MAN IN THE CREATION SCENE

The puzzle man has about his existence in the universe influences his

thinking pattern. The various myths, legends and allegories he has so far created

about his life in relation to the seen and unseen beings of this wonderful world

have given rise to much of the problems we have today concerning the identity of

the creator of the universe and His motives.

The various ways man has taken to tackle these problems could be

considered under two separate but complementary dimensions that is, theocratic

and secular dimensions. The former maintains that god created the world and the

creatures that live on it while the latter maintains that they evolved. Both however

have a common pivot, the theory of the use of the dust to create man or the

evolution of man from chemical particles, elements. In the Book of Genesis it was

written of man “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return (Gen. 3.19). Today

the knowledge of biochemistry seems to support this theocratic doctrine

considering the dust to mean chemical elements, it is reasonable to accept the

metaphor, that man is dust. Do we therefore accept that account of creation in

Genesis 2:7?

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and

breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man

became a living being.

The Book of Genesis was supposed to be written by Moses. The conflicts

created by the Holy scriptures makes it very necessary to inquire into the origin of

man in the creation scene. In Genesis 3:20 it is said:

Now the man called his wife’s name Eve because she was the

mother of all the living.

In that faith, Saint Luke traced the genealogy of Jesus to Adam the son of

God (Luke 3:38), Luke does make us believe that only the Jews were descendants

of Adam and Eve. Despite the deluge the genealogy continued through Noah and

his children. How come then that Adam was recognized by Luke a Kabbalist as

the son of God, because, one, he was a highly educated disciple of Jesus who was

the only being recognized as the son of God, and two, because the Torah does not

reveal that Adam was born by the same process as Cain, Seth and Others?

The geographical location of the Garden of Eden does not support the

creation stories in Genesis chapter one and especially Genesis 2:19. The Garden of

Eden therefore is not the cradle of creation for in Genesis 2:10-14 it is recorded:

Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and

from there it is divided and became four rivers. The first is

Pishon that flows around the country of Havilab; the second

river is Gihon, it flows round the country of Gush, the third

is Tigris and it flows east of Assyria and the fourth is river

Euphrates.

Scholars of Ancient history are familiar with valleys of Euphrates and

Tigris as sites of ancient civilization of Samaria.

Apart from creation stories, there is another source of human beings. This

was at the time of Enoch a grandson of Adam. Enoch was invited to heaven by

God, he spent three months there and discovered the wonders there. It was at a

time when the angels were males. Seeing that the daughters of men were so

beautiful, the angels revolted against their creation and came to earth (Gen. 6:1-4).

The children born to the angels were giants and men of valour. As recorded

in the Book of Enoch, the leader of these heavenly angels was Samyaza, with

about two hundred followers, Samyaza developed an insatiable lust for the

daughters of men” upon earth. This angel feared to descend alone to the daughters

of men, and so convinced into hundred other angles to accompany him on his

mission pleasure. They descended and took wives from among the daughters of

men. They, together with the program of Nephilium (Gen. 6:1-4) have continued

to embody on earth without interruption for at least half a million years. The

angels taught the women a few tricks. They taught women sorcery, incantations

and divination and distorted versions of the secrets of heaven.

As the story goes, one spiteful angel named Azazyel created unnatural

accoutrement for their consorts – like eye make up and fancy bracelets – to

enhance their sex appeal. As for men, Azazyel teaches them “every species of

iniquity” including the means for making swords, knives, shields, breast plates all

the instrument of war (8:1-9)

It was from the time of Enoch that men began to call upon the name of God

(Gen. 4;25 and 26) it is necessary for men to call upon the name of God because of

the action of the revolting angels who had carnal knowledge of the daughters of

men and taught them distorted versions of the secrete about heaven.

The secret of heaven taught to the angels in form of theosophy is Kabbalah.

We have now known through the accounts given above that there are other beings

besides human beings. At least some of them are known to be makes and should

have been in human form and possessed human attributes like passion, revolt and

intelligence. This view is confirmed by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society that;

The Bible reveals that there are also created persons who are

spirits. After the Almighty had exited alone for a long time,

he chose to create other spirit persons.

See also Colossians 1:15; Revelati8on 3:14; John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:16

and 17. It does become clear to whom God was referring in Genesis 1:26 – when it

said “let us make man in our image after our likeness”. But it is difficult to

determine the man God refers to in Genesis 3:22.

And the Lord said, behold, the man is become as one of

us, to know good and evil.

Is he the man made of dust who ate the fruits of the forbidden tree and

driven out of the Garden of Eden? Or the one that learnt about the secret of heaven

through the revolting angels? The ‘Truth” is then difficult to arrive to since a

direct contact with God is impossible. In Deuteronomy 29:29 a hint is provided:

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those

things which are revealed belong unto us and our children

for ever.

The great Kabbalist Saint Paul has made the situation clearer

for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His

eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being

understood through what has been made.

Could we then from the shape of man determine whether man created was

made in an image of God? It is doubtful, God has said in Isaiah 46:9. It therefore

means the existence of God cannot be understood though human existence. Much

so, the great Kabbalist Saint John who wrote the kabbalah piece called Revelations

said that God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and

truth (John 4:2.4). this means that all anthropomorphic attributes given to God by

man are mere Gematria creation.

The Yoruba seems to be the most influential group among the African races

or nations. The Yoruba believe that there is no way of knowing who God is,

according to a saying:

Dudu ni Oluwa enikan ko mo

Ayinrin ni Oluwa enikan ko mo

Sugbon sa, oju orun funfun minimini.

Meaning:

Whether God is black nobody can tell,

Whether He is light (in complexion) nobody knows,

But it is evident that the sky is white.

About Yoruba idea concerning who Olodumare is Reverend E. Bolaji

Idowu (1977) has given a comprehensive account:

Some one who has made a careful study of all the material

which our sources afford will have no hesitation in asserting

that Olodumare is the origin and ground of all that is… from

all the evidence which we gather from the traditions, the

Yoruba have never strictly speaking, really thought further

back than Olodumare, the Deity. There is no doubt that they

have had their occasional worries, like all other believers and

thinkers all down the ages, with regard to the origin of

Olodumare Himself: but whenever the question has raised its

head it has been nipped in the bud as the dangerous beginning

of irreverent inquisitiveness. The existence of Olodumare

eternally has, for all practical purposes, been taken for

granted as a fact beyond question.

And as to the question of the creation of man, the time and where it took place, he

continues:

Here again, we are lost in the wilderness.

All that is clear is that they were made by

Olodumare, who also fixed their destiny.

As to how man was created he continues:

Orisa nla was assigned another special job.

He was made the “creator’ of human physical features… it is

not clear from the oral traditions when he first began to do

work. However, he got the job, and his allotted duty was

henceforth to mould man’s physical form from the dust of the

earth. He thus became the sculptor-divinity. But the right to

give life Olodumare reserved to Himself alone forever. The

instruction given to Orisa-nla, therefore, was that when he

had completed his own part of the creation of man, he should

look up the lifeless. Form in a room and leave the place.

Olodumare would then come and give breath, thus

completing the creation of human beings.

From this account, the job of creation has become divided between two

deities and not a single one as we are made to believe in Genesis 2:7. The sculptor

– Divinity lower in rank to the divinity that gives life. Also, the creation does not

take place once and for all, in that Orisa-nla has to continue moulding man and

Olodumare continues to complete the creation of every man. This suggests that

every man is created by the two deities at a certain time, in a place of his birth.

Therefore the need to call on the name of God for forgiveness of sins inherited

through the offences of the progenitors does not exist. The Supreme Being in the

belief system of Yoruba and most African races is therefore not an equivalent of

the Christian sculptor-divinity or Allah of the Muslims because African belief

system is quite different from both Islam and Christianity, which are just higher

forms of mystery religion. Both Islam and Christianity are “historical religion”,

religion whose faith and devotion are centred on someone who had lived at a

definite time in history of the world among men who heard His words, saw this

deeds and were transformed by the power of His person.

The belief in a Supreme God the creator of gods and man seems

universal at a stage of human history in fanti belief, He is Nyame or Onyame, and

for the son of the republic of Beinn, He is Mawu. In Polynesia Tangaria is

believed to be the creator of gods and man. The supreme deity of loango regroes is

Lugaba who dwells in the sky. His smile is life, and the result of his displeasure

sickness and death. This supreme being is nor worshipped, nor are offerings made

to him; he has no sacred place. Although they talk freely about him and

acknowledge him to be their great benefactor , accept all his gifts as a matter of

coruse and make him no offering in return.

In the scheme of Yoruba belief system, Obatala, the potter-god (sculptor-

deity) is next in rank to Olodumare, the supreme God. Obatala therefore is the

equivalent of God in Genesis 2:7. The Yoruba believe that Olodumare is most

powerful in heaven and on earth. He is able to do all things. Things are possible

only when and because they are ordered by Him; they are impossible when He

does not permit them or give His aid. He is the final disposer of all things. He is

the judge. Because Olodumare adds the attribute of invisibility of His immortality,

He is known to the Yoruba as Oba Airi. In that wise He is an equivalent of God

referred to by Saint Paul in Romans 1:20. and in John 1:1-3. About 3200BC when

the upper and Lower Egypt united under the rule of Menes, the idea of

omnipresent sky-god who gave life and fire and generated rain and storms was

used to backup the view of the cult of sky-god. Omnipresent is also an attribute of

Olodumare because a Yoruba feels that he is in the presence of this almighty God.

The sky-god of Sumerian pantheon was Anu who ruled the sky but like

Olodumare of the Yoruba was least concerned about human affairs. In the second

millennium BC Marduk, the Babylonian god became king of gods. He then

organized the universe and created man from clay. Marduk later became

recognized as Bel or “Lord of Gods” which later became the proper name.

However in Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia world, the sky-god exists but

with the mother-goddess who was connected with fertility rites. Perhaps the most

important contribution of the medieval time to the world-view is that God made

the world and ruled it. Below Him was the hierarchy of created beings, from the

angels, the saints and to mortal man.

The universal view that there is a sky-god suggests that most of the

knowledge about the origin of man arose from a single ancient source. It had

become degenerated but still the coded messages are available inform of

Kabbalah. The most popular Kabbalah is the Hebrew Kabbalah. In historical

perspective, the Jews teach that Abraham received the secrets of the kabbalah

directly from God at the time of the first covenant. The pact was of a double

nature. First, he received the knowledge of the Holy Name (IHUH), in which is

hidden the entire wisdom of the Kabbalah. And second, he was taught the hidden

meaning of the circumcision of male children after the eight day. The

circumcision is a symbolic purification of the body and emphasizes its importance

in carrying out its divine purpose, that is, of continuous “creation”. The womb

creates the human body from the foetus that develops from the Zygote. The

Kabbalah hidden in the Divine Name is designed to awaken the mind and all the

cognitive powers latent in man. The development of the latent powers starts as

from the time of the first heart-beat. Abraham transmitted the secret doctrine to his

son Isaac, who gave it to Jacob in turn. The last on the patriarchal line to receive

was Jacob’s favourite son Joseph. The fact that Joseph had been initiated in the

kabbalah by Jacob his father is seen in Genesis 47:29. and Genesis 32:L25.

However, the secrets died with him and thus were lost to the world since they were

not in written form.

A new form has to be developed. This was done by Moses. Apart form

being brought up in the royal family of Egypt, which gave him the opportunity to

became a kabbalist, he received more knowledge of Kabbalah from his father-in-

law Jethro. As a young man Moses was educated at the Temples of Heliopolis,

where he was a disciple of Akhenaton. He was therefore an Egyptian priest and

therefore, he should have been in possession of Egyptian kabbalah. To this he had

to add the fragments of the Hebrew kabbalah that might have filtered through the

meetings at the synagogue. As in the case of Abraham, the Torah which Moses

received on Mount Sinai is dual in nature, for it comprises both “negleh” the code

of law, and “nistor” the secret mysteries. Moses passed on “nigleh” to the people

but saved “nistor” for the elect. The elect belonged to the same cult of Yahweh

with him. He was credited with authorship of the first five books of the Bible. As

cited at the beginning of this chapter, there were many conflicts but this is because

we use literary approach to interpret the chapters. According to Kabbalists, the

first five chapters of Genesis were written in code and cannot be interpreted

without the proper keys, that is, principles of Gematria. Gematria is the science of

relating words to member. African or Yoruba Kabbalah was based on the use of

number in the system known as arithmomancy. Arithmomancy is the science of

theological interpretation by numbes. It has become obvious that all Kabbalah, be

it Hebrew, Greek, Egyptian and others including Christian and Ifa Geomancy, as

well as all the known and unknown mystical systems of thought, throughout the

world, are degenerated versions of the same once universal system of thought.

The unity of god, of which man is a part is the key to all kabbalistic

thought (Isaiah 24). The proof of the unity is not in the image form; the physical

appearance of the sculptor cannot be determined from the statue he has made.

Only the artistic style and vision could be appreciated by those who understand the

work of art. The unity is found in the breath of life (Gen. 2:7) and the power of

creativity demonstrated by man in discoveries and inventions, which is responsible

for the assertion in Genesis 3:22. “And the Lord said, Behold, the man is become

one of us…” in the worlds of George Sarton in his introductory essay to Joseph

Needham’s (ed) Science, Religion and Reality published in 1955 by George

Braziller, Inc.

Insignificant as man be, in the midst of all the immensities of

time, space and power, he it is who has developed all the arts,

all the sciences, all the religions, etc. he it is who has

measured those immensities and invented God.

However to contribute to remarkable human development, Toe Garba has

warned Nigerians to fight against three crucial tendencies which are:

One: Negative Psyche

Two: Cynicism of the people toward government and

Three: Apparent dependency in the conducts of the people.

Always keep in mind this piece from Erich Frommin anatomy of Human

Destructiveness. A faucet Crest Book, USA 1975.

How could a ‘savage’ be human and equal not to speak of

superior to the men who can fly to the moon, or by pushing a

bottom, destroy millions of living things.

Life is a tendency, and the essence of tendency is to develop in the form of

a sheaf, that is in coherent groups and not as individual struggle for existence.

THE MAN FORMED OUT OF DUST

The creation stories of the Bible carry some messages of evolution. Genesis

1:24.

On the fifth day God said:

“Let the earth bring forth creatures after their kind;

Cattle and creeping things and the beasts of the earth after

their kind” and it was so.

Fossil dug up by geologists, as interpreted by the palaeontologists proved

that there were plants, fishes, birds and animals on earth million of years before

the time of “creation” of man. The existence of man on earth may go back to

nearly a million years ago and that of plants and animal life perhaps to eight

hundred million years. If Norman D. Newell is accurate in his article “crisis in

history of life” published in Scientific American volume 208 number 2 of

February 1963 life originated on earth some three or four billion years ago. But

fossil record of the past life, after the appearance of plants, does not corroborate

the record of art of creation of the Book of Genesis. The record is prevailingly one

of erratic, often abrupt changes in environment; varying rates of evolution,

extermination and repopulation. Thus it has to be realized that the universe does

not present us with objective truth on a platter.

Even in the 19th century it was nor possible to produce a realistic scheme of

the origin of life because the essential biochemical knowledge about the way

living things function did not yet exist. Most people who lived before the mid –

1800’s, including biologists, accepted a literal idea of special creation, and there

they let the problem rest. For lack of knowledge then, the older scientists were

right to regard living things as being fundamentally different from non-living ones.

But today we can say that they were wrong. The necessary ingredient was

provided in the 1920s by two biochemists, Oparin in the Soviet Union and

Haldane in Britain.

Without much delve into Biochemistry it is reasonable to divide the history

of evolution into three sections. First the formation of the small molecules such as

amino acids, organic bases, and monosaccharide’s which form the basis of all

living thing and which are “made of dust” that is, elements second, the formation

of large polymers of these smaller organic groups, each with its own definite

structure. Third, the integration of the polymers to form organisms. However it

must be realized that the evolution of the organic world cannot be predetermined

as the stories of creation have suggested. We claim, on the contrary that the

spontaneity of life from the inorganic primordial environment (the breath of life:

Gen 2:7) is manifested by a continual creation of new forms succeeding others.

Perhaps foremost among major recent advances in palaeontology has been

the discovery that fossil record of the earliest, most primitive organisms to have

inhabited the earth lived during the Precambrian Aeon. Discovery of these ancient

fossils has begun to fill a major gap in man’s understanding of biological history.

For the first time there is reason to believe that the tree of live can be traced to its

roots, that evidence of the evolutionary progression can be traced back through the

geological past to a time approaching that of the beginning of life itself.

Virtually all this new evidence has come from discoveries of cellular

microfossils preserved in the ancient sediments. It is now known that microfossils

– or at least microscopic objects that closely resemble microfossils occurs in

several Archean deposits. The oldest of these occur in carbonaceous sediments of

the Swuziland sequence of the eastern Transvaal, South Africa, sediments ranging

in age from about 3100 to 3400 million years.

The study of Biology and Geology remained mainly descriptive for longer

than had chemistry. In elementary biology we are so accustomed to distinguishing

the animate sharply from the inanimate that we tend to forget that, in the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries educated people had no difficulty in imagining the

spontaneous generation of such complex beings as price (for which Van Helmont

gave a recipe) such beliefs died hard, spontaneous generation being relegated to

successively simpler organisms. It was not until about 1860 that Pasteur finally

disposed of the idea. But Pasteur also left a gap – if life was not continually arising

devono, where had it come from. The story of creation in Genes 2:7 amounts to

spontaneous generation.

Fundamental pictures of the overall metabolism of plants, animals and

yeasts followed close on the heels of Lavoisier’s revolution in chemistry;

respiration and photosynthesis and fermentation could only be clearly pictured

when chemistry had attained that stage. The concurrent clarification of

thermodynamics gave a first outline of energy relationships in physiology. Right

through the nineteenth century a clearer picture was emerging of the functioning

of living organisms and this was expressed in physical and chemical terms

whenever the state of those sciences permitted it.

The geological record is very imperfect before the Cambrian period, about

500 million years ago, for which the fossils show that most of the most present-

day groups of organisms were already in existence. Comparative biochemistry

now permits plausible speculation on earlier stages of evolution, and even on the

origin of life it self. It has become sensible to believe in the speculations of

Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace who made the grand synthesis, which gave the

first a realistic picture of living things evolving, with a time scale of millions of

years on the surface of the earth. Consequently many people in the Western World

believe that the riddle of life exists probably in the arrangement of the elements

(dust) that form the protoplasm. There is no doubt today to claim that man is a

mammal.

Human species, Homo Sapiens evolved from bilaterally symmetrical

animals, that is, animals whose bodies are longer than they are wide, and whose

left side mirrors the right, such as the monkeys and Apes. As such animals became

more complex in behaviour, their nervous system gradually became organized into

two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous system runs down the

middle of the body; the peripheral nervous system extends out of the edges.

The organization of the nervous system into central and peripheral was a

major evolutionary step. The central part, with its superior message – carrying

ability, controls the periphery of the nervous system and the body. The brain

dominates the rest of the nervous system. The brain consists of billions of neurons

(neuron = nerve cell), arranged in networks of awesome complexity. Scientists are

only dimly aware of the details of how it works.

In simple terms there are three levels in the brain. They are arranged in

layers with the oldest at the bottom and the newest at the top. The lowest and most

primitive level, the hindbrain, includes the cerebellum and the base of the brain

stem, or medulla oblongata. The cerebellum is a “computer” that helps keep

balance and smoothes out movements. The medulla regulates such activities as

breathing and the beating of the heart. The hind brain is concerned with the most

basic processes of life; breathing, digestion, circulation, balance and so forth.

These activities are automatic and unconscious. They are analogues to the utilities,

transportation and communication systems of a city, which support the daily life

of the citizens but are outside their awareness, too often.

The second level, the old brain, is concerned with periodic and recurring

ends, especially defence and mating. To some extent, it is also involved in hunger

and thirst. The highest level, the new brain, is the newest and most dominant part

of the human brain, the cerebral cortex with its pathways is concerned with

perception, learning and thinking.

The bilateral symmetry of the brain is important to us because certain

differences in human behaviour are associated with it. The left – hand symmetry

of our bodies extends to the nervous system, each nerve on the right side has a

mirror image of the left. The only unusual feature in this plan is that virtually all

nerves cross from one side to the other on their way to or from the brain. As a

result, the left brain controls the right hand, and the right brain controls the left

hand. When the right hand feels something, the message is sent to the left brain,

and similar messages from the left hand go the right brain, the reason for the

crossing is a complete mystery. The left brain controls the right side of the body

and the right brain controls the left side.

There is a division of labour between the two sides of the brain. The left

deals with details, especially those that are easy to name. It also deals with

language and manipulation of symbols. And it is especially sensitive to the

sequence of events; that is, it breaks down and event to a detailed description of

the moment – to – moment progression. It is great for details but misses the forest

for the trees.

The right brain generally does what the left brain cannot. It specializes in

processing spatial relationships. It supplies the big picture – what is avaibale at a

glance unable to talk, it relies on imagery. Unable to analyse, it synthesizes; give it

part of the picture, and it others the whole.

Suppose you are asked directions to a given address your rights brain

supplies a map of the terrain, while your left brain provides a series of verbal

descriptions and instructions about how far to go and where to turn. Some people

are left-brain dominated. They can tell you directions but are vague about the

spatial layout (and find it hard to use maps). Other are right-brain dominated. They

can draw the map but are lazy about the details of verbal directions. These

differences may reflect differences in how people approach the world. At one

extreme are the analyses, who are verbal logical, precise, and interested in details.

At the other extreme and the synthesizers, who are imaginative, fanciful vague,

and interested in the overall picture. Most of us are somewhere between these two

poles; we are neither engineers nor artists. These descriptions are true for almost

all right-handed persons.

But left-handed people present a more complicated picture. Some have the

same division of labour as do the right-handers; language in the left brain and

spatial relationships in the right brain. Others are exactly opposite. However, many

left-handers have an incomplete division of laboru or more at all – in other words,

language and space in both hemispheres. No one is sure why the brain of left -

handed persons are so different, but there have been speculations.

The activities of the brain contribute much to what we call human mind.

Mind is not an entity on its own right, and our minds are not little separate

creatures inhabiting our skills. So, it is better to speak of “mental activities”,

though “mind may be used to denote mental activities in general. Mental activity

is tied in with cerebral activity. It only goes on in conjunction with parts of the

brain, and only with the brain working properly. Also as mental activity become

more intense, more varied and better organized in human individual during his or

her development. Consciousness has been traditionally regarded as the distinctive

attribute of minds. Anybody conscious of what he is doing is considered being

normal in most human cultures. Consequently most people are tied to the material

world.

The man formed out of the dust, in history is referred to as the early man, a

man who depends upon intuition for his existence in his environment. His major

informers are his sense organs, the eyes, the noses, the skin, the tongue and the

ears. The eyes screen objects in his view, presents to him as real, solid and liquid

objects and these are seen only when they are close to him and brought into focus

by his lens. To a long sited person, anything close that is out of focus is not real.

He can never imagine it existing and there is no other way of convincing him,

without dogma, that to correct the site with glasses. And the short-sited person

cannot see anythings for away from him, he needs some aids to convince him they

are real. Today the microscope has made man discover many tiny objects that he

otherwise considered to be invisible. With the aid of telescope many far objects in

the universe have been identified by man. What were once known to be seven

heavens are now known to be planets. The sun is now known to be one of the

million stars in the universe. Our ears are as imperfect as our eyes, we cannot hear

the sound that bats are capable of picking. Our skin is limited to sensation of

temperature. We taste and smell chemical in solution or in fluid.

This world is based on intuition. Intuition deals with free association of

ideas or reveries. In the intuitional stage of thinking ideas are allowed to take their

own course and this course is determined by the hopes and fears, desires and their

fulfillment or frustration of the lotus eater. Man had taken a remarkable step of self

– realization by asking himself “who am I”?, and not “what am I?”. This basic

question entails several problems. Man at this stage had to think about his

existence, “why am I here?”. Then he has to puzzle over terrifying problems of

death. “is death the end of life as it seems in the cases of games animals”? if not,

“where do the deal go”?, and “in what form would they exist there?”.

As soon as man started to think, he has become civilized. In record there

had been several stages of human development of man’s environment identified as

civilization.

The second in series is the lemurian civilization which spread from East

Africa to India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. At this stage, man was

developing memory in “tausal form”. He began to learn through the powers of the

mind to produce lesser miracles like astral projection, heading through sound

vibrations, condensing atmosphere charges to cause storm, rain, thunder or

becoming invisible moving long distance through space at short intervals of time.

Witchcraft then shifted its seat from the astral to the lower mental plane. Priests

then became so powerful that they controlled social conscience through formal

education, necessarily attached to the temples. The headquarters of all the witches

throughout the world had ever since been in Island of Malagasy.

The famous Atlantic civilization spread from North West Africa to Canary

Islands, Gibraltar, Britain, North and South America. At this stage man was

developing the mental form. It saw a tremendous advance in mathematics, science

and technology. Man explored outer space and travelled from one planet to

another. People from space landed on earth and the “sons of Gods, intermarried

with the daughters of men (see Gen. 6:1-4 and the Book of Enoch). Witchcraft

reached its Zenith in this era. Nor only was the seat of witchcraft moved to the

mental plane, the entities witchery power in the moon became real. They could be

contacted in dreams, through astral projection and by space travel. Witches could

go on pilgrimage to visit their temples and shrines in the moon. The races that

have connections with the civilization are the people of canary Island, the Druids

in Britain and the Read Indians of North and South America. According to the

myth of Atlantic, the population of that Island which consisted of pale-faced and

blue-eyed people who possessed extensive knowledge perished ten to eleven

thousand years ago.

Leo Frobenius was wrong to have associated Yoruba civilization with the

Atlantic civilization because no Blackman has blue eyes. However, Flinder

Petrie’s remark in his book Ancient Egypt cited by Talbot (1926) is right that the

“present West African is much degraded below the former status”. Talbot also

cited in his historical records that “the West African, and particularly the Nigerian

negro had developed into a comparatively high and intelligent type”. The standard

is related to hyperborean civilization which sprang from central and West Africa

and mediteranean countries with its headquarters in Ethiopia. It was whole a

Blackman Era. It was the age of priests who claimed to be custodians of sacred

knowledge and intermediaries between the ordinary man and the gods (Orisa). The

development of knowledge then was mostly intuitional. Man’s power of

observation was well developed.

Leo Frobenius and others who associate Ife civilization with Atlantis

civilization were misled by the similarities between archaeological findings in

Cape Verde and Ife. Leo Frobenius (1873-1938) in his work “The voice of Africa”

declared that Yoruba land was the far-famed and mysterious Atlantis and that its

civilization was Etruscan: He came to the conclusion after examining and

comparing the pre-historic relics he found in the Cape Verde and Canary Islands

with those of Ile-Ife.

In the hyperborean Era man developing the emotional astral form of

hypnotism. The stage saw the birth of sorcery and witchcraft as techniques of mass

control. Man started to probe the secret of nature through recorded observations,

rituals, the science of sound vibration, ceremonial magic and so on. Stones, metals

herbs were used in developing the civilization.

The ancient Yoruba whose works of art and science were manifested in the

Ife civilization. They lived in Nigeria toward the close of cretaceous age when the

middle Niger ( known to the Yoruba as Oya) penetrated to the sea through Oyo

and Abeokuta provinces. Or they might have migrated to the yorubaland just

before the tertiary period when Oya instead of flowing to the sea, as before,

through the areas now known as Oyo and Ogun States, cut its present bed by

Rabba and Jebba and joined the Benue, and the united river poured into the begin

of the lower Niger.

Whatever may be the geological history of Yorubaland,it is evident from

the proverb. “Ema gbe omo oba fun Osun” (don’t give oba’s child to osun) that the

ancient Yoruba were occupying the present Yorubaland when Oya, Oba and Osun

were the only rivers. The root of the above proverb may be associated with

geological account given by Talbot (1926) who recorded that:

The western hydrographical system was only formed in

recent geological ages. The Awba (Oba) used to be the main

river, until the Awshun (Osun) which gradually corroded its

way back to Oshogbo captured the head waters of the

shasha.

Until about sixteenth century AD the people of the Western world knew

little or nothing about the African peoples south of the sahara. The continent now

known as Africa (named by the Greeks) was called Alkebu—Lan, which looks

like an Arabic name. The Arabs who preserved the knowledge of the Greeks (500

– 1000 AD) had a horror of the western ocean beyond the coasts of Europe and

North Africa. They called it “Green sea of Darkness”. And as the Christendom

long respected the learning of the Arab world, nobody attempted to explore the

western coast of Africa south of the sahara. Africa therefore never had direct link

with the western world until the 15th century when the Portuguese explored the

western coast of Africa and some explorer penetrated the interland up to Benue

city. When the protestant missionaries came to evangelize the people of Africa

they associated the way of life of Africans and their technology with the Stone

Age and therefore considered the people primitive. By 1914 for example, Britain

believed that her imperial rule was beneficial. She believed that she brought peace,

order, and prosperity to the peoples in the empire. She complained that she used

her capital to develop backward lands.

It is indeed necessary here to make scholars of Yoruba studies aware of the

effects of Trans Atlantic Slave Trade on the development of peoples of Africa,

south of the sahara. One is the depopulation of Africa. In AD 1600 an English

observe estimated the number of slaves imported as 28,000 annually. That

continued between the sixteenth and later years of 19th century. Records revealed

that from 1679 – 1688 the English imported 46,396 million slaves into the

colonies. The whole 13,364,600,000 strong individuals including intelligent

people were lost to Africa.

To catch slaves, the white encoruag4ed inter-tribal wars. They encouraged

Africans to replace their humanistic philosophy with materialism of the capitalist

system of the West. Africans thus started to hunt their fellow men as if deer, and

pawned those caught for industrial products like alcoholic drinks, textiles, gun

powder, salt and so on. The supply of these products by the West made the

Africans abandoned their local industries and thereby repudiated their indigenous

science and technology which were not allowed to compete with those of the

West.

The situation in Africa today, now that we are under the Aryan civilization,

calls for a sober reflection on our past history. Herbert Butterfield in his Book

Man on his past published in 1969 at Cambridge by Cambridge University Press,

is right to say that a people that lived without any knowledge of its past – without

any serious attempt to organize its memory – would hardly be calculated to make

much progress in its civilization. The great historian of Yoruba people, Professor

S. Biobaku in his article “Migration of the Yoruba from Near-East to Yorubaland”

in Headlines, 1984, No 136 confessed that although the first major wave of

Yoruba migration is not very well known to traditional historians and is, therefore,

usually ignored, it is very important. To them, Biobaku credited the well known

artists objects identified with Yoruba civilization. They are brought with them all

the characteristics of Yoruba institutions, including the family which is

matricentric where inheritance is based on the mother – tie. Their artistic work

reveals a link with the hyperborean civilization. Stones, metals, herbs were used in

developing the civilization. According to G.B. Worthington in the book Science in

the Development Africa. Printed in Britain in 1958;

Prehistoric African art consists of work in stone, metal, and

fire clay. The richest find of ancient art in stone have been in

West Africa by French and British archeologists. The most

important are the mysterious stone figures in sacred grove

near Esie in Kwara. Nothing is known about their origins,

they stand today as mute testimony of a people sophisticated

in art form and stone working technique, a people who seem

to have been of wholly African origin, for only Negroid

features are depicted.

There are stone works in Ife, examples is babasigidi and a few relics left in

the museum. The Bronze and Terra-Cotta works are also Negroid, and as Esie

finds, their authors are unknown. Despite thee evidences much attention has been

given to Oduduwa dynasty, claiming that the Yoruba have a single progenitor. It is

also misleading to accept Leo Frobenius claim that we are related to the famous

Atlantis civilization. Today, as it is, the Ifa literary corpus is a degenerated form of

the ancient Yoruba Kabbalah.

For its relevance to the present age The Tree of Life, based on science of

Arithmomancy has been developed by the Director of Research and Publications,

Yoruba Kabbalah centre, 48 Edena/Igbolokun street; behind Ooni’s palace Ile-Ife.

We need to revive the methods of communicating with the yonder world to

reclaim the secret of the past that may help us to contribute once more to world

civilization. According to Whalen Lai Daris – Rethinking in his paper on “The

Chinese Family Wandering Ghosts and Eternal Parents” at the third international

congress of Inter – religious federation for world peace held from August 20 – 27,

1995 in Seow Korea, “Recent Chinese family values are a product of Sung Neo-

confucianism (12th Century CE). By tying ancestral sacrifice to the right to an

inheritance of ancestral land, the Sung gentry also indirectly created a cult of

purgatory where in the living and dead are mutually supportive. We also have to

develop our systems of communicating with our ancestors and other beings in the

universe to know where we had lost our way to progress.

Here in Africa, we communicate with the spirits of our ancestors. These

spirits according to E. Milingo, a Catholic priest who discovered his power of

healing in 1973, these ancestral spirits are ‘guardians of the living who reveal

many unknown facts concerning people and events. Much of the advantages

derived from communion with the ancestral spirits have been lost. For example,

the Arabs discovered gold in use on the east coast of Africa, in hwat is now

Mozambique and forced the Africans to lead them to their small mines, which

were then enlarged and worked for centuries, supplying a large portion of the

Moslem world at that time with its wealth.

Nothing is known of the forms which this gold was worked by the Africans.

To rediscover our past we have to learn that “Negro African society is collectivist,

or more exactly, communal, because it is rather a communion of souls than an

aggregate of individuals, as observed by Leopold Sedar Senghor.

The communion with the ancestral spirits does not always mean calling up

of the dead”. The spirits come to us, inspired by Divine Love. They in turn may

have to obtain the help and permission of higher holy entities to attain communion

with the living. It is certain that they guide and inspire mankind by their thought

vibrations. This is done for the benefit of mankind. The spirits cannot abuse

physical powers any more than material man can.

We have groves and shrines devoted to communicating with the spirits. The

signs or symbols used in these holy places are to mark the abode of the spirits. It is

certain that haunting is not a random or haphazard happening. When a spirit is in a

certain area constantly, it shows that there is something that is attracting him, or

that the spirit is guarding, guiding or protecting something.

As dead person can definitely be a guide. In the book Here and There by P.

Phillips, a Corgi Book published in London, 1975, Bill described such a spirit

called Wise Owl. He was a member of the Chorekee tribe of North America in his

life of earth, and was a tribal doctor. He spoke to the ancestral spirits on behalf of

his people, and doctored the tribe. He died from small pox before the first white

man penetrated into the area, around the year 1632. In his life, Wise Owl was a

great teacher of the young, and was intensely interested in healing the sick. He has

not lost any of his interests and ideas, as he has helped and encouraged many.

