African Cosmology and Concepts of Reality
African Cosmology and
Concepts of Reality
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Our
African ancestors postulated the universe was teleological meaning it was
designed with purpose and meaning and the designer was spiritual; that is
intelligent, possessing consciousness (self-awareness), was powerful energy and
non-material. This creator, planner and architect, our ancestors posited was
unseen, unknowable and beyond human comprehension. They knew it existed but could not fathom it
in its totality although they could see and intuit aspects of it all around
them.
This
ancient philosophy and cosmology is the root and foundation of all non-western metaphysical,
religious and scientific thought. A closer examination of all current religious
dogma and ideology will find some aspect of this ancient African cosmology in
it. Over time leaders, priests and others perverted this ancient truth and used
it for their own aggrandizement, power and profit.
Traditional
Africans no matter their means of sustenance whether primitive hunter
gatherers, agriculturalists, herdsmen or fishermen all embraced the idea the
universe is purposeful, spiritual and mental in nature. They clearly understood
this primordial consciousness/spirit is the cause, root and foundation of
everything (all) that exists. This ideology is attributed to the Nile Valley Africans
but it probably has its true origins deep in antiquity in the interior of Africa.
It
has come down to us in modern times as the Hermetic
Philosophy and principles, or the hidden (occult) wisdom. It was originally
attributed to Djhuty (Tehuti) also referred to in honorific terms as “the
Master of Masters”, the father of astrology, occult wisdom and magic. In ancient
pre-dynastic Kemet, Djhuty was deified because of his wisdom and righteousness.
While his teachings were the basis of metaphysical and religious philosophy and
spread around the world, it was not given openly; it was reserved for the true
seekers of truth. Djhuty was subsequently referred to as Hermes and Thoth by
the Greeks.
“Even to this day, we use the term ‘hermetic’
in the sense of ‘secret’; ‘sealed so that nothing can escape’; etc and this by
reason of the fact that the followers of Hermes always observed the principle
of secrecy in their teachings. They did not believe in ‘casting pearls before
swine,’ but rather held to the teaching ‘milk for babes; meat for strong men’
both of which maxims are familiar to readers of the Christian scriptures, but
both of which had been used by the Egyptians for centuries before the Christian
era.” The Hermetic Philosophy from The
Kybalion A study of Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt
and Greece
page 18.
Djhuty
(Tehuti) was called Hermes
Trismegistus (three times great) by the Greeks who were deeply in awe of and greatly
influenced by Nile Valley Africans. The Africans posited the universe as one organic
whole governed by seven basic principles:
Mentalism: the all is mind, the universe is mental, and mind
creates everything
Correspondence: as above so below, as it is below so is it above
Vibration: everything is in constant motion; nothing rests, everything
vibrates at differing frequencies,
Polarity: everything is duel, everything has opposites identical
in nature but different in degree
Rhythm: everything has an ebb and flow, in and out, advance and recoil
Cause and Effect: nothing
happens by chance, everything
happens according to law, every cause has an effect
Gender: everything, everything animate and inanimate is
masculine and feminine
This ancient truth is being born out in modern times by
the Johnny Come Lately Westerners who lack a true sense of spirituality because
they are too focused on sense awareness and they perceive the universe only
through their limited physical senses. However now they are being forced to
expand their view of “reality” because their research and sophisticated
machines have discovered frequencies beyond the range of human sensory
perception. Their quantum and atomic theorists now postulate that everything is
in constant motion, that energy is inbuilt in everything animate and inanimate
alike. But they are still unwilling, at this point, to admit that all creation
has consciousness with a resulting teleological order and significance;
something our African ancestors knew intuitively eons ago!
Africans, aboriginal and indigenous people always attempted
to live in harmony with the natural order. In fact ancient Africans called the natural
order Maat (Divine Order, truth, harmony, balance, justice, righteousness and reciprocity)
and they knew just like the seven principles dovetailed, connect to and
comingled with each other so does Maat.
