendations.

What I was trying to state, which I might not have stated adequately perhaps bcs I did not edit my response carefully enough since I was anxious to dispatch it bcs  it had lain so long in my drafts box, is that-

I am happy to engage suggestions for reading but those suggestions need to be justified by the demonstration of a clear understanding of the rationale for making those suggestions.

In your previous response, you stated that I was over-privileging Western science and suggested reading particular scholars.

I responded by declaring that the centring of the West in the development of modern science is unassailable and I stated why. 

I would need to see some effort to demonstrate why you think my position is untenable before we move to the books you recommend, books from which I could draw conclusions different from yours.

The argument for the "democratization of science; the restoration of local initiative  and understanding; acknowledgement of the diversity and plurality of knowledge; and the recognition that  science is not just one tradition" as you state, is a vital one.

I would benefit from more exposure to texts exploring that perspective. 

At the moment, though, I have been exposed to such texts along such lines as   George Gheverghese Joseph's  The Crest of the Peacock: Non-European Roots of Mathematics , Ron Eglash's African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design, Aime Dafon Segla's  Yoruba Mathematics : Archeology and Anthropology of Knowledge in a Culture of Orality ( Segla is very important in this field and its intersection with Yoruba systems of thought generally. The book and  a no of his articles are in French but he has some publications in English, some free online. My blog on him, Aime Dafon Segla,  needs updating but its useful)  texts on Indian mathematics such as  the magnificent geometry of Sri Yantra, on the symbolism and application of which I have written severally, and  texts on on the intersection of cognitive traditions such as the Buddhist Net of Indra and fractal geometry, which gives its name to David Mumford et al's Indra's Pearl's :The Vision of Felix Klein, exploring Klein's  discovery  in mathematics of an  idea prefigured in Buddhist mythology, Laura Marks' Enfoldment and Infinity: An Islamic Genealogy of New Media Art, discussing structural parallels between Islamic geometry and new media art in the context of the influence of Islamic culture on Western culture, and correlations  between the mathematics of Islamic architecture and modern mathematics relatively recently foregrounded by Peter Lu and Paul Steinhardt's" "Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval  Islamic Architecture", discussed for laypeople in such articles as Sebastian Prange's "The Tiles of Infinity" and Philip Ball's  "Islamic Tiles Reveal Sophisticated Maths : Muslim Artists Were 500 Years Ahead of Western Researchers" and  US scientists Sylvester James Gates and Michael Faux' mathematical system of which they state in "Adinkras: A Graphical Technology for Supersymmetric Representation Theory " : 

The use of symbols to connote ideas which defy simple verbalization is perhaps one of the oldest of human traditions. The Asante people of West Africa have long been accustomed to using simple yet elegant motifs known as Adinkra symbols, to serve just this purpose. With a nod to this tradition, we christen our graphical symbols as 'Adinkras.'  

I detail convergences between their symbols and the Akan/Gyaman Adinkra in "Classical and Super Symmetric Adinkra : Visual Correlations".

Having noted the cultural and geographical diversity in the development of science, however, I wonder if it can be successfully contested   that science did not become a dominant force of society, and even more so with such world shaping impact, until the 17th century Scientific Revolution in Europe and the 19th century  Industrial Revolution, also in Europe, with further transformations emerging  with the Information Revolution crucibled  in the 20th century  US. 

I am happy to examine alternative histories of the development of science in terms of its globally transforming force represented by the emergence of  a critical mass within particular societies, but I am happier with anyone making such claims first presenting the argument themselves rather than directing me to books without developing such an argument, even if only in brief. 

If a significant case can be made for such an alternative history, then I would not need any persuasion to read the sources providing the knowledge justifying  such a history.

I presented and justified my perspective on the subject instead of simply invoking such texts in support of my position as   Frances Yates' Giodarno Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition which is foundational in making the case for the transition of epistemes   in the 17th century or Richard Westfall's and others' revisionary works on Newton, strategic for  Newton as exemplar of that transition, or Tian Yu Cao's preface and intro to his  Conceptual Developments of 20th Century Field Theories, drawing heavily from Yates' thesis  ( Cao is an Asian philosopher of science in the US who also has a book on the Chinese Model of Development, so he's likely to be in tune with the cross cultural issues in the development of knowledge).

thanks

toyin

 

On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 12:55, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:

TA,

Please ignore my last comment.

This morning I looked at the rest of your 

discussion and concluded that I rushed

to judgement, because your follow-up

sentence stated that you are ready to

look at the books - and judging from

the number of books already

consulted it is really unfair for

anyone to suggest that you don't 

read books. I have no right to assume

that you don't want to read 

non-Eurocentric books either.

So accept my apology. 

Gloria Emeagwali 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 1, 2020, at 9:33 PM, Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.emeagwali@gmail.com> wrote:



"I would be particularly interested in reading summaries, with names and descriptions 

of their achievements and impact in their fields, rather than being directed to books

 which would take me more time to go through. " Adepoju

So you are looking for a quick fix and  a short cut .But that's the problem with academics and  scholarship.