Many Africans are interested in spiritual philosophy for what material

benefit can be procured from it. This must not be, as spirit works only for the

benefit and upliftment of the whole human race. It is one of the oldest cosmic laws

that man cannot benefit himself materially by the exploration of spiritual

knowledge. Communion with the spirit world is a holy business, ads through the

spirit guides we are indirect contact with our Heavenly father and any communion

msut be in a calm, meditative frame at mind. The protection of the higher powers

must be invoked by a prayer to God for guidance and protection, and this will

always be freely granted. Beyond this earth planes lies the astral planes which

furnish a meeting place for human souls to meet their spirit guides. All kabbalists

must work hard to see that his Astral sight is opened. On leaving his body he will

be perplexed at what he may see

DIAGRAM

THE DIVINE MAN

And the Lord God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us…

(Genesis 3:22). Thus in this verse the creator of man revealed the divine nature of

the man formed out of dust – many traditionals proclaim man to be “the image of

God”. But he had become a social being, at the beginning he was a “perfect

model”, the subject of creation myths. Hence the esoteric maxim”. As it is above,

so it is below”. The account of creation story given in the Book of Genesis,

chapter one, makes us believe that man is made of a body created out of day and

soul (life) from God. The “breath” of God is the principle of life which makes the

body effective, but the body is the real basis of personality. Since God has

remained invisible to man in any form, the body been acquired in the womb

through embryological processes cannot be assumed to be formed in the image of

God. God’s existence cannot be explained within the principles of biology.

Without going much into the science of embryology, let us just realize that

our body organs and systems develop from three basic embryonic group of cells

called ectoderm (the outside layer) mesoderm (middle layer) and endoderm (the

inner layer) of the grastular. Our brain, the spinal cord and the other part of the

body called epidermis develop from the ectoderm. Part of the mesoderm forms the

inner part of the skin and the other part forms the body cavity into which the

organs of the body hang. Most of the gut developed from the endoderm.

Human species (Home sapies) shares with the mammals bilateral

symmetry, whose left side mirrors the right. The highest level, the cerebral cortex,

is the most dominant part of the human brain. The lowest, and most primitive,

includes the cerebellum and the base of brain stem, called medulla oblongata. The

other part of the brain is called middle brain, it is the second level and at times

identified as the old brain.

Most of mans behaviours are related to the functions of the brain. The

cerebellum is a “computer” that helps keep balance and smoothes out movements

of parts of body. The medulla oblongata regulates such vital activities as breathing

and the beating of the heart. The hind brain is concerned with the most basic

processes of life, breathing, digestion, circulation, balance and so forth. These

activities are automatic and unconscious. The old brain is concerned with periodic

and recurring needs, especially defence and mating. It is also involved in the

feelings of hunger and thirst. The forebrain with its pathways is concerned with

perception, learning, thinking and creativity.

The bilateral symmetry of the body shows much of its effect in the

forebrain. The left-right symmetry of the body extends to the nervous system, each

nerve on the right side has a mirror image on the left. The mysterious feature in

this plan is that virtually all nerves cross from one side to the other on their way to

or from the brain. As a result, the left side of the brain controls the right side while

the right controls the left side consequently the left brain.

The Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato held a view of man’s original

nature quiet similar to that of Vedic sages that is, this temporary world they taught,

is not our real home; we once existed in a spiritual world in Plato’s famous

dialogue, Socrates says that is our original condition “We were pure ourselves and

not yet enshrined in the living tomb which we carry about, now that we are

imprisoned in the body like an ouster in his shell”. The purpose of philosophy, for

these early Athenian thinkers was to awaken a person to his original, spiritual

identity, now hidden within the covering of the physical body… when one’s

original spiritual consciousness is revived, one sees God everywhere and in

everything. One enters a unique world of spiritual knowledge and pleasure for

superior to what most of us perceived as reality – a spiritual reality that lies just

beyond our ordinary abilities of perception.

Before entering the material world, each soul had a unique spiritual

relationship with God. This loving relationship is thousands of times greater and

more intense than any love experienced in the material world. In our eternal,

constitutional position in the spiritual world. We are able to associate with God

directly, serving Him in a spiritual form just suitable for our mod of love and

devotion. This is cultivated by occultism.

He who despises occultism and makes no endeavour to gain true spiritual

knowledge will be miserable; his hope in vain; his labour unfruitful and his works

unprofitable.

There are many who do not understand how the human soul has within

itself the power to see and know things of the past, present, and future. They will

seek by laborious effort to develop mo`deanship and clairvoyant power. The wise

man recognizes that this power lies within and is manifested only through the law

of faith and realization. The infinite is not known through reason: but by a faculty

superior to reason by entering upon a state in which the individual ceases to be his

finite self, in which state things concerning the past, present, and future are

communicated to him.

The concept of the divine nature of man is not limited to the thinking

pattern of both East and West. We know very well that the Yoruba have a similar

concept of man. In Africa, the Akan of Ghana also think the same way. The Akan

comprises several groups such as Ashatis, Fantes, Akims and Akwapims etc. In a

human being, apart from his body, the Akans distinguish the okra. The Okra is the

guiding spirit of a man, the bearer and instrument of his destiny, that in a man

which antecently to the incarnation takes its leave of God. The okra is also that

whose departure from the living man means death, and makes the completion of

his destiny. It returns to God to justify its earthly existence.

In Yoruba belief, Astral world is called “Ikole Orun” (sley-home). Many

ese Ifa relate birth to descending from Ikole Orun. It is in the sky-world that the

ancestral or primordial family of each individual child exists. It is at Ikole Orun

that each divine being wishing to come to the world takes a decision. If the elders

at the sky-world area consulted, a meeting would be held. It is the outcome of the

meeting that would determine the Ipori (the wishes) of the individual. From the

Astral world, the individual would ascend to celestial world to present his wishes

to Olodumare for approval. After he has received the “Ase (approval) he descends

the Astral world to prepare for the journey to earth.

He would than descend to visit the terrestrial world to choose a home. In

the terrestrial world there are numerous spirits, souls and other invisible beings

wandering about. Being an invisible being, the individual becomes one of them.

He moves about as one of them. Like in our earthly social life, the individual

keeps contact with them and may join certain groups called Egberun (spiritual

comrades). The association may be permanent, in that wise, the individual keeps

contact with throughout life. He sees them always; they help him by providing his

material needs at time.

The phenomenon of Egberun is not limited to Yoruba belief. Mystics assert

that groups of soul who have known each other in previous life times tend to

return to physical body at approximately the same time, into circumstances that

permit them to find each other in order to work kannic relationship.

There are cases of persons who have found themselves outside their bodies

while awake. During this apparently. Spontaneous occurrence a person can see his

or her own body and its surroundings without using the physical senses. These

people report a strong sense of awareness while they remain outside their bodies.

Most of the time they seem to be floating above it and can feel the same sensations

that are natural in their embodied states. Many of these cases are reported by

persons who have had serious illness or accidents, but some seem to occur for no

special reasons, when the individual is feeling healthy and comfortable. It is

almost as if the part of the person who left the body is the real personality, the true

mind, while the body itself is simply a shell, left temporarily by its occupant.

IFA: THE KABBALAH OF THE YORUBAS

For a very long time, till the liberation of slaves the group now known as

Yoruba was difficult to identify. Whenever elites of a period tried to write the

history of the people who are supposed to have developed Ife civilization, were

faced with problems. Among those who identified these problems are Chief M.O.

Fasogbon in his “The principles of Ancient Constitutional History of Ile-Ife Ooye

Lagbo” (1985), Reverend Johnson, the author of “Yoruba History and Professor

Adeagbo Akinjoghon of University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-

Ife. According to Reverend Johnson:

No one, who has never made the attempt, can have the

faintest idea of the great difficulties that attend the efforts to

elicit facts and accuracy of statements from an illiterate

people: they are be wildering with repetitions, prolix in

matters irrelevant, while facts germane to the subject in

hand are more often than not passed over; they have to be

drawn out by degrees patiently, and the chaff has to

constantly sifted from the wheat. In no sphere of labour is

patience and perseverance more required than this. (O.

Johnson 1901)

Chief Fasogbon expressed the same view, it will be more appropriate to say

that he quoted Johnson.

The problem is better explained by Right Reverend Bishop Oluwole in his

paper at a conference organized by the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S) held

at Lagos from 3rd to 9th february 1896. He wrote:

The absence of written history, the unreliableness of what is

orally handed down, especially by people passionately fond

of tribal glory, and therefore not always faithful to facts,

sometimes exaggerating and sometimes misrepresenting the

utter want of dates or any other satisfactory system of fixing

events, all would make it difficult to even those who are

much better informed on the subject to do it thorough

justice.

Even with the presence of written forms, Professor I. Adeagbon Akinjogbin

offered this advice:

In the two broad categories of oral sources that have viz the

documentary and the text book types which have been

variously described by different writers a large proportion

of the “texts” should not be taken completely at their face

value.

For example, Late Chief Ladoke Akintola, the Premier of Western Region

on the 1st May 1965 said among other things, about the University of Ife:

Ile-Ife is fabled as the spot where God created man and

from whence they dispersed all over the earth. The Garden

of Eden was somewhere around this vicinity if not exactly

on this sport. On this historic spot the first marriage in

human history was celebrated. Here lived our first parents,

Adam and Eve… on this fertile soil grew the first tree of

knowledge of which our first grant parent Eve was told:

“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then

your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as God”.

However, any reader of the bible knows that this is in conflict with the

location of the garden. In the book of Genesis it is written:

A stream flowed and watered the garden beyond Eden it

divided into four rivers; the first river is the Pishon, it flows

around the country of Havilab; the second rivers is Gihon, it

flows round the country of Cush. The third river is Tigris

and it flows east of Assyria and the fourth is Euphrates.

On the 7th of May 1998, Yoruba kabbalah centre was opened at

Edena/Igbolokun street Ile-Ife. With the present influence of both Islam and

Christianity in Yoruba land, the centre considers it necessary to reclaim the lost

ground of the Yoruba Traditional Religion to the imposed foreign religions. The

ascertion of the centre is that if the list of world religions does not inclue

Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and others, the purpose of creation would have

been limited to three fundamental principles, that is; feeling of sacredness and

mystery; feeling of oneness or communion with the whole nature, including other

people, and something higher than ourselves; and the third is the desire for a better

“life” after “death”. This last principle is better stated in kabbalah language as a

continuous existence after disembodiment (when the spirit has become discharged

by its tomb, the physical body).

One big challenge created by Christianity among the Yoruba is their believe

in the story of creation contained in Genesis 2:7.

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground

and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man

became a living being.

Thus, a great Christian like Late Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, one time

premier of Western Religion claimed that Adam and Eve were the first parents of

the Yoruba. This is because he claimed that Ife is the Garden of Eden. And

according to Captain C.H. Elgee, Resident Ibadan, in 1903 Ife is held by many to

be the cradle or birth place of the human race. The Right Rev. Bishop Charles

Philips in his paper on “Plans for Advance and Best Centres to be taken up” laid at

Conference Table of the C.M.S in 1896 observed that:

Dispersed as the tribes are over a large extent of country

alienated and disaffected to each other as they are by

intercourse by ages of estrangement, yet we find that each of

them preserve the tradition of their common origin from Ile-

Ife which they still esteem as Eden of the nation from whence

they migrated to different territories which they now occupy.

What concerns a Yoruba kabbalist is the people’s acceptance of the

doctrine of inherited sin from Adam and Eve and the misconception of Satan for

Esu.

In Yoruba cosmology, Obatala is the potter god – who “created” man oat

the command of the sky-god, Olodumare. The Odu Ifa Ogbe Alara established an

equivalent of Adam and Eve in the story of Olofin Adimula and Atiba, his wife,

who gave rise to all families of the peoples of the world.

Furthermore, the biblical history of the Jews is similar to the traditional

history of the Yoruba, both based on tradition approved by the elders. As the name

Yoruba was bestowed by a particular group of the race, the Oyo speaking people,

so is the name Jews bestowed the Israelites by the people of Judah. It was in

Babylon, capital of Chaldean Empire that they began to be known as Jews,

meaning those belonging to the kingdom of Judah. Afterward, the term became

applied to all Israelites, all Hebrews, whereas they were dispersed throughout the

world.

According to Rev. Bishop Charles Philips (1896) “the name Yoruba (for

went of more comprehensive term, and for convenience of the civilized world is

now applied to a country which extends from the Borgh Kingdom on the North, to

the Bight of Benin on the South from the Dahomean territory on the West to the

River Niger on the East.” The people whose territory extends to the banks of the

Niger near Lokoja including the Igbiras (Ebira) Igbominas as well as the Jekiris

(Sekiri) and inclusive.

If these people had common origin at Ile-Ife, it means they had dispersed

for so long a time that they developed different customs. Since the time of

Oduduwa there had been many approaches to secure Yoruba Unity. For example

the venue adopted by Reverend Johnson is history. Reverend Samuel Johnson’s

oriki is Ayinla Ogun, a typical Oyo Oriki. According to Professor F. Ade Ajayi,

his critique ( 964), his intention to write a history of Yorubaland arose out of

purely nationalistic ambition, since his records revealed that he could not resist the

temptation of glorifying the past of his fore-fathers. This remark revealed that both

Rev. Johnson and Professor Ajayi belong to different groups. If they belong to the

same progenitor, Oduduwa as most people claim, Professor Ajayi wouldn’t have

considered Johnson’s effort as an attempt to glorify the past of his fore-fathers;

meaning that Johnson fore-fathers were different from his own. Furthermore,

Professor F. Ade Ajayi observed that Johnson’s patriotic motive lies in seeing his

accounts as a way of fostering Yoruba unity which had been badly affected by the

prolonged wars especially of the 19th century, especially Kiriji/Ekitiparapo wars.

Professor Akinjogbin used the administrative set up to back up his Ebi

system. The Yoruba monarchical system provided for a palace culture. In Yoruba

urban system, there was a large city or town, where Oba lived. The shrines of the

Orisa were very close to the palace. In 1553 Authonie Anes Pinteado reported the

great reverence they give to their king. In Dapper’s report in 1668 of the kingdoms

northwest of Benin, Ulkami (Olukumi) Oyo and Yaboe (Ijebu Ode) it is recorded

that:

The king’s court (or castle) is a square… it is divided into

many magnificent dwellings and beautiful long square

galleries. Its root rest on wood pillers covered from top to

bottom with cast copper engraved with war deeds and

battles. The king is both “god and king”.

Surrounding the city were small towns ruled by Baale. The founders of

such towns must have left the city for one reason or another. It might be a case of

quarrel ruling families, or families of important Chiefs. They might be old war

camps, like Ido Osun near Osogbo where Alafin stayed during the Fulani invasion

of Ikirun.

Processor Akinjogbin seems to base his Ebi syste on Oduduwa influence.

According to him, the Oduduwa group substituted a new system into which they

integrated the conquered settlements. He said… “The resultant socio-political

organization has been called the Ebi system” its concept can therefore only be

properly understood within the context of the historical events that happened

during and immediately after the Oduduwa took over. He proclaimed the

organization “The Yoruba Ebi Commonwealth”. He cited some evidences.

Whenever an Oba regarded as a direct descendant of Oduduwa dies, his movable

property, particularly his dresses, are shared among the other Obas. This occurred

in 1930, when Ooni Ademiluyi died and in 1944 when Alafin Ladigbolu died.

However, the list of members of this eponym is difficult to determine. Rev.

Johnson mentioned seven children of Oduduwa including the mothers of Olowu

and Alaketu, and five sons namely the dynastic ancestors of Benin, Illa, Sabe,

(save in the Republic of Benin) Popo (now in the Republic of Togo) and Oyo

According to Rev. Johnson, they were the children of Okanbi, the only son of

Oduduwa. The name Okanbi appeared in the early writing of Bishop Ajayi

Crowther. In 1856, in his introduction to a book on Grammar and Vocabulary of

Yoruba language, mentioned Okanbi and 15 other unnamed “sons” who were

emissaries of an unknown ruler, a fact interpreted as 16 dynastic ancestors sent

into the Yoruba world (Burton, 1863). Bascom (1969) actually mentioned 16

dynastic ancestors he described as children of Oduduwa. The list consisted of

Alaafin, Alake, Awijale, Ajero, Alara (Aramoko), Osemawe, Orangun, Oba of

Benin , Olowu, Ewi, Elekole, Oore, Alaketu, Onisabe, Olupopo and the Ooni of

Ife (which he called the successor of the ancestral throne). In 1905, OOni

Adelekan (Olubuse I) in his evidence in Lagos mentioned 21 dynastic ancestors

excluding the ancestral throne who were direct children of eponym. They were

Alake, Olowu, Agura and Oloko (all in Abeokuta), Alaketu, Alaafin, Akarigbo,

Owa Ilesa, Orangun, Olosi and seven Ekiti Obas namely Oore, Ologido, Ajero,

Alara, Elekole, Alaaye and Ewi. Ooni Sir Adesoji Aderemi in his list given in

1937 claimed that some Obas and Olojas are sons of Ogun and that Esindale, oba

meri and others died before their father, Oduduwa. His list consisted of 26 children

of Oduduwa; the successor of the ancestral throne and 25 others, namely the

dynastic ancestors of Oba Benin, Orangun Alaketu, Oloyo (Alaafin), Obadara (of

Dahomey), Oninana of (Ghana), Onipopo, Owore (Oore), Alara, Ajero, Ewi,

Awijale, Akarigbo, Osemowe, Olowu, Deji, Elekole, Olosi, Alaaye (of Ipole

Iraye) Olowo, Olojudo, Owa, L’obo, Owa Aringbaji, Owa Otan and Owa Obokun.

At Olojo festival in Ile-Ife, after the ceremony of crossing the swords by the

Ooni and Osogun at the shrine of Ogun, on leaving the Oke Mogun, Chief

Obalufe, getting to Igbo Ija (near Atiba, opposite the present site of Ife Museum)

will recite the list of all Obas who are supposed to belong to the Yoruba Ebi

commonwealth. Starting from Oninana, Onipopo, Alaketu, Alara, Ajero, Orangun

Ile Illa, Olowo Arere, Osemofarawe, Obanta, Oloko Oba Ado, Ojolua, Ado Oba

Benin, Owa of Idanre, Oniwonran, Afaramodi, Ewi-Lado Orelotun. In the various

list presented above, those dynastic ancestors common to all are Alaketu, Alara,

Ajero, Orangun Ile-Illa, Oninana and Olowe. One would believe that there are

hidden factors behind the presentation of the lists. The list of Obalufe consists of

those who were indigens of Ile-Ife before the establishment of Oduduwa dynasty if

this theory is accepted, those included on the list were not direct descendants of

Oduduw.

The Ebi Commonwealth system does not seem to consider the problems of

migration of people into what is now know as Yorubaland. The Nigerian

handbook 1936 gives an account of the probable origin of some Yoruba groups,

thus:

The Songbai Empire extended from Western Ocean to Lake

Chad and the mountains of Tibesti between the tenth and

thirtieth parallels of latitudes and was finally disrupted by

Moorish armies of invasion at the end of the sixteenth

century. Of these armies, totaling 23,000 men, a bare five

hundred returned to Morocco. In destroying Songhai the

Moorish forces were themselves disintegrated. The area

became “Melting – Pot” of the interaction of Bantu, Nilotic,

Nubian, Hamitic and Semitic strains and culture. From this

“melting pot” were thrown off innumerable waves of

immigration, many of which came to rest in what is now

Nigeria… of these is that which produced Yoruba

civilization of South-West.

In support of this record, Professor Biobaku (1984) concluded from the

evidences available to him that the Yoruba could appear to have been the last

Sudanic people to have migrated into their present area. In a book of Sultan Bello

of Sokoto mention is made of the immigrants from the east, partly of Hermitic

race, who were descendants from Canaanites of the tribe of Nimrod, who were

driven out of Arabia to North-East Africa and moved across Hence under a leader

called Oduduwa, from whose son Awranyan (Orangun) the ancestors of the

present royal families of the Yoruba tribes are supposed to have sprung. But

according to P.A. Talbot, before this wave of migration, a main stream of Yoruba

immigrants probably arrived in Southern Nigeria about 2000B.C.

Any romance about the establishment of a universal religion of the groups

of people now called Yoruba should be disregarded. The proto-Yoruba folk

society had a religious reference to Olodumare. The revered Olodumare being the

creator of both heaven and earth and all beings seen and unseen. Probably the

devotees maintained their mode of revering Olodumare for many generation, even

without creating temples, shrines or permanent place of worship or selection of

any priest or priestess. The ancients considered Olodumare to be too high than to

be involved in human affairs. This belief system seems universal, at least among

the Blacks of the ancients. In Fanti belief, He (the creator of things) is Nyama or

Onyame, and the Fon of the Republic of Benin refer to Him as Mawu. The

supreme deity of Loango negroes is Lugaba who dwells in the sky. This smile is

life, and the result of his displeasure sickness and death. This Supreme Being is

not worshipped, nor are offerings made to Him; He has no sacred place. Although

they talk freely about him and acknowledge Him to be their great benefactor,

accept all his gift as a matter of course and make Him no offering in return.

Later, the belief in ethnic gods was introduced in the creation of man Orisa

Nla (Obatala) became involved. He was recognized as the creator of human

physical featues. He was allotted the duty of moulding man’s physical from the

dust of the earth. He thus became the sculptor-divinity. But the right to give life

Olodumare reserved to Himself alone for ever. From this account, the job of

creation has become divided between two deities and not a single one as we are

made to believe in the Book of Genesis Chapter two verse seven. Also, the

creation art was not completed once and for all, in that Orisa Nla has to continue

moulding man and Olodumare has to continue to give life by imparting living

spirit into him. But Orisa Nla is not an equivalent of the Supreme God,

Olodumare. In her book “Divine Horse men…” provides an evidence that God is

not Orisa as Orisa in not God. In voodoo, a Yoruba influenced religion in Haiti,

she claims that Olodumare does not descend to “mount” human head. Therefore,

we can say that in Aladura churches, what they claim to be message from God

delivered while mounting a possessed prophet is not from God. Only Orisa and

spirits “mount” human head. The author of “Santeria the Religion”. M. Gonzalez –

Wippler maintains that despite the involvement of many Orisa in Yoruba belief

system… in Santeria, the worship of a central creative force known as Olodumare,

who corresponds to the concept of God is evident.

As Jerusalem became the city of David (Joshua 10:1-5) by conquest and

negotiation let scholars consider Ife to be the city of Oduduwa. Oduduwa was the

Odu Ifa Otura Meji records, has to negotiate with the indigens who helped him to

fight the indigens of Ile-Ife. Obameri was one of those who joined Oduduwa

people against the Ifes. Negotiation was necessary because of the great rresistance

he experienced. The Ogboni cult was formed to make his followers loyal to him.

Civil strives continued at Ife most especially between the patriotic indigens of Ife

who belonged to Mole cult under Orunmila and those who turned the sword

against their beloved city.

The cults were responsible for the establishment of many ethnic gods called

Orisa. Infact most of the Orisa are deified heroes and heroines, for example,

Obatala, Osun, Oya, Oduduwa, Moremi and Others. There is a god of Ile called

Onile which is the principal deity of Ogboni society. These cults are the sources of

the Oral Traditions which the scholars of history of the Yoruba depend upon. The

Idio Tradition (Oduduwa followers) assumed that the Oduduwa Dynasty marked

the beginning of Yoruba civilization. The Idita (Obatala) Traditions claims that

Orun was first created as the permanent home of Olodumare, Orisa, ancestors’

spirit and other beings. Below Orun is Oju Orun (the sky) full of water at the

beginning of things. The land was yet to form. The water was called Olalore.

Orunmila was sent to move about on the water. Later he was called back to Orun.

Olodumare gave Obatala Ile (soil) to go and crate land. Olodumare was asked to

accompany him. A cock with five toes and chameleon were taken along by them.

On their journey to earth Obatala became thirsty. The water he wanted to drink

turned into palmwine. He drank it and became drunk and consequently slept.

Oduduwa took the parcel of land from him and came to create Ile (land) Oduduwa

created Ile and thus became god of Ile called Onimole. The Idita tradition ends

where Obatala gave the parcel of land to Olodumare. The remaining part of the

Tradition belongs to Idio. The Traditions of creation seem to re-echo the struggle

between Obatala and Oduduwa. The attempt to redicle Obatala in the Idio

Tradition has shown the effort by the Oduduwa group of suppress the ancient

traditions of the Yoruba.

There is another account, which may be called Yoruba (Oyo) tradition. In

this tradition, Oranyan had only a bit of rag left him, containing earth, 21 pieces of

iron, and a cock. The whole surface of the earth was then covered with water.

Oranyan laid his portion o nthe surface of the water, and placed on it the cock,

which spread the soil. Thus, the wide expanse of water became filled up and the

dry land formed became his inheritance hence the common saying, “Alafin I’oni

Ile’ His brothers preferring to live on dry land rather than on the surface of water

were permitted to do provided they paid an annual tribute. To his brothers were

assigned the various provinces over which they ruled more or less independently.

The suggestion that the ‘princes’ were assigned to rule various provinces

which they did more or less independently, is evident in the various mystery

religions they took to the New World. The slaves from the kingdoms of Ketu and

Sabe arrived in Bahia in the 14th century. They brought with them the worship of

Ososi and Omolu, Oyo came with Sango, the Egbas of Abeokuta land brought

Yemoja – the Osun, the Ekiti’s brought ogun. Ife’s contribution was the worship

of Obatala, that of Ifon was Osa Olufon (another name for Orisa Nla) and those

from Ejigbo brought Orisa Ogiyan. Furthermore, Egba and Egbado up to 1870s

objected to their being called Yoruba.

From the evidences given above, there is doubt that all attempts to have a

focus for Pan – Yoruba Movement have failed. Even the recent socio-political

designs made by Senator Abraham Adesanya group (Afenifere) and the Yoruba

Elders Council of Rev. Oladipo Alayande, have no solid foundation. When the

senator in his keynote address at the 4th Pan – Yoruba National Congress, at

Ibadan, on 28th September 1999 claimed that Olodumare gave this beautiful and

fertile land to Oduduwa and his descendants that they may enjoy it fruits and

bounties in perpetuity” he might not be so aware that he was creating an

equivalent of Israel in Palestine”, because as recorded in a book of Sultan Bello of

Sokoto Oduduwa was a leader of a Semi-white (Hermitic) invaders who arrived in

Yorubaland towards the end of the 10th century AD. People of Israel were white

and the Canaanites were black. Archdeacon Olumide Lucas in his Book “The

Religion of the Yoruba” published in Lagos, 1948, by the Church Missionary

Society (CMS) rejected the Idio Tradition popular at Ile-Ife and the environs that

Oduduwa was a man. He rather accepted Ekiti and Ketu versions that Oduduwa

was a woman” a worthy wife of Obatala. James L. Gibbs (1962) in his

“Introduction to P.C. Llody’s Article on Yoruba People” testified that Yoruba are

not really a single tribe but they are series of group of people bound together by a

common language, dress, symbolism in ritual as well as in mythology.

When one is confronted with a welter of conflicting views, one has to adopt

either of two policies: one can try to see what truth, if any, was contained in the

various assertions, and weigh them up to arrive at a juster and more

comprehensive view, or one can give up the search for truth, asserting that none is

to be found anywhere, and that at best one can arrive at useful principles can help

one attend to the demanding practical affairs. The better option to a kabbalist is the

second.

Kabbalah simply means revealed sacred but not secret knowledge, which

forms the basis of exoteric knowledge. When the knowledge becomes the property

of a cult it becomes secret and may become distorted. The knowledge is presented

in symbolic language. In Hebrew Kabbalah the first five chapters of the Holy

Bible credited to Mose were written in code and cannot be interpreted without the

proper keys, which are the Hebrew letters. Each Hebrew letter has a specific

meaning and also represents a certain number. The number ascribed to the letters

have no mathematical significance. Each letter, and thus each number is simply an

“ideogram”, a symbol of a cosmic force. It in Gematria, when a Hebrew kabbalist

wishes to know the intrinsic nature of anything, he finds the numerical value of the

name of the object of his interest by substituting each letter of the name for its

corresponding numerical value according to Hebrew alphabets. By the law of

numerology he then reduces the resultant sum to one of the archetypal number 1-9.

This system is adopted because it springs from the most ancient and reliable

source.

Though African kabbalists don’t use Gemetria the same law applied in

discovering the intrinsic nature of the message sent to the world by Olodumare

through Orunmila. Many African peoples are associated with ifa (called Fa in the

Republic of Benin). Europeans reported witnessing the practice of Ifa at least as

far back as the year 1705 when William Bosman gave an account of the practice in

the Gold Coast (now Ghana).T.B. Freeman made detailed observations about it

among the Fon in Dahomey (now Republic of Benin). Ifa geometric divination has

been preserved among Yoruba descendants in Cuba and Brazil.

GonzaleZ – Wippler claims that Olodumare sent Orunmila who revealed

Ifa Divination system to the Yoruba and their descendants. Fa in Dahomean

cosmology is the unity and speech of Mawu, the creator, who with Lisa gave birth

to all the principal deities in Benin. The sixteen combinations or lines made by the

diviner are DU (Odu), each having an involved mythology. Mawu’s decision as to

the individuals destiny is contained in Fa, the execution of Mawu’s command

must be carried by Legba to the deity that will execute Mawu’s with.

The medium by which all knowledge of the past has been transmitted into

the present is numerology. It has been demonstrated through the interpretation of

Ifa literary corpus that Yoruba system of thought develop from the use of

numbers. The system is Arithmomancy, which is the science of theological

interpretation by numbers. It is much earlier than Gematria system of the western

world. Gematria which is science of relating words to number was preceded by

Arithmomancy, since Gematria originated at a time coeval with the first use of

writing. A tradition maintains that all arts and sciences in the past were based on

the same cosmic truth expressed in number, and the sacred numbers, which

include 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, were used to develop the sacred traditions

called Kabbalah. On this truth J. Michell in 1973 in his book “The City of

Revelation” published in London by ABACUS, based his assertion that Hebrew,

Greek and other kabbalah, including Ifa kabbalah, as well as all know and

unknown mystical systems throughout the world, were all degenerated versions of

the same once universal system of knowledge.

The knowledge of how the ancient Yoruba invented or developed Ifa

divination system must have been lost through the use of mere oral traditions. The

occurrence of such numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 in the properties of the materials

selected for divination instruments suggests that a system of mathematics was

involved. The one relevant to our discussion in this paper is the binary system. the

numenr 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 might have been sacred numbers

representing the names of certain mysterious beings, some of which are now called

Odu Ifa. For example Ikin Ifa which represents Orunmila (Ifa) consists of 16 palm

nuts each having from four to ten or more eyelets. The Odu which is the deity of

the Babalawo consists of four calabashes contained in a cylindrical bark container.

The indigenous kolanut (Obi Abata Cola acuminata), the cowry shells (used as

Eerindinlogun) and the half nut used in making the Opele divination chain have

two ‘eyes’ one concave face represented by 1 and a convex face presented by 2

(11). The Nupe divination chain called Eba consists of eight strings each string

with four perforated hollow half shells placed equidistantly along the strings. This

is similar to the simpler Okpele used by Ijumu diviners which consists of four

strings. The Babalawo of Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti States use Opele

which consists of only two strings. Other divination instrument types exist among

the Tapa (Nupe), Igala and Nsukka Igbo where Ifa is referred to Afa. Coconut

replaces Kolanut in the diaspora. The Eleduwe wars 1843 caused the movement

of Bariba people of Nikki, Siru, Kpera and others to Yorubaland, and these people

consequently assimilated Yoruba culture.

The Odu Ifa symbols are based on systematic principles of Arithmomancy.

When the Babalawo casts the Opele, he reads from top to bottom on each string

and from right to left string. We can reduce the natural numbers 1 – 126 to Odu Ifa

symbols using the rule of division thus; divide the number by 1 if the quotient is

an even number put down O, if odd, put down 1. Double the divisor as you

proceed. If the quotient is an even number, subtract 0 from the dividend, if odd

subtract 1 as you proceed. Continue until the quotient is 1. Like the Chinese,

instead writing the numbers you get during the operations from left to right, as we

do, you write from top downwards. Let us consider the Odu Ogunda = 8

= 0 = 1

= 0 1

= 0 1

= 1 11

Ogunda.

You can also convert Odu symbols to number.

Let us take the case of Odu Ifa Oyeku. There two arms of the Opele.

Left string Right String

24 = 16 II II – 20 = 1

25 = 32 II II – 21 = 2

26 = 64 II II – 22 = 4

27 = 128 II II – 23 = 8

Oyeku Meji

Oyeku Meji = 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 (15 on the right) + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 (240 on the

left) total = 15 + 240 = 255.

Let us use the table above to change some Odu Ifa symbols to number.

Osa Osa Meji Owonrin Meji

II = 1 16 = II II = 1 16 = II II = 1

1 0 0 = 1 1 = 0 32 = II II = 2

1 0 0 = 1 1 = 0 0 = 1 1 = 0

1 0 0 = 1 1 = 0 0 = 1 1 = 0

= 1 Total 1 + 16 = 17. Total = 3 + 16 + 32 = 51.

What is derived when a divination instrument is used the Odu Ifa symbol.

There are sixteen principal Odu Ifa each of which has an Apola consisting 16

Amula Odu (Omo Odu). The Odus appear in pairs, each pair consisting of an Odu

and its complement. The numbers of the pair added together will give a constant

255. Let us consider Osa Meji and its complement Obara Meji.

II II I I

I I II II

I I II II

I I II II

16:1 224:14

Total 17 238 + 17 = 255.

Odu in Ifa literary corpus has been associated with many aspects of Yoruba

institutions. In Odu Ifa Osa Meji Odu represents women enfranchisement. When

women could no longer endure the treatment given to them, as slaves and beasts of

burden the complained and Olodumare pitied and gave them power that could

surpass the of men. Since then, Olodumare made it mandatory that whatever men

would do, they should involve women or else they would not succeed. To foster

unity Odu, in this Odu Ifa Osa Meji, revealed the secret of Egungun to her

neighbor, Obatala, and despite the unethical action of Obalata, made it exclusive

right of men to masquerade. In Odu Ifa Irele Olota, Olodumare gave the powerful

wise women. In that Odu Ifa, the with Olodumare’s ultimate intension in creating

the universe. Women were known to belong to the cult of Olodumare. Rev. Bolaji

Idowu (1977) lamented the waning of the direct ritualistic worship of Olodumare

among the Yoruba.

In this Odu Ifa, it is further said that Odu was the Iyalode of Otta when

Orunmila went to become initiated into the secret of witchcraft. Thus there was a

secret oath between witches and Babalawos. Odu as an Orisa is the symbol of

unity of Yoruba deities.

In the Odu Ifa Oseyeku (Igbadu) Odu became very old and could no longer

answer many of the questions put to her by the children she told them she was too

old to remain with them on earth, and therefore was preparing to go hom (Orun =

heaven). She comforted them that before her departure she would give them a

substitute.

Odu sent for her neighbours, Obarisa (Obatala), Obaluaye, Ogun and

Oduduwa inform them about her preparations to go back to heaven. During the

valedictory meeting, Obatala looked into the bush and saw a tree with four

calabashes, he asked Ogun to go and fetch them. He took one, gave one to each of

the other neighbours of Odu. Odu was sitting on a cylindrical bark container.