When
we were in our right minds unencumbered by foreign ideas and notions of reality,
we knew to have a sense of awe, reverence and respect for the spirit, energy
and intelligence responsible for creation and sustenance of the universe. As a
result our prehistoric ancestors developed ways to recognize and propitiate the
spirit(s) for good, guidance and direction. In the future we will look at how
our ancestors used Djhuty’s wisdom to assist and enhance their daily lives.
-30-
Invisible Warriors Documentary
Invisible Warriors, a
Documentary about Black Women During WWII
Junious Ricardo
Stanton
Last Saturday my wife and I
attended a screening of a documentary entitled Invisible Warriors African American Women in World War II at the Lawnside New Jersey Middle School.
The documentary is about the 600,000 African American women who left the farms
and their menial jobs as cooks and domestic workers and traveled to the cities
to work in the armament factories during World War II. The film was written,
directed and produced by Gregory S. Cooke. It has taken him ten years to get to
this point and the film is still not complete.
Invisible Warriors; African American Women in World War II tells
the story of the Black women who
answered the call to serve not in the military but as workers in the myriad
factories and the assembly lines producing airplanes, ships, and munitions in
support of the war effort. Cooke dedicated the film to women like his mother
who he calls The Black Rosie the Riveters, who represented the hundreds of
thousands of unsung heroes who battled American racial apartheid, economic
privation during the Great Depression and gender discrimination when they first
applied for the jobs and keeping them once they were hired.
The film’s producer and director Gregory
S. Cooke was present at the screening to explain the genesis of the film and share
why he embarked on making this documentary. His mother, a resident of Norfolk Virginia, left
home in 1943 when she was eighteen years old to travel to Washington D.C.
to get her very first job as a clerk typist in the US Patent Office during
World War II. “Much of the work I’ve done has been dedicated to her. She told
me this story when I was five or six years old. I think the real reason I
remember is because of the train, I’ve always had a love affair with trains and
the fact that she rode on her suitcase in a segregated Jim Crow car in Virginia in 1943.
Because of the ride she took I was born in Philadelphia” Cooke told the audience.
The film features archival footage,
still photographs and interviews Cooke conducted with local New
Jersey and Philadelphia
residents as well as women like Dorothy Height. The film looks at the Black
Rosie the Riveters from their perspective, examining the tribulations they
experienced breaking into male dominated industries and entering government
positions at a time when racial discrimination and animus was rampant. Their
story is told through their eyes and we can see their determination and resilience.
These women who worked in the factories and government offices are rarely
mentioned in the history books but they played a pivotal role in the war effort
not just with their labor but by buying of war bonds and their patriotism.
The women filled in when the men
went off to fight in the war. Many times they had to assume the role of mother,
father and primary breadwinner in their households. They worked long hours
around the clock and had to fight gender discrimination, sexual harassment in
the workplace.
“How many of you saw the film
Hidden Figures?” asked Cooke. Well there were only three of them. There were
six hundred thousand Rosie the Riveters during World War II. I looked at the
1940 census and if you put all those six hundred thousand sisters in one city
they would have been the thirteenth largest city in America based on the 1940 census.
Most of the women I spoke to I had to talk into being in the film and give them
a history lesson to show them they were important, and how important they
were.”
The film has been a labor of love
for ten years for Cooke. He poured his heart and soul into it along with his
own money. It is still not completely finished and ready for distribution.
Cooke still must raise money to finalize some things and resolve some legal
issues; but he was glad to screen the film in Lawnside New Jersey an historic
all Black town in
Camden
County. For more
information about the film or to donate to its completion, go to
https://www.invisiblewarriorsfilm.com.
-30-
Let’s Rekindle Our Oral Tradition
Junious Ricardo Stanton
This past weekend I attended the
twenty-fifth annual International Locks Conference and I got a chance to speak
with and interview representatives of the Keepers of the Culture an Afrocentric
storytelling group. I was impressed with the family I met and their commitment
to keeping the African oral tradition alive.
