Monday, October 21, 2019

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-  





Monday, October 14, 2019

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-


Monday, October 07, 2019




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-