Obatala filled his own calabash with calcium bi-carbonate (Efon) and give it to

her, Ogun presented his own filled Charcoal (Edu), Obaluaaye present his own

containing camwood (Osun) and Oduduwa’s own was filled with mud. Odu told

them that their gifts henceforth belonged to her. She put them in the cylindrical

container and the Orisa Odu came into existence. She instructed all her children

that whatever they might require after her departure must be directed to the Odu.

She also assured them that whosoever worshipped any of the contributors of the

components of the Orisa, has worshipped all the other contributors. This is how

the Odu Ifa Igbadu (Oseyeku) relates how Odu, as a metonym for the feminine

virtuous unity of Yoruba was established.

In Oseyeku two feminine powers are involved, one is Odu and the other is

Oduduwa. Most traditions from the areas of Yorubaland that the influence of

Oduduwa Dynasty was never felt hold that Oduduwa is a female the creator of the

earth. On the other hand, Odu the oracle is called Iyanla, revered by Gelede

Festival and known as the owner of Aje (witchcraft). In fact, there is much

similarities between the symbols of Oduduwa and Odu; while the former consists

of two gourds sealed and painted white, the latter consists of four small calabashes

containing mud, cam wood, calcium carbonate and charcoal respectively. The four

calabashes are enclosed in Apere (a sacred cylindrical bark box). Non - initiates

are allowed to open the box, for he will become blind if he does. In the case of

Oduduwa, the charm (Oogun) that is inside the gourds makes non-initiate blind if

he opens them.

Odu as an Orisa is the symbol of unity between the Yoruba folk society to

which belonged Ogun, Obatala and Obaluaye, and the revolutionary immigrants,

Oduduwa group. As cited above in Igbadu, Odu called all her children together

(that is, all peoples now collectively referred to as Yoruba) and instructed them

that whenever they want anything from any Orisa, they should consult Odu, that is

Odu Ifa metonym of Odu (the oracle), that is the Orisa thus created as a sumbol of

unity. Till today, the worship of any Orisa, and even the ancestors involves

divination (geomancy) to determine the Odu Ifa that reveals the messages from

Olodumare, Orisa or ancestors. Everybody neveres what Odu Ifa ‘say’.

DREAMS

Dreams are very important to our life. Some experienced members of

incarnation cult all over the country continue to research into the influence of

dreams on the life of individuals as well as nations. The objective is to develop

means of going into the inner world in the dream state and explore certain planes

where knowledge is hidden. Instances of significance of dreams as root of

prophecy or inspiration in the Holy Bible include Amos 7:1 and 9:1; and Isaiah 11;

1-6. The subject is expected to develop the power to go into the astral plane in the

dream state and explore it to discover where knowledge hidden. Some of the

subjects will be expected to give an accurate account of their dreams when they

wake up. Even among those who may forget, it is possible that the knowledge

might have become buried in their subconscious mind as residual knowledge may

simmer up to the surface in moments of silence as in meditation or as flashes of

inspiration.

There are examples of noble dreams that contributed to human knowledge

about the dynamic nature of the universe. Here is an account given by the French

Professor of Chemistry, Friedrich August Von One afternoon in 1865, he fell

asleep and dreamt what was probably the most important dream in history since

those involving Joseph in the Holy Bible. The Professor said:

I turned my chair to the fire and dozed.

Again the atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time

the smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My

mental eye, rendered more acute by repeated visions of this

kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold

conformation; long rows, sometimes more closely fitted

together; all twining and twisting in snake like motion. But

look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of

its own tail and the form whirled moochingly before my

eyes. As if by flash of lightning I awoke.

The serpent biting its own tail gave kekule the clue to a discovery – a

revolutionary proposal that the molecules of certain important organic compounds

are not open structure but closed chains or “rings” like the snake swallowing its

tail.

There is a type of dream which requires no interpretation, as it is in itself

directly, inspirational. Such a dream was experienced by Grillseppe Tartini the

great Italian violinist and composer of the eighteenth century. Tartini had been at

work on a beautiful sonata, but had been unable t finish it. Weary and

disconsolate, he went to bed pondering on how he could complete his

composition. At last he fell asleep, still obsessed by his task, and dreamed a

dream. In it the Devil came to him and offered to finish the sonata in exchange for

the great musician’s soul. Tartini did not hesitate he joyfully closed the bargain.

So the Devil took up a violin and embarked upon a weird yet utterly inspiring trill.

The notes were fitted perfectly to the music that Tartini had already written, and

when the Devil had finished the dreamer awakened immediately, rushed to his

manuscript and finished the sonata.

Drams are a uniquely significant class of symbols. From ancient times

many have thought that dreams have meaning other than their obvious pictorial

significance. Ti has been assumed that hidden behind and within the images are

messages of importance to the dreamer, perhaps in the nature of portents, warning

or direction for action. However, it is important to always remember that almost

every dream is a puzzle-picture which must be solved with the aid of experience.

Much has been written about the interpretation of dreams. Symbol interpretation

was once a thriving art. Medeaval scholars notably thugo of St. Victor, wrote

systematic accounts of symbolis, showing the various levels of possible

interpretations, including the lateral, allegorical, mythological moral and spiritual.

Dream involves the soul. Generally dreams are born – out of the

interactions between the soul and the physical body. Drams are mostly productions

of the sub-conscious mind. In order to circumvent the subconscious censor, in

dreams the soul usually resort to symbols. Hence it is important to understand

symbols in dreams in order to fathom the message of a dream. Though the

interpretation of drams is peculiar to the culture of the dreamer yet there are some

generic symbols. Example are:

A Mountain – a high state of spiritual awareness.

A House - consciousness

A River - supreme creativity – border of inner plane

Bathing - cleaning.

Dreams which involve the influence of Aje (witchcraft) on the soul are

called psychic attack. The generic symbols are a snake, a masquerade, a mad

person, swarm of bees, ants physical attack by a person, a Wack Smoke, a foul

odour.

We dream when we sleep. There are three main types of sleep – deep sleep,

dream sleep and walking sleep. At the time we are just falling asleep and at the

time we are just beginning to awaken are the times during which our conscious

mind is partially active and in a state to receive impressions which are retained in

the memory. It must then be realized that dream interpretations can be made only

when our conscious mind is sufficiently aroused to receive a more or less vivid

impression from the subconscious. It is from the subconscious mind that we

receive the flashes of intuition and prophetic vision that lie hidden indepths which

our conscious mind cannot fathom. During deep sleep this mysterious under world

of thoughts comes into control=, and because it is unbounded either by time or

space, it can reveal to us conditions of our present and future state of which we

have no knowledge.

As there are categories of sleep so are there categories of dream. Prophetic

dreams arise from the subconscious of intuitive mind. In the Bible Jacob, Joseph,

Pharoah, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Others has such dreams. There are ‘self – suggested’

dream – that is, those dreams caused by our thoughts turning either deliberately or

unconsciously into certain channels for a few moments before we go to bed. To

this category of dreams belong all those which concern a person or things which

has been prominent in our mind just before falling asleep. Some may be out of the

bit of willing before dropping off to sleep. Another is ‘self-directed’ dream or

inspiration. An example is that of Giuseppo Tartini’s Devil Sonata mentioned

above. Such a dream needs no interpretation, being very direct. In Africa, certain

ointments, soaps and invocation rites are applied by Orisa priests, Babalawo,

herbalists, healers and others to induce such dreams. Another one is mental

telepathy. Some people who possess telepathic mind – have actually seen events in

dreams at the same time as their occurrence in reality. Those drams could be

regarded as oracular dreams. Most of the African women mistaken for Aje

(witches) possess this power. They at times keep pets especially cats. Nightmare

may occur when a person has overfed himself. That means had dreams may be

caused by constipation it can happen when a person crosses his legs during sleep.

To compel a person to open the legs a frightening situation in the dream may result

in a nightmare. Dreams of falling from high places, of running without gaining

ground, of being chased or terrified by ghosts and monsters, and infact, any of

those dreams which are usually described as “nightmares” are caused by alteration

in the flow of blood through the brain, and they must not be regarded as being real,

since they do not arise from subconscious or intuitive mind.

It is important to understand the mystery of dreams. Most of man’s

behaviours relate to the functions of the brain, which as we have said earlier is part

of the physical body. The soul inhabits the physical body. Dreams occur when our

bodly senses are fast locked in fetters of sleep, and our earthily body rests, the

Astral form becomes free. The soul parts with the physical body and thus oozes

out of its material “case”, and confabulates with the outward world and travels

around the visible as well as invisible words. Free from the limitation imposed on

it by the physical body the Astral body (soul) regains it “fluid State”; then it soars

out of the body and holds converse with the spirits of the Astral plane. Dreams are

impressions left by our Astra spirit on our brain. Dreams therefore are records of

the soul’s encounters in the Astral world printed on our brain. It is just like a Blue

– print the brain receives more or less distinctly according to the proportion of the

blood received by it during the hours of sleep. The more the body is exhausted,

(that is the more tired we feel before going to bed) the freer is the spiritual man,

and the more vivid the impressions of our soul’s activities in the dream situation.

In heavy and robust sleep, dreamless and uninterrupted, upon awakening to

outward consciousness, we may sometimes remember nothing. But the

impressions of scenes and landscapes which the Astral body saw in its

peregrinations are still there, though lying latent under the conscious mind. They

may be awakened at any time, and then during such flashes of man’s inner

memory, there is an instantaneous interchange of energies between the visible and

the invisible world or between the earth plane and spirit life.

Dreams assure us that there can be cognitive activities such as thinking,

imagining, believing and feeling when the brain is at rest or becomes inactive in

biological sense. When we dream we seem to see with our eyes closed and hear

even though we are surrounded by silence. That means, while the body sleeps

man’s invisible higher level of being takes over. When the body sleeps man leaves

it, clothed in the Astral Body in that form it is easy for the body to receive

messages from other-worlds. At times some people “meet” their departed parents

in dreams instructing them about solutions to their problems. Sleep is comparable

to death because in both cases man is separated from the physical body except that

in sleep the invisible man remains connected to the physical body by an energy

known as the silver cord.

Always remember the golden rule: dream but do not make dream your

master.

ASTRAL PROJECTION

Many people revere spiritual and occult powers but are scared by the social

images created by members of most of our secret societies. It is a wise man, who,

like Solomon, makes a sincere attempt to understand and interpret the occult, that

is, Hidden Laws of Nature; for if one does not make an honest attempt to seek and

search out the truth and obtain Divine Wisdom, he is only a self – assumed elite. A

true elite who has spiritual knowledge, and who is instructed and helped by Good

spirits, will have much assistance given to him in the form of Divine Revelation.

He who despises occultism and makes no endeavour to gain True Spiritual

knowledge will be miserable; his hope in vain; his labour unfruitful and his works

unprofitable. It is necessary that an elite understands that human soul has within

itself the power to seek and know things of the past, present and future. The wise

man recognizes that this power lies within and is manifested only through the law

of faith and realization.

That man is surrounded with invisible beings and that he can communicate

with those who have passed beyond the grave is a belief almost as old as human

civilization. A common and everyday belief among the Greeks is that the spirit of

the dead have the knowledge of the future, and may be called upon from

underworld by certain ritual to forewarn the living. In the Bible, King Saul

consulted Samuel, who had already died, through the woman of En-dor, a

medium. (Isam 28:7-13) in verse 11 the woman asked Saul “who shall I bring up

for you?” and the king said “Bring up Samuel for me”.

In verse 13 the woman said to Saul.

I see a divine being coming up out of the earth”. And he

said to her “what is his form? An old man is coming up, and

he is wrapped with a white robe, and Saul knew that he was

Samuel and he bowed with his face to the ground and did

homage… when Samuel asked Saul why he called him up,

he said “I have called you that you may make know to me

what I should do”.

Monsighor E. Milingo, an African Catholic Reverend Father, claimed in his book

“The world in Between Christian healing and the struggle for spiritual survival”

pub noshed by the Daystar Press, Ibadan in 1986, claim that he had dealt with the

dead. He further said:

We are what we are because our society still has something

special, we can speak with the dead, and a community may

thus be guided in its endeavour to carry out decisions which

affect the whole community. The traditional spiritual

consultant speaks to the ancestors and other protective

spirits and they give the answer.

In China a similar situation= seems to exist. The Chinese high ancestor is

Shang-ti or Lord on High. Confucius retained both legacy, that is, Shang ancestral

worship and chow response to Heaven’s moral mandate. The Sutra of the Ten

kings computed during T’ang gained wide currency by sung. During the sung it

becomes well realized that the dead could universally be supportive of the living

as much as the living could be supportive of the dead. In this scheme, living under

the ancestors’ shadow is no longer just being enslaved to tyrants. The dead could

look out for the welfare of the living and vice versa. Harmony between

generations was extended beyond the grave. The dead came among the living and

taught them how to properly behave.

When a person “gets out” of this cage, that is, the physical body that houses

the soul, the Astral energy becomes generated into Astra forces responsible for his

activities in the Astral world. One way through which one can gain this power is

occultism. Occultism it the science or knowledge of the secret and hidden laws of

man’s spirit and Astral forces. The terms secret and hidden are used to mean that

the laws and rules necessary to bring these forces into operation are hidden from

the ordinary man; that is to say. Biological senses are to some extent disregarded.

The knowledge and laws of these hidden forces are given to all who seek sincerely

and apply themselves faithfully to attain them and become identified herewith, this

Esoteric school.

In astral journey man becomes totally disembodied, the physical body is

apparently dead. There are many reported cases of persons who have found

themselves outside their bodies while awake. During this apparently spontaneous

occurrence a person can see his or her own body and its surroundings without

using the physical senses. These people report a strong sense of awareness while

they remain outside their bodies. Most of the time they seem to be floating above

it and can feel the same sensations that are natural in their embodied states. This

happens while the individual is still feeling healthy and comfortable and for no

special reason. It is almost as if the part of the person who left the body is the real

personality, the true mind, while the body itself is simply a shell, left temporarily

by its occupant.

Migene Gonzalez – Wippler gives her own experience.

I have a similar experience many years ago, while I was still

living in Vienna. I was felling quite well, at great peace with

myself and there was no reason for what actually happened. I

had gone to bed and was settled comfortably with several

books that I wanted to finished reading when I suddenly

found myself floating over the bed near the ceiling. I was not

alarmed at all at this extraordinary occurrence, but I

remember thinking that I had probably died. My mind was

completely clear and was able to see and hear as if I were still

in my body. As I however over the bed, I felt an irresistible

force drawing me toward a corner of the ceiling and I heard a

rushing sound like a loud rattle in my ear. The force pulled

me out and away into a dark vacuum where I was no longer

conscious of my surroundings. I do not know how long I

remained away, but suddenly I was back in the room. I looked

at my body, immobile in the bed, with great longing, all at

once I was back in the body as if I had never left it. I

remember my body felt strangely cold and quite as an empty

house may feel after you have left it for many months. I

cannot forget the felling of “entering” into my body, of

inhabiting it, as one would a house.

She however reported that the experience happened once but it served to

convince her of the reality of herself as other than her physical body.

To us in the western world this phenomenon is strange but not to the people

of the East. In speaking of the reading of the East Indian occultism, spiritual

communications soul Transition and Renicarnation as well as Astral projection

one cannot be too proud to say that the Hindus have civilization and experience

that neither Americans or Europeans have. Occult forces and spiritual laws have

been discovered thousands of years ago and preserved among the wisest of their

representatives, who in consequence of this knowledge can perform feats which to

the western man’s limited understanding are perfectly miraculous.

God is a great force which can be comprehend and understood when one is

out of the Earthbody. One could travel from the astral world here and back in the

twinkling of an eye. Astral currents and waves act on men and women, penetrate

and saturate them through and through either directed by the powerful will of a

visible or an unseen spirit. Astral influences only go forth through the help of the

spirit: but this spirit is diffused through the whole universe and is in full accord

with human spirits. The seeker who would acquired supernatural occult power

must possess the “key” which unlocks the entrance of these things, for therein lies

a secret power concealed, and from thence come the miraculous powers of magic.

People capable of Astral projection can control a person without his being

aware of the source of the power influencing him. They could put their victims

completely into a trance and take them out of it without their knowledge. Astral

force makes one to be out of sight at a certain distance even though operating in

the same building. The external senses of the one put into a trance seems to have

been completely suspended and a duplicate set of senses to have been brought into

action. Such are some of the occult powers taught in the Temples of India to those

who belong to “The Eastern Order of Sacred Mysteries”.

An adept levitates. He determines before hand that he will be levitated for

how long at a time, and to what height. He would thus regulate the occult forces he

needs accordingly. The disciples of Hindu occultism produces the same effect and

except when in the ecstatic, keeps control over his movements. So do priests Sian,

when in the sacred pagoda (a Hindu or Buddist Temple). The priest mounts fifty

feet in the air with taper in hand, and flits from idol to idol, lighting up the niches,

self-supported and stepping as confidently as though he were upon solid ground.

This act has been testified to by observers. The officer of a Russian squadron,

which of recent circumnavigated the globe, and was stationed for a long time in

Japanese waters, related the fact that, besides many other marvels, he and

members of his group witnessed, they saw priests walk in mid air from one tree-

top to tree-top without the slightest support. They saw the pole and tape-climbing

feats, discovered by Colonel Olcott in his book. “People from the other world”,

and which have been so much called in question by certain spiritualists and

mediums whose seal is greater than their learning.

The student however is warned to be aware that these occult forces can get

hold of him and break him down, as easily a the fearful hurricane sweeps all

before it, attacking his soul without his being able to perceive he invisible foe, or

being able to protect him, is proven, He should always bear in mind that in trying

to demonstrate these tings for himself, he is working with unseen and powerful

agents, which, if he is not equally powerful, pure and high minded: he had much

better be dead than try any of these things for the gravitation of his personal

nature; for in seeking to harm others he might damage his own life instead.

HYPNOPEDIA (sleep learning)

In the west research started in 1922 but 1936 in Russia. The modern

research findings have tend to confirm ancient sacerdotal practices. Zavelova

91964) reports that the basis of hypropedia dates from ancient time and included

such practices as Buddist priests in China whispering holy texts into the ears of

sleeping students..

Ifa is not a Religion and Babalawo is not a priest -

The theme of the seventh Orisa world conference held at the Obafemi

Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, August 5 – 12, year 2001 is “time is ripe: The Orisa

Tradition in the twenty first century”. The question, that comes to mind is, Time is

ripe for what?” Is it for critical study of “The Orisa Tradition in Twenty first

century?” Since the president of the congress, Professor Wande Abimbola,

claimed in his opening address that the congress is a religious movement, it is

pertinent to relate the answer of the question to religion.

When Ifa was introduced to Oyo Kingdom during the reign of Alafin

Onigboji, the Oyo citizens told the Oba that they were prepared to give offerings

but they could not worship palm nuts (Johnson, 1969) with this attitude of the

people of once great Oyo Kingdom, can we accept that Ifa is a universal of the

Yoruba religion? We have to note that the palm nuts referred to is the Ikin, which

represents Ifa (Orunmila) on earth.

Though considering the list of world religious, it is difficult to give a

universally accepted definition of religion, it is prudent to relate the definition to

the theosophy in the environment of the people under consideration. The Nigerian

Handbook 1936 recorded that Yoruba religion consists of a belief in a supreme

being combined with forms of animism and ancestor worship. This Supreme

Being is called Olodumare. All Yoruba both in Africa and in the New World

believe in one God, Olodumare. He is not represented by any idol, neither is any

temple built for them. The ancient Yoruba acknowledge this greatness every

morning, facing the sky, they pray to Him as the creator of the world and all living

things, including mankinds, and the Lord of all beings in heaven (Orun) and earth

(Aye). This God is present in the world yet transcending it, as in the religions of

Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Reverend Fela Sowande, an Anglican church

(1948), identifies the god of Yoruba as Olorun Bolaji Idowu (1977) call the god,

Olodumare. The Yoruba carried this belief to the New World during the Trans

Atlantic Slave Trade. The influence of the belief is evident in the religion of Haiti

as discovered by Deven (1983). According to Gonzalez. – Wippler in Yoruba

belief system, like in most established religions, in Santeria, the worship of a

central creative force known as Olodumare, who corresponds to the concept of

God is evident. The supreme position of Olodumare in Yoruba belief is explained

by Susan Wenger (19 ) when she said:

Olodumare is known to the Yoruba as the unique transcendent focus

of being, the ethically authoritative absolute instance, Olodumare is

totally different from all that we are or known or even would

imagine. He is not comparable with anything or anybody He is

beyond ritual approach.

Bolaji Idowu (1977) lamented the waning of the direct ritualistic worship of

Olodumare thus:

It is to be regretted however that the direct ritualistic worship of

Olodumare as a regular thing is dying out in Yorubaland. In some

parts it is no longer know, in some it has become a cult of the

women.

I observed my paternal grandmother, Late Madam Omirinu Fagbowore,

who died in 1945, worshipping Olodumare together with members of her group.

What seems to be the creed of the group is:

We do not know how to approach you in worship Olodumare we do

not know where your face is. But Ejio Ogbe tells us that you demand

no temple. You are the maker of all things in heaven and on earth.

We worship you only though we revere Orisa, Orisa do not create

us. But we believe that they help to seek your providence.

From the worship of Olodumare it is not fair to refer to the Yorubas as

pagans. As claimed by the worshippers of Olodumare “we know we should make

no image to represent you. A pagan is one who worships idol. Idol is an image or

symbol of a deity consecrated as an object of worship.

The belief in a Supreme God the creator of gods (Orisa) and mankind. In

Fanti belief, He is Nyama or Onyame, and the Fon in the Republic of benin call

Him Mawu. In Polynesia, Tangaria is believed to be the creator of gods and man.

The supreme deity of Loango negroes is Lugaba who dwells in the sky. This smile

is life, and the result of his displeasure, sickness and death. An in the case of

Olodumare of the Yorubas, this supreme being is neither worshipped, nor are

offerings made to Him. He has no sacred place. Although they talk freely about

Him and acknowledge Him to be their great benefactor, accept al His gifts as a

matter of course of make Him no offerings in return. Among the Yoruba, cold

water in a white calabash is used. They pray into the water and throw it at the door

step.

Deven (1983) provides evidence that God (Olodumare) is not Orisa as

Orisa is not God. In Voodoo, a Yoruba influenced religion in Haiti, she claims that

Olodumare does not descend to “mount” human head.

A strong religious tradition based on the belief in a sky – God, Orisa,

Irunmole and ancestor’s spirits had been established for several millennia before

Judaism. The Orisa and others were referred to as old gods. The worship of old

gods (Orisa) is not peculiar to the Black People. Tatian, an early Christian thinker,

in his book “Address t the Greeks’ claims that old gods exist, they have power

they are worshipped by those who have them to minister to their passions.

Municius Felix, like other African fathers, Cyprian, Arnobius and lactantius

preached that the Old gods have always aided their worshipers and punished

irreligious. Saint Paul in Galatians 2:6 has testified to the righteousness of

Olodumare by saying that “God shows personal favouritism to no man” Odu Ifa

Eji Ogbe praches that Olorun (Olofin-Orun) does not directly involve Himself in

human affairs because the spiritual forces created by Him are so potent that to do

so might be fatal to man. Olodumare is never invoked to take side with anybody or

group.

In the light of the theosophy of the “world” where God is supreme, is it

prudent to accept the claim of baaluwaaye. Orthodox Religion Ministry that Ifa is

the creator of the universe and mankind? The organization was formed near

Odoogbolu, in Ijebu land, and named it “Ifa ni Baba, Oluwa gbogbo agbaye...”.

Ajayi (1986) the leader of the group asserted that “Faith or religious concept of Ifa

is the oldest in the world…” He continued:

However before the advent of Christianity and Islam, the

first ever reformation of faith and religion in Ifa was about

150 to 1447BC in Egypt… in Egypt it was referred to as

Sole (Soul) God or Baal. In 12th century AD, Egyptian

civilization of soul worship was a total destruction, as the

ancient settlers were moving out of Egypt one by one and in

groups. The last Head of the Baal (Ifa) worshippers – King

Nemrod was slained in Mecca when his supporters and

sympathizers deserted. Egypt was intension to regroup

themselves for the proper war against their enemies. The

supporters led by His Royal Highness; Nemurod’s child, in

the search for proper place to regroup for the war with the

religious sect named Islam, later landed at Ile-Ife and met

Oloofin Agbonniregun’s Religious ruminants in Nigeria’s

Ile-Ife, the Holy city of all souls…

Toynbee (1947) has put a check on such a diffusionist theory by saying that

“the Egyptian society was without parents and without offspring, whatever, further

more, Johnson (1969) has denied the migration of the people of Nemurod from

Arabia, claiming that there is no record of such movement kept by the Arab

historians. The claim that Ifa is Baal is unfortunate, Baal belongs to the people of

Moab not Egypt (Number 25:3; Judges 2:11).

Yoruba believe that only Olodumare is ineffable beings, Oba airi”. This

view is contradicted in the interview with the Araba of Ile-Ife on “An Ifa

Devotee’s World. Conducted by the editor of Yoruba ideas as reported in Volume

1 Number 1, published in 1997 (pages 140 – 145). He gave us the impression that

Orunmila is an ineffable being. He was asked “How do you normally confirm that

the spirit of Orunmila is still existing?” He replied that only a few people can see

or face Orunmila. Not even some of the Ifa Chiefs with him, and not all that are

born at Oke-Itase can see or face Orunmila’s spirit.

This same view propagated in Ifisin as a religion preached by Ibie (1986).

He professed:

Ifisin is not meant to be a universal religion in terms of

fishing out for adherents and converts. The hand-core of

Ifisin is made up of the re-incarnates and off-springs of the

original followers of Orunmila and his Olodus and Odus, all

the way from heaven. It is not everybody who can become a

follower of Orunmila…. If a person is a potential Ifist from

heaven, Orunmila can appear to him in a dream or cause his

guardian angel to reveal to him in a dream…

Two concepts, disincarnation and reincarnation are involved in becoming

an Ifist. Disincarnate means to become spirit by casting off the flesh; that is what

happens when a person dies. Re-incarnate, on the other hand means to become

reclothed with flesh, that is the return to physical body. An Ifist therefore must

have been with Orunmila during his life. Religion may not be based on explicit

belief in God but must show a corporate or social aspect of human life. There

cannot be a completely private religion, since it must be the way of bringing

pressure on individuals and societies to reform them, even when its ideals may not

be acceptable to all.

In Yoruba thinking Olodumare commands awe and reverence (Bolaji,

1977). Ifa literary corpus contradicts this view. An example is Odu Ifa Okanran

Meji. Its Ese Ifa runs thus:

Oye mu Oye ko sa aara,

Ako aparo abo aparo nwon ko la

Ogbe yanranyanran lori apata.

O da Ifa fun Olofin Orun (Olodumare)

Ti Ortuntin aya re nse ogbogbo arun

Omo re nsun Osun regede

Nwon ni ebo ni ki oru

Nwon ni nkan meta ni ki o toju,

Eye Awo, aso etu ati aba owu

Olodumare gbo ruru ebo oru

Beni awon awo re nkorin pe

Onidudu gba dudu

Oni funfun gba funfun

Alayinrin gba ayinrin

Barapetu k’arun lo.

This is translated to read:

A severe Harmattal does not cause thunder

Neither cock nor hen rock patrich has comb

Ifa divination was performed for Olodumare

Whose wife and children were sick.

He was asked to sacrifice to save their lives.

He provided three things for sacrifice.

They were Etu cloth, Guinea fowl and cotton wool

This babalawo then sang.

The owner of the black received the black

That of the white claimed his own

The owner of the multi-colour also took his own

Barapetu carried away all forms of sickness.

Several attempts have been made to establish that Ifa literary have been

made to establish that Ifa literary corpus is the scripture of African Traditional

Religion and Yoruba influenced religions: unfortunately, most of those attempts

were made by people who had Christian background, some been brought in the

western culture. The Ifa system in Yorubaland has not been organized to give the

Arabas at Oke Itase pastoral power to have control on the Arabas of other towns.

The annual festival at Oke-Itase exposes the Araba as the vassal of the Oini of Ife,

because it is a jamboree at the annual new yam festival of the Ooni of Ife. This is

a situation created during Oduduwa dynasty.

The Odu Ifa Idinyeka tells the story of how Orunmila went to heaven to

consult Olodumare about the great fight between Obatala and Oduduwa who were

contesting the throne of Olofin of Ife. When he returned, he delivered Olodumare

messasge to the supporters of Obatala. He called them together to take an oath of

allegiance. The Odu Ifa Odi meji records the story of how Orunmila , Esu and

Obatala inaugurated the first cult (a real esoteric cult) known as Mole. The orisa

Moles is called Onile or Apata in Ile-Ife. Like Olodumare, the Orisa has no

specific statute and no painting to express her attributes. The cult was established

to protect the traditions and the institutions of ancient.

The Odu Ifa further stated that the deserters from Obatala group jointed the

supporters of Oduduwa to form the Ogboni cult. Unlike Mole, Ogboni has as

statute, the Edan. The activities of the members suggest that human beings possess

the power of infinite self-transcendence. They by virtue of imagination looked

upon natural existence from a transcendent standpoint. Their Itadogun meetings

were devoted to development of knowledge. Consequently, they gained political

power, being the cult of rulers.

Those who fought to relate Ifa literary corpus include William Bascom who

thought of Ifa divination to be a communication between gods and men in West

Africa. P.J. Meffre, among the liberated slaves, an Ijesa and a candidate of Ifa

initiation discerned similarities in Odus Ifa and some parts of the scripture (Ajayi

and Ayandele, 1974) Mojola Agbebi, an Ekiti Baptist pastor who endeavoured to

use his knowledge of Yoruba religion to improve his evangelistic strategy among

the Yorubas. It was also repoted that the late Olubadan, Oba Daniel Akinbiyi was

searching for a link between Odu Ifa and the Bible.

However, there are various Ifa Faith and Religious Reformation Movement

in recent time (Ajahi, 1986). The most effective attempt in favour of Ifa is that of

Pa Osiga, a native of Ijebu Ode who started the movement in 1918. Pa Osiga

started Holy works with Dr. A.A. Isola (a member of warden) of Holy Trinity

church Ebute-Ero, Lagos who later founded Unitarian Brotherhood church. Pa

Osiga was an Oluwo, probably of an Ifa organization. This holy work according to

Ajayi (1986) led to the formation of Ijo Adulawo Orunmila. Such missions are

found mostly in Ijebuland and Lagos area. It is the type adopted at Oke Itase Ile-

Ife. It is more of a branch of Christianity than an indigenous Ifa organization. It is

formed to make indigenous religious belief acceptable in the Christendom. Most

elites who now take to the study of Ifa literary corpus consider it as a sacred

scripture of an ancient religion, hence some of them are contemplating on equating

the corpus of to a scripture of African Traditional Religion. Consequently,

Babalawos at Olla, Mosifa, Oyo and Ejigbo have instituted religious organizations

based on the corpus. However, there are traces of Christianity in their operations.

The Ewe in the republic of Benin believe that Mawu is the creator of the

universe. Fa (Ifa in Yoruba) expresses the will of Mawu in all matters affecting

human destiny. The will of Mawu can only be made known to man through the

agency of Legba (Elegbara = Esu) who brought Ifa to the world (Herskovits,

1932). Here Ifa is traced to Elegbara and not Orunmila. In Haiti, Mawu’s message

developed under the influence of Catholiticism into voudoun which is claimed to

be a religion. Nobody knows for sure how many thousands in the New words are

warned by the fire of Voudoun, because the worship is bound in secrecy. It is not

the accepted theology of the Nations affected and so believers conceal their faith.

Gonzalez-Wipplers (1989) said that Olodumare sent Orunmila who

revealed Ifa Divination system to the Yoruba and their descendants. Ifa divination

system is very prominent in Santeria. Santeria as a “religion” however, is a blend

of Catholic religion and Yoruba belief system.

Olodumare is remote and there is no longer any organized worship of

Olorun (Idowu, 1977). If we, therefore, agree with George Sartaon (1955) that one

aspect of religion is the feeling of communion with something higher than

ourselves which we call God, then Ifa is not a religion. This view is also

maintained by Clara Odugbesan (1971) who said that Ifa is regarded not as a deity

to be worshiped but as an oracle from which people try to obtain certainty from

uncertainty in any human problem. According to Dennette (1968) The great

Oracle of the Yoruba country is Ifa. He is represented chiefly by sixteen palm nuts

each having four to ten or more eyelets on them. The nuts are obtained from a

particular palm tree called Ope Ifa.

Middleton (1971) explains the concept Oracle thus:

I call ‘oracles’ those instruments used by Lugbara to

discover the identity of various physical powers that are

thought to intervene in human affairs; they consist of an

actual physical apparatus of some kind or other.

The Ikin, then, is not an Orisa, but an instrument for divination (etite ale).

Ifa is considered as an oracle because of the emphasis and divination. In some ese

Ifa, divination is said to be performed for even Olodumare (Okanran meji) and

even Orunmila himself (ofun Meji). Ese Ifa are accepted as authoritative

ulterances. The babalawo divining is supposed to be inspired by Ifa to give

answers to any inquiry made by his clients.

Still to some people Ifa is a cult. The world cult can be – and is – applied to

a wide variety of groups; religions, therapeutic, personal – growth – oriented

organizations and others. It is a mistake to consider cults to be exclusively secret

societies. In Ifa, the knowledge is kept sacred but not secret. As revealed through

the observation of cults, a cult has a charismatic leader. Orunmila was supposed to

be a charismatic leader because of his great wisdom, with the cooperation of the

witches he used to handle the Orisa world. He was the favourite of Olodumare, the

co-ordinator of the Orisa world and the Oracle of the people. Ifa could be accepted

to be a cult – because according to the Universal Dictionary of English usage – a

cult is an intellectual homage paid to a person or his work by a body of admirers.

An analytical study of Ifa literary corpus reveals that Odu Ifa and Ese Ifa are

intellectual homage paid to Orunmila who is an oracle. One Ese Ifa of the Odu ose

Meji, also known as Ose Ara Ibadan is an example. Ibadan was a town established

in recent times.

Ifa creates its own healing and therapeutic system. In the folk medical

system, mamy herbs that are used are given Odu Ifa names. Ewe Igbehin

(Raphiostyle beniniensis – Hookf) is named after the Odu Ifa Ogbewehin, that is

Ogbe Iwori. One of the herbs used for curing backache – chindidun- is Ewe

Igbehin. Orunmila and his followers introduced the practice of integrating spiritual

and herbal health services. Healing practices as established by him consists of

divination (as a method of diagnosing diseases or cause of illness, sacrifice and

ritual (as therapy) and herbal treatment (as medication). Babalawo performs

healing services in Yoruba, influenced religious like Candomble in Bahia, Santeria

that originated in Cuba and Macumba in Riode Janeiro. Babalawo is necessarily a

physician in his own way.