The oral tradition is/was an
importance aspect of aboriginal and indigenous people’s lifestyle and culture.
Oral communication was their fundamental way of social interaction, sharing
information passing on values and linking wit their ancestors.
African people have always valued
wisdom; which has nothing to do with formal education (indoctrination). Our
transplanted ancestors who were denied formal education in this hemisphere
called wisdom “mother wit”. In Africa we had
long traditions of cultivating, rewarding and celebrating wisdom, promoting good
character, righteousness and leaving a social legacy empowered by those
virtues.
The oldest writings in the world addressing
and promoting good character are found in the African Nile
Valley’s Teaching of
Ptahhotep, The Book of Coming Forth By Day and the Book of Creations. In the Nile Valley
writing, Mdw Ntr (what the ignorant Greeks called hieroglyphics), was
considered sacred, a means of cultivating good character and godliness.
But prior to the
Nile
Valley cultures, Africans
throughout the continent used oral instruction as a means to inculcate and
cultivate wisdom, pass on lessons that promoted good character and keen intellect.
Fables, parables and stories were used to teach valuable lessons, stimulate
wisdom, good character and social harmony. Anansi the spider was a common story
telling character of the
Ashanti
and Akan people of the original
Ghana
in
West Africa. “The Origin of Anansi the
Spider is inspired by an African fable from the
Ashanti
people of
Ghana.
Anansi the spider often appears as a human being with a spider body or just as
a spider; is honored as one of the world’s best known folklore characters. He
is what Africans call a ‘trickster,’ a cunning character with immeasurable wit
and wisdom.
Anansi stories traveled from
Ghana to the Caribbean
during the slave trade, and then to the
Americas. Anansi was a strong
folklore character that the slaves looked up-to because of his ability to outwit
the slave Master and win his freedom.”
The Origin of Anansi the Spider Tameka N. Ellington,
Kent State University,
USA https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1806&context=itaa_proceedings
The oral storytelling tradition of the
Ashanti
and Akan became popular in Euro-American circles when they took on a new form
as tales by Uncle Remus a fictional character written by a Southern white man
named Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908). Harris lived around enslaved Blacks
while working on a Georgia
plantation spending much of his time near the slave quarters where he saw and
heard the Blacks interacting with each other while in bondage, servitude and
subjugation.
Later Harris used the African American oral
folktales he heard on this plantation to structure his characters. His tales
were based upon Black people’s oral traditions using forest animals such as
Brer Rabbit a crafty rabbit who usually tricked and outwitted his adversaries like
Brer Fox and Brer Bear by using his cunning. Harris became famous but his
characters were based on stories he heard Black folks sharing among themselves
in their quarters.
Harris in effect plagiarized our
African, Caribbean and Southern oral traditions. The essential purpose of these
stories by the Blacks was to connect the people in small groups; familial and
extended family to teach Black folks to develop and use their wiles and wit to
survive in a harsh, hostile and psychotic social milieu where they had little
or no power. Anansi (and later Harris’s Brer Rabbit) showed them how to
navigate in uncertain times were they never knew what mood an owner, master,
overseer or ordinary white person would be in and how think to avoid abuse and
maltreatment or even turn the tables on their adversary.
Like Anansi, Brer Rabbit taught valuable
lessons but unfortunately Harris’ creations became nostalgia for white folks
pinning for the good ol’ days of slavery. Because our stories were being told
by a white man for his profit we missed the lessons. When Walt Disney used
Harris character in his comic book and animated series we were embarrassed
because of the way Uncle Remus was drawn and depicted not knowing Harris and
Disney were getting rich of something they took from us!
Both Anansi and Brer Rabbit come
from long traditions of storytelling and oral lessons. They were used to unite
our people, share values and teach valuable lessons about survival, good
character and success. We need to put the gizmos and gadgets down rekindle our
oral tradition, relearn the art of conversation, listen to our storytellers,
interact with the storyteller, give feedback and enjoy the experience. You will
be surprised how much benefit you get out of it.
-30-
