Sunday, November 17, 2019

African Divination Complimentary Ways of Knowing


              African Divination, Complimentary Ways of Knowing
                                                     Junious Ricardo Stanton

“Spirituality centered wisdom stands for both justice and dignity and it cannot be trivialized. It emphasizes philosophies of connectedness, coexistence, belongingness, love, and compassion in education. In the light of this understanding of spirituality, the African renaissance and pedagogy should be grounded in spirituality centered wisdom, cultural identity and consciousness.. As asserted by Palmer (1999), involving spirituality in pedagogy is ‘reclaiming the vitality of life’” African Ways of Knowing and Pedagogy, Constantine Ngara

            For the past several weeks we have been examining African cosmology in a general observation and overview. At its core African cosmology, regardless of the tribal or ethnic origin, is based upon the belief the universe is both SPIRITUAL and physical in nature. Africans’ perception of reality posits our physical reality is interpenetrated by an omnipresent spiritual reality that impacts and influences our lives and environment all the time.
            For Africans and indigenous people who see themselves as an integral part of a vast spiritual universe, SPIRIT provides additional means of knowing as well as providing insight, information and guidance to help address life’s vicissitudes. When one’s reality is a spiritually dynamic universe, one employs spiritual means to discern the invisible causes behind life’s happenings and also to glean insight and direction for important decisions and courses of action.
Indigenous people routinely call on the spirits, ancestors, healers and diviners to help them unravel life’s challenges and to provide wisdom and information. Divination, contrary to popular misconception, is a universal tool used by most of humanity in some form or another.  
            In Africa, divination is a universal method of learning and discerning. “In Africa, divination sessions are instances of consulting the Gods or the ancestors. These                                                                         are not metaphysical constructs, but real living beings that interact with the living. As a means of communication with the village of the ancestors, divination reinforces the belief in the reality of the world of the spirits and the ancestors. Indeed, in African worldview, ‘the Dead are not dead.’” Encyclopedia of African Religion page 206
            Divination is an essential source of knowledge and makes absolute sense in cultures who believe energies, spirits; forces and intelligences are omnipresent and play a vital role in community and personal life.
 But because most of what we know about Africa was given to us by non-Africans who disparaged Africa and Africans, we too denigrate and disparage our cosmological heritage and roots. We were conditioned to be ashamed of our African heritage and we were taught to hate everything African! As Malcolm X said “We didn’t want anyone to tell us anything about Africa, much less call us an African and in hating the African and hating Africa we ended up hating ourselves without even realizing it because you can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can’t hate your origin and not end up hating yourself.” Malcolm X, The Roots of Black self-hatred.  But that is changing now.
            Many different forms of divination exist and we are familiar with them such as: crystal ball gazing, tarot cards, the I Ching, fortune telling as well as occult (hidden or secret) practices like palmistry, numerology and astrology.
Africans have been using rituals and varying forms of divination for eons. In his book Of Water and the Spirit Malidoma Patrice Some’ shares the details of a ritual that takes place a few months prior to the birth of a child to determine why this particular child is incarnating at this time.
“The pregnant mother, her brothers, the grandfather and the officiating priest are the participants. The child’s father is not present for the ritual but merely prepares the space. Afterward he is informed about what happened. During the ritual, the incoming soul takes the voice of the mother (some say the soul takes the whole body of the mother, which is why the mother falls into trance and does not remember anything afterward) and answers every question the priest asks. The living must know who is being reborn, where the soul is from, why it chose to come here and what gender it has chosen. Sometime, based on the mission of the incoming soul, the living object to the choice of gender and suggest that the opposite will better accommodate the role the unborn child has chosen for him or herself. Some souls ask that specific things be made ready before their arrival-talismanic power objects, medicine bags, metal objects in the form of rings for the ankle or the wrist…” ibid page 20
Some’ is sharing Dagara ideas about reincarnation, destiny, life mission, spiritual protection, spiritual power and the purpose of being. All of this is consistent with African cosmology, philosophy and the idea that knowledge about the unseen and unknown can and must be obtained from SPIRIT since SPIRIT is the parent reality.
A vast reservoir of information is available to us via SPIRIT. We can access it through prayer, meditation, divination and ritual. This is the African/indigenous way. It is part of aboriginal people’s genius now  called Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) by the West. The more we learn about African cosmology the more profound, powerful and practical it becomes.