Abayomi Cole must have classified Ifa as an Astrology as assumed in his

work “Astrological Geomancy in Africa”. Geomancy is a system of divination by

figures. To derive the Odu Ifa symbols certain instruments are used. There are

several forms of these instruments, but they all relate to the language of

numerology. Investigation into the power of numbers reveal their relation with

certain Astral powers. It has become obvious that the whole universe was created

by number, through which we determined the properties of matter, both visible

and invisible. Nothing clearly represents the Divine Essence to human

understanding than numbers. We know that all thins in the universe are subjected

to rule. The movement of the planets, the sequence of the seasons and the structure

of physical bodies are not determined by Chance or by Coincidence but by

Mathematics Laws, for example the law of numerology.

The use of the divining instruments, including the sixteen sacred palm nuts

(Ikin) and the divination chain called Opele, (Okpele Ijumu), eba (Nupe) would

have been meaningless if numbers are not assigned to the concave and convex

faces of the Opele half nuts and the handling of the Ikin.

McGee (1983) observed some mathematical consistency of some aspects of

the Ifa Belief and Divination system – but was not sure the mathematical operation

he had in mind were within the competence of the indigeins, who practiced in

secret or semi-secret. Jenkins (19768) had however explained that only the

initiated are allowed to partake of al the secrets. Bascom (1967) referred to the

expression 2” in discussing the markings of the Ifa figures. McClelland (1966)

used the same expression 2” in explaining the different numbers in the Odu.

Opeola (1997) said that the cue to mathematical basis of Ifa Divination system is

revealed in one of the Ese Ifa belonging to Odu Ifa Ejiogbe. The Odu (which is an

allegory) reveals the development of the ancient Yoruba numeral system. Opeola

(1993) used the principles of Arithmomancy to demonstrate that Opele (divining

chain) is a primordial digital computer. Gonzalez – Wippler (1989) had earlier

suggested that Ifa Divination system is related to computer. She said:

The first time I consulted a Babalawo and I saw him write

down the Oddu, I realized that he was looking at a binary

system. The 1 and 0 that the Babalawo used in the oracle

were the same digit used in computer calculations.

Furthermore, the babalawo was using binary code in the

same manner as the computer does, a system handed down

to him through countless years of African religious

traditions.

Ifa geomatic divination has been preserved among Yoruba descendants in

Cuba and Brazil where it has merged with Catholicism, and a Yoruba temple was

recently opened on 7th Avenue in New York City United States of America

(Zaslavsky, 1973). However, this does not necessarily make Ifa a religion.

Besides the use of Opele as an instrument in geomancy, the author has been

using it in a quicker method known as Radiesthesia, that is use of pendulum. It is

now gaining ground in the United States of America. According to Buckland

(1973) basically, Radiesthesia is the science of the pendulum. Its history can be

traced back over 5,000 years, to the ancient races of the orient. The method came

to force, however, in the Late Middle Ages, and again in the twentieth century. It

is often used today in diagnosing diseases in man, animals and plants, and in

prospecting the various fields of research.

To use Opele hold the thread, or chain between the thumb and the

forefinger of your right hand. In your front place a piece of paper, mark a cross at

the centre. The Opele should be directly over the centre of the cross. Do not grip

the thread too tightly. Hold your arm and hand perfectly still, so that the pendulum

will not swing. Now ask the Opele a question; which can be answered Yes or No.

do not try to make the pendulum swing. You do not need toask the question aloud;

you can just think it. If the answer is yes the Opele moves from left to right. If no,

it will be still. You can even speak to the Opele to move forward and backward or

point at a person sitting near.

Babalawo is not a priest because Ifa is not a religion (Odugbesan, 1971),

when the present Araba of Ole Itase (Ife) was interviewed by the editor of Yoruba

ideas (volume 1 No 1, 1997) whether there are distinct specialization areas for the

Ifa priest. This reply was “ we haven’t really addressed that as a body in our

covenant with Ifa. Some are priests and they combine other professions… Asked

why the referred to as “Awo”. He said Awo is cult, a gathering of people who can

keep secret of events among themselves.

Babalawos handled the folk medical services mostly. Included in the

problems of health services in Yoruba land are problems of poverty, luck and

destiny. According to Cox and Mead (1975) contributions made to human welfare

by advances in human biology are likely to be limited unless they are matched by

an equal understanding of social life of the people which helps to establish

stability and to determine how health services are used. In that wise sociology is

an integral part of folk medicine. Royal commission on medical education

reporting in Britain in 1968 recommended that all medical students should learn its

elements in order to become aware of why patients and families believe as they do

on situation of illness; of the social and cultural factors which influence patients’

expectation and responses. Many people from different social strata in Yorubaland

patronize the babalawo. Studies in the United States have shown that the working

classes’ greater commitment to and understanding of folk medicine poses

problems when they are confronted by the scientific medicine practical by the

medical profession.

Faloju (1979) has this to say about the bababalow. The indigenous African

counselor such as the ‘Babalawo’ of the Yoruba or the ‘Obochi” among the Igala

have not been recognized in Western Psychotherapy, instead, he is referred to as a

local herbalist, a divinator, a witch doctor… whose methods and modes,

techniques and procedure are regarded as unorthodox and unscientific. But by the

Africa who lives either in village or in township, the indigenous African counselor

is regarded highly in the performance of counseling services.

To conclude, Yoruba theosophy recognizes only one Supreme Being and

that is Olodumare also the only ineffable being. He is the creator of the universe

and the Orisa. In that cases Ajayi’s (1986) claim that Ifa is the creator of the

universe and mankind is unacceptable in the same sense, ibie’s (1986) claim the

Ifisin is a religion is baseless. The existence of Ijo Orunmila Adulawo is some

parts of Yorubaland does not help the case. The founder, Osiga, started Holyworks

with Dr. A.A. Isola a warden of the Holy Trinity church Ebute-Ero, Lagos in

1918. Before him, greast Christians like Abayomi Cole, P.I. Meffre, Mojola

Agbebi had recognized If literary corpus to be a great Yoruba literary work useful

for evangelicals but not a scripture. Infact Ifa has not been organized to the level

of being considered a religion. The Araba of Oke –Itase who is supposed to be an

equivalent of the Pope of the Catholic church or head of any other universal

religion does not possess any pastured authority. The present Araba does not

portray babalawo as a priest but as member cult. The most important duty of a

babalawo is the practice of folk medicine with some indepth knowledge of

counselling and psychiatry.

Abayomi Cole and Others have referred to Ifa system as a system of

geomancy. Geomancy is a system of divination by figures. The system is based on

the science of Arithmomancy. It has been demonstrated that the system is a sort of

primordial digital computer (Opeola, 1993; Gonzalez – Wippler, 1989). The

mystery surrounding Ifa Divination is due to power of numbers which is revealed

when the system is subjected to the law of numerology.

To those who still consider Ifa as their religion, it is better to look for a

religion. In our modern time it is no longer sufficient to live with philosophies or

religious outlooks simply handed down from our forefathers. We need to take a

vital, flexible and ever-evolving steps to probe them in order to improve them.

Rather than simply fighting for the preservation of the Oral Traditions, it may be

necessary to work very hard to up-date them for acceptance in other cultures, most

especially those cultures which claim to be developed cultures.

REFERENCES

Ajayi, A. 1986. “Ifa Our Almighty Father, A paper presented on the 4 th of July

1986, at the third International Congress of Orisa Tradition and Culture

held at University of Ife, Ile-Ife, from July 1st of 6th.

Ajayi, J.F.A and Ayandele, E.A. 1974. “Energing Themes in Nigerian and West

African Religious History” Journal of African Studies. Vol. 1 No. 1 PP 1-

39.

Bascom, W. 1969 Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West

Africa. Bloomington; Indiana University Press.

Buckland, R. 1973. Guide to the supernatural London Macmillan.

Cox, C. and Mead, A. 1975. A Sociology of Medical Practice London.

Macmillan.

Dennette, R.E. 1968 At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind London Frank Cass &

Co Ltd.

Deren, M. 1983. Divine Horsemen. The living Gods of Haiti N.Y: Documentext

McMerson.

Faloju, A.A. 1979. “Traditional Educational Guidance and Counselling among

Igala people of Benue State. A dissertation for M.A. degree in Education,

University of Ife, Ile-Ife.

Gonzalez – Wippler, M. 1989. Santeria: The Religion N.Y.: Harmony Books.

Herskovits, M.J. 1932 “Some Aspectsof Dahomean Ethnology” Africa Vol. 3. pp

266 – 96.

Idowu, E. B. 1977 Olodumare God in Yoruba Belief: Ikeja Longman Nigeria Ltd.

Jenkins, V.O. 1978. Ancient African Religion and the African – American Church.

North Carolina: Flame international

Johnson, S. 1967. The History of the Yoruba London: Frank Cass & Co Ltd.

Lucas, O. 1948 . The Religion of Yoruba Lagos: C.M.S.

Mcclelland, E.M. 1966 “The significance of Number in Ifa Odu” Africa: Journal

of International African institute No 36. PP 4123 – 340.

McGee A.Q. 1983. “Some4 Mathematical Observations on the Ifa Belief System

practiced by the Yoruba people of Nigeria” Journal of Culture and ideas

Vol. 1 No. 1 pp 95 – 114

Middleton, J. 1971. Oracle and Divination among :egbara in M. Douglas and M.P.

Kaberry’s (ed) Man in Africa. N.Y.: A Double day Anchor original.

Odugbesan; C. 1971. Femininity in Yoruba Religious Art” in M. Douglas and M.P

Kaberry’s (ed), Man in Africa. N.Y. A Double day Anchor Original. Pp 201

– 213.

Opeole, S.M 1993. “From Ifa to Computer Science Research in Yoruba Language

and Literature. No 4. pp 1 – 89.

Opeole, S.M. 1997. “Divine Nature of Yoruba System of Yoruba thought” Yoruba

Vol. No 1. pp 62 – 67.

Sarton, G. 1955 “Introductory Essay to J. Neehan’s (ed) Science Religion and

Reality. N.Y. George Braziller, Inc.

Zaslavsky, C. 1973. African Counts Boston-Mass. Prindle, Weber and Schmidt

Inc.

IFA: A GARNERED WISDOM OF ORISA

TRADITION AND CULTURE

Any claim that Orisa Traditional and Culture established two decades ago

is a religious movement is primitive. Primate religion does not imply beliefs that

lack subtlety or insight; but it does mean that we can understand such beliefs and

practices as claimed by Orisa Traditional and Culture Congess only as part of a

social structure determined largely by primitive techniques. The symbols

commonly used are products of technology associated with Stone Age (Smart,

1966). Osun and most of the Orisa including Ogun would have been represented

with pebbles, stones or stone statutes since about 700 RC – 600BC. A symbol,

however, is not just a sign or token, a “chosen” image, it is something for more

significant. The history of religion is the history of the power of such symbols.

With the coming of many African – Americans to Nigeria it should be realized

that this power comes from the unconscious and that this is the secret of its

fascination for the human being. When the divine value represented by the symbol

becomes entirely explored and made conscious its power becomes valueless and

the object which conceives the meaning of the symbols becomes only a natural

object once more. But white its is the representative of an unknown truth. It rises

spontaneously from the depths of the unconscious and expresses or manifests the

hidden fact in an image whose meaning can only partly be grasped by

consciousness.

Breasted (1933) remarked that the first ideas of God of rights and wrong

came from Africa. Olodumare is the supreme Being of the Yoruba theosophy. This

is evident in the case of the mask of Somorika. Somorika is a town in a hilly place

near Igara in Edo State. The people speak Yoruba though they have their own

dialect. At the outskirt of the town is a shrine where the sacred mask of somorika

was kept. It was a creation in ebony whose beauty had defied the rational

explanations of writers. One thing about the mask proves Breasted (1933) right,

that is the ethical message it presents. Two people could observe the mask yet each

would leave with a different interpretation of its countenance. The mask it would

seem gave each on-looker the posturing of his particular mind at the moment of

his observation. While one person might think it appeared cruel or indifferent

another might be extolling its benefic-looking visage (Johnson, 1986).

This gives a clear meaning of Leopold Seda Senghor’s (1959) assertion that

Negro African philosophy is existentialistic. Its to the humanistic aspect he said

“Man remains our first consideration: he constitutes our measure” humanism

means belief in man and confidence in his power. It means to love people more

than theories. Yoruba people developed urban settlements even before the colonial

era. Nigerian handbook 1936 records that a characteristic of the Yoruba is the way

in which they tend to group themselves into a number of large towns each

surrounded by extensive farming suburbs. It has no format creed, it asks no

questions and imposes no conditions, except that of belief in man as the master of

his own destiny. In Odu Ogunda Meji, each individual is responsible for the type

of Ori (head) selected at Ajala’s house. Humanism as developed by the Yoruba, by

and large strongly supports the peoples’ faith in human dignity and value and is

critical only of much dependence on Orisa. “Orisa bi o ba le gbe mi, se mi bi o ti

ba mi” “Translated to mean” Orisa if you are incapable of improving my

conditions restore me to my usual condition. Also it is said. “Bi a bad a obi ti ko

bay an, owo eni ni a fi tun iwa are eni se”. Meaning, if you divine to invoke an

orisa with kolanuts and you receive no co-operation, better resolve by correcting

the positions of the Kolanut lobes. It does all it can to encourage man as man to

realize his potential power “Apa lara igbonwo ni iyekan, bi a ko ba re eni fehin ti,

a t era mo ise eni”. That is, your hand is your next of kin, the elbow is your

relation, if you have no helper, work very hard. It does not insists however that

man is “on his own” and that there is no “supernatural” Deity to whom he can turn

for guidance and strength”. Yoruba theosophy recognizes Olodumare as the

creator of the universe. In Yoruba thinking Olodumare commands awe and

reverence (Idowu, 1977).

A study of Yoruba people proves that to think that human existence

could be contained in a logical concept is an error, when one falls into this error,

life is reduced to a sheer abstraction and its concrete reality has slipped away. But

many people believe in

Kierkegaard reality which is essentially ‘ethical reality” that is, it is a living

process that decides how far this or that person succeeds in realizing his moral

self-hood. The Yorubas believe that what reality is cannot be expressed in the

language of abstraction. This is what Bolaji Idowu (1977) observed to that made

him assumed that the Yorubas are not capable of abstract thinking. It is through

the fateful actuality of existing one becomes or fails to become one’s true-self, and

that the surest way to fail in this crucial task is to flee from the inexorable

challenge into realm of logical abstraction. The way lies in the choice of Ori

(Head). Much of the Ese Ifa of Odu Ifa Ogunda Meji is devoted to Ori. Oyeku

Meji says:

O looto ti mbe laye ko pe ogun

Sikasika ibe won ko mo ni won egbefa

Ojo esan o lo titi ko je ki orun ki odun

Ad ‘Ifa fun Orangbogbo tin dun Akapo

Be ni nwon ko dun Ifa.

Nje ohun gbogbo to ba ndun mi

Ngo ma ro fun ori mi

Ori eni ni alagboran dun

Ori mi la mi

Iwo ni alagboran dun mi.

That is:

Honest people are not up to twenty on earth

The wicked people are as many as a thousand and twenty

Time of revenge is at hand; therefore one needs not be disappointed

Ifa divination was performed for Orangbogbo (all problems) of Akapo

(Babalawo), which never concern Ifa.

Therefore, whatever my problems are

I shall discuss with my Ori

One’s Ori is one’s best confident.

In another saying Ori is said to be responsible for one’s luck. ‘Ti a ba ji

l’owuro ki a di Ori eni inu; Ori eni ni awure eni”. If one wakes up in the morning,

one has to hold fast to one’s Ori (appeal to one’s Ori) being responsible for one’s

luck. Ori is a dynamic Orisa invoked everyday. Each individual has Ori, which in

the past was represented by an image which consists of 41 cowries strung together

in the shape of a crown. This is secreted in a larger coffer, the lid of which is of the

same form and material. It is called Ile Ori (John, 1969). At the sacred Groves of

Osogbo, there is Ato Ori a meditation chamber dedicated to Ori. Wenger’s (1990)

appreciation of the importance of Ori to the Yoruba is right when she said

“We regard the Ori as intensity alive; a fact which is realistically

proved to us ever so often”.

It doesn’t seem that people concerned consider the use of the terms

“tradition’ and “traditional” many at times these two words carry traces of racism.

In a non-political sense it is common to think to things “ancient” and “archaic” as

being “traditional”. In that sense paganism is considered traditional whereas

monotheism of the Christendom and Islamic world is considered modern. This

does not mean however that paganism is primitive. The belief in only Olodumare

as the only Supreme Being of the Yoruba theosophy makes it difficult that the

worship of Orisa is not modern. In fact, Yorubas have never been pagans. A strong

religions tradition based on the belief in a sky-God, Orisa Irunmole and ancestors’

spirits had been established for several millennia before Judaism. The Orisa and

others were referred to as old gods. The worship of old gods (Orisa) is not peculiar

to the Black People. Tatian, an early Christian thinker, in his book” Address to the

Greeks” claims that old gods exist, they have power, they are worshipped by those

who need them to minister to their passions. Reverend father Minucius Felix Cirta

has rightly observed that history shows that the old gods have always aided their

worshippers and punish irreligious. Bolaji (1977) said that Yorubas seem to be

satisfied with the activities of the Orisa that is close to them.

The worshippers of Olodumare believe that their material needs could be

supplied by the Orisa spirits even those of the ancestors. They, therefore, prefer to

direct their request to the appropriate Orisa. Consequently, they intensify the

communication with Orisa and spirits that can be easily invoked.

An example of dependency on Orisa is given by Meyer (1997).

Baba Ogunda Bede, Fagbamila is the Chicago, Illinoisis Stevire

Ball owns a business in Chicago Merchandize Mart… she is

one of Babalawo Ogunda Bede’s Omo Ile or spiritual children.

Hidden inside her showroom ceiling is an Osain (Osanyin)

amulet meant to insure business prosperity. It is only one of the

ways the Babalawo has intervened in her commercial affairs.

Sharing coffee with Moe Meyer, she narrated her experience

thus:

Last April I had repped one line for the last seven years. I found

out that my competitor down the hall had gone behind my back

and was trying to steal the line when the contract came up for

renewal in June. I was crushed, If he succeeded, my business

could be ruined.

I went to Phil and he said it was time to put my warriors to

work for me. (The warriors are three spirits (Orisa), Eleggua

(Elegbara) Oggun and Ochosi (Ososi). They protect individual

who has received them through initiation). This was Thursday,

on Monday the mill called, Not only would they give me an

exclusive, but a large sum of money as a six month advance,

you have to understand have unusual this was not only did I

keep the line, but got a better deal. Everything was great. But I

had a desire to make my competitor suffer the way he made me

to suffer I didn’t want him to die, just be miserable for a while.

I asked Phil if he could help. Phil said he had never had that

request before he conducted a divination to see if it was alright.

The gods said it was fine, and Phil went off to do what he had

to do. The next week, we had an opening. My competitor’s

showroom is round the corner and he didn’t have a single

buyer. My showroom was crowded, you couldn’t get in the

door. In the middle of the opening I heard that there was a huge

fire at my competitor’s mull. He was shut down for six weeks. I

called Phil right away and said, “There some delightful news”.

Similar manifestation of the power of Jesus to protect the bornagain – Christians

and punish their enemies or competitors is common in the Christian church and

fellowship – meetings nowadays. If the tradition is not an aspect of Paulinism in

the whole Christendom, it has become the tradition of Christian church in

Yorubaland.

The exclusive claim of the Jews as the chosen people of Yahweh makes us

believe. In one kabbalah Tradition, Jehovah is the God of Israel and he dwells in

spirit on the moon with his angels from where he looks after the affairs of his

chosen people, the Jews. The aspect of religion dealing with close contact with

personal or tribal God or god is pietism. Examples are many in the Bible including

II Chronicles 1:7, IKings 3:5-14, Samuel 8:7 and I Samuel 3:6:12.

In ethnocentric sense “tradition” and traditional” in terms of primitiveness

become associated with African arts, science and religion. Traditional religion is

not exclusively African, it exists elsewhere in Australia and Asia. Tradition refers

to an accepted pattern of behaviour handed down through ages among the people

under consideration. Both Christianity and Islam have their respective traditions

developed through ages of practices. The tradition of Orisa worship includes

initiation, divindation, invocation, libation and supplication. The tradition

recognizes Aje (Witchcraft) as a real phenomenon and supports the use of

sacrifices to appeal to the beings unseen and to those who possess extra ordinary

powers. The tradition does not give room to believe in inherited sin and Satan’s

power to make one disobey Olodumare. It is established by the tradition that there

are spirits many of which express themselves in the phenomenon known as

possession, which is common in African spiritual life. They may speak of things

which happened in a community, or which will happen. Africans still hold to the

wise saying that “Blessed is he who remembereth his parents when

communicating with God. every prayer is preceded by saying some Ijuba starting

from the living or dead parents, the Orisa of the family, all the recognized Orisa

and spirits before the supplication is directed to the appropriate Orisa. Also,

communion is always established between the living and the invisible beings,

including one’s parents. Children are taught to acknowledge the existence of the

unseen world and to learn how to live in harmony with the invisible beings

around. The child is first introduced to the unseen world through his mother’s

habit as food will never be taking and drinks never served without throwing a

small portion on the ground for the spirits around. The Supreme Being, Olodumare

has no sacred place, in that wise, one can consider that the resources of the church

in men and money are being squandered by maintaining countless redundant

buildings drearily duplicating ineffective parish organizations and countless

societies.

Many think that much attention of the ancient yoru7ba is devoted to

religion and divination. If not, how come havig four hundred and one pantheous;

and why three hundred and sixty five days of the year devoted to religious rites

and festivals at Ile-Ife. Erich Fromm (1956) has in informed such people that

modern scientific civilization does not have evidences that man is “on his own”

and that there is no “supernatural Deity to whom he can turn for guidance and

strength.

In Yoruba belief system there are no evil spirits or demons as we are made

to believe by Christian theologions and Islamic scholars. Howeve,r they do not

rule out instances, that spirits may do evil things as a form of revenge on the

offenders. In most cases the spirits of the ancestors punish evil – doers. When an

elderly person dies, some of the earth dug from the grave is kept so that whenever

there is dispute over anything in the family a little is put in water for the people to

drink. The liar or offender is sure to die.

A host of spirits dwell under the ground, and are thus referred to Irunmole;

they assert their authority in keeping the society “clean” and the race purified. A

lot of spirits inhabit trees in the groves or along the way side, rivers, hills and

mountains and even some animals. As some wondering spirits may enter the body

of any man or woman, so also it is believed that such spirits can find their abode in

trees, streams and even living things. They are referred to as Iwin and Oro

(fairies). Iwin are believed to inhabit rocks, mountains, junctions and other places,

while Oro inhabit trees when they are called Oro-Igi and streams and rivers and

thereby called Olodo. This shows that the Yoruba do not worship forces in nature

but appeal to spirits that are supposed to generate the observed phenomena

associated with such forces. The destruction caused by river floods are supposed to

be called by Olodo. Annually, the olodo informs the people who are the devotees

if there will be disaster and what could be offered as sacrifice to avert such

disaster. For example in my town, Isasa and Isule are known to be hunters, while

Alamo is a woman. They make their wishes known to the Oba through their

priests and priestess.

Most of the Orisas are not gods. Fasogbon (1985) said that “the Yoruba at

Ile-Ife Ooyelagbo started to honour the ancestors and to worship them and others

who had shown great merit”. They originated the custom of honouring men and

women for the great deeds done by their ancestors. In that sense, what was

regarded as religion is pneumatology, that is, a belief system that covers the

conception of superior existences in al ramifications and deductions. The Odu Ifa

Oyeku Meji records the famous struggle between Oduduwa and Obatala to

become the crowned Oba of Ile-Ife. Both Oduduwa and Obatala are among the

deities consisting the pantheon. However, many of the deities are names of the

same Yoruba ancestor given to him at different places. Myths are built around the

personality of both of them.

Myth is in Yoruba pattern of thought, a legendary story used to describe

how the universe and human societies have come to take their present forms. In

literary theory myth does not refer, as it does in common parlance, to a false or

fantastic story, but rather it refers to the narrative presentation of archetypal,

eternal, idea, or eschatological meanings, in terms of events in the sensible space –

time world (phenix, 1964). Myths are an expression of important social meanings

through concrete images. For example, in the Odu Ifa Oseyekun (Igbadu) the force

of femininity generated by the activities of the members of Fertility Cult, united

the indigenes and immigrants (Oduduwa group) to create an Orisa, Odu to see to

the socio-political development of the new community. The four contributions

made by Oduduwa, Obatala, Ogun and Obaluwaye, respectfully to constitute Odu

are symbolic. The mud presented by Oduduwa signifies the importance of the

earth to mankind. The Yoruba were known to develop urban settlements based on

farmlands. Nigerian Handbook 1936 records that among the Yoruba the tendency

is to live together in large crowded towns with outlying compounds and small

villages on the farming land around, where the greater part of the poorer farming

people live and work, only occasionally visiting the towns, when they lodge in the

houses of their wealthier relations. The visits are normally during religions

festivals. According to Adams (1969), the historic role of cities has been as prime

creative centres: seats of learning, sources of artistic and philosophical ferment.

This type of settlement gave rise to literary art, of which Ifa literary corpus is of

utmost importance. Thus Oduduwa became recognized as the creator of earth,

Onile, and the progenitor of all Yoruba, since the earth is the progenitor of all

beings.

There is a goddess of Ile (earth) called Onile which is the principal deity of

Ogboni cult, otherwise known as Mole or Osugbo I Ijebuland. This is the Orisa

contributed by Oduduwa dynasty in the Odu Ifa Igbadu. This is a high political

power among the ancient Yoruba. the saying “Omo Iya” to identify the members,

and the term “Omo Onile” referring to indigenes of a town or village show the

importance of Ogboni cult to the Yoruba. Thus, as the soil brings forth all sorts of

life she conceives Oduduwa was deified as the progenitor of the Yoruba, whereas,

by right Odu should be the goddess of unity.

Many of the deities of the pantheon have names of the same ancestor given

to him at different places. For example, Obatala is known as Orisanla at Ile-Ife.

The same orisa-nla is known as Apata in Ife, Orisa Popo Akure at Ikir, Orisa

Olufon at Ifon Osun, Orisa Oloba at Oba and Orisa Laroowu at Owu.

The Odu Ifa Eji Ogbe reveals that ifa determined the town in which these

deities were destined to be. This evident in the stories about the orisa dominant in

each village or town. Each town or village in yorubaland tends to worship the

orisa that is helpful to the people at the time of need. For example, at Ikere Ekiti

the worship of Olosunta is given prominence more than the other divinities,

whereas in Ondo it is Ogun. At Ibadan, Okebadan Ife, Oke is worshipped, because

of the protection the Oke offered during the wars. The people of Idanre worship

Orosun. At Offa, In Kwara State Onmoka is worshipped, but she is worshipped at

Ile-Ife and towns around as Moremi. At Ira near Offa, the divinity is Oya but at

Erin Ile in Kwara state the divinity is Obalufon, which s also worshipped at Ile-Ife

and Ijebuland. However, in no way and no where is any of these deities considered

to be a supreme being. The annual festival of these deities is considered as part of

the culture of the people of the town concerned. It does not only command

spiritual feelings but also socio-political obligations to the ancestors of the people.

When Christianity taught the African coverts that such a supreme being

called God is concerned with human affairs and is to be personally and intimately

addressed, confusion stepped in. those who accepted the idea s modernization are

those who accept European civilization with its belief system. Those who did not,

retain their original beliefs refuting the belief of the early protestant missionaries

that eternal damnation and hell fire are for Africans whom they thought were

heathens.

The latter approach was adopted for example, by people like Pa Emoka

Olagundoye (19870, who sees nothing wrong in combining both Christianity and

Traditional religion. He said that since he stopped active preaching, he has

returned to worshipping Osanyin, the Orisa worshiped in his family and of which

his father was a priest. Asked why he took this decision, he said:

I believe I have a duty to preserve and uphold the family tradition …

Before I was converted to Christianity, there were too may inter-

tribal wars around, so one’s protection and survival were very

important. My parents were able to protect us through the god and

goddesses (Orisa) they worshipped. I perform the rituals when we

worship Osanyin. I cannot allow the legacies bequeathed to us by

our ancestors to perish in my own time.

The same passion for the preservation of the family or town Orisa was

carried to the New World. Many slaves from Ketu arrived with their worship of

Ososi and Omolu, Oyo came with Sango, the Egbas brought Yemoja, the Ijesa

with Osun, while the Ekiti brought Ogun, Ife (lukumi) brought Obatala, Ifon

brought Osa Olufon and Ejigbo brought Osa Ogiyan. It was obvious to the ancient

Yoruba that Orisa are a living reality and highly appreciated in their daily duty.

The rise of cities, which is a great “revolution” in human culture was pre-

eminently a social process an expression more of changes in man’s interaction

with his fellows than his interaction with the environment (Adams, 1960). It

involves the desire to be close to others. The desire amounts to a craving for

intimacy, a hunger for acceptance. The participation in social as well as religious

rites for purpose of recognition appears to be the yearning to be attached to some

super-personal movement, something larger than one’s self. Thus the Orisa groups

were formed as a sort of movement attached to certain forces behind phenomena

observed on earth.

After the soil responsible for the agriculture water is also of prominent

importance. The earliest rivers, some of which are defied are Esinmirin, Erinle,

Oya, Osere, Ogbere, Oleyo and Yemoja. The Odu Ifa Ogbojunu located most of

the rivers. Oserere is at Ikirun, Ogbere is at Owu, Oleyo is at Ibadan while Ogun is

at Ibara and Iyewu is at Ketu. Majomajo is the stream at Apomu, Ibo is the stream

at Oyan. They were known to be the rivers from which the witches (Aaje) drank.

This means that they were the first group of powerful, beings to discover the

streams. This is the evidence of the reality of the power of Aje in Yoruba belief.

Obatala who was assigned the duty of making the physical body, has to depend

upon water fetched from the steam of the witches, Odu Ifa Osa Meji. The evidence

of the use of fresh water in making human body is the amniotic fluid that is

discharged at the child birth. For the fact that the streams provide this water, many

of the steams were thought to be in a position to give people children Osun is the

most prominent among such streams, others are Alamo in Edunabon, Ewuru and

Agbele in Moroto mention only a few.

RELIGION

The Ural – Altaic peoples of Siberia and the Eskimos of North America in

particular – have shamans (Russian for “priest – doctor” or prophets) whose

ocstatic out pourings are reminiscent of prophecy.

Some scholars seeking a parallel with evolution theory, have looked for a

sequence of stages in man’s religious development – from the stage of belief in

impersonal power that pervades all uncanny and dynamic things, as well as

animals and persons (animism) to belief in fully personalized gods (polytheism)

and culminating in belief in only one god (monotheism). The danger here is that

one is tempted to fit the facts into preconceived plan – a plan that, in effect says

“this belief is more ‘valuable’ or ‘rational’ than that”.

Others haves tried to explain religion in terms of social needs and

individual psychology. But all such theories remain in complete because social

needs and psychological pressures only partly explain why men have a sense of

the sacred and why they recognize moral value. In this respect, religion is an

aspect of man’s creativity; it shows his power to go beyond the immediate

circumstances and crises of his life. Whether this creativity is itself divinely

inspired or simply a human tract is another question.

The history of religious error is the history of the mind wandering in it

search after “truth”, some nations seem, like the modern Turks, to have arrived at a

belief in one God, as if from indolence of mind, from blind fatalism, from mere

want of observation of the numerous causes which are working around them. Thus

many of the Arabic races in the neighbourhood of Egypt as well as the Israelites

traces the hand of only one God, or the Great first course, in all they enjoy and all

they suffered. But Egyptians, like the Greeks and Romans, seeing so many causes

at work, and not perceiving that they might all be set in motion by one first cause

thought that every blessing that they received and every misfortune that befell

them, was the work of a different god. They thus peopled the seen and the unseen

world beyond with a variety of beings and powers.

Humans have always been handicapped by fear of the unknown. At one

time, the forests, mountains and oceans were full of imaginary terror. The more

human learned about the universe the more they learned to make use of its

resources.

E. Thorp 1972 Ladder of the bones

London: Collin’s Fantana books

The Lagos Bar Beach Case.

Despite numerous surveys of the Bar Beach despite the boys that marked

the deep water channel, despite the Tide Tables and the hoisting of the “Bad Bar”

flag on days when the “Beasi” was more than usually ferocious and a host of

likely information issuing from the Harbour – Master’s office the Bar still claimed

its annual tools in lives and goods. In 1879, Sir James Marhall who escaped

drowning at the Bar said:

It was no wonder that the natives regarded the Bar as a capricious

god, whose favour had to be solicited by blood. In the old days the blood had been

human; now times were changing, and goats and fowls were the more usual

offerings.

The misapprended oracle by Otto Fenichel 1942 American Image Vol 3, pp

14 – 24.

The oracle was consulted not only to obtain advice about an external

situation, but especially when a decision had to be made about an inner conflict

whether what the individual had mind was permissible or whether a punishment

was to be expected. In such a case the oracle was asked for permission, that is for a

divine decision, which might act as a counter – weight against the twinges (to

affect with or have a sharp, sudden pain).

George Sarton in the Introductory Essay to Joseph Needham’s (Ed)

“Science, Religion and Reality (1955) N.Y George Brazille, Inc said that religion

ha three fundamental ideas.

1. The feeling of sacredness or mystery – which in his thinking man can

never evade.

2. The feeling of oneness or of communion with the whole nature, with

other men and with something higher than ourselves which we call God.

3. The desire for a better life and for a kind of immortality.

According to Mason and Edwards (1985) the meaning of religion among

the Yoruba adds a new dimension. They have observed that “the Yoruba religion

is a science of allowing God to flow through you, therefore transforming your

whole life into prayer. In other words, religion is the “science of healing”. Hence

Milingo (1986) said that everywhere in Africa healing has been a function of

religion.

Understanding Kabbalah Tradition

Kabbalah is a mysterious tradition. The most prominent today is the Jewish

Kabbalah often referred to as Hebrew Cabbala. It has an ancient tradition. It

started with the history of the Jewish nation. The one revealed to Abraham was

hidden away by Joseph from his people. Moses received the one that has become

degenerated due to problems of translation after returning from exile in Babylon.

It is know that there was a major kabbalistic school in the thirteen century

at Gerona in Spain, and another in the sixteen century at Safed in Palestine.

However, not all kabbalist schools are necessarily Jewish or even Biblical

oriented. Christianity and kabbalah were practiced independent of one another in

Medieval France, Flanders and Italy, and were known to exist in seventeenth

century Germany and eighteenth century America.

The most common tradition of Kabbalah system is the use of codes as it

occurred in the Torah received by Moses on Mount Sinai. The first five books of

Bible relate to the Torah which form the major outlook of the Qu’ran.