You have to do the spade work yourself and burn the candle, so to speak, especially if you want to get out of the eurocentric

trap that you are in with respect to the history of science. No. I  would not give you summaries. The journey begins

with you. I urge you to read Feyerabend's  "Against Method".It is a good place to start. I can even send you a copy. 

The Tyranny of science, Science in a Free Society and the Conquest of Abundance are his other  relevant works

but one step at a time.Feyerabend's mission is the demystification and   democratization of science; the restoration of local initiative 

and understanding; acknowledgement of the diversity and plurality of knowledge; and the recognition that

 science is not just one tradition. No need for me to give more references at this point. That is all that I would say for now.

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration (Edison).

GE

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 7:09 PM Chika Okeke-Agulu <okekeagulu@gmail.com> wrote:

On current Ogboni research, you might want to check the ongoing work of David T. Doris at Michigan. His Vigilant Things: On Thieves, Yoruba Anti-Aesthetics, and the Strange Fates of Ordinary Objects in Nigeria (2011) compellingly challenged Robert Farris Thompson's dominant "cool" aesthetic that for decades served as the primary code for understanding Yoruba Aesthetic; and I suspect that his research on Ogboni, based on years of understudying leading members of the Ogboni Society--from the little I have seen--will vigorously trouble current scholarly on the subject.

Chika

On Friday, June 19, 2020 at 1:11:31 PM UTC-4, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:

                             

                     

      

            Classics in Ogboni Studies 

                      Babatunde Lawal

                  Philosopher of Ogboni

                              

                                            

   

                      Babatunde Lawal surrounded by great works of Yoruba art, his field of study

                                                                        Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

                                                                                          Compcros

                                                        Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems 

                                      "Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

         

Abstract

An exploration of the insights of the work of art historian, art critic and art theorist Babatunde Lawal on the Yoruba origin Ogboni esoteric order in relation to developing a comprehensive grasp of its philosophy, as intrinsic to the order and in its integration within Yoruba thought.

Philosopher of Ogboni

Babatunde Lawal may be described as a philosopher of Ogboni on account of his dramatization of Ogboni vision, through poetry of expression, analytical depth, ideational range and artistic sensitivity, projecting a passion that lifts to the mind's eye the glory of his subject.

Representative examples of his scholarly work may also be seen as demonstrating an inter-relationality, a coherence of subjects and of perspectives on those subjects, suggesting an Ogboni vision, even though he is not known as an Ogboni initiate.

Lawal's "À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó" 's Compelling Exposition of the Unity of Ogboni Philosophy, Spirituality and Art

Lawal's "À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó: New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni," was published in African Arts, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1995, 36-49+98-100.

This essay is the most comprehensive on Ogboni known to me, surveying the fundamentals of Ogboni thought and its relationship with Ogboni art in the context of Ogboni history.

Lawal is magnificent on Ogboni philosophy, in terms of its conceptual exposition and the unraveling of the projection of these ideas through Ogboni art.

The poetry, imaginative range and lofty moral vision demonstrated by Ogboni in what might be described as its most mature form at the acme of Yoruba political, judicial, philosophical and spiritual synthesis is magnificently demonstrated by Lawal in an essay enriched with superb images of the art whose harmony of expressive power and ideational projection he explores.

He masterfully projects the character of Ogboni as a spirituality and philosophy centred in the feminine, as it foregrounds the masculine and feminine polarities that define human existence as a manifestation of the feminine principle represented by Earth as universally nurturing mother.

The Unity of Representative Examples of Babatunde Lawal's Scholarly Work as Suggesting an Ogboni Vision

"À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó" is correlative with Lawal's book on Yoruba female centred spirituality, The Gelede Spectacle: Art, Gender and Social Harmony in an African Culture, where he argues for the correlation of all female deities in Yoruba origin Orisa cosmology as expressions of Earth.

These conjunctions further resonate with another remarkable essay of his, "Èjìwàpò: The Dialectics of Twoness in Yoruba Art and Culture", where the centrality of the binary principle and its manifestation in a unifying triad is developed at length, with superb pictures.

This essay may be seen as microcosmic of Yoruba philosophy and spirituality as a whole, binary and triadic concepts being also central to Ogboni, that being one of the examples he gives in this essay, while demonstrating the ramification of these ideas in other centres of Yoruba thought, as in the Ifa system of knowledge.

"Orilonise : The Hermeneutics of the Head and Hairstyles Among the Yoruba" is another essay in which Lawal can be seen as exploring Yoruba philosophy and spirituality's grounding in the intersection between the material and spiritual universes, an intersection that defines Ogboni, although Ogboni does not feature explicitly in this essay, from what I recall.

Another priceless essay by Lawal, conjunctive with Ogboni thought, though Ogboni is not discussed in it, is "Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art," where he explores ideas of imaginative fashioning in Yoruba thought, with reference to the transformation of what is seen by the eyes and recreated by the artist into art, a creative form further reworked by the perception of the viewer.

He presents the scope of sensory and particularly visual perception in Yoruba thought, ranging from corporeal perception, immediate sensory apprehension, to the reworking of sense data through critical reflection and imagination, among other conventional cognitive processes, to unconventional modes of perception.