                                                -30-


Monday, November 11, 2019

It's Time For Real Change


                                                


                                                  It’s Time for Real Change
                                                    Junious Ricardo Stanton    

           
            Many Westerners are coming to the inescapable conclusion their culture is creating a psychological malaise that is rapidly metastasizing throughout the society, stifling empathy, enthusiasm and any sense of meaning, purpose or real fulfillment in our lives. We find ourselves like laboratory mice or hamsters on the proverbial treadmill going nowhere fast, depleting our energy and finances with nothing to show for it but tons of planned obsolescence stuff and suffocating debt.  
            There was even a mindset propagated in the 80's and 90's that said the measure of one's worth material possessions at life's end. They said "greed is good" which fueled consumerism, materialism and a dog eat dog, winner take all mindset. If the measure of your being, your self-worth and success are based upon the amount of gizmos and gadgets you have, what happens if you lose them, they become obsolete or you can no longer afford them?
             Wealth inequality, homelessness, depression and despair hang over this country like a thick fog while many are succumbing to various addictions as a way of numbing their misery and frustration. Opiate prescriptions are at an all time high in America and the suicide rate is the highest it has been in thirty years!
Many thinkers, philosophers and reformers have warned that America is about to plummet into a societal abyss of depravity. Social engineering is real, social programming and mind control is real. The US government has been working on them for decades.  Do some research on the CIA's MK ULTRA, Operation MONARCH and other mind control programs and then look into what is going on at the Pentagon at its Department of Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It will blow your mind.  Then ask yourself what is the impact of five conglomerates controlling almost everything we see on TV, the movies, streaming, books, magazines and newspapers? Is this representative of free and open markets or is it more in line with monopoly consolidation?
             American history is fraught with moral contradictions, blatant discrepancies between their professed creed and their actual deeds.  How do you talk about "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" while aggressively engaged in policies and programs of genocide, extermination, slavery, dehumanization and ecocide?
             The continuing consequences of the sins of the "founding fathers" are still being visited upon successive generations as the ruling class attempts to keep their criminogenic culture (a system, situation or place causing or likely to cause criminal behavior) intact and expanding its reach on a global level.
            The ruling class and their minions have more weapons at its disposal today than ever before. Today they have a pervasive technological network that manufactures a reality that dumb us down, disorients and discombobulates us, they poison us with GMO Frankenfoods, pump us with pharmaceutical and illicit drugs to numb our minds and push us towards stultifying addiction.
            All this is designed to discourage resistance to their nefarious agenda. As a result America faces a psycho-spiritual crisis of enormous proportions.  We have no real strategies to save ourselves other than foolishly coupling our hopes to a Democratic Party that has sold us out time and again. Neither political party has our best interests at heart we have to realize this and act accordingly.
            What can we do to improve ourselves and our situation?  We have to build values producing institutions: create and support our own schools, develop our own pedagogical theories and practices, expand economic networks and capital formation groups. Most importantly we must formulate a cosmology to replace the decadent Western values of selfish alienation, materialism, war and hedonism.
            We can do this. We already have the model, traditional African values and cosmology. We already have the concepts, models and action of Sankofa, going back to retrieve that which is good, bringing it forward and adapting it to present realities.  We were the first humans to do all this. We have done it many times in the past in our history; we can begin to create a brighter future for ourselves and our children.

                                                                 -30-

Monday, November 04, 2019

Reality As Seen Through Traditional African Cosmology


                                                            

                        Reality As Seen Through Traditional African Cosmology
                                                Junious Ricardo Stanton

“Though the (African) cosmologies appear to differ according to geography and regional histories, the degree to which they coincide in fundamental principles and function defines them as multiple expressions of a single cultural/cosmological construct.” The Sankofa Movement ReAfrikanization and the Reality of War by Kwame Agyei and Akua Nson Akoto page 166