Anybody interested can become a kabbalist without going to western type

of school. However to communicate his experiences and knowledge on a global

scale he has to code the information in form of symbols to convey the meaning of

the codes. In that wise he needs a lot of training in ORAL TRADITIONS, since

knowledge about the universe does not present itself on a platter either of gold or

wood. Facts of observation according to hobbes (1586 – 1679) does not always

speak unambiguous message. The coded message obeys laws of numerology. All

the arts and sciences were based on the same cosmic truths expressed in number,

in sacred numbers of all the surviving mystical language, the Hebrew kabbalah

remains the most complete and accessible to western scholars, for the Jews have

been extremely tenacious of their ancient traditions and their convention of

scriptural interpretation by the use of gematria. Gematria is the science of relating

words to number. For example if English letters, of the alphabet, are given

numbers so that A = 100, B 101 and C = 102 etc. then the number of Hitler is 666.

In the Gree text the number is spelt 600, 60, 6. 666 is the number of absolute

positive energy, emanating from the nucleus to the satellites. Every situation in life

contains an element which corresponds to 666, the supreme solar representative

within the hierarchy of numbers. The influence of 666 promotes fertility, gives life

and colour, but where it becomes excessively dominant, the consequences are

apparent in tyranny of the self-willed ruler, and in the development of obsessed

with fantasies, of violence, material wealth and power. Numbers in this system can

be used to understand hidden meaning of the events in history. For example, the

number of Hitler is 666. No doubt then, because it became excessively dominant,

Hitler and his advisers were consciously maintaining the power of 666; for the

fascist emblems, the eagle, the swastika, the flash of lightning were all directed

towards the release of solar energy among the German people (Michell, 1973).

Exactly how the Gnostics came by their science of numbers is not certain

but appear to have made the discovery that the numerical code of systems (like the

Greek and Egyptian Kabbalah) throughout the world were all degenerated versions

of the same once universal system of knowledge that returns within the reach of

human perception at certain intervals in time.

According to Irenaeus (Michell; 73) gnostics considered that Jesus had

given proof of his divinity when he spoke the words “I am Alpha and Omega”

because the sum of the Greek letters Alpha = 1 and Omega = 800 is 801 and 801 is

the number of a dove. 801 is also the width of a vesica, about 1385 in length, and

1385 is the number of “it is the Lord (John 21:7). Thus they believed that the

divine spirit, represented by the dove entered into Jesus, the man, at his baptism,

while the church held that the spirit and the body of Jesus Christ were indivisible,

and looked forward to a bodily resurrection.

The number 256 is 28 (the total number of Odu Ifa = which is the number

for Eji Ogbe). According to Berriman’s historical Metrology, the traditional length

of the Old Cheshire Mile (2660) it is a kabbalah number, being the distance from

the centre of the Sarsen Circle to the base of the Heel stone in the temple the

Stonehenge.

The ancient philosophy involved the classification of all phenomena in

various groups, each corresponding to a particular god as in the case of Yoruba

Kabbalah, each Odu Ifa (from Osa – Ogbe) corresponds to any of the number 1 –

256. The nature of each Odu Ifa was implied in the numerical value based on the

principles of Arithmomancy (the expression is n2).

Let us refer to the gnostic number system to illustrate some aspects of

Christian Kabbalah, for example the gnostic numbers involved in the phrases from

the Nicene (reed “1 believe in one God the father Almighty (2 665) and in one

Lord Jesus Christ (3168) the son of God (1164) and the Holy Spirit (1080).

Stonehenge measures: Sacred names

316.8ft (Circumference of the Sarsen Circle) 3168 – Lord Jesus

116.4 My (Area of the Sarsen Circle) 1164 = Son of God

1080 square My (Are of the Sarsen Cricle) 1080 = The Holy Ghost.

Arithmomancy numbers The corresponding Odu Ifa

20 = 1 : 0 1

0 0

0 0

0 0 Osalufogbe = 1

21 = 2 0 0

0 1

0 0

0 0 Otura Oriko = 2

20 + 21 = 3 0 1

0 1

0 0

0 0 Owinrinsogbe = 3

22 0 0

0 0

0 1

0 0 Irentegbe = 4

20 + 22 = 5 0 1

0 0

0 1

0 0 Ofunnagbe = 5

21 + 22 = 6 0 0

0 1

0 1

0 0 Idingbe = 6

20 + 22 + 22 = 7 0 1

0 1

0 1

0 0 Okanransode = 7

23 = 8 0 0

0 0

0 0

0 1 Ogunda morogbe = 8

20 + 23 = 9 0 1

0 0

0 0

0 1 Iworibogbe = 9

21 + 23 = 10 0 0

0 1

0 0

0 0 Ose Ogbe = 10

20 + 21 + 23 = 11 0 1

0 1

0 0

0 1 Oturuupongbe = 11

22 + 23 = 12 0 0

0 0

0 1

0 1 Irosun ogbe = 12

20 + 22 + 23 = 13 0 1

0 0

0 1

0 1 Ikalogbe = 13

21 + 22 + 23 = 14 0 0

0 1

0 1

0 1 Obarabogbe = 14

20 + 21 + 22 + 23 = 15 0 1

0 1

0 1

0 1 Oyekulogbe = 15

Beyond we have Eji Ogbe II 0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

All the half nuts of the Opele will face up.

These are the 16 basic odu Ifa.

Using the expression n2 where n = 16

The total number of Odu Ifa = 256.

However, the ancients did not employ such a abstract mathematical method to

derive the number. They had to dig two vertical parallel holes as in the game Ayo

Game Board. In the first top holes in each column they put the number to be

multiplied on the left and the multiplier on the right. As you go down the columns

half the number on the right column until you have only one left and double those

on the left column discard on the left column the numbers facing the even numbers

on the right.

Left Right

16 16

32 8

64 4

128 2

256 1

Discard the following numbers on the left, 16, 32, 64, and 128. Your

answer is 256. This is simpler than using the table of square.

In the same way each of the natural number (numbers to base 10) can be

reduced to Odu Ifa symbols. Dig two parallel holes as above. In the left column

put the number you want to reduce to Odu Ifa symbol.

If the number is even put no number in the first hoe on the right column,

but if odd put 1. As you go down the right column double the divisor, until the

quotient is (one). At each interval, if the quotient is even put nothing on the right

column. If the quotient is an even number, subtract 0 from the dividend, it odd

subtract 1 as you go along. Like the Chinese, instead of writing the number

obtained during the operation from left to right as we do, we write from to

downwards. Let us consider some number.

1 = Osalufogbe= 1/1 = 1 = 0 1

1-2/2 = 0 0 0

0/4 = 0 0 0

0/8 = 0 0 0

2 = Otura Oriko 2/1 = 0 = 0 0

0 1

2-0/2 = 1 0 0

0 0

3. = Owonrinsogbe 3/1 = 1 = 0 1

0 1

3-1/2 = 1 0 0

0 0

4. Irentegbe 4 = 0 0 0

0 0

4-0/2 = 0 0 1

0 0

5. = Ofunnagbe 5/1 = 1 0 1

0 0

5-1/2 = 0 0 1

0 0

4/4 = 1

6. = Idingbe 6/1 = 0 0 0

0 1

5-1/4 = 1 0 1

0 0

7. = Okanransode 7/1 = 1 = 0 1

0 1

7-1/2 = 1 0 1

0 0

6 – ¼ = 1

5-1/8 = 0

From the operations demonstrated above it is evident that the ancients were

capable of using natural numbers to code information developed into knowledge.

The western system (Gematria) as sown above, the numbers are related to words;

for example 316.8ft is the circumference of the Sarsen circle (of the Stonehenge) =

3168 = Lord Jesus. In Africa sacred and cosmological languages arithmomancy,

the science of theological interpretation by number, is preserved. Through the

preservation of such knowledge the Babalawo, Obas, priests and “Isoro” chiefs are

to some extent better informed than most of the scholars of traditional societies.

They use the knowledge to invocate the appropriate Orisa, ancestors and spirits.

How these people arrive at these numbers is not certain, but such plays like Ayo

Games, and “Ige wiwon” suggest a root. It is probable that the secret numbers

were revealed to only the initiates through dreams, astral projections and

hypropedia.

Mental telepathy is another means of transferring knowledge without

physical contact. The human organism is a dynamic electrical generator with

numerous current potentials of which the brain is the principal seat where

conversion and transformation take place. The electrical thought impulse which is

transmitted apparently defies certain characteristics of known radiant energy. In

other words, it appears that mentally transmitted thought is not inhibited by time

or space. There has been no measurable time log between the transmitted thought

and the reception of it; no matter how great the distance between the two. This

means that thought has a quality of rapidity exceeding that of light and is not

subject to the effects that grantational field have upon light.

Writings of Baha’u’ollah

As to the question concerning the WORLDS OF GOD, known thou of a

truth that the worlds of God are countless in their numbers, and infinite in their

range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God the All – knowing, the

All-wise. Consider thy state when asleep… behold how the thing which thou hast

seen in thy dreams, after a considerable lapse of time, fully realized. Had the world

in which thou didst find thyself in they dream when identical with the world in

which thou livest, it would have been necessary for the event occurring in that

dream to have transpired in this world at the very moment of its occurrence. Were

it so, you yourself would have borne witness unto it. This being not the case,

however it must necessarily follow that the world in which thou livest is different

and apart from that which thou hast experienced in thy dream. This latter world

hath neither beginning nor end. It would be true if thou went to contend that this

same world is, as decreed by the all- Glorious and Almighty God, within they

proper self and is wrapped up within thee. It would equally be true to maintain that

they spirit, having transcended the limitations of sleep and having striped itself of

all earthly attachment, hath, by the act of God, been made to traverse a realm

which left hidden in the innermost reality of this world. Verily I say, the creation

of God embranch worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these

creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can reach

except Himself, the All-Searching, the All-wise. Do thou meditate on that which

we have revealed unto thee that you mayest discover the purpose of God, thy

Lord, and the Lord of all worlds.

YORUBA KABBALAH CENTRE –

BOOK OF RITUALS

The society of Yoruba kabbalists operating at the Yoruba kabbalah centre is

Napatian Society. Napatian society is an esoteric society formed to improve the

indigenous minds of the Black Man. But improvements are not something

readymade, they are trends in time. And most of them turnout to be finite; sooner

or later they evaporate as did the movements behind Ife and Benin civilizations.

Members of this noble society believe that the earth has known a higher

intelligence than our own, of the present age in Africa, and we as a species of

terrestrial beings have received the gift of knowledge together with the astral ones

through which the past knowledge may ever be renewed. As Julian Huxley (1968)

has said in the book of Mind (a Pelican Book).

Human society generates new material and spiritual agencies and

sets them to work in the cosmic process. It controls matter by means

of mind.

The challenge that created the impetus for this movement is contained in

J.T. McIntosh’s book “This is they. Way the world Begins (Corgi Books, London,

1977).

‘I want a change to prove I am a man,

oh! Said Roberta Softly.

‘You have to prove something?’

‘Not to myself. To those who still

Think a black man is nigger.

To prove to the world that we are not just mere consumers of western ideals

and technologies, we are bound to research into the unfathomable minds of our

ancestors. Most especially in an age which depends for its stability of force,

expediencies and more exhortation; it is not without interest to review the ancient

approach to the problem of existence in order to discover whether it may

illuminate features of the present time which are not easily accounted for.

Immanuel Wallerstein (ed) in social change; The colonial situation

published in New York, 1966 by Wiley, has warned that.

If there is to be progress, the African must develop his

cultural development and respect his own culture heritage.

In “The world in Between Christian Healing and the struggle for spiritual

survival” published in 1986 by Day Star Press, Ibadan, Milingo has give a brief

hint as to the aspect of our cultural heritage that but be reviewed. According to

him.

The Africans have been communicating with their dead

ancestors from time to time beyond reckoning. It is the one

thing which colonization never succeed in suppressing… we

are what we are because our society still has something

special; we can speak with the dead, and a community may

thus be guided in its endeavour to carry out decisions which

affect the whole community.

He further claimed that the traditional spiritual consultant speaks to the

ancestors and other protective spirits and they give answer. Though a catholic

priest, hew was hold tell the world;

I have talked with the witches and I have dealt with the dead,

I have gone beyond theory.

Consequently, one may guess, when in 1973 Milingo discovered the power

of healing, he was amazed and disturbed by the large number who appealed to him

for help. A great challenge to western medical boast.

It has been recognized by Hebrew scholars that their sacred texts, including

those of the Old Testament, were written in accordance with a code of numbers;

the same has been observed of Ife literary corpus. Each number from one to two

hundred and fifty-six is a symbol with a corresponding principle in every class of

creation, and together represent the primeval view of a reality which still remains

unaltered and will remain as long as human races endure.

The names of the gods of the ancient world and the Orisa of the Black

World vary with languages; but it was formerly possible for an adepth to recognize

the corresponding principles in each system by Arithmomancy, the science of

theological interpretation by number.

Using the above information, Yoruba Kabbalah was identified with Ifa

literary corpus. A kabbalah is a message in likeness of a Bible message. The

message is imparted directly from a teacher to his disciple with whom he has an

estoric relationship based on spiritual level of comprehension. This is the method

of kabbalah, which means “receiving what is imported. Kabbalah is undramatic

tradition that requires great patience an stability. One of the reasons for this tempo

is that every one has to mature his potential gradually and thoroughly at his natural

pace. In this way his life’s work unfolds at the right moment in his own and the

cosmic time

Kabbalah is a philosophical and theosophical system that was originally

designed to answer man’s eternal questions on the nature of God and the universe,

and the ultimate destiny of mankind. As a practical system, it is base on the

numerical correspondence between the various aspects of human life and the

universal laws.

The kabbalah observes the Glory of the Divine present in the world about

him, and so he continually gives thanks for rain, food, family and even crisis that

periodically disrupt the rhythm of life because they are sent by providence to teach

this or that lesson. Nothing is seen as significant, everything is a gift of God to be

appreciated. Even the threat of or contact with evil is perceived as blessing, and

act of love in disguise. The continuous act of contemplation is carried out by all

kabbalah for kabbalah is principally a Way of Knowledge.

The kabbalaist has perfect love for God and consequently trust Him with

every aspect of his life without those two precepts, love and trust, there can be no

Kabbalah. Every kabbalistic rite is an act of love in God’s honour. When the will

is surrendered to God and becomes one with His, each of our acts becomes Divine

in essence. What we wish comes to pass because it is what God wills Himself.

Submission to God is necessary so that spiritual evolution may continue.

The unity of God, of which we are a part is the key to all Kabbalistic

thought. It does not matter if you worshipo Him in a Hindu shrine, in Muslim

mosque, in a Jewish Temple, in a Christian church or a grove. It matters little

whether we call Him Jehovah, Allah, Olodumare, etc, what matters is that you

recognize that He is all there is and that there is no one else, but He Kabbalah

teaches that God is pure and immanence. His essence is intangible, unknowable,

yet the source from which all things are known. In his ultimate manifestation God

is merciful.

The most important ritual is prayer. Prayer is an act through which man

offers himself as a sacrifice to God. The intention is not for personal gratification

but to accomplish a total identification with God’s will and to surrender to His

divine wisdom.

Rituals are performed at four occasions in the year. The first is on the

spring equinox, March 23rd. On the night of Saturday March 23, 1986. Orunmila

and seven women were revealed under a pyramid. The women were white wrapper

and ‘buba’. Osun a beautiful, slender, shot woman (light in complexion) appeared

to be the oldest among the women. However she played the role of their leader if

she is not the oldest. When I opened the door of the pyramid I saw Orunmila, a fat

short black man. I presented my programme to Him an explained the purpose of

my visit which was to gain His consent. He was pleased. This was called the

Revelation Ritual. The second is on the 22nd of June, the summer solstice, called

the Ritual of light. The third is Autumnal Equinox, 23rd of September the ritual of

Blessing. The last is the Winter Solstice, which is on December 22, the ritual of

the spirits. The founders’ Day is May 7.

At the ritual, kabbalists stand before a pyramid to pray together. We have a

prayer book given to every member. Prayer rituals are offered as follows;

Members identify themselves through greetings:

Greetings - Happiness

Response - To the Enlightened

Greetings - Growth

Response - Out of the mind.

Every member has to undergo training. He needs training to become

temperance to achieve the peak of power available to every trained kabaalist. In

that wise nobody is honoured with any title or rank.

New members are identified as Ojugbona. Each has to undergo the training

required to ascend the ladder of hierarchy from Olumo to Asawo, to Ogbingbin to

Olori Asawo. Every Olumo is expected to recognize all the two hundred and fifty-

six Odu If symbols, know how to handle the Opele. Every Asawo is expected to

use divining materials for invocation and communicate with beings of other world

including ancestors’ spirits and Orisa. To become Ogbingbin, which is the highest

level for a woman, one has to be able to practice folk medicine involving the use it

herbs Ifa verses, sacrifices and other approved traditional methods. The Olori Awo

communicates with the spirit would and strives to correct the state of mankind and

the world. This category of people belongs to a high society of discarnate entities,

who have reached great spiritual heights by the richness, fullness and humility of

their MINDS from the rank of the Olori Awo come the ATAVARS who regularly

come to the terrestrial plane inspired by the highest of motives available in the

astral plane.

Theomancy as the basis of Yoruba Kabbalah

As of present age dominated by biblical and quranic doctrines, Theophancy

dominates the belief system of most people in the Christendom and the Islamic

world. Theophany preaches the actual appearing of God to man e.g. Gen. 3:8 and

Gen. 11:5.

The Jewish kabbalists claim that God (Jehovah) taught the system to

Abraham Gen. 17:3.

Abram fell on his face and God talked with Him. In Exodus 32:16, the

tablets on which the ten commandments were written were said to be produced by

God.

And the Tablets were God’s work and the writing was God’s

writing engraved on the tablets.

Further claims include that of Isaiah (6:1-4)

I saw the Lord, He was sitting on his throne high and exalted,

and the robe filled the whole temple.

Amos 9:1

I saw the Lord

I Samuel 3:10

The Lord came and stood and all.

These claims suggesting the claim that man was created in the image of

God. This doctrine is known as theocracy – preaching an initiate union of the soul

with God in contemplation. Gen. 1:26-28. It was elaborated by Edwin Hatch (1835

– 89) in songs of praise 458. verse 3.

Breathe on me, breath of God,

Blend all my soul with thine

Until the earthly part of me

Glows with thy fire divine

Almost all races at one time or the other have accepted that a Supreme

Being. Created the world some races, for example the Jews, give a vivid

description of the creation scenes as if they were observers of the Great ACT. The

consequent anthropomorphic interpretation of the nature and behaviour of God

was based on this doctrine. For this reason the Jews claim that Jehovah is a jealous

God.

The account of the creation of the universe and the physical appearance of

God to Adam in the Book of Genesis is foreign to traditional African “schools of

thought”. Most African people explain the existence of the world as a willful act of

a supreme deity who has no intentions to interfere in human affairs, at least, in the

versions found throughout the sacred books of the Christendom and the Islamic

world. In most cases, as in the case of Yoruba and Fanti belief systems this

Supreme God does not interfere with human affairs. There is no priesthood and no

ceremonies are performed for the purpose of obtaining His Good Will. The

doctrine of theodicy, a vindication of the ways of God in creation – a doctrine as to

the providential government of God as in Exodus 20:1-18 or Psalm 24 does not

appeal to the folk Yoruba people who existed before interlude of religious belief

during the contact with Islamic and western religions. To them God – given law

was not necessary since the idea of transgressions had no root. Consequently, there

is no sacred grove, shrine or temple where worshippers could have direct contact

with Him. To the Yoruba, Olodumare, the Supreme Being, is an invisible and

immortal God (oba airi, oba aiku). He is omnipresent (Oba atere kari aye) the

creator of all things, invisible and visible (Eleda ohun gbogbo, ati eyi ti a ri, ati

eyiti a ko ri).

To the Yoruba, it is irrelevant inquisitiveness to aspire to know about the

nature of Olodumare. Instead of seeking knowledge about Olodumare’s purpose of

creating the world, they consider it most necessary to understand the link between

life here and beyond. This is because to them, the work of God is incomprehensive

(Ise Olorun awa ma ri di ni). The beyond embraces all that could not be seen or

heard, smelt or touched, especially at the adult stage of human development in the

west because knowledge of the beyond is encouraged in the East and Far East

probably that is why most of the religious of the world have their origin in the

Middle East.

In African there are many ways by which the knowledge of the beyond is

made available to the living. Many sacred groves, shrines, jungles and mountains

are consecrated where people make contact with the other world beyond. This

other world (including Astral world) is at times referred to sky-home or sky-world

(Ikole Orun). The ancestral home, which is terrestrial is called Orirun. The idea of

the sky-home must have been universal at a stage of human history. The ludo-

Europeans who invaded India about second Millenium BC recognized Dyans as

the creator of the universe (being identified among their deities as the sky-god).

The Huron Indians of America believe that their early ancestors lived in the sky. In

the distant past they dived from the sky into the depth of the ocean and brought up

some earth. Then all people went down to settle on it. The hurons believe in a sky-

world. The Fanti believe in existence of a high God popularly known as Nyame

who created the world and everything in it, including lesser deities and spirits who

derive their power from Him. Like Olodumare, Nyame has no priesthood, and no

ceremonies are performed specifically for the purpose of invoking this good will.

Among the Fon of the Republic of Benin, Mawu, the creator, with Lisa, gave birth

to all principal deities in Benin. In polinesia, Tangaria is believed to be the creator

of gods and man. The supreme deity of Loango negroes is Lugaba who dwells in

the sky; he created man and beasts, the world belongs to him; his smile is life, and

the result of his displeasure sickness and death. Like in the case of Olodumare and

Nyame, this supreme sky-god is not worshipped nor are offerings made to him; he

has no sacred place. Although they talk freely about him, as in the case of Yoruba

about Olodumare, and acknowledge him to be their great benefactor, they accept

all his gifts as a matter of course, they make him no offerings in return.

Unlike the Torah received from Yahweh, the sky-God of the Jews, to the

fon, the Yoruba speaking of the peoples’ Republic of Benin, Fa (Ifa) is the unity of

speech of Mawu and it expresses the will of Mawu in all matters affecting human

destiny. Gonzalez – Wippler (1989) maintains that Ifa is a message from

Olodumae, sent through Orunmila Ifa is the basis of Yoruba Kabbalah.

Maya Deren in her book “Divine thorsemen” confirms the uniqueness of

African God. He provides an evidence that God is not Orisa as Orisa is not God. In

Voodoo, a Yoruba influenced religion in Haiti, she claims that Olodumare does

not descend to “mount” human head. Professor Ninan Samart has put forward a

theory saying:

Finally, wherever people believe in gods and spirits they

usually believe also in a high god. And though they rarely

have specific cults of this high-god who is rather think of

him… as a law giver’.

Yoruba believe that beyond this earth planes lies the immense infinite plane

of astral, stretching out until it merges with the planes of the spirits. The plane of

astral also furnishes a meeting place for human souls to meet their spirit guides

communion with the spirit would is essential. Since Olodumare remains

completely outside the range of earthly intellectual knowledge, mere philosophy

based on material evidences cannot give deep meaning of creation. Monsignor E.

Milingo in his book “The world in between Christian Healing and the Struggle for

spiritual survival” proclaims that Africans have been communicating with their

dead ancestors from time beyond reckoning. According to him, most the ancestral

spirits who are guardians of the living reveal many unknown facts concerning

people and events. Some of these ancestral spirits are recognized as Orisa. The

people believe that Orisa are capable of governing the world and control human

affairs. They can help to approach Olodumare to provide man anything he wants.

Infact, the principle behind Orisa worshipo is that Orisa can easily be invoked,

whereas Olodumare is never directly invoked.

A means of communicating with the sky-world is through divination. This

art is known as Theomancy – divination from the responses of oracle. According

to R.E. dennette (in At the Back of Black Man’s Mind- London, Frank Cass & Co.

Ltd, 1968) the great oracle of the Yoruba country is Ifa Many Odu Ife suggest that

Orunmile was taking message from Aye (Ikole Aye) the terrestrial world to Orun

(Ikole Orun) the sky-world everyday and brining replies back from Olodumare. In

Dahomean Cosmology Fa (Yoruba Ifa) is a speech of Mawu. Mawu’s decision as

to indivudal destiny is contained in Fa. The will of Mawu can onl;y be made

known to man through the agency of Legba (Slegbara – Yoruba = Esu). The

execution of Mawu’s command must be carried by Legba to the deity that execute

Mawu’s wish. The execution of Olodumares wish must be carried to Orunmila by

Esu.

We who are dedicated to the propagation of spiritual knowledge and truth

are expected to live our lives on both the earth and the spirit world in conformity

with certain coded knowledge. In our everyday atmosphere there are unseen forces

(or what layman refer to as spirits). They carry speech in all tongues, music of

kinds, and need only a “wireless receiver” to change audible sound. Such a

statement would have sounded madness to a savant (a man of learning – eminent

for his scientific acquirements) of a hundred years ago. Today it has become part

of school knowledge. The forces that convey radio tramsmission are directed by

man’s intelligence.

Long ago in the distant past, men were much more evolved than they are

now, in Africa, and were able to communicate with God at will, and had all their

psychic and spiritual gifts well developed. However according to Kenneth

Mackenzie’s experience in visions of Ancient Scotland by Bill, history often

repeats itself and the same play is repeated tune after time, and the next golden age

of mankind is fast approaching.

We communicate with the departed souls because we believe that when a

soul which has been liberated from the material vehicle reaches the planes of soul,

first, it goes into what is called the astral state, which we also experience in dream

state, a dream state half-way between waking and sleeping in which the whole life

of his material vehicle passes through and the mind of the soul, and the full

knowledge of everything that he has done, said or performed in his life time is

vividly impressed upon the mind. Through communication, he might share this

knowledge with us and thus be our guide where necessary. In what is called

ancestor- worship, ancestors are invoked to give succour to their family

descendants since in their spiritual state they are suppose to know more than we

can. Furthermore, it is believed that souls operate on other planes different from

those accessible to the living; they have access to previous information denied to

normal mortals. To get well informed about the cosmos you need cosmic mind.

With it you can read and send thoughts, project into the future, even tune in the

cosmic mind for information concerning anything or any one. You may receive

messages ancestors’ spirits, Orisa, guardian angels or have direct communication

with God.

The spirits including those of our ancestors operating in our terrestrial

atmosphere have powers superior to that of the living, even the greatest of all men

and women. Perhaps the united intellect of hundreds of mortals would not equal

that of the superior ranks especially the oracles.

To understand the processes of this communication system between the

living and the SPIRITS we have to refer to parapsychology, the concept of Psi.

this phenomenon concerns organization – environment interactions (including

those between organisms) in which it appears that information or influence has

occurred that cannot be explained through our current understanding of sensory –

motor channels. In other words, such information or influence appear anomalous

because they appear to stand outside of science’s traditional concepts of time,

space and force. Such an event is termed Psi phenomenon because it needs no

empirical explanation for its occurrence. Depending on the direction such events

are labeled as Extrasensory perception, ESP and Psychokinesis (PK). EPS refers to

situations in which, under Psi – task conditions, an organism behaves as if it has

information about the physical environment (as in “clairvoyance”) another

organism’s mental processes (as in “telepathy”) OK refers to situation in which,

under psi-task conditions, an organism’s physical environment change in a what

appears to be related to the organism’s mental or physiological processes. There is

a newly discovered force called Reiki. Reiki is the Japanese word for Universal

Life Force Energy Ki, Ki is described as the vital life force energy, very similar to

the chi of Chinese acupuncture, light to Christians and Bioplasmic energy to

Russians.

Paula Horan, a Ph.D psychologist and Reiki master described the process of

empowerment through Reiki. Her work was published under the title

empowerment through Reiki. The path to personal and global transformation.

Reiki aids everyone along the spiritual continuum.

In many cultures it is believed that I certain beings exist around man. From

ages past, gifted people have discoveredand recorded their experiences with such

beings which we here identify as spirits, Orisa and Oracles. For example in Saint

Luke’s Gospel chapter 8 verses 26-39 it is recorded that these being may ever

cohabit our body together with our soul. The Fanti Worldview include lesser

deities known as the abosom who obtain their power from Nyame (equivalent of

Yoruba Olodumare). Most of them are believed to dwell in rivers, lakes, rocks or

other natural habitats. Some great hunters have reported their encounters with such

spirits that dwell in trees (oro igi), in rocks (iwin apata) and hills (oloke).

The most important step in divination is invocation. Most of the traditional

religious festivals are just forms of invocation. They are used to help the priests

and priestesses to invite the spirits of the Orisa to come round and interact with the

devotees. The praise poems of Sango worshippers, Oya worshippers and their

strong Orisa are good examples. The traditional Yoruba use elegies, prayers, ritual

songs and dances to invoke the spirits of the dead.

Divination has many stages – including invocation, the use of divining

instruments and the decoding of the messages received. The first step in divination

is “Ipe” or “Iba”. The Orisa or the spirits to be invoked is called “Ipe” and then the

“Iba”, permission, is taken before the cast of the instrument, be it the Kola nut,

Agbigba, Opele or Eerindinlogun. The instrument can only “deliver’ the expected

message in coded form which is peculiar to each individual instrument. Methods

of decoding the messages had been established long ago, by the cult members,

devotees of Oracles and priests of Orisa. Some simple instrument like the Kola

nuts, bitter kola nuts (Orogbo) and Eerin (four cowry) shells and Ibo can only

carry the messages of yes or no. others give more detailed information that could

be derived inform of myths, tales, allegories, tales and so on. All this belong to the

system of “casting” or “throwing” known as Geomancy. Another mechanism is

Radiesthesia. According to Buckland (R. Buckland, 1973, Guide to the

supernatural; London, Tandem) basically radiesthesia is the science of the

pendulum. Its history can be traced back to over 5,000 years to the ancient races of

the orient. The method came to force, however, in the late Middle Ages, and again

twentieth century. It is often used today in diagnosing disease in the man, animals

and plants and in prospecting the various fields of research.

SIN

In theodicy – a doctrine of the providential government of God. Sin is

regarded as disobedience to God and penitence is established as necessary for

forgiveness. To us in this centre, sin has been described by one f the characters in

Mr. T.S., Eliot’s Cocktail Party thus:

Well my bringing up was pretty conventional. I had always

been taught to disbelieve in sin oh, I don’t mean that it was

ever mentioned! But anything wrong, from our point of view

was either bad form or was psychological. And bad form

always led to disaster because the people, one know,

disapproved of it.

Sins of lust, perversion and temper are excused by a many on the ground

that they are parts of his make-up; and are treated as sins for which forgiveness is

needed, but as inherited twists which can be straightened out.

Determination And Human Development

An example of a determined man to translate his “dreams” into reality was

given by Cyril Garbett in the book “in an Age of Revolution”, Publish by Pelican

Books 1952 and then by Penguin Books 1956. Here as his record.

The wireless in an invention which had a great influence on the world. In

1897, I was an undergraduate on a reading party at the lizard in Cornwall, Walking

one afternoon on the cliffs towards Poldhu we came to the enclosure with a gate

marked ‘strictly private’, beyond if we could see a mast (a tell pole) with a hut

close by; we were told that the mast was used by ‘a mad Italian, Macaroni, or

Marconi, or some such name who was trying to speak to America without a cable’,

it seemed at the time an absurd attempt, but with a few years the wireless had

become one of the most popular channels of recreation and instruction. The

Greeks held that a city should not be so large that all its citizens could not at the

same time hear the voice of their orations. Today the whole commonwealth can

listen every Christmas to the voice of its head. Words spoken in a hall in London

can be heard in New Zealand a fraction of a second before they reach the members

of the audience sitting in the back seats. Cyril Garbett, 1956, in an Age of

Revolution – Penguin Books.

Mora Chaos – Christian Moral Teaching. The loss of faith has been

followed by moral chaos. The agnostics of Victorian days were confident that the

Christian ethic, which they reverenced, would remain unshaken even if faith with

which it had always been associated should be abandoned. Occasionally warning

voices were heard insisting that Christian morals were the result of Christian

doctrine, and that they would inevitably wither and perish is separated from the

root from which they derived their life. Little attention was, however, paid to these

warnings, and it was confidently assumed that the Christian ethic would continue

to be accepted as the ideal standard of conduct if Christian dogma should be

discredited by natural science and modern criticism.

(Agnostic – one who disclaims any knowledge of God or anything but

material phenomena).

Christian ethic is based on the sovereignty of God, who demands obedience

to the law by which he governs the world he has made.

When Christ came He did not abolish the natural law, nor did He

supplement it by an elaborate code of laws mad binding upon His disciples. If He

had done this He would have left no room for progress and change… The

Christian therefore was never given a comprehensive ethical code, instead he has

the example and teaching of Christ, which he must endeavour to apply to his

personal life and to the conditions of the age in which he lives….

It would be absurd to claim that the moral teaching of Christ has been

accepted throughout the world… it is not possible to claim that even western

civilization has faithfully followed this teaching.

Christian morality lays claim of improvement of man; but what did the

“improved” German who ad been lured to monastery look after the process? He

looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion; he had become a “sinner”, he was

caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a host of appalling notions. He now lay

there, sic, wretched, malevolent even towards himself, full of hate for the instincts

of life, full of suspicious in regard to all that is still strong and happily… The

church understood this: it ruined man, it made him weak, but it laid claims to

having “improved” him.

Christianity is called a religion of pity. Nietzche scorn pity. Pity is opposed

to the tonic passions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life; its action is

depressing. A man loses power when he pities on the whole pity thwarts the law of

development which is the law of selection… Nothing is more unhealthy in the

midst of an unhealthy modernity than Christian pity… many others have made the

same attack on Christian virtue, they are despised as slave virtues, and condemned

as undermining man’s vigour and ruthlessness.

Christianity had declared war on the natural man and on the baser elements

in the name of a spiritual forgiving of human personality and for the sake of man’s

redemption. Medieval Christianity had bond the natural man hand and fook; it was

engaged in forging human forces, and it divorced man from both the nature within

him and that of the environing world.

In the early days of the Renaissance there was little denial of God and the

supernatural. “It is still, if you like, the age of the son of Man; but one in which

men pass from the cult of the God – man, of the word made flesh, to that of

humanity alone.

Michel de Montague, born 1533 was a great man of Arts – this outlook is

pagan, and yet he would claim to be a good Catholic… Some deistic philosophers

were anxious to make it plain that they did not deny the existence of God, however

remote He might be from the world He had created. The humanist no longer felt it

necessary even to render lip service to God and still less to concerns himself with

this hypothetical existence… Instead of raising hymns of praise to God, the

humanist addressed them to man, bowing down in adoration of himself: ‘Glory to

Man the highest! For man is the master of things’… But the thorough – going

humanist finds no room for God and the supernatural, this world is all-sufficient.

Democracy

In Britain, in the eighteenth century the govern man was in the hands of a

few families with great possessions of land. At the beginning of the 19th century

there had been only minor changes in parliamentary represneation since the reign

of Charless II… Elections were often disgraced by orgies of drunkenness and

rowdyism, and the free electors gave their votes to the candidates who paid them

most… In 1832 the overwhelming majority of the members of the House of

commons still came from the landed interests and there was no representation of

the labour class.

Against political democracy two objections are urged. It is said that the

great mass of the people cannot understand many of the problems on which they

were asked to express their opinion, that they are swayed by appeals to self –

interest, that bribery under the more respectable guise of promises for the future is

as powerful an instrument in securing election as the open corruption of pre-

Reform days; and that emotion and sentiments often sweep away sound

judgement. According to Dr. Stockman in Ibseis “Enemy of the People”. The

majority is never right… who are they that make up the majority of a country? Is it

the wise or the foolish?... the foolish folk are at present in a terribly overwhelming

majority all around and about us the wide world over. No one would deny that

there is some truth in this criticism, but stupidity and selfishness are found in

every form of government:

It is also objected that democracy cannot produce the right government to

lead the nation, that it is at the mercy of demagogues who by their rhetoric and

promises corrupt or confuse the judgement of the voter.

Over two thousand years ago later Bernard shaw in “The Apple Cart makes

Boanerges say: I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they

have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom, and the power and the glory. I say to

them “you are supreme, exercise your power”. They say “that’s right, tell us what

to do” and I tell them, I say exercise your vote intelligently by voting for me! And

they do. That’s democracy and splendid thing it is too, for gutting in the right

place; second – rate candidates are sometimes successful in obtaining election

through their gifts of oratory, their lavish promises, and their ingratiating manner.

The dangers inherent in political democracy can only be avoided if behind

all differences is a common background of accepted principles. Where this is

absent, democracy fails, for opposition may then be carried to such an extreme that

it either results in civil war or is crushed out of existence by the majority. The

British form of representative government by those elected on a popular franchise

has failed when transplanted to countries in which there is no common ground on

which all citizens stand… political democracy in Great Britain did not emerge

suddenly from the ground, nor was it imposed arbitrarily from above; it is the

result of centuries of trial and error.

Democracy as a way of Life

It is easier to describe than to define democracy as a way of life. Definitions

and descriptions of democracy as a way of life may be multiplied to almost any

extent, but all of them imply or declare explicitly that it means equality, liberty,

the rule of law and duty of the state.

Democracy called for the abolition of the artificial barriers which divided

mankind into the ‘haves’ and ‘have – nots’, and the opening of doors to the poor

which for centuries had been closed to them. The French declaration of rights of

men and of citizens

Kabbalah information about Nigerian politics

An extract from a letter written to Mr. Kolawole Oluwasanjo % Mr. M.O

Akinleye P.O. Box 14506 UI P.O. Ibadan – 15th October year 2002.

You may be surprised to see the present situation in Yorubaland and the

country Nigeria. May be by next year things will be clear, whether Nigeria will

remain one or otherwise.

Apart from the quarterly interactions with the council of the wise women,

we have opportunity now to consult the makers of Nigerian history. Let me

acquaint you with the responses of those already contacted.

Sir Lord Lugard who was responsible for the amalgamation of Nigeria. He

thought it was possible to blend the various ethnic cultures of the different races,

his girl friend, Flora, named Nigeria. He has become convinced that though it is

easy for the different peoples of Nigeria to mix but difficult to blend to form a

nation. Does he still believe in the amalgamation? He does not. Religion will be

the basis of the revolution. The Islamic influence of the North will room tear

things apart.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s attention was called to his mistake when he

strongly advocated self-government for the North. He said thou his calculations

were base on wrong formulae. Does he still support the principles of the

amalgamation of the different peoples of Nigeria to blend the various cultures into

one capable of sustaining a viable nation, Nigeria? He said he does not. However,

which of these institutions and organizations does he know about and support.

OPC x AD x Afenifere x Yoruba Elders’ forum x Yoruba Consultative

forum x. He recognizes Rev. Alayande as the head of the Yoruba, so far he does

not involves himself in partisan politics. He had to be what Sir Adeyemi Alalaja

was t the Yoruba before the formation of the Action Group.

Macaulay was not happy about the present political situation which was

caused by the over-ambition of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He supports a

spiritual revolution. He has identified religion as the basis of the revolution.

Sir Adesoji Aderemi spoke in a similar vein but added that the traditional

rulers are just the logs in the wheels of the Nation. He condemned the hypocrisy of

the Yoruba, especially, and many other Nigerians who are opposing the

impeachment of Olusegun Obasanjo.

J.S. Olawoyin is much concerned about the fate of Kwara State. He

complained that the present situation is caused by Chief Awolowo’s trust in

Joseph Tarka. He does not think that the amalgamation is successful.

Chief Fani-Kayode complained that he had wasted all his life on Nigerian

politics which has become a game of the mediocre. He does not at any time

believe that the amalgamation can yield good fruit.

Others who did not respond include Zik Tafaw Balewa, Ahammdu Bello,

Aminu Kano, Chief S.L. Akintola, Chief Okitiebo, Alfred Rewani, and a few

others.

The council of the wise women in the report on Nigerian was a danger

light. It indicates that the revolution has started and the end is not yet determined

more events will be created to indicate the direction of the revolution.

In a trans, I was in a hall, when case president Azkiwe (Zik of Africa) came

in with a black horse. He dressed like Zik nearly trampled on my toes – he took

care to look back to avoid this. He moved forward, sat on a table and looked firm

and serious. A man I could not identify was about to address us in the hall when I

woke.

THE TREE OF LIFE

A study in magic

By Israel Regardie – The Aquarian Pre-Northampotonshire – England,

1975.

There exists an agent which is natural and divine, material and spiritual a

universal plastic mediator, a common receptacle of the vibration of motion and the

images of forms a fluid and a force which may be called in some way the

imagination of Nature… The existence of this force is the great Accranum of

practical Magic”.

The magical agent to which Levi makes reference here is the substance of

the formative world, or more particulary the sphere of Yesod – A Hebrew word

which may be translated as the Foundation or the Basis. The direct equivalent of

Qabalistic Yesod in the Theosophical philosophy as laid down by Madame Blavat

sky – is known as the Astral Light Defined in some places as an omnipresent all –

permeating fluid of medium of extremely subtitle matter, this light is diffused

throughout all space, interpenetrating and pervading very visible form and object.

It is composed of luminous ethnic substance in a highly tenuous (thin) state,

electric, magnetic and radio active in its nature.

“This ambient all all-penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the sun’s

splendour, and fixed by the weighs of the atmosphere and the power of central

attraction, this body of the Holy Ghost which we call Astral light and the universal

Agent… is represented on the ancient monuments by the girdle of Isis, which

twines in a love-knot round two poles, by the bull – headed serpent, … in ancient

theogonies by the serpent devouring its own tail, emblem of prudence and of

suture. It is the winged dragon of Medea, the double serpent of the caduceus and

the tempter of Genesis, by it is also the brazen shake of Moses, encircling the Tail,

that is, the generative irrigation; it is the Hyle of the Gnostics, and the double tail

which forms the legs of the solar cock of Abraxos”. These symbols are highly

interesting and significant symbols, and if much care and attention be given to

their interpretation they tend to considerable edification and may be made to yield

up much valuable information aiding in the intellectual comprehension, at least, of

the nature and characteristics of this subtle plans vibrating at another rate of

motion than does the gross substance of the physical world, and thus existing on a

higher plane, the Astrallight contains the builder’s plan or model, s to speak,

projected downwards by the ideation or imagination of the father; the plan on

which the external world is constructed, and within whose essence lies latent the

potentiality of all growth and development. All the forces and “ideas” from the

creative and archetypal realms are represented and focused in this plastic agent,

the formative world in many respects this formative world, the recipient of the

higher creative forces is comparable in its lowest aspects of the Ether of Science.

The Astral light has been in the past and may in the future be verified by direct

visional experience. The entity which the experimental physicists to-day would

defined as other must be one which would respond qualitatively and quantitatively

to their instruments and mathematic equations. On the other hand, when the

Theurgist (Theurgy – the working of a divine agency in human affairs) refers to

the magnetic and electric substance of the Astral light, a metaphysical condition or

state of substance is implied, one which at present cannot be measured or observed

with physical instrument, although its existence in corroborated in identical term

by a succession of trained sears and magicians. It lies… on an altogether different

plane of existence and consciousness, and its particles vibrate in such a way and at

such a high rate of motion as to be quite invisible and imperceptible to our

ordinary exterior sense – apparatus.

(Ether a hypothetical medium of extreme tenvity – state of being thin or

rarity – universally diffused and the medium of the transmission of light, heat etc.

a very light, volatile and inflammable fluid or obtained from alcohol, used as a

stimulant an anesthetic).

This scientific ether which “all can enjoy and which extends through space

and time, serving as the medium of vibrations of all kinds differs in few essentials

from Levi’s Astral Light. The definition perennially insisted upon by the Theurgist

concerning this etheric plane is that it is a grade of refined plastic substance, less

dense and gross than that which we normally see around us, magnetic and electric

in nature, serving as the real group upon which the forms and congeries ( a

collection of several bodies in one mass) of atoms in the physical universe arrange

themselves. It is the plane which, in its lowest aspect, is the veriest cess – pool of

the universe, comprising that facet of consciousness which directs the

ramifications, soaring beyond this mundane (earthily) it actually borders on the

divine.

It is in itself a blind force but can be directed by the leaders of souls, who

are spirits of action and energy. This is at once the whole theory of prodigies and

miracles… The Divine Astral is solar and celestrial in nature, whereas the gross

Astral is lunar, reflective, and purely automatic. Blavatsky confirms this

hypothesis of the dual nature of the Astral light in these words: “The Astral light

or Anima Mundi is dual or bi-sexual. The (ideal) male part of it is purely divine

and spiritual, it is the wisdom, it is the sprit or Purusha; while the female potion is

tainted in one sense with matter, is indeed matter and therefore it is evil already

Needless to say, it is entirely with higher superior regions of the Astral Light, the

solar fires, that the theurgists is concerned.

In Astra Light, the same thing can reveal itself in an infinite number of

different aspects. In that light one is swift without feet and flying without wings;

one can travel without moving and communicate without conventional forms of

expression.

Within this Astral Light which individually we carry with us at all times

and in all places we live and move and have our being. Every thought that we

think stamps an indelible impress on the impressionable substance of that plane –

in fact tradition has it that it coalesces with one of the creatures of that plane and

then passes away from our immediate control into this pulsating ocean of vitality

and feeling to influence other minds for good or for ill. Every living thing breathes

and intakes this light freely, and to none is it exclusive or private. Indeed in it we

live very much as a sides and in every direction, and like a fish we constantly

breathe it in and out through astral gills, as it were, taking energy therefrom and

adding a variety of impressions thereto with the passing of each moment. Not only

is this magical agent the imagination of nature, but it also fills the role of the

Memory of Nature for each act we perform, each thought that enters our brain

each emotion as it leaves the heart, registers itself on the astral matter, remaining

there for all time as an eternal record so that those who are able to may see and

read. The Book of Consciences which, according to Christian doctrine, will be

opened on the Last Day is nothing more than the Astral Light in which are

preserved the impressions of every Logos, that is every action and every form.

There are no solitary acts and there are no secret acts; all that we truly will, that is,

all that we confirm by our deeds, is written in the Astral light.

The theurgist is not interesting in reading the memory of that light. This one

object being the acquisition of self-knowledge and divine union.

Separating the good from the evil, the solar divine either form the malefic

lunar ether, a division automatically occurs in this light. On this plane the impure

thoughts of men would appear to continue for a longer period of time than good,

because the latter apparently ascend to the higher strata, to the regions of Harmony

and the upper portions of the formative world. The result is that the Astral Light,

whose lunar space is peopled with the coarser and malicious elements of being

gradually becomes more and more contaminated its filth hanging over mankind

like a toxic death-dealing shroud. In the books of the Quabalah the constituents

of this poisonous pall are likened to the Qliphos or the excremental shells of the

lowest grades of existence. They are the averse cortices, “dog faced demons”

according to the chladaean Oracles” in whom there is not trace of virtue, showing

never to mortals any sign of truth “ it is aspect of the Astral Light which for each

man is the evil seducing serpent of Genesis, and it is that blind aspect which must

be transcended by the Theurgist since being represented in his own constitution it

is that which hinders the accomplishment of the Great Work, were this process of

filling the Astral plane with Qliphos to continue indefinitely, without any adequate

means of ridding it and affecting a purification, it would result in the total

poisoning of the human race by its own vile emanations. Despite all the efforts of

the meager band of mystics and Theurgists down through the ages, who transmute

by their own life and spiritual attainment the base elements into an abiding and

gracious good nevertheless the evil becomes top-heavy so to speak. The excessive

malefic force is then precipitated in accordance with natural and cyclic laws. In the

forms of disastrous convulsions of Nature do these precipitation of astral impurity

occur. Earthquakes, elemental fires and floods and cataclysmic crimes and

diseases, are some of its manifestations. Writing profoundly in confirmation of

this view, Eliphas Levi registers the conviction that the Astral Light is “the

mysterious force whose equilibrium is social life, progress, civilization, and whose

disturbance is anarchy, revolution, barbarism from whose chaos a new equilibrium

at length evolves, the cosmos of a new order when anther done has brooded over

the blackened and disturbed waters. This is the force by which the world is upset,

the seasons changed, by which the right of misery and misrule may be transfigures

to the day of Christ… into the era of a new civilization, when the morning stars

sing together and all the sons of God utter a joyful shout.

THE MIND

Normally because of all illusory nature of the mind in which is focused the

centre of consciousness and because of its own pre-dilection to things cold and

illusory our vision of the higher self in obscured prevent our closer contact with

the real, permanent, and immortal consciousness which is really ours. It is

therefore with the abnegation of the false ego that we may attain to spiritual

conversion with and the knowledge of the Holy Guardian Angel. Only through the

abdication of the mind and the utter destruction of its illusory nature, the rooting

out of that element which gives egoism to a mere combination of perceptions

tendencies and memories, can the inner God manifest itself and confer the superb

benediction of the mystical ecstasy upon the human soul. Less there be a

misconstruction placed on the words “destruction” and “abnegation” and the

“sacrifice” “of the ego”, let it be understood that the principle itself is not

destroyed. That is an impossibility in any event. But the false value of the ego, its

complacency, the illusion which it possesses that it alone is real and permanent, all

else being its creation s – these are offered for destruction. When the smugness

and the false egoism in the Ruach is rooted out, it is an instrument of the soul than

which few could be better. Ruach is the lower Manas.

Using the reason alone can never come to any true realization of what he is

in himself, that is he can never understand by the mind alone that he is an eternal

spiritual entity, a brilliant star shining by the light of its own essence within the

bespangled body of Nuit, the Queen of infinite spaces to really know oneself as a

God and to enter into the communion with the personal creator, man must use

other instruments and other faculties. Lamblichus lays the law down quite clearly

in the Mysteries, that not by discursive reasoning or through philosophic thinking

alone does one come into fellowship with the Gods. It is through the awakening of

the higher spiritual powers by means of the rites of theurgy that the consummation

of the long ages is effected.

It is a common observation that an individual who has but little intellectual

power is frequently more open to intuition than his more gifted intellectual

brother. Paracelsus has assured us that the great mysteries may often better he

apprehended by a simple woman at her spinning – wheel than by scholarship the

most profound. It is not the lack of mortality or intellect which makes the peasant

superior. In that the peasant lacks mentality he is indeed the inferior, since

obviously it is mind which differentiates man from the beasts of the field. But

when that mentality is corrupted by complacency, by the persuasion that it is

supreme by egotistical sophistry as is more often than not the case, the lack of its

become a high virtue in comparison.

Now, it is true that the mysteries were and are more easily comprehended,

and intuitions more frequently opened within the unsophisticated and the

unintellectual (I do not say unintelligent) because in them is no rational barrier to

the telestic rays of the Neschamah.

It is not so much that the Holy Guardian Angel yields the government of

the human goal to the presence of the God, but that the soul, already united with

the Angel and thus forming one complete being, unites likewise with the God. Or

it may be that the Angel which has taken unto itself the life of the soul is

correspondingly assumed into the large superior life of the God, who to the Angel

is as the Angel was formerly to the soul. Proceeding yet further, Iamblichus adde:

Moreover, after it (that is Theurgy) has cojoined the soul to the several parts of the

universe, and to the total divine powers which pass through it, then it leads the

soul to and deposits it in the whole Demiurges, and causes it to be independent of

all matter and to be co-united with the eternal reason alone. But my is, that it

peculiarly connects the soul with the self-begotten and self-moved God and with

the all-sustaining intellectual and all-adorning powers of the God, and likewise

with that power of him which elevates to truth, and with his self-perfect, effective

and other demiurgic power; so that the Theurgic soul becomes perfectly

established in the energies and demiurgic intellections of these powers. Then also

it inserts the soul in the whole demiurgic God. And this is the end of with the

Egyptians of the sacerdotal elevation of the soul to divinity.

A greater, more complete vision could hardly be found Theurgy proposes to

take a man strip him gradually so to speak of all the inessentials, finally

penetrating to the soul within. Then the soul within is exalted and uplifted, ever so

gradually till it finds its own sovereign Lord, the Beloved Lifting is over higher

and higher, while yet human and in a body of flesh and blood, the man is elevated

beyond the heavens, entering into spiritual congress and fellowship with the

powers which are in the universe, the sources which give life and sustenance to the

whole of manifested existence. Ever beyond them it soars and ascends,

transcending even the Gods who came forth at the first blush of the golden down,

until with an incomparable ecstasy of silence it turns to the Great Source of All.

By the “divine” the theurgists recognized an external spiritually dynamic

principle and its refracted manifestation in Beings whose consciousness,

individually and severally, are so lofty and sublime to a degree of spirituality as

actually to merit the term Gods one can speak of the Gods. One can speak of the

gods (Orisa) from this point of view.

A caveat (Ka ve al – A warning) must be entered in this place, however, it

must not be thought that the theurgists and the divine philosophers were

polytheists in any ordinary sense such a conclusion would indeed be fore from

what is actually true. Even for the Egyptians, who possessed a well-filled pantheon

of hierarchs and celestrial gods and who are accused so frequently of being

primitively and crudely polytheistic. E.A. Walis Budge proffers a defence for

although the uneducated loved a plurality of gods, “The priests and educated

classes who could read and understand books adopted the idea of on the earth

who, for want of a better word were called “gods”

Primarily there is but one Omnipresent Life pervading the whole cosmos. It

permeates and thrills in every corner and portion of space, sustaining the

individual life of every being existing in any of the infinite worlds. Unknown in

itself, since being omnipresent and boundless in every direction and exalted

beyond intellectual reach, it could never be comprehended by the human mind.

But this much must be realized, that from t come forth all the gods, all human

souls and spirits, and every conceivable thing that is in some way, in

comprehensible to our finite understanding, the negative and positive energy

homogeneously scattered throughout space became enlivened, forming itself into

primeval active centres which, with the passing of aeons of time expanded and

gradually evolved into cosmos. With these centres, the first manifestation of divine

entities or cosmos intelligent forces who became the architects and builders of the

universe.

From their own individual spiritual essence, lesser hierarchies were born

and these in turn emanated or created from themselves yet other groups until

eventually the human souls came into being, the reflected offsprings of the blessed

Gods. These intelligence forces have been variously named Gods, Daemons,

Universal Essences, Dyhan Chohans, Aeons, Teletarche and many other names.

They all imply the same fundamental idea of conscious (though not necessarily

self-conscious, intellectual) centre of force, wisdom, and intelligence who

emanated or create, in one way or another, themselves the manifestation finite

universe… The myths and legends passed down to prosperity by the Egyptians

priests concerning the Gods were not mere idle inventions by ignorant though

imaginative men who, having nothing else better to do, occupied themselves in the

story telling and in weaving pleasant and unpleasant fictions about the figments of

their minds, (figure – a fabrication) on the contrary, so far from being puerile, in

each one of these legends and pictorial descriptions of the Gods in conceded a

wealth of transcendental knowledge for whomsoever has the ability to perceive it

with so astute a race of people as the Egyptians, a people who evolved a hardy

civilization whose remains stand as noble memorials even to this day, it could

hardly be believed that their myths should be but interesting yarns, and more than

the Gods recognized by them were not – existing or, at least, childlike fantasies. It

should never be considered that the Egyptian pantheon, particularly the Gods

associated with theurgic cults, were in any degree mythical in the sense that they

were the result of the playful sporting at a fertile inventive Faculty. Primitive man

did not “create” the Gods, as thought by so many modern students of comparative

religion who are destitute of all sympathy and religious genius. What he really did,

perhaps unconsciously, was to apply names (and even these names were

significant) and quasi – human faculties to these “powers” or great forces of

Nature which he so accurately observed, and which he believed rightly enough to

be manifestations or symbols of the divine.

THE BODY

The Astral Body, or the subtle duplicate to which the physical body

owes its continued existence and persistence is the “realm ever splendid” in which

are the forces and powers which may prove of the utmost assistance to him in his

quest. The dream body , the sheath of the mind and memory and emotion is known

and named in Theurgy as the Body of light. Now, the theurgists hold that this

Body of Light may consciously be separated and projected from the body – and

Blavatsky expresses the opinion that he who can do this is an Adopt!. Thou shalt

separate the fine from the gross, acting with great sagacity, counsels the Thrice

Great Hermes. This Body of light, as the vehicle of the higher principles, may be

made to investigate the interior world with the view of ascertaining its real nature,

thus of the nature of man himself, in as much as the laws of the universe and those

of the mind, and vice versa. The higher Astral, with which one becomes

acquainted through the instrumentality of the Body of Light, is thus used as a

ladder, as it were, by means of which the theurgist mounts to the realm of the

supreme spirits, fiery, creative and ecstatic.

Hence to project this fine Body, to acquire the faculty of functioning in it

with ease as one does in the gross body, to train and educate this Body of light of

fulfil the wishes of the theurgist, is naturally a fundamental of practical magic. The

ability to succeed in this particular phase of the work depends entirely on whether

the magician has trained his imagination, for that is the magical lever for the

proposed projection.

The technique, briefly is as follows, seating himself comfortably in a chair

– or if he be trained in the assumption of a Yoga posture and is easy therein, so

much the better – and tranquillizing his mind and emotions as far as may be

possible, the magician would try to imagine standing before human exact duplicate

of his own body… The theurgist should conceive vividly that a simulacrum of his

own body stands before him in his mind; and that it is clothed as the magician is

clothed, …. By a supreme effort of will that image should be made to move in the

mind and, observed very closely all the time, to rise standing upright on its feet.

To the Body of right he must transfer his own consciousness and it is this transfer

which may prove a little difficult, for sometimes it simply will not go.

Theurgy the working of a divine agency in human affairs –

Simulacrum – an image or likeness.

ABOUT JESUS

Companions Along the WAY

Ruth Montgomery – Toronto – Coward – McCann a Geoghegan Inc, 1976.

The many lives of Ruth Montgomery

1. An awestruck young woman in ancient Palestine, coming in direct

contact with Jesus of Nazareth.

2. A humble farm labourer in barren wastes of Moab.

3. A dazzling princess of Egypt in time of Ramses the Great.

4. A bewildered and threatened young wife in the dissolute court of Louis

XV of France (Dissolute – loose in behaviour and manner)

5. A celebrated Victorian poetess living in one of the most famous love

stories of all time.

These are some of the former lives that Ruth Montgomery has been

allowed to relieve with the aid of Arthur Ford and her karmic Guides from the

other side.

Readers of my previous books are aware that each morning at the same

hour I set at the typewriter and close my eyes, while a mysterious spirit who calls

himself Lily apparently directs my fingers on the keyboard to bring information

from the world beyond the grave.

Each day thereafter the narrative continued as recorded in this book, and

within a week it became apparent that the material should be of general interest,

since it primarily concerned unknown facts in the life and ministry of Jesus.

Mrs. Beach – was the second sister of Lazarus. In a world beyond I

recounted a various series of circumstances tending to indicate that in one of my

past lives I had been a sister to Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, although the Bible

makes no mention of such a person.

Under hypnosis I re-enacted a scene in which I fled into the desert,

abandoning husband and baby, to hear Jesus preach, and afterward I went to the

house of Lazarus, whom I “knew” to be my brother. On being brought out of

trance, I was deeply puzzled by a latter scene because since Martha and Mary were

both “there” I could not have been either sister.

A weeks later, on impulse, I bought The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus The

Christ… dictated before 1957 by a /discarnate/ who identified himself as Levi… I

read only a small portion… to my astonishment, my eyes fell on these words.

… The evening came, the multitude were gone and Jesus Lazarus and his

sisters Martha, Ruth and Mary were alone. And Ruth was sore distressed. Her

home was done in Jericho. Her husband was Asher-ben.

Biblical scholars agree that the four Gospels were largely written by men

who had not been eyewitnesses of the events that transpired many decades earlier,

and each account differs in some respects from the other…

I have no way of knowing whether the soul that I now am once occupied

the body of another Ruth in Palestine. I know only that on a visit to the Holy Land

in January 1963, long before I believed in reincarnation, I felt to particularly

drawn to Jericho, the Dead Sea area…

The life readings given by Edgar Cayce while in trance stressed that groups

of souls tend to reincarnate in cycles, meeting each other again and again in

physical embodiment, being drawn together by some curious law of karmic

attraction in order to work out mutual problems which had been left unsolved.

Edgar Cayce said that before souls can complete the cycle of rebirths and

step off the wheel of karma, they must have been both man and woman and have

experienced life in various nationalities, races and religious groups.

None of us remembers his birth and babyhood in this life time, yet those

events can be recalled to conscious memory under hypnosis…

The Essences, a Jewish sect recently made famous through discovery of the

Dead Sea Scrolls, and also the Biblical Pharisees believed in reincarnation, as did

the followers of Jesus and the early Christians.

I was puzzled by the Guides’ account of the adultery committed by Mary,

the sister of Lazarus. Edgar Cayce while in trance also declared that Jesus rescued

two adulterous Marys, one of whom was a sister of Lazarus.

Psychics – were ‘picking up his heartbeats. Thus, at the tender age of seven

you traveled across the desert and waters to Heliopolis, where at last your family

gathered with other relatives and friends beside the Nile. The long trek was

finished and for the next several years you studied with a wise group of ex-patriots

who themselves had learned many secrets of the ancient. Egyptians, some of

whose ancestors had come from Atlantis.

You were never an apt pupils, as was Lazarus and when Jesus began to

absorb, added meaning from the seemingly prosaic institution, he passed on its

occult qualities to you children. Soon, although so young in years, he was the

acknowledge leader among you and for some years until you were into your early

teens you continued to live in Heliopolis with Arthur (Jeremiah) attending to his

rabbinical duties teaching Hebrew, while Joseph created out of fallen timber

working with his tools.

Jeremiah studies with Egyptian scholar while in Heliopolis and there

became acquainted with the theories about Atlantis (the lost continent) and other

mystical love, including the secrets built into the great pyramids of Cheops.

Jesus, although just a youngster, was also instructed in these mysteries of

the pyramids and the occult… realizing that he was unique in his wisdom and

understanding for a child of such tender years, Joseph opened doors for him into a

world few children could have entered. His mother, Mary, having studied in a

temple in Palestine as a small child, instructed Jesus in al that she knew, and the

child rapidly developed a mind which in many ways surpassed that of his elders,

Jesus during some of these years studied at a centre near the Dead Sea that was

operated by occultists known as Hermites or Essenes, for his mind had swiftly out

raced the rabbis in Nazareth; and his interest in occult matters, awakened while in

Egypt, turned his interest toward the mysteries.

Fascinated to read of this boyhood fellowship between Jesus and Lazarus I

asked at a subsequent session whether the two had known each other in a previous

incarnation and the Guide wrote:

“Of course, They had been brothers in a previous life time in ancient Egypt

when both were adepts of the mysteries and also in old testament days…

Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem

Ford had also emphasized that we can earn the right to select our own

parents and the circumstances into which we are born. I therefore asked the Guides

“Why was Jesus born in particular to Mary with Joseph the foster father?. They

replied: “Jesus and Mary had been together since the beginning of time… They

were exalted souls and ever able to achieve. Joseph was ever with them throughout

the passage of time. They were exalted souls, all three, ever accustomed to abiding

by God’s will in all matter, and subjecting self to Higher Command.

Edgar Cayce while in trance declared that Jesus had had Thirty

incarnations, although he identified only eight of them, beginning with Amilius

and Adam - presumably this would explain the Master’s enigmatic statement that

before Adam was I am”

After the death of Joseph, Jesus left home. For number of years thereafter

Jesus travelled widely to learn at the feet of other masters… He stayed loner in

Egypt than Biblical scholars have assumed.

After the death of Joseph Jesus made a journey through the Fertile Cresent

and far beyond to study with monks and masters in Persia and India. He returned

also to Egypt for a time, and in all these sacred places he was initiated into the

secret reaching. Except for their influence on the mind and heart of Jesus they

need not telling here; but influence him they did, and help to shape the character of

his ministry.

The initiation Jesus underwent at Brotherhood gathering in Egypt, Persia,

India, and elsewhere dealt with the understanding of universal laws as they pertain

to physical matter, and the means of dissembling ions and atoms so that they can

be reassembled on the other side of the wall or barrier. How to heal and what to do

about those who would not believe without seeing with their physical eyes. The

fine art of meditation and the science of knowing another’s innermost thought.

This knowledge is preserved even today in remote areas of the far and Middle

East, and the secrets are so guarded that none penetrate this innermost wisdom

unless he is an adept who has developed a thorough understanding of it in previous

lives. Thus, this glimmer of truth will be preserved until mankind has progressed

sufficiently to be able to handle the mysteries without endangering the truth and

harming others. Advanced souls are already beginning to spread some awareness

of these secret teaching, and as the Aquarian Age Progresses, more will be

divulged.

Jesus did not entirely agree with some of the choices, but he did not

question the vibrations within self when he accosted these various men. Always

within self he had been given these signs of what was right or wrong even as a

small body.

The disciples were selected not for their spiritual superiority or mental

powers, but in order to represent many different kinds of souls then inhabiting

bodies… Judas was chosen for his opportunity to overcome jealousy and ambition.

I cannot vouch for the authenticy in the Guides’ account. But they claim to

have read it in the AKASHIC records, on which all events since the beginning of

time are said to be imprinted.

Palestine’s Ruth believed in an actual Day of Judgement… The Guides

have repeatedly stressed in their writing that God judges no man. They declare that

each time after leaving physical body we receive our past incarnation as serve as

our own judge, nothing our mistakes and pledging to work to overcome our

shortcomings and misdeed upon returning to flesh.

We are as God, for He has given us the power to create that which we will

should we desire beauty and harmony we have not to think and live it in the state

of God’s grace. Think of ugliness and hatred, are we will live with it.

“Woman, hast thou sinned in the sight of God?” I have I am with a man

who was not my lawful spouse”. And Jesus seeing within his heart that this was

the beloved Mary of his childhood, said “Arise for God our father forgives all who

repent”…

You know that the stories in the New Testament were passed on by word of

mouth for a long time before they were written in the form we know them now.

Some “manufactured” tale that the tree to which Jesus pointed them withened and

died, might have been thus added.

In recent weeks the guides had made frequent reference to Jesus’ ability to

read another’s thoughts, and now they were having him see into the future. I

therefore requested an explanation and they wrote.

Jesus had clairvoyant powers that he received as a gift from the father…

The Jesus filled all the disciples with the power from His Father and they

went forth to heal as well as to administer to the souls of those who gathered from

far and near.

But Pentecost to my immense relief I also read that Pentecost far predates

coming of Christ, being a Jewish harvest festival observed in the fiftieth day from

the second day of Passover.

The mystics asset that groups of souls who have known each other in

previous life times tend to return to physical body at approximately the same time,

into circumstances that permitted them to find each other, in order to work out

Karmic relationship. This is called Group Karma.

Hate as well as love can therefore bring souls together again.

There are numerous ways in which we can seek to recapture memories of

our past lives one method is to select an isolated incident from childhood that has

for some inexplicable reason made a particular deep and lasting impression. Then

while in a drowsy state after eating or before falling asleep at night, we can

mediate on this incident, using it as a focus to receive suppression from another

time and space.

Dreams, particularly those in colour, provide another means of producing

flashbacks. Tell yourself firmly just before falling asleep, that you will dream of a

past life and will remember it on awakening. If the characters in a dream are

wearing costumes of another era and the arena of action is different from any you

have known, it is possible that you are reliving scenes from a previous incarnation.

Perhaps the easiest method of recalling “far memories” is through hypnotic

prenatal regression through time to a period before this life began. In that altered

state of consciousness you can seemingly re-enact scenes form previous

embodiment. Identifying yourself by name and supping locations and dates.

Louis Nizer in his best – selling The implosion conspiracy has this to say:

There is a “cluster” phenomenon in nature which defies explanation.

At infrequent periods in history several geniuses appear at the same

time. Unusually they know each other. Their frame will last

throughout the centuries. Then a century or two later another cluster

of transcendent talented men will dominate the scene and like

comets disappear, like to blaze across the horizon for hundreds of

years.

The sacred marriage.

In M. Esther Harding 1977 woman’s Mysteries Ancient and Modern: Rider

Company London. Chapter II

The ritual f the virgin goddesses demands a hieros gamos, a sacred

marriage in which the woman’s sexual and love life was dedicated to the goddess

herself through an act of prostitution performed in the temple. In the days when

the worship of the Moon Goddess flourished there were not only secular harlots

who practiced “the oldest profession in the world” for their own economic

advantage and in response to social demand, but in addition… there were sacred

harlots whose earnings were not their own property but belonged to the goddess

whom they served. The occupation of these woman carried no social reproach, on

the contrary they were held in honour, and indeed every woman, high or low, was

obliged in certain countries, to prostitute herself in the temple once in her life

time… if the rituals of sacred prostitutions are examined (as part of religion or

religious practice based on psychological need), it becomes evident that the

ancients felt it to be essential that every woman should once in her life give herself

not to one particular man, for love of him, that is for personal reason, but to the

goddess to her own instinct, to the Eros principle within herself. In that hieros

gamos, that only matrimony, it did not matter who the man might be provided only

that he was the chosen man. He must be a stranger. It did not matter even what

kind of experience the woman had.

WOMEN – THEIR NATURE

The moonlike character of the woman’s nature appears to men to be

dependent only on her whim. If she changes her mind, he may concede that by

general accord it is her privilege to do so, it never occurs to him that she changes

because of changed conditions within her own psyche, as little under her control,

perhaps from reasons of selfish expediency. He expects that when she says she

will do a thing, then she should do it. In a sense, of course, it is true that she

should, but in as much as the woman’s nature depends on a changing cyclic life –

principle it may well be that when the time comes for her to fulfill her promise the

conditions have really changed. Anima is the term Jung uses to devote the

feminine part of a man’s nature, which is unconscious to him and therefore usually

projected. The term animus is usually used to denote the masculine part of a

woman’s nature.