He thus depicts Yoruba epistemology as developing the idea of penetration beyond the conventionally perceptible to unconventional awareness, the unconventional ranging from extra sensory perception to trance and witchcraft, although he does not elaborate on these tantalizing epistemic categories, nor explain the controversial conception of witchcraft in Yoruba thought.

"Àwòrán" aligns superbly with the Earth centred, materially grounded but extra-material orientation of Ogboni thought in dramatizing the emphasis in Yoruba thought of a dynamic between the material world and possibilities of being beyond the material, between Earth and its biological enablements and possibilities beyond these.

These oscillations are emblematised by the recurrent motif in Yoruba Ifa literature of a journey between orun, the world of ultimate origins and the material universe represented by aye, Earth, a journey described by Ogboni elder Kolawole Ositola in Margaret Thompson Drewal's Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play Agency, as central to Ogboni lifestyle as an inter-generational quest for knowledge, truth and justice, a journey between orun and aye that may be perceived in metaphorical terms as an oscillation between the ultimate and the contingent, between the material and the spiritual.

In "Divinity, Creativity and Humanity in Yoruba Aesthetics," Lawal explores the dialectic of divine and human creativity in Yoruba thought emblematised by myths of divine shaping of the human being in Yoruba cosmology in contrast to the belief co-existing in this cosmology, that deities are shaped by humans, represented in the expression "Bi eniyan ko si, orisa ko si", "No humanity, no orisa [deities]" thereby incidentally evoking the Ogboni expression, "Earth existed before the orisa and the Ogboni cult before kingship," as quoted by Peter Morton-Williams in "The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo."

Lawal concludes, in keeping with Wole Soyinka's summation on the same expression in The Credo of Being and Nothingness, Soyinka's response being that "Orisa reveals destiny as-Self destination."

Lawal states that, in this context, the human creation of deity is an "act of self-reflexion [that] not only constitutes the orisa into a sort of superhuman Other, an extension of the metaphysical self, but also provides a basis for involving them in the ethics, aesthetics, poetics and politics of human existence".

This perspective may be fruitfully compared with the Ogboni projection of human creativity within a symbol matrix where human creativity is placed within a network of symbols including Olodumare, the ultimate creator and Ile, Earth, as described in Dennis Williams' "The Iconology of the Yoruba Edan Ogboni".

Within this configuration, the human being is symbolized by charcoal from cooking fires, suggesting human discovery of fire in transforming food from a raw to an edible state, representing the adaptation and transformation of nature that defines human civilization, a recreative process that may be extended to humanity's relationship with ideas of spirit and deity.

In "Orí: The Significance of the Head in Yoruba Sculpture", Lawal explores the recreative activity of art as representative of the dialogue between the self, as a biologically and socially shaped entity, and the self as an entity that transcends biology, society and mortality, as understood in Yoruba thought.

He examines the scope of the idea of the human person as shaper of being at the nexus of contrastive but complementary aspects of the self, a perspective resonant with Morton-Williams' description of Ogboni thought as centred in the shaping capacity of humanity even within the cosmos of deities:

The senior grade of Ogboni will collectively know all that pertains to the orisa cults. They will also have been active participants in them and many will have gone deeply into their esoterica. The ritual of the orisa ceases to captivate the most thoughtful of them … through their experience, age, and closeness to death they have transcended the ordinary orisa 'truth '-the conceptions expressed through the cults-leaving only Earth as the absolute certainty in their future.

In discussions of Yoruba religion, contemplative Ogboni men will often introduce such phrases as ' I know that everything must have its cause ', meaning that whatever the orisa do for mankind is a consequence of human action; implicit is a denial of the ordinary man's conviction that there is an element of irresponsibility or of chance in events; implicit also is the awareness that Elegbara, the Trickster deity, cannot lead a man into misfortune unless he himself or an enemy provokes the event.

(Peter Morton-Williams, "The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo, " Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4.1960. 362-374.373).

To what degree is such a perception an aspect of Ogboni ethos in general and in relation to changes in Ogboni since the decades when this article was published?

Whatever might be the response to this question, this style of thinking suggests an approach to the nexus of humanity, Earth and deity generated by Ogboni thought.

Links to Download Some of Lawal's Works

"Àwòrán: Representing the Self and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art,"

"À Yà Gbó, À Yà Tó New Perspectives on Edan Ògbóni"

"Orilonise : The Hermeneutics of the Head and Hairstyles Among the Yoruba"

"Orí: The Significance of the Head in Yoruba Sculpture"

"Divinity, Creativity and Humanity in Yoruba Aesthetics"

"Embodying the Sacred in Yoruba Art"

Babatunde Lawal Page on Semantic Scholar Document Archive Site

An Invitation to Donate to this Project

You can contribute materially to this project, facilitating research and publication in Ogboni Studies, consolidating the subject and providing foundations for the unified study of African esoteric systems, bodies of thought and action defined by secrecy in the exploration of knowledge.

Click here to donate at Ogboni Explorations blog.

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