Last week we addressed the idea of African cosmology. I said it was formulated in antiquity by our wise and talented ancestors who grappled with the deepest existential issues facing humanity, who were committed to cultivating and developing their peers’ highest potential. The origins of a unified and common African cosmology go way back into antiquity to the early development of humans.
“Cosmology refers to worldview and myths in general or, more specifically, to the cultural and religious imagery concerning the universe. African cosmology, which often takes the form of oral narratives, describes the web of human activities within the powerful spiritual cosmos; it transmits the beliefs and values of African peoples. African cosmology, then, is an attempt to describe and understand the origin and structure of the universe, how humans relate to the cosmos, and how and to what extent their thoughts and actions are shaped by it.” Encyclopedia of African Religion edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama page 178
In ancient KMT (Egypt), Djehuty was deified and worshipped as the god of wisdom, science, medicine, magic, mathematics and measurement. Notice how Djehuty’s persona reflected the same holistic African perspective we find throughout the continent. Djehuty was envisioned as esoteric as well as practical combining: wisdom, science, and magic with useful day to day physical endeavors like healing, communications, mathematics and measurement. This is the utilitarian essence of continental African cosmology, philosophy and metaphysics, blending the spiritual with the mundane to enhance the lives of the people.
 Throughout the continent and in the ancient world African cosmologies emphasized the nexus between SPIRIT and material temporal world as the true reality. Africans and aboriginal people, unlike Neanderthals and Caucasoids, are a deeply spiritual people. We knew intuitively a self existing divine consciousness was behind all creation and this consciousness also animated and invigorated the universe with an omnipresent energy, pulse, purpose, order and symmetry.
This energy is called animatism. “Animatism, not to be confused with animism, is the belief in a supernatural power that animates all living things in an impersonal sense. It is therefore not individualized or specialized in terms of a particular object, such as one finds in animism, but is a rather more generalized belief in an invisible, powerfully impersonal energy that is everywhere… Derived from the same Latin root as animism, the term animatism was meant to differentiate the individual spirit in animate and inanimate objects from the more generalized belief in the active spirit of the universe. One cannot grant any ethical or moral quality to this active spirit because it is neither good nor evil, neither right nor wrong, but everywhere present and therefore inherently dangerous if it is violated. Some have described it by the electricity metaphor; it is everywhere and it can bring harm, but it is not moral or immoral; it is amoral. Although one may find animatism and animism in the same culture, they must be distinguished as concepts. Animism may be said to have personality Animatism and animatism is impersonal; whereas animism shows us individuals with special spiritual characteristics or traits, animatism simply exists as a force in the universe in a generalized sense” Encyclopedia of African Religion edited by Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama pages 57 and 58
Unfortunately most of what we know about Africa and Africans we have received from non-Africans who had/have a bias and hostility towards Africa and its people. The good news is more and more warrior scholars are coming to the rescue and providing the truth about Africa, its genius and accomplishments. When we view Africa and its people through the lens of historical truth we see not only are the people ingenious and innovative they set the bar extremely high for the rest of humanity.
Africans defined their reality, their origin and the beginnings of the cosmos as an expression and extension of a divine mind or consciousness with an intelligence and energy pulsating within an unlimited range of frequencies containing male and female attributes often in seeming contradiction but which are in fact the ultimate cause of the universe’s existence, being and sustainability. These ideas are essentially the same in every African ethno-cultural system. “Each of the traditional cultural systems nonetheless provides for a single creator who is a singularity and multiplicity simultaneously.”  The Sankofa Movement ReAfrikanization and the Reality of War by Kwame Agyei and Akua Nson Akoto page 167
As we mentioned last week one of the essential principles of Hermeticism (an ancient African cosmology) is the principle of polarity; it states, “Everything is dual, everything has poles and everything has its pair of opposites; Like and unlike are the same; Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; Extremes meet; All truths, are but half-truths; All paradoxes may be reconciled.” The Kybalion
            In his book Person, Divinity and Nature A Modern View of The Person and the Cosmos In African Thought, Chukwunyere Kamalu says it this way, “More important from the point of view of the structure of the African worldview is the fact that ancient and traditional African beliefs incorporate all the concepts of monotheism (belief in one god) polytheism (belief in many gods/forces/spirits) and animism and pantheism (belief that the supreme being resides within everything and that therefore everything has some form of spiritual being or consciousness) African beliefs cannot therefore be described as being exclusively monotheistic, polytheistic or pantheistic.” page 146.
            There is no shame or confusion in the African cosmological game. It is the essence of what the late scholar Mzee Jedi Shemsu Jehewty aka Jacob Hudson Carruthers, Jr.  referred to as African deep thought! Indeed it is profound and insightful as the West is reluctantly discovering. It is real. In effect ancient African notions of reality based upon underlying, interpenetrating, interconnected codependent spirituality are being proven despite the benighted and strictly materialistic leanings of others.

                                                            -30-