In modern times even, most women would agree that at or about the time of

the period of menstruation they do feel certain difficulties either physical and

psychological or more commonly both. They tend to be irritable and out of

temper, disinclined for exertion, physical or mental, while the even balance of

their normal attitude to life is disturbed, superstitions are based on psychical

contents which have been projected to the object.

Erich Fromm 1975 The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness – A Fawett

Crest.

Considering the fundamental role of agriculture in the development of

civilization, it is perhaps no exaggeration to state that modern civilization was

founded by women. The earth’s and woman’s capacity to give birth – a preme

place in the world of the early agriculturalist gave woman greater recognition than

men. It was only when men could create material things by intellect – magically

and technologically could they claim superiority (Odu Ifa Osa Meji – Odu and

Orisanla). The mother as Goddess (often identified with Mother Earth) became

supreme goddess of the religious world, while the earthly mother became the

centre of family and social life. At one time, especially it was (and still today in

Yorubaland) matricentric – where family life and social life centre round the

mother, rather than matriarchal (where women ruled over men).

In Yoruba cosmogony the attribute of self-creation is accorded the earth.

Olodumare is revered as Iya (Mother – Earth – Iya) otherwise known as Apepe

Ale (Iya – Aye) among the eastern group of the people in Yorubaland. In the

formation of the Earth, a tradition reveals that Olodumare told Apepe Ale to take

some earth, her own element, a chicken, four pegions, one chameleon, in a basket

and follow Orunmila to the small portion of Earth upon which she was residing.

After pouring the Earth of self to create to create the firmament, Olodumare told

Apepe – Ale to allow the fowls to scatter the earth’s about the finally to allow the

chameleon to walk on the earth to ensure its stability. Because Apepe – Ale

fulfilled her capacity as Olodumare’s “representative” and manifested herself

throughout her life, she became known as Oduduwa. (Adeoye, C.L. 1985 Igbagbo

Ati Ein Yoruba Trans, Abdul – Rasheed Abudu etc. Evans Bros Ibadan).

As Odu she is the primal pot of womb of creation, she is Yewajobi (Iye as

another word for Iya), mother of all Orisa and all living things (see Odu Ifa

Oseyeku). As such she is the progenitor of the Yoruba peoples. According to Awo

Fatunbi she is the “wombe of creation (Awo Fatokun Iwapele; Ifa Quast: The

search for the source of Santeria and Lucumi. Bronx Original – 1991) Cannon J.

Olumide Lucas herald her as Iya Agbe the mother of the guard or the mother of

the closed calabash. Oduduwa is credited with priority of existence as compared

with Obatala. She is regarded as having independent existence, and was co-eval

with Olorun, the Supreme Deity with whom she is associated in the work of

creation. (Olumide Lucas the Religion of the Yorubas – C.M.S. Lagos 1948)

Professor I. Olomola of the Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University

Ile-Ife gave a hint to removing the conflict regarding the gender of Oduduwa. He

said:

What can be trace to (Oduduwa) is the emergence of a new dynasty

and not a new political culture. Whether or not his actual name was

Oduduwa, a new leader emerged during his episode. The date and

manner of his emergence is still subject of academic debates.

This is how an historian is expected to resolve any conflict. A kabbalist will

not employ such a method as stated above. He looks for meaning in some of the

ancient literary work of the people, oral or written. Here we select the Ifa literary

corpus, the most popular and detailed account of the past.

The number 4 is much associated with the instruments of divination, such

as 4 cowry shells, four lobes of kola nut, four half-nuts on each arm of Opele or

agbigba. The four points on each of the two columns of Odu Ifa symbol) represent

four remarkable revolutionary stages in Yoruba ancient culture. See the Table

below. The occurrence of the 11 marks corresponding to the principoles of

arithmomancy is used (2”).

Table Showing The Four Revolutionary Stages Of Yoruba Ancient Culture

Era Logus of II

marks

Female

Odu group

Male

Odu group

Dominant

Group

1

II

I

I

I

Iwori

Owonrin

Oturrupon

Osa

Ika

Oyeku

Ofun

Okanran Feminine

2

I

Ii

I

I

Owinrin

Ose

Oturuupon

Odi

Oyeku

Obara

Otura

Masculine

Okanran

3

I

I

II

I

Irosun

Ika

Odi

Oyeku

Obara

Ofun

Okaran

Irete

Masculine

4

I

I

I

II

Iwori

Irosun

Ika

Oturuupon

Ose

Oyeku

Ogunda

Obara Feminine

The first Era was Matriarchal. The Odu in the first Era is Osa. In Odu Ifa

Osa Meji Olodumare gave women (Odu) a greater power than men. It was to

women that the secret of the sacred groves were revealed, infact they were

incharge the secret of the groves and shrines of Oro, Egungun and all the Orisa

belonged to the women, they were the priestesses.

In the second Era the men deceived the women and, betrayed them and

seized the power and used their creative prowess to change the culture to favour

them.

Orisa Nla went behind Odu to Igbo Igbale to take her masquerade

and renovate it by putting net.

The third Era was when men developed political power at the surprise of

women. This was the patriarchal revolution Era. Orisa Nla put on the masquerade.

He held a whip to scare people who might come too close to discover the secret of

the masquerader. Odu saw him performing and recognized her masquerade but

was afraid to move near, because of the whip he held. She however became

thrilled by the performance of the masquerader. She, however, sent her bird to

patch on his shoulder. She thus transferred the power of Ase to the masquerader.

The fourth Era which still exists till now, is matricentric. This was the stage

at which Odu went to confront Orisa Nla for his mischief

Because of the marvelous performance of the masquerader.

Odu voluntarily permitted men to perform as masqueraders.

But made it a taboo for an women to thus perform.

She, however, she made it mandatory for all people, young and old

to respect women

Because women were given the power by Olodumare to control the

affairs of mankind.

People must revere women.

If they do so, everything will be a bright.

The time when Oduduwa revolution occurd might have been the second

Era. The time she was deified must have been more recent, the third Era; the

patriarchal times, according to Reverend Samuel Johnson. It could not have been

earlier than between 1600’s and 1900’s AD. According to Reverend J. Olumide

Lucas, “Later her worship became degenerated, stories were invented in the

defence of the revolting features associated with her worship. She became

respected as “father”. This is the secret which the Federal Council of Ife

Traditional Chiefs (Egbe Isowopo Ijoye Esindale Ife) threatened the life of late

Chief M.A. Fasogbon for. According to him, the council was inaugurated in 1952.

It contrained on the ancient system of administration of the executive machinery

of Ile-Ife prior to the advent of the British Indirect Rule.

The secret, is the establishment of Oduduwa as corporate personality

(Abosede Emmanuel) Abosede Emmanuel said that “In Ifa myths and other

legends it is more realistic to regard Oduduwa as a “corporate personality”. He

explained by citing the case of Abraham in the history of the Jews. He referred to

Anderson’s G.W. (1966) History and Religion of Israel. According to him,

Anderson writing of Abraham as the Hebrew Patriarch defines corporate

personality as a concept in which the life of the community is conceived and

described in vividly individual terms, and on the other hand, a representative can

embody the life of a community in what he is, does or experiences to present

Oduduwa as the progenitor of a multi-ethnic group as the present day Yoruba – a

lot of cult – activities has to be done. What seems to be the popular concept of

Oduduwa Dynasty belongs to the cult of Oduduwa at Idio in Ile-Ife. It is only

relevant to the claim of many obas to the right to wear headed crown, which has

become a dominant political issue since the time of the Indirect Rule. However, as

regards to spiritual traditions, most traditions hold that Oduduwa is a woman, the

creator of the earth, one and the same with Odu, who is oracle of the Yoruba, the

Iyanla revered by Gelede festival and the owner of Aje. The claim is supported by

Mason (1992) who said that Oduduwa is represented by two gourds that have been

sealed and painted white. The medicine it contains makes people blind if it is

opened (Just as in the case of Odu).

This same symbol, but without any objects put inside the closed white

calabash is the symbol of Olodumare worship – which was the most ancient

religion of the Yoruba. The basin – (bottom calabash) represents the Earth (world)

and the cover the heaven (the other-world) the inside being the Astral plane.

In Akibowale Akinola’s “Yoruba Ethics and metaphysics published in 1999

by Valour (Publishing) Ventures , Ibadan, it is said that “due to many of her

essential attributes, including, holiness and purity, the name Olofin orun is at times

given to Oduduwa ni Ifa literary corpus. In some verses Ifa portrays Oduduwa as

the supreme being who is uncreated cause who created all things in both heaven

and earth. One of The exemplary attributes is “Iwa” which in some Ifa verses in

referred to as “Omo bibi – Olodumare” (the offspring of Olodumare). The first

“Odu” in Oduduwa refers to a big container (as in Yoruba saying – “a ni owo ninu

Odu bi eniti oni iyere – locus bean seeds – (one who has a big container in which

much money is kept as if locus beans seeds). The second “du” meaning to strive

for and “wa” refers to “iwa” which is the corrupt translation of the foreign name of

Oduduwa. Oduduwa migrated from Napata she came from Meroe at about second

millennium BC as suggested by Biodaku (1984). She was a powerful woman with

great magical powers and great wisdom. Her name Odudwa implies the source of

all powers of the Yoruba people as related to exemplary life, the main quality of

the deified ancestors.

Christianity and stability of African Nation

The Right Reverend Bishop Akinola the bishop of Osun State , on

Thursday November 28, 2002, in a radio broadcast, said that Nigeria has the

largest number of Anglican congregation on the whole world, yet there are cases

of ethnic and inter religious disturbances here and there.

A common feature of African peoples indigenous religion is the believe in

a High or Supreme Being, creator of heaven and earth and all the beings in the

world. Mawu is the name of this Supreme Being in Benin Republic, in Cuba,

despite the involvement of many Orisa, in Santeria, the worship of central creative

force known as Olodumare, who corresponds to the concept of God is evident.

The environment in which the condonable developed in Brazil is more hostile to

the development of African indigenous Religion Traditions, than in Africa, yet

older members of candomble community in bahai believe that Olorun is the

creator of the Orisa. They claim they believe in Olodumare and not in idols. The

Yoruba believe in the existence of an ALMIGHTY GOD, him they term Olorun,

i.e. Lord of Heaven, they acknowledge Him, Maker of heaven and earth but too

exalted to concern himself directly with men and their material needs, hence they

admit the existence of many gods as intermediaries, and these they term Orisa. It is

established that his favour cannot be brought either by prayers, sacrifices or

offerings, since no temples are erected to worship Him; there are no special a

priests of Oludumare. The building of earthly edifice (church) for worship and

ordination of priests of all categories as interpreters of his messages cannot be

reconciled with African indigenous belief system.

The characteristics of traditional religion is such that it can be regarded as

ethnic affair, conceived as inseparable from a particular group. We therefore speak

of Yoruba, Nupe or Edo Religion. Even among the Yoruba, each sub-race has it

own principal Orisa. This was demonstrated by those who through the Trans

Atlantic Slave Trade found themselves in the New World. For example, the Ijesa

brought their Osun, Ife brought Obatala (Orisanla), Oyo brought Sango, Ekiti

brought Ogun and so on. Consequently the worship of a universal God, revered for

the purpose of personal blessings, communications and salvation has become a

strange fabric in African belief hood. Therefore, Jidahs and Crusades are poisons

in African’s Holy Communion.

The most offensive attack on our culture waged by Christianity is the

mistaken of our Orisas for idols, a symbol of a deity consecrated as an object of

worship. Rather than being worshippers as the Christians claim of God, Jesus and

Saints, we are devotees of our Orisa. They interact with us as advisers, guides,

benefactors and deliverer. They are not deaf and dumb as they are supposed to be.

Many of the Orisa in revealing themselves to us make us realize their nature

and capabilities. In 1986 in a trance I saw Orere in a grove. He appeared as an old

short man with his usual walking staff (Orere). He taught some herbal preparations

for successful life. Orunmila revealed himself unto me under a pyramid. He

appeared as a huge black man. To him I presented a new method of using Ifa

divination instruments and a modern method of interpreting Ifa literary corpus. He

accepted my explanations and blessed my mission. With Him under the pyramid I

saw seven women, including a light complexion beauty lady who seemed to be the

leader of the women. She initiated me. She is Osun. Oya appeared to Dr. D’ Haifa

Odufo’ra (DCH) Iya Araba Agbagbe. (A jew) as a woman. She advised the Orisas

frequently alternate awakening between the hours 0330 – 0400 to Communicate

Revelations, Directives or to answer inquires. On February 11, 2003, Orisa Nla

revealed himself to Chief Ogunrinu Ogundijo as an eboro – and spoke a strange

language calling the attention of Dr. Modupeola Opeola. “He” also walked. Two

attributes of man.

DEATH

The Mystery Of Human Body

Zohar of Spain in 13th century gave a summary of human body thus:

Man contains all that is above in heaven and below upon earth, the

celestrial as well as the temestrial creatures; it is for this reason that

the Ancient of Ancients chose man as His Divine Manifestation. No

world could exist before Adam came into being for human figure

contains all thing, and all that exist by virtue of it.

In line with this, kabbalists adopt the esoteric maxim “As Above in their

study of the macrocosm and the microcosm. The account of creation given by the

Jews as recorded in the Bible makes us believe in the part of the world that man is

made of a body created out of day and soul (life) from God. The Yoruba idea

about the existence of man is not much different from this.

When the decision is reached that a member of a particular soul group

wishes to become incarnated (embodied) for the purpose of developing himself, or

by his own wish, he decides to come down to the earth plane to perform certain

task for mankind, these is a mass meeting of his soul group, plans are made, and

many things decide upon. Then he/she ascends to a God Almighty (Olodumare) to

whom he states the purpose of his decision to descent to earth, so that he may

receive this permission.

Guides are allotted on the planes of spirit (because if this stage he/she is a

spirit) and this worked out about two years before the birth of a child. During this

period of seeking the parents, the guides hover very close to the mother as they are

acquainting themselves with the earth conditions, and vibrations. Humans are

made of crystals of a series of oscillating solid and liquid crystals. The vibrations

of the crystals cause changes in our health conditions which may lead to death.

When the fertilization of the ovum occurs, gestation stares. From the time

of gestation to time of death, life follows a pathway. During the course each

individual is influenced by many forces which are divine. It does not mean,

however that all these forces are all pietic in that many of them are secular. For

example, the spirit in men may become encompassed and darkened by earthly

desire, which chips to it like dross (refuse), burdens it and drag it down.

The Yoruba believe that the world is not bad and it is man’s attitude, his

won faults, which makes the world seem so bad. “Aye yi ko le, awa eniyan ni o so

ile aye d’ogun). They have no excuse that there is a being, Satan or demon

responsible for the evils in this world. Yoruba have no equivalent concept for

Satan or demon as they exist in Islam and Christian metaphysical Esu, mistaken

for Satan, is a god (Orisa) the servant of Olodumare, the equivalent of Hermes of

Greek mysteries. Moreover, Satan was an ancient Syrian deity. The word “demon”

(diamond) in classical Greek was used in a good sense even to describe a god, or

one with divine power. In Yoruba belief system, there were beings who formed

the nucleus of the in laintants of the “universe” even than the earth, some of whom

became known as Orisa, for example, Esu. They may reveal to man things which

happened in a community’s past, or which may occur in the future. According to

Milingo, though there are many ancestral spirits who are “guardians” of the living,

who reveal many unknown facts concerning people and events; there are evil ones

also.

The Yoruba believe that death, is not the end of “life” as such, hence the

saying “oorun ni a fid an iku wo”. Meaning there are similarities between deep

sleep and death. In dreams the soul, Astral body becomes disembodied

(disincarnated) to become a spirit and this can travel to distant places and perform

some “live activities”. At death, when the spirit is said to “go out” of the body it

merely another way of saying that the life – force has ceased to be active.

It is believed mostly by the people that most of cases of death are caused by

witches, (Aje). It is believed that such death is caused by the activities of the

witches that make their attacks in the dreams. People fear eating or having sex in

dreams. Many who reported that they were attacked in their dreams with spears,

knives, charms, gun shot (or any other form of Apeta) eventually died when they

woke up. This based on the principle that, if in the dream the disembodied body –

spirit – is attacked, the earthly body left behind during the dream would become

affected. On the other hand, any damage done to the earthly body definitely affects

the Astral body for example, a young man came for treatment of the folk medicine

services wing of the Yoruba Kabbalah. He was attacked by a woman in his dream

by a woman who wounded him with a spear. When he woke up, he was feeling

pains at the point of attack in the dream. The orthodox hospital could not cure him.

There are many cases of people attacked in their dreams and became sick when

they woke up.

The difference between death and dream is that a silver cord still links the

body with the soul during dreams, but it is broken when death occurs. In some

cases of death of infants and young people, if any part of the body is damaged

before burial, as in the case of Abiku, at the time of re-incarnation, the affected

part of the body buried, will be identifiable.

The rituals performed immediately after death, known as mortuary services,

are to allow for perfect reincarnation. Believing that the disincarnated soul is

around watching what is happening, there is always a more or less

conventionalized and dramatized outbust of grief and wailing in sorrow,

depending on the age of the deceased or circumstances surrounding the passing

away. At time it takes the form of elegy, “talking to” or counselling. There was a

case related by Mr. Fawole about her grand daughter. When she was born the legs

were not in good shape and she was dull at school? Suddenly she died. Before her

burial, the grandmother warned her that should she wish to come back to the

family all her short comings should be rectified, or else she should not bother to

come back to the family. Soon the spirit appeared in a dream confirming her

decision to come back to the family. She was warned again in the dream. Later she

came back without those short comings. She recognized the remaining pat of the

cloth with which she was buried.

When a person dies he/she becomes a spirit. One great fact of life is that

most beings in the spirit world can carry out their wishes in the physical world

only by becoming embodied or inspiring physical human beings to carry out such

wishes.

The book of Enoch recorded that God does not interrupt the alchemy of

man’s own self-transformation. A Yoruba myth of creation tells how Mother Earth

gave birth to all but gave to different people different qualities, making some

suitable for this way of life and some for another.

The importance of the doctrine of life after death is that it is necessary to be

in unity with beings in the universe. One of the eternal teaching of kabbalah is the

unity of all things and the interrelationship of all worlds and all levels of being.

Everything is connected with everything else and governed by exact unfathomable

law.

The child is brought up with the philosophy that the earth is a temporary

abode, being a market where he has to manage judiciously his capital and wares

(Ipori) because he has to give an account of all his transactions back at home,

heaven (Ikole Orun). In his religion, the Negro African is particular about his

living in harmony with Beings in this world and the world beyond. Negro African

society is collectivist being a communion of souls (living and dead) rather than an

aggregate of individuals living. This has been confirmed by monsignor E. Milingo

in his Book “The World in Between Christian Healing and the Struggle for

spiritual survival” in which he claims:

I have talked with witches and I have dealt with the

dead, I have gone beyond theory. The African have been

communicating with their dead ancestors from the time

beyond reckoning… when listening to the messages

from the ancestral spirits all present can hear what they

say.

The Vedas (the holy writings of the Fan East), the soul is eternal, but due to

past activities and materials desires, perpetually accepts different material bodies.

As long as we have material desires, nature acting under God’s direction, will

award us one material body after mother. This is called transmigration of the soul,

or reincarnation. But running away from life’s entanglement created by ourselves

in previous lives and the present is like postponing the DAY OF PERSONAL

JUDGMENT. The transmigration of a soul over a series of lives is seen both as

learning process and as a way of carrying out a personal desiring or spiritual

mission. Mystics assert that groups of souls who had known each other in previous

life times tend to return to physical body at approximately the same time, into

circumstances that permit them to find each other in order to work karmic

relationship.

It is impossible to comprehend the purpose of creation unless one is out of

the earth-body and ascend to the astral world. In Tibet, it is believed that the soul

can be released from the body and brought back. The Astral body freed from the

physical (earth – body) body can journey far into the Astral planes. The planes of

Astral merge with the planes of the spirits. The planes of Astral also furnish a

meeting place for human souls to meet other spirits and beings including their

spirit guides.

In Africa we have groves and shrines where we communicate with the

spirits. The signs and symbols used in these holy places are to mark the abode of

the spirits including our Orisa and ancestors. Many of these spirits haunt the

groves. It is certain that haunting is not a random or haphazard happening. When a

spirit is in certain area constantly, it shows there is something that is attracting

him. It is heard of young women who died after birth that haunt their homes –

trying to take care of the young baby. People that died of small pox are known to

haunt their forms or even houses, most especially when there is any soul play

about their death. People who commit suicide are known to haunt their houses or

farms or certain virgin forests or junctions. Milongo relate an example of haunting

in the history of two girls. Both of them from one family decided to become nuns.

A grandmother who died years back demonstrated her protest. The elder sister of

the sick girls had been given the name of the grandmother, who did not want her

to ‘lose’ her name by not marrying, if she became men. So her spirit was having

her revenge on both girls by disturbing them in various ways with trances etc.

An experience of the phenomenon death has been revealed by P. Phillips in

“Here and There” Corgi Books Published in London, 1975. It is contained in The

Message of Donald the father of Bill. It reads thus:

When my astral sight was opened, on leaving my body, I was

rather perplexed and very reluctant to leave all my dear ones.

As I look up, I saw the smiling faces of my dear ones, my

father and mother who were waiting for me and with a shock

I realized that I could think with greater clearity than ever

before. Behind them I saw the happy faces of my friends and

relatives who had gone over long before, and they assured me

that my travails and troubles were over. I was approached by

three entities dressed in gleaming white, and who had

endured my troubles long and bravely, fought the good fight

and had been true until the end. They assured me that the

family would be cared for, guided and protected, and that

later on I would be trained for a specific job with one of my

family, meaning you (that is Bill).

It is necessary here to punctuate the quotation by referring to a similar

account given about the Fawole family at Ile-Ife. The part that reads “behind them

I saw the happy faces of my friends and relatives who had gone over long

before…” “my father and mother who were waiting for me”. In the account given

by Mrs. Fawole she contacted her mother who had gone beyond to ask about

Yomi’s arrival. The relatives were reported looking forward to his arrival, which

was expected to be after forty days of burial. Another aspect is “I could think with

greater clearity than ever before”. When Yomi was later contacted, he gave a

detailed account of his death, which he could not when on earth here, despite that

he was sick for some time before his departure from earth. He also gave some

information about what to do about his death and about his own action s there

beyond.

Let us now go back to Bill’s account. He continued:

I was told that I would be admitted to a spiritual hospital for a

short time so as to adjust to spiritual conditions and

vibrations, and also to spare the sight of my relatives; grief…

there are nine planes of spirit, dominated by the high spiritual

powers. There is no hell. The hell that you experience is of

your own making, for on our planes, you are conscious of the

memories of what you did upon the earth plane. Your own

conscience is your judge: you judge yourself, and far more

harshly than any tribunal of judges could. If you do not

acknowledge the fact that you did wrong in your life, you are

left in the lower lanes of spirit, for you are uninvolved and

undeveloped. With the realization of what you are, what you

did in the previous experiences and incarnations comes

remorse and repentance. They you come into contact with the

flood of forgiveness from the higher powers, and know what

mercy, pity, and love are. Heaven is the realization of how

much good you’ve done to others, and how much happiness

you have brought to them…

I was in God’s kingdom at last. I passing, I will comment that

many machines and medical treatments are perfected in our

spirits hospitals and will shortly be given to mankind, thereby

alleviating much of its suffering and distress. There are

several spirit hospitals on each plane of spirit.

Bill’s account is comparable to that of Mr. Athor a retired laboratory

technician at Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, who is one of our regular

customers at the Yoruba kabbalah center, Ile-Ife. On Thursday 30, January 2003,

at about 5.00pm. Athur came to relate his experiences about his death. He was a

student at a secondary school, in higher school certificate class, when he died of

typhoid fever. He was admitted to a general hospital where the nurses and the

doctor in charge did al their possible best to save his life. After he had cast of the

flesh (body), he was still watching those medical people surrounding his dead

body.

Soon, his spirit left the scene and went through a narrow corridor at the end

of which he was admitted into an Astral hospital where he was treated to make

him fit to experience astral environment.

He left the hospital and came to another corner in the building where he

saw a device looking like a computer set. He put it on and saw on its screen the

records of his life activities and experiences. He felt terrible to see some of his

“unethical” records.

He later discovered that his “span of life” had not been completed. He saw

the sing indicating that he has to build a house and buy a blue Mercedes Benze

Car, He then decided to come back to complete the self-imposed duties. He was

confident that if he has to die at this time without the house the car he would still

reincarnate.

PSALMS

In theocracy –

Psalm 1. Psalm 10: 12 – and Psalm 100

Theophang -

Psalm 2:1-16;

Psalms Themes/use Relevant verses

1

10

28

37

46

55

64

Spiritual/success

Spiritual defence

Defence

Spiritual / defence

“

Prayer / defence

Protection –

1- 3 to end or 37: 35 – end.

4 – end

1& 2 and 6 & 7

25, 35

1, 7 – end

1 – 6, 9, 15 – 20

All

73

82

91

100

109

118

127

136

145

2

11

20

29

38

47

56

65

74

83

92

101

Repentance

Judgement

Prayer

Praise

Revenge

Indistress

Thanks giving

Thanks giving

Thanks giving

Defence

Praise

Prayer

Thanksgiving

Prayer

Praise

Prayer/defence

Praise

Defence

Supplication

Thanksgiving

Prayer

13 – 18

All

All

All

All

5 – 21, 25 – 28

All

1 – 18, 23 – end

All

1 – 9

All

1 – 6 and 9

All

All

All

All

All

10 – end

But not for an individual.

All

1 8, 24 – 27

110

119

128

137

146

3

12

21

30

34

48

57

66

75

84

93

102

111

Prayer

Prayer/defence/prayer

Blessing

A song

Praise

Defence

Supplication

Praise

Defence

Supplication

Praise

Supplication

Praise

Praise

Praise

Praise

Prayer

Praise

Not for an individual

17 – 24, 33 – 40, 73- 88

129 – 136; 145 – 152

169 – 176 (end)

Blessing – only by priest to the

congregation.

All

All

All

Not application

All

All

All

All

All

All

All

All

All

All

120

129

138

147

Prayer

Prayer

Praise

Praise

All

All

All

All

CANDLE LIGHT BY FAMPAT

The pendulum

There is something in the pendulum provided the person knows what he is

or she is doing and is not just putting on a stage turn to impress the unwary.

First, we hae to know what causes these things to work at prest time with

radio common place it is not at all difficult to get over the idea that there are

certain current or certain waves, which a peson cannot detect witout some

intermediary. To the average man the radio waves. AM, FM long waves, short

waves etc might just as well not be there because without special apparatus or

special conditions one just cannot perceive them.

In the process – in addition to having incorning signals we have to have a

method of collecting the signals, detecting the signals, amplifying them, and

putting them into the ‘output’. But, and we must not forget this – we have to have

a method of turning to the frequency or wavelength to which we desire to listen or

watch.

A pendulum is a lump of material attached to something which will not

constrict its movements. Basically the radiations which can be indicated by a

pendulum are radiations in some way similar to radio. They are raditions

transmitted by all and every material as it decomposes, or gets ready to change

state. We know, for example, that throughout countless years radiun – decays into

lead. Everything has its atomic member, number of atoms how slowly it is going

to vibrate or how fast it is going to vibrate. So all we do in pendulum work is to

tune in to some atomic vibrations, and if we know how, we can tell which one it is

and where it is.

ENERGY FORCE

1 Spiritual development 2 Barreness/irregular

periods

3 Debt/ Restriction

1 Osalufogbe

208 Iwori ayoka

10 Oselogbe

19 Owonrin Osa

37 Otuntura

28 Irosunosa

73 Iwori Irete

46 Obara Otura

64 Ogbewale

82 Otura Ofun

55 Okanran Owonrin

109 Ikadi

127 Oyeku elekan

91 Otunropon ofun

100 Irentedi

172 Irosun/Ose

136 Ogunda Meji

118 Idinkanran

2 Otura Ogbe (Oriko)

11 Otunrupongbe

38 Ogunda Owonrin

56 Ogunda Owonrin

74 Ose Irete (tete)

83 Owinrin Ofun

119 Okanran Meji

20 Irete Osa (Osan)

65 Osairete

47 Oyeku Otura

191 Oyekubatunrupon

107 Ofundi

110 Obara bodi

29 Ikasa

38 Odi Otura

128 Ogbegunda

137 Owori Aweda

146 Otura Iwori

3 Iwori sogbe

57 Iwori Owinrin

102 Odi Meji

120 Ogundadigbin

12 Orosunogbe

255 Oyeku Meji

21 Ofunsa

30 Obara Osa

39 Okanranotura

93 Ikafun

129 Osa Ogunda

219 Otuuruponka

102 Odi Meji

111 Oyekusindin

201 Iwori Irosun

210 Oturaka

48 Ogbehunle (Awonrin)

66 Otura irete

45 Osawori

154 Osewori

103 Owonrinwese

81 Ofun tuurupon

190 Obara Otuurupon

217 Owonrin Obara

226 Otura Obara

235 Otuuropon Obara

244 Irete Ika

253 Ika Oyeku

155 Otuurupon Iwori

164 Irete Ose

173 Ika Ose (Ikase)

182 OIdi Otuurupon

209 Osaka

218 Oseka

227 Owonrin Obara

236 Irosun Ega

245 Ofun Oyeku

254 Obara Oyeku

200 Ogunda Kosun

92 Irosun Ofun

75 Otuurupon Irete

84 Irete Ofun

138 Ose Ogunda

147 Owonrin Iwori

156 Irosun Awoye

1654 Ofun wori

174 Oburose

183 Okanran Otuurupon

219 Otuuruponka

228 Obara Meji

237 Ikabara

246 Irete Oyeku

4 Eradication 5 Protection 6 Sickness

4 Iretegbe

13 Ikagbeni

22 Idinsa

31 Oyekuteko Osa

94 Obara Ofun

40 Ogunda Otura

49 Osaarin

256 Eji Ogbe

130 Otura Oyeku

67 Owonrinnirete

235 Obara Meji

76 Irosun ate (Irete)

58 Osemiwo (wonrin)

55 Ofun Meji

103 Okanran Odi

112 Ogbe Okanran

121 Iwori Okanran

202 Irete Ika

220 Irosun Ika

5 Ofunnagbe

23 Okanran Osa

41 Iwori Otura

59 Otuurupon Wanifa

68 Irete Meji

77 Ikairete

86 Idinfun

140 Irosun Ogunda (Geda

203 Otuurupon Irosun

212 Irete Ika

221 Ika Meji

230 Idinbara

14 Obarabogbe

13 Ogbe alara

50 Otura Owonrin

104 Ogundadigbin

113 Osa Okanran

122 Ose Okanran

95 Oyeku Pokurete

6 Idingbe

33 Osatura

42 Osetura

51 Owinrin meji

69 Ofun Irete

123 Otuurupon Okanran

141 Ikagunda

15 Oyekulogbe

24 Ogundasa

60 Irosun Owonrin

105 Iworiwodi

114 Otura Okanran

132 Irete Aaye egunta

150 Idin Iwori

204 Irosun Odidere

213 Otun Irosun

222 Obara Ika

231 Okanran Obara

240 Ogbeoyeku

139 Otuurupon Ogunda

148 Irete Iwori

157 Ika Iwori

166 Idinse

175 Oyeku Ose

184 Obaro Ose

193 Osa Irosun

229 Ofun Obara

247 Okanra Oyeku

211 Owonrinsika

136 Owonrin Ogunda

149 Ofunwori

158 Obara Iwori

167 Okanran Irosun

176 Ogbetumopon

165 Ofunse

194 Otura Irosun

239 Oyeku Obara

248 Ogunda Ojoye

176 Ogb-otuurupon

69 Ofun Irete

78 Obara Irete

77 Ika Irete

96 Ogbedikaka

159 Owonrinonirosun

168 Ogunda Ose

177 Owonrin Otuurupon

195 Owonrinonirosun

249 Iwori Otuurupon

15 Oyekulogbe

7 Marriage fertility 8 sharp brain (children) 9 Lunacy – sexual

urge/power of vision

7 Okanransode

16 Ogberikasa

25 Iworiwosa

43 Otuurupon Otura

61 Ikawonrin

70 Idin Amileke

88 Ogunafun

142 Obara Ogunda

34 Otura Meji

48 Irete Olota

106 Osedi

115 Owonrin Okanran

133 Ofun Ogunda

142 Obara Ogunda

151 Okanran Iwori

160 Ogbe Ose

205 Okanran Oturnpon

214 Idinka

8 Ogundalogbe

17 Osa Meji

26 Osesa

35 Owonrin Elejigbo

53 Ofunwonrin

62 Obara Owinrin

71 Okanran Irete

143 Oyeku Ogunda

44 Irosun Atere

62 Obara Owinrin

80 Ogbefun

107 Otuurupondi

116 Irete Okanran

125 Ika Okanran

134 Idingunda

152 Ogunda Iwori

161 Osa Ose

170 Ose Meji

9 Iworibogbe

27 Otuurupponsa

54 Idinaarin

63 Oyeku Owonrin

18 Oturasa

36 Irete Esekun ola

45 Ika Otura (Alaparo)

72 Ogundakete

81 Osafun

90 Osefun

108 Irosun Odi

117 Ofunkanran

126 Obara Okanran

135 Okanran Ogunda

144 Ogbeworin

153 Iwori meji

162 Otura Ose

171 Otuurupon Ose

223 Oyeku Ika

232 Ogunda Obara

241 Osa Oyeku

250 Oseyeku (Igbadu)

79 Oyeku Irete

97 Osadi

178 Otura Otuurupon

187 Otuurupon meji

196 Irete Irosun

206 Obaraokosun

215 Okanran Ika

224 Ogbebara

233 Iwori Opajuba

242 Obara Oyeku

251 Ika Oyeku

89 Iwori Wofun/Igbado

188 Irosun Oturupon

179 Irosun tutu

98 Oturadi

87 Okanran Ofun

180 Irete Otuurupon

207 Oyeku Irosun

216 Ogunda womabeaka

225 Osabara

234 Osebara

243 Owonrinyeku

252 Arosun takeleku

189 Ika Otuurupon

98 Otura odi /lafenwa

99 Owonrinsindin

198 Idinaisun

189 Odi Irosun

FOLKMEDICINE

Folkmedicine is an aspect of traditional medicine closely related to the

culture of a people and their level of economic development. The ingredients are

readily available in the immediate environment. Hence the treatments are very

cheap, so cheap that the poorest members of the society could readily pay for the

clinical services. The practitioners are mostly diviners (babalawo in most cases)

priests of some Orisas (Osun, Ogun, Orisanla and Akire) and chiefs, baales and

baales, who by their positions in the society have offer voluntary clinical services

at both peace and war times.

Due to modernization, many people in African today consider folkmedicine

as primitive art, irrelevalnt to modern life. But to the surprise of many people

some cases have to referred to folkmedicine practitioners’ healing homes or

centres. There are occasions when patients from General hospital have to seek the

help of folkmedicine practitioners commong among such people are those who

suffer from hyblood pressure, dysentery, diabeties and others. Cases of attack in

the dream, like, eating, having sex, beign shot or wounded, are better reported to

the folkmedicine clinics.

Folkmedicine is however, not peculiar to primitive people or peoples of the

underdeveloped or developing worlds. Today there are herbalists in Britain where

they are called botanic practitioners. They are really successors of Galen and

Thipocrates (500BC) the father of medicine. The orthodox medicine practitioners

are successors of descndents of Hohemheir of the fifteen century, who started the

art of using minerals on the bodies of his patients. His ideas were those of a

chemist about the human body. After his death there were hundereds of people

who took up his practice of giving minerals in place of herbs , roots and barks.

History – of orthodox medicine.

In the year 1490 AD, there was a physician in Germany, named William

Bombast Von Hohemhein. When his son was born he named him Theophratus

Von Hohemhein. The son was carefully taught in the same school (of herbalism)

as his father. When he became dissatisfied with the methods of the school, he went

into the mine Tyrol where he observed minerals purified by action of other

minerals and conceived the idea of purifying human bodies in the same way.

Herbs were the first medicine used by man. American Indians use some of

the sam herbs for the same diseases as they did in Christ’s time.

Chancroids and gonorrhea were known from earlier time, and may have

existed since the time of Egypt. Many of our clients in the folkmedicine centre

found the use of chemicals (antibiotics) helpless, especially in the case of chronic

gonorrhea. Shphilis once called by Italians as ‘French Disease’ is one of such

diseases. However, the French people claimed that it originated in Spain. This

means that diseases usually originate at certain places due to the culture of the

people.

In the scientific western cultre, even as late as the middle of the nineteth

century disease was still shrouded mystery (Baker, A.O and Mills, L, 1948 –

Dynamic Biology Today: N.Y; Rand McNally & Co). Today, we claim that much

is known about diseases that no one needs to place his life in jeopardy by relying

on folkmedicine, considered to be unscientific, as source for advice about health.

Yet experience has proved us wrong. The use of chemicals to ‘purify’ human body

seems to have much disadvantages than folkmedicine. The drugs available have

their side effects. Also, another menace has risen, and that is the high-powered

sales effort back to many remedies, represented by printed pamphlets and

booklets, advertisements in newspaper and magazines and pronouncements over

the radio. Some remedies that are advertised have real curative values: (though not

free from haved side effects); others are as worthless as those presented through

the untrained practitioners.

Some of the herbs used in folkmedicine practice are:

Ewe ere (beans) phasoolus hunatus

Eso oburo aframomum melegueta

Imi ssu (ragweed) ageratum compzoides

Ewe Rere Cassia accidentalis

Omonigunniginni Cusaila spp. Dodda.

Esisi ile Desmodium adscendens

Ewuro Veronia amysdalina

Lobotuje Jatropha Curcas

J’Omo oruke Croton Lobatus

Owu Crossypium spp.

Oruru Spathodea campanus

Jenjoko Cissampedes ovariensis

Ewe igbagba Solanum spp.

Ewe Ooyo Corchorus olitorius

Ewe Ekuku Cynometra manni

Ewe Aanu Caesal/Piniacaace vitex things; foliu

Ewe Agogo igun Heliotropum Indicuum

Ewe ako ibepe Carica papaya

Eeru Xylopia aethiopia

Ahun (ewe/epo) Alstonia congensis

Orin Ayin anogeisus schimperi

Etiponola Boerhaavia spp. (Hogwead)

Egusi Watermelon – Citrullus vulgaris

Egusi Aije Citrullus spp.

Egele Anstralian Asthma

Ako ire Funtumia Africana

Yenrin (efo) wildlethuce) Lactuca taraxacifolia

Iyere piper guineense (climbing Black pepp

Odu (efo) Solanum modiflorum

Akara Oso Cnestis ferraginea

Emo agbo Pupalia lappacea.

Ewo ooyo aje Corchorus aestuans

Oburo Grain of paradise – Aframomum Melaguet.

In folkmedicine practices divination is much involved… At this centre we

are aware that knowledge about our world is very complex. The awareness of

beings that exist around man. These beings are associated with certain forces.

Some of these forces are identified as Orisa. The principles adopted by the

ancients have been identified as the principles of numerology and vibration.

We know that all thigns in the universe are subjected to rule.the movement

of the planets, the sequence of the seasons and the structure of the physical bodies

are not determined by chance or by coincidence but by mathematical laws; for

example the law of numerology. While Yoruba cosmology deals with the world

created and theocracy with the world formed, Ifa literary corpus is concerned with

another world entirely, the world of formation. The quality of this world is that of

its dynamic nature as it is worked upon by Art of creation proclaimed by Divine

Message.

The Yoruba are realists. They usually endeavour in art or literature to

produce or describe life as it actually appears. They employe metomymy,

metaphor, euphemism, allegory, mythology, fables and satire to describe events or

things as if they are real in the learners’ life experience. For example, instead of

saying that Orunmila wants to learn how to behave well, the Ese Ifa said that

Orunmila was going to (Iwa is Yoruba word for character – in this case – good

manners).

The use of Ikun and Opele (Ifa divination instruments) reveals that Odu

signatures were not just signs. They are based on certain rational laws and

principles. The selection of materials for divination instruments reveals that Ifa is a

kabbalah. The Ibo used to determine yes or no consists of two sacred cowry shells

tied together face to face, signifying yes and a piece of mammalian bone,

signifying no. in the language of digital computer, 2 = 1 and 1 = 0 And we know

that in Ifa divination system 2 = yes and 1 = 0.

The first personalized number concept abstracted by the ancient people is

the number 2. The cue to code used to develop the 256 Odu Ifa is hidden in one of

the Ese Ifa of Eji Ogbe. The Ese is an allegory based on the number two, i.e. Eji in

Yoruba. Eji Ogbe is a short form of the expression Eji in Mo Gbe. The natural

history of the pigeon was used to cue the principle of Arithmomancy used in Ifa

literary corpus, including the style of writing the signatures. The Ese Ifa says in

part.

Eji mi mo gbe

Nko gbe enikokan mo

A d ‘Ifa fun Eye oko

Nigbati ngbe inu igbo.

Meaning:

I bless in pairs

I no longer bless one by one

Ifa divination was preformed for Eye oko

When she was living in the bush.

The number of EJi Ogbe is 256.

All the arts and sciences were based on the same cosmic truths expressed in

number, it is impossible to exaggerate the respect in which these numbers were

held by those who had knowledge and experience of their potential influence on

human thought and actions. The inner mysteries of the numerical cosmology were

known only to the initiated ministers of the temple, who were forbidden to

disclose them and considered it in no one’s interest that they should do so. In the

same sense the initiated of Ifa are referred to as Babalawo. There is a hierarchy in

numbers. A certain order is apparent among them which stimulates the human

imagination to find correspondences in terms of the mythic events and figures of

cosmogency.

Each number is a symbol with a corresponding principle in e very class of

creation, and together they represent the primeval view of a reality which still

remains unaltered and will so remain as long as the human race endures.

Confronted with facts such as these, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion

that cosmic canon, is inherent in the solar system as in every other department of

nature was revealed to men, not invented by them.

In the ancient under the institution of the cosmic temple, it was reckoned

that, since all men fall under the influence of certain gods or types, it was well that

these gods be recognized and accommodate, allow to present their beneficial

aspects instead of being left to manifest themselves as the monsters images of

human ignorance and superstition. According to plato, the Egyptians of his own

time, the fourth century BC, still remained the sacred canon of proportion, which

have preserved the stability of their society over many thousand of years. The

names of the gods (Orisa) vary with languages, but it was formerly possible for an

adept to recognize the corresponding principles in each system by Arithmomancy,

the science of theological interpretation by number. Every Orisa has a number

which determines the mode of approach to divination. Here are some of the Orisas

and their numbers. Oduduwa, Orisanla Eji Ogbe 256 = 4

Yemoja Ogbegunda 128 = 2

Odu, Iyami, Egbe Opa Osa Meji = 17 = 8

Osun Irele Meji = 68 = 5

Moremi Ogne Alara = 32 = 5

Olokun Irentegbe = 4 = 4

Ogun Ogunda Meji = 136 = 1

Ogiyan, Olufon Eji Ogbe = 256 = 4

Sango, Oranfe Irele Olota = 52 = 7

Orisa Oko Ogbedi = 96 = 6

Ori Eji Ogbe = 256 = 4

Osara Ose Meji 202 = 4

Esu Idin Ileke = 70 = 7

Aje Ogbe aate 64 = 1

Egungun Owinrin Meji 51 = 6

Epe Ose oniwo 58 = 4

Obaluaye Ogundase (Irosun) 200 = 2

Odede (Oranyan) Ogunda Iwori 152 = 8

Olu Orogbo Otunruponsa 27 = 9

Ela Otuurupongbe 11 = 2

Kori Ose meji 170 = 8

Agbonniregun Iwori Meji 153 = 9

Agemo Osawonrin 49 = 4

Obarese Otuuruponka 219 = 3

Igun Iworiwofun 89 = 8

There are evidences to recognize the fact that man of these orisa exist in

form of disembodied spirits. John Sekora and Darwin J. Turner (eds) in “The Art

of Salve Narratives; Original Essay in Criticism and theory”. Western Illinois UP

1952 – page 40 – gave a strong background to the fact. “African Americans have

always been aware of the presence of “haunts or spirits, are living persons who

travel at might “leave” their skins behind, they are called “ witches” lags Just as

the Yoruba Aje, the African – American persons of two bodies literally “step out”

of their skin to go “riding” while most of the narratives concerning “riding”

involves women men also go “riding”. For example, a displaced Oso and his son.

In their astral bodies, the Oso’ enter their oppressors’ home though a key hole and

“they turn the overseer (their victim) into a bull and his son into a bull and his son

into a bull yearling (a lamb), mount them, and spend the might riding and

whipping them (Levine, Lawrence, W. Black Culture and Black Consciousness

NY. Oxford UP, 1977.

Rebecca Tackson, in the 1830s to 1850s wrote her memories published in

1981 as Gifts of Power Jackson’s experience intimate a link with Oya as she states

that her power came to her in storms during one terrifying storm, Jackson called

on God and her soul became fully empowered. Following her upliftment, Jackson

found she had gifts of prophecy, mind reading, healing and ofo, ase, the power to

turn words into action. Most significantly, Jackson had the astral ability to fly

through the air “like a bird” astrally and converse with spirits and ancestors. In

material world, her astral powers are only slightly reduced. She could levitate,

control the elements (stop rain and thaw frozen rivers), walk through walls, and

handle fire without getting hunt. While walking to her prayer missions, she

covered city blocks in seconds, moving with what Yoruba would call KAAKO

without the material preparation.

Jean McMathon Humez, (ed) Gift of Power: the writings of Rebecca

Jackson – Amherst: University of Massachusetts 1981.

She was a member of the African Methodist Episcopal church.

Walker, Barbara J. The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets - Sam

Francisco: Harper, 1983. Jackson said “for all these years I have been under the

tuition of invisible spirits, who communicate to me from day to day the will of

God concerning one and concerning various events that have taken place and those

transpiring now and those that yet will occur in the earth.

What is most compelling is that her original spiritual guides, who later

became humanity embodied is a Great Mother “I saw that might for the first time,

a Mother in the deity… I was obedient to the heavenly vision – as I see all that I

hold forth that is, with my spirit eye.

Prof. D’ Haifa Odufora Ifatoogun (doctor of Clinical Hydrotherapy) the Iya

Araba Agbaye – on 11h March 1995 recorded a vivid experience. She said, “Orisa

in essence is purely energy, and is consequently devoid of absolutely any bias in

its application. When one attempts to restrict particular individuals from full

participation in the Orisa experience, not only is s/he interfering with destiny of

said persons, but also in the interim, is unwittingly expending precious energy

rendered by Orisa for he/r personal evolution. She is an American Jew. She bought

“Oyo” from Kwara State in Nigeria. She brought the Orisa to America. She told

the Orisa, “if you are really Oya I want you to convince me through your

interaction with me” the image did not react for a period of six months. One night,

at about 3.00am, a woman woke her up, identified herself as Oya and discussed

with her at length. According to her, Orisa frequently alternate awakening between

the hours 0330 –0400 to communicate Revelations, directive or answer to personal

inquiries.

The Metaphysical Information Highway (MIH) has divulge that there is an

imminent change of reqeuncy in progress throughout the universe, and Orisa

wants to participate in this phenomenon of its own energetic level (that is what

each number 1 – 256 representing Odu Ifa symbolizes). The upliftment that Orisa

aspires for the universe requires its devotees, in every category, to harmonize in

the present context before we can shift to higher vibration.

This brings us to the theory of vibration. The client of a Babalawo “speaks

to a piece of money” and presents to the divining instrument. In that wise, the

client speaks from his cosmic mind and the vibrations are translated into messages

by the spirits or Orisa around who understand the symbol presented at the casting

of the Opele, or the invoked one whose Odu is consulted when the method use is

Radiesthesia. The theory of vibration claims that you can read and send

throughout, project into the future even tune in the cosmic mind for information

concerning anything or any one. You may receive messages from guardian angels

– direct communication with God – souls operate on different planes from our

own: they have access to previous information denied normal mortals – hence

divination is necessary to communicate with the other world around us.

There is a wealth of texts detailing African slaves of America who embody

the buzzard or other eye and leave the land of oppression Julius Lester’s Black

Folktales recounts the technique of a comparer who uses an ase-filled word to fly.

He teaches the word to all field-slaves, and at a specified moment, they all utter

the word of ase and rise from the bloody fields.

Divination follows in steps. Step 1, you invoke your guide – Guides are

allotted on the planes of spirits, and this is worked out about two years before the

birth of a child. During the formative years of the child the guide is often absent,

as it needs instruction by higher powers as to the purpose of its charge has in life

and any alternations in the original plans are communicated to it. When the child

reaches adolescence, the position is reviewed, and very often fresh guides and

controls are allotted.

In a special other word experience I was made aware that everybody has his

own personal guidance. Angel; (maybe Orisa). Mine is a lady dressed indeep-blue

dress with shining sparkling stones. She is light in complexion. Later I discovered

that she is Osun I saw under the pyramid in my other-world-experience in 1986.

The Odu Ifa is Osemeji (170 = 8) connected with success in academic work and

business or trade.

The Odu Ifa Osa Meji (is associated with clairvoyance is used to start

divination. You call the guidance Angel three times to descend and minister unto

you. It the angel responds by the swinging to the instrument from left to right

(back and forward in the cases of great creative forces like Olodumare, Oduduwa

and Orisa Nla). The symbols for the answers are, left to right direction means yes,

anti-clockwise is highly probable or joyful clockwise doubtful front and back

means certain, and no movement means no.

When you receive positive answer, then you inquire if you can ask certain

questions directly from her. If the answer is negative, then you ask for the name of

the special being to whom you question may be directed. Then you change to the

Odu Ifa related to that force or Being. Very common ones are Oduduwa (Eji

Ogbe) Orisa Nla (Eji Ogbe), Olodumare (Eji Ogbe), Osun (Irete meji), Sango

Oranfe, Takata (Irete Olota) ori (head – Eji Ogbe), Esu (idin ileke) Aje (Ogbeaate)

Odede – Oranyan (Ogunda Iwori), Ogunda Iwori etc. then you ask straight

forward question – avoiding such questions as should I go to school or not. Just

say I want to go to school, should I. Then you revere the source of your message

or answer to your questions. Inquire as to the type of message or answer. Then

proceed.

Eerindinlogun Cuba Interpretations

Okana sode (Okanran) if there is nothing good there is nothing bad.

Eyioko (Eji oko) An arrow between brothers

Oggunda (Ogunda) Arguments cause tragedies

Eyorosun (Irosun) no one knows what lies at the bottom of the sea.

Oche (Ose) Blood flows through the veins

Obbara (Obara) A king does not lie

Oddi (Odi) where the hole (grave) was first dug

Eyeunle (Eji Ogbe) the head carries the body

Ossa (Osa) your best friend is your worst enemy

Ofun (Ofun) where the curse was born

Ojuani (Owinrin) water cannot be carried in a basket

Eyila cbehora (Ejilaasebora)

Metunla (Eta la )

Merinla

Mann nla

Medilogun

Of the above Oddu numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15 and we are major.

The minor odu are 5, 6, 7, 9, 11.

THE PLIGHT OF A KABBALIST

DANIEL – A CASE STUDY

Daniel chapter 2 magicians/astrologers

And the king said unto the chaldeans, I have dreamed a dream and sorcerers my

spirit was troubled to know the dream.

If ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me

gifts and rewards and great honour…

They answered and said, let the king tell his servants the dream and we will

shew the interpretation of it.

But if ye will not make unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you,

…

The chaldeans answered before the king and said. There is not a man upon

the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, Lord, nor

ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologers, or chaledean.

That the king requireth and there is that can shew it before the king

the whose dwelling

For this cause the kind was very angry and very furious, and commanded to

destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

And the degree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they

soughs Daniel and his fellows to be slain.

The Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom, to Arioch the captain of the

king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon…

Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time,

and that he would shew the king the interpretation.

Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Han-a-niah,

Mishael and Azariah, his companions.

That they would desire mercies of the

of heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his fellows should not

perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in the night vision. The Daniel

answered and said; be the name of God for eve rand forever for wisdom and might

are his.

He the deep and secret things; he knoweth what is in the darkness, and

the light dwelth with him.

I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me

wisdom and might and hast made known unto me now what we desire of thee:

Above is what we can regard as the tradition of any kabbalah institution. A

kabbalah institution is a society for promoting the communication between man

and the world – beyond.

Beyond this earth planes (Yoruba = Ikole Aye) lies the immense infinite

plane of Astral (Yoruba – Ikole Orun) stretching out until they merge with the

planes of spirit (equivalent to Yoruba Orun) the abode of God (Yoruba –

Olodumare) which at times is referred to as the celestial plane.

The Gnostics however, mostly agreed in supposing that there has exited

eternally an ineffable being (to this Yoruba seemed to give the name Olodumare –

Olorun; since Orun refers to the celestial plane). From this being a series of

powers or axons have come into existence, in such a way, however, as to form, not

one equal world of spirits, but a series of sphenes of existence, each further

removed than the last form of the Supreme Being, and the less capable of knowing

Him and its own relation to Him. The material world (Ikole Aye) is the product of

the last of this series, and the evil in it is really a kind of darkness which hides

from material being (human races) their true place in the universe and their proper

distance from the source of all things.

The unity of God of which we are a part is the key of all kabbalistic

thought. Let us have a model to describe this unity. When the decision is reached

that a member of a particular soul or group wishes to become embodied

(incarnate) for the purpose of developing himself to come to the earth plane to

perform a certain task for mankind he ascends to the celestial plane to acquire

“life’ the eternal form of which belongs to the Supreme Being. When a child is

born the child descends into a strange world. The material elements of which his

physical body is made blots out most of the memories of the spiritual world, but

some people retain the memories of past lives (after process of reincarnation)

vividly and clearly. One great ‘fact of life’ is that most beings in the spirit world

can carry out their wishes in the physical world only by inspiring physical human

beings to carry out such wishes. However the ordinary man on the street simply

assumes it is “God” speaking through the man.

Bascom gave a appropriate proposition for describing the unity in question,

when he gave the title “Ifa Divination: communication between Gods and Men in

West Africa”. (1969 – Bloomington: Indiana, UP). At the beginning the

communication seemed direct and voluntary. In the most cases as in the Yoruba

and Fanti belief systems the Supreme Being, God, does not interfere with human

affairs. There is no priesthood and no ceremonies are held specifically for the

purpose of obtaining His good will. There is no sacred grove, shrine or temple

where worshippers could have direct contact with Him.

To the Yoruba, it is irrelevant inquisiveness to aspire to know about the

nature of Olodumare’s purpose of creating the word they consider it most

necessary to understand the link between life here and beyond. This is because to

them, the work is incomprehensible.

Like the Yoruba, the Fanti believe in existence of a high God popularly

known as Nyame who created the world and everything in it, including lesser

deities and spirits who derive their power from Him, like Olodumare, Nyame has

no priesthood, and no ceremonies are held specifically for the purpose of invoking

this good will. Among the Fon of the Republic of Benin, Mawu the creator with

Lisa, gave birth to all the principal deities in Benin.

In the beginning the Yoruba attitude to Olodumare seemed universal.

According to Revered Samuel Johnson in the History of the Yoruba, the Yorubas

believe in the existence of an ALMIGHTY GOD, him they term Olodumare, i.e.

Lord of Heaven. They acknowledge Him, maker of heaven and earth, but too

exalted to concern themselves directly with men and their affairs… similarly,

Loango Negroes believe in supreme thunder god , who is good and not dangerous,

may be as they considered Him to be unconcerned about human affairs, they

became more concerned about ghosts and spirits who are malevolent and have to

be feared. This Supreme God is Lugaba. Probably, find themselves in a similar

condition, they Yoruba then admit the existence of many god (Orisa) around

whom mystery religious are developed.

The Yoruba believe that the Orisa are capable of governing the world and

control human affairs, they can help to appeal to Olodumare to provide man with

anything he wants. For example they can help to appeal to Olodumare to give

children but cannot “create” children themselves.

One of the customs of the Yoruba that has remained indubitable (too plain

to admit of a doubt) despite the influence of Christianity and Islam is, what for

want of proper description, ancestors – worship. Africans still old to the wise

saying that “Blessed is he who remembereth his parents when communicating

with God”. Every prayer is preceded by saying some Ijuba, starting from the living

or dead parents, the Orisa of the family, all the recognized Orisa and Spirit, before

the supplication is directed to the appropriate Orisa.

The unity of God of which we are a part is the key to all kabbalistic

thought. However, only those people who see life as more than comfort, power

and status may go on to perceive the inner and upper connections with the superior

world. This stage, however, requires more than desire for, even glimpses of, that

other reality, is needed to begin with self-knowledge. King Solomon, the man who

according to legend knew three worlds was a king with a deep understanding of

esoteric matters.

The simple process of kabbalistic thought as described in the above Bible

passage are:

1. Esoteric knowledge – possession of it in verses 3 and 4 the king has to

seek the help of the “wise” people in his kingdom in as much as

possible, the knowledge acquired is not just for selfish life – pursuit of

money, power, influence or otbers, but to interpret the symbols included

in oemn (augur) reveled to the earth.

2. A clear identification of the problem – see verse 1, second part – “You

have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the time

change” A Kabbalist is a mystic as well. He mediates as a matter of fact.

Verse 10… there is no a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand

and verse 11, the thing that the king asks is difficult, and none can show

it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

3. The actual communion with the sources of knowledge – verse 17,

Daniel went into his house discussed with his companions, and asked

them to seek mercy of the God of heaven concerning this mystery…

verse 19. Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the

night.

4. To satisfy the king he has to process the revealed truth. In the message

of Donald the father of Bill (Phillips P, 1975 Here and There. London

Corgi Books) the processing is described.

Here lies a great measure of truth

Truth is never found free… it is

Like the gold ion the rocks which must be crushed, refined

and subjected to other processes.

5. Then you have to offer thanks for praise the source of the secret

knowledge.

A method used in the Yoruba kabbalah centre for this purpose is

Radiesthesia – Daniel 2 :19… Blessed be the name of God, Danil,e 2:22 he

revealeth the deep and secret things.

Paul twitchell 1971 the spiritual notebooks California, illuminated way press

In preeding cycles the red and black races ruled successively with powerful

civilization. They left reminders of their supremacy in gigantic ruins, such as the

templed structures of Mexico.

According to the Hindu traditions, civilization began on the southern

continent while all of Europe and part of Asia were under water. The red race

inhabited that part of southern continent we know as Atlantis. Atlantis was

eventually destroyed by a great earth quake, scattering its people. The Polynesians,

North American Indians and the Aztecs are descendents of the race that once

inhabited this now sunken continent.

Following the breaking of the red race, the black race took dominance over

the known world. They came out of the region known today as Ethiopia, and

established their supremacy on the Mediterranean shores. This black movement

precipitated a migration of the Aryan (White race) out of central Asia into Iran,

India, and the countries of the Far East, to establish the first Aryan civilization.

They mixed with the red, black and yellow races.

The white races then over threw the black cities that had been established

on the European coast, and later invaded North Africa and central Asia. They

released the slaves of the black men, who had been forced into helping create an

advanced civilization.

RIGHTS OF WOMEN TO DIVINE POWER

The struggle between men and women as to who has the right to Divine

Power, is just of recent. In Yorubaland we need to heed Peter Heyl’s (1970) advice

in “The Revolt of the Netherlands” – (London: Ernest Benn Ltd) that:… to

understand than pride in borrowed feathers was no true”.. pride in borrowed

culture including economic, religious and social culture and so on is not true.

To believe that men exclusively have the right to divine power is not true.

In Republican Rome (Church History to AD 325) it is recorded that from Persia

cane a form f monotheism, the worship of the sun – god, Mithras, which had taken

strong hold on the army and they may betraced whenever the legions have left

marks of their occupation make it very doubtful if the claim by the Christians to

monotheism is right. There had been a sort of Olodumae worship, an equivalent of

Persian Mithras.

Most of Pierre Verger’s Ese Ifa in “Grandeur Et Decadence Du Culture de

Iyami Osoronga” deal with the struggles between man and woman for the right to

divine power. The title “Iyami Osoronga” belongs to women exclusively.

The women at Ota organized the cult of the witches. Their president being

called Iyalode each member has to have a calabash (with cover) in which to

keep her bird (Eiye).

The calabash containing the bird has to be kept in a secret place unknown to any

other person besides the own it could even be buried under the ground.

To operate, the calabash is opened, and the bird is sent on an errand.

When we are dealing with radio we have an aerial system which absorbs or

attract or intercepts (all it what you like) the waves coming through the

atmosphere. Perhaps they are bounced back by the Heaviside layer or the Appleton

layer. But in addition there is a ground wire which makes contact with the ground

wave because you must have two – positive and negative – in everything. You can

take the ground wave as negative and the air wave as positive. So in that matter of

pendulums the human body collects the air wave acting as the antenna or aerial,

and the feel in contact with the ground act as the earth connection, or ‘ground “, its

for correct pendulum work it is necessary to keep the balls of the feet on the

ground unless one use another method of trapping the earth current.

Of course, using a pendulum is simplicity itself. It is even simpler than

simplicity if we know why a thing works. Pendulum really work ! many Japanese

tell the sex of unborn babies by the use of a pendulum. They use a gold ring

suspended on a piece of string or thread, and it is held above the stomach of the

pregnant woman. The direction or type of movement indicates the sex of the child

yet to be born. Incidentally, many Chinese and Japanese use a pendulum for

sexing eggs!

A radio set uses electric current for reproducing sound which was broadcast

from some distant station. Television sets use current also in reproducing a rough

simulacrum of the picture transmitted from a distant station. So in the same way if

we are going to dowse or use pendulum or anything else we have first of all to

have a source of current we never, never, never let anyone else touch your

pendulum. It’s got to be saturated with our own impressions, you should have

several pendulums. If you never let another person use your pendulum or even

touch it, then candle light you have something as potent and as useful as radar to a

aircraft on a fossy night… can use in the human body. After all, our brains are

really storage of batteries, telephone exchanges, and all that sort of things, but the

main thing is, it is a source of electric current sufficient for all our needs and

sufficient to enable us to ‘detect’ impulses and thereby cause a pendulum to

twitch, swirl, gyrate, or oscillage, or all the other queer thing which a pendulum

does. So, to work a pendulum, we must have a human body, an alive human body

at that. You cannot tie a pendulum to a hook and expect it to work because there

would be no source of current.

With the use of a pendulum we must have the necessary current variation to

do the “necessary”. Who is going to very the current, well, the overself, of the

course. That is the brightest citizen we have around us, you know. After all, you

who read this are just one-tenth conscious, so, knowing yourself, just think how

brilliant you would be if you could call in the other nine – tenths of consciousness.

The subconscious is brilliant, it knows everything that you have ever known, can

do everything that you could ever do, and can even remember every simple

incident since long before you were born. So if you could touch your sub-

conscious you would get to know a very considerable amount of things, wouldn’t

you? You can touch your sub-conscious – with practice and with confidence.

The sub-conscious can also contact other sub-conscious minds. There are

trustfully no limits to the powers of the sub-couscous mind when the sub-

conscious mind is allied to other subconscious minds, then indeed results may be

achieved.

The pendulum cannot be wrong. The sub-consciousness cannot be wrong.

You can. You can go wrong with the form your questions take and your

interpretations of the answers. Now, with computers one has to use a special

language, otherwise the computer cannot make sense of what one is trying to get

at, so pretend that your pendulum is a computer and frame your questions in such

a clear one-way form that no possibility of error can occur because the pendulum

can indicate Yes or No. it can indicate uncertainty by doing a figure of eight. It can

also indicate what sex a thing or a person is because most times for a man it can

rotate in a right hand circle, clockwise, circle. But for a woman it will rotate in a

left-hand, anti-clockwise, circle. But if the man is very feminine then the poor old

pendulum may go the wrong way, but it is no actually the wrong way, it is just

indicating the necessary attachments, as one would say in the best circles, which

would enable him to pass physiologically as a male specimen. All his thoughts

may be female, so that way the pendulum is far better as a judge than the best

doctor!

…make sure your hands are clean before using the pendulum, otherwise, if,

for instance, you have gardening or stubbing out a cigarette but in some poor

plant’s plant not home, then you will get a reading for soil content of the spores of

your fingers.

There is one little point which I should mention. I will mention it but,

naturally, I would expect that the ordinary rules of whiteness world apply; it is

very, every important indeed that after you have used your pendulum you clasp it

in your two hands to your fore head and then you solemnly thank George for

assisting you in this reading. Thank him three times, do not forget because if you

do not thank thank “him” or “her” according to the elementary rules of politeness

you may not get a response in two or three times hence, remember, your thanks

must be repeated thrice just as your requests have been.

CHRISTIANITY

Christians always imagine that there is no other form of religion except

Christianity, they always imagine that the Christian God goes about with a

flashlight in each hand and perhaps a few candles in this month trying to

illuminate the ways of the heathen who were managing quite well before

Christianity started. Furthermore, Christianity is merely a hitch-potch of

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jewish faith, etc, all looked up to suit a different time

and age.

God is (quite) utterly different from the average Christian conception. As

the Christians visualize “God” it is just a parody (an adaptation of the words of an

author, and so on, to different purpose) of what the ancient ‘heathens’ visualized

as the Gods of Olympus… And so throughout the years Christians have worked

hard to get converts and they were going to make converts even if it killed the

human concerned (is reveres to the teaching f a man that altered people, bent them

around, twisted them in a circle, and reversed everything that the Romans, the

Greeks etc had been doing. If you think that is strange then remember the

crusades, armed bands of brigands invading other peoples who were peacefully

inclined. If you want further food for thought think about the Spanish inquisition

where they “tortured a man to save his soul”.

But all this about ‘returning to God’ is nonsense you don’t return to God at

the end of this life on Earth just as a small child returns to Daddy or Mummy. It is

not like that at all.

Let me again state that God is not standing there with a whacking great

cane, and the devil is not standing there with branding irons either. God is a

positive force, the devil is a negative force, they are not people who praise or

torture.

If a thing is too different from what man can believe, they won’t believe it,

and no believing it, they won’t see it.

Christianity was created by St. Paul (once Saul of Tarsus), who sold the

teachings of Jesus Christ to the world according to his conception of what

Christianity might be.

THE ARYAN

Man’s greatest problem is his sensitivity to the indifference of the universe,

the alienness of the world around him. This sensitivity began to develop in man’s

consciousness during the earlier ages of his time on earth. It probably started in the

great empire of MU, which was a part of that lost continent now lying beneath the

vast pacific. It was the largest of all empires this would has ever known, existing

some 70,000 year BC.

The great cities of the Gobi desert were part of the empire of MU, located

within a vast region of the motherland known as Vighur. It was probably the

largest of the empire, and certainly the greatest this world has ever known. It was

the home of the Aryan race and it was here that Yount-Na, now a teacher of the

Shariyat – Ki – Sugmad on the astral plane, was the leading teacher of

ECKANKAR.

He lived and taught in the capitol city of Kharahita which now lies buried

deep underneath the sands of the Gobi. Some of The old Naacal records, which are

the oldest writings of man and kept in one of the Tibetan Monasteries, speak of

Yuont-Na and his teaching of ECK.

The spiritual works of ECK were popular among upper classes then,

especially among a small group who were taught by secret, oral, instructions. They

acted as a channel for the God force, helping to change the nature of those willing

to listen and practice the transcendental exercises of ECK.

It is not the message that people like Jesus, Buddah, Plato, Rousseau,

Napoleon, Columbus, Lincoln, etc, left to the world, but the image established

through the years that this implanted upon the minds of the individual trying to do

research or studying their works and biographies.

… Therefore the metaphysicians and religionists theory that we are able to

reach God in one lifetime is only a general hypothesis. It is an academic idea.

Those who wish to control the minds of others fail to see something that is

vastly more important than brainwashing….

Every individual living here must use the physical body as his instrument to

express that which comes from beyond. Every soul leaving the physical body at

death must use the body of whatever plane he goes to, be it the astral, causal,

mental or etheric. He becomes the instrument of God on the plane he dwells upon,

but he cannot express himself through the vehicle of another person who is living

on the physical, or any other plane.

ECK has nothing to do with the second coming of Christ, as explained in

Christianity nor the Mitreya, which is the return of Buddha, in the East. Other

religions, too, have been seeking the return of the messiah within their orb of

belief, that they may have peace and happiness once again upon this earth.

The Egyptian Pharaoh of that ancient land was both a god and the son of a

god. Everything in the life of Jesus is told also in the life of Krishna, saviou of the

Hindu religion. Countless men have became gods, through realization of the God

head, an innumerable gods have also become men. The sun gods of Asia were

given the title of Christ, for it is an ancient title among peoples of the pre-christian

era we find saviour gods in various religious, such as Osiris, in Egypt; Mithra, in

Persia; Adonis, in Greece, and Attis, in Phrygia. They lived, preached their

message, died a violent death and alike were resurrected.

… emotion is the principle upon which the astral plane is based.

IFA

Akin Fagbenro Beyioku

Oluwo Ifa and Olulana Ijo Orunmila, Nigeria printed, 54 Taiwo Street

Lagos, 19th Feb. 1910.

This foreward

I do not claim to be a solon in the present work. We all feel something

should be done to present African sciences generally in a more acceptable form

than hitherto done. A beginning has to be made somehow and somewhere. What

are herein set down are hypothesis on which future students could work and

develop in a more detailed form. Many of the publications made up to date either

on Ifa or Isegun are dangerously defective in the sense that the attributes of the

herbs, roots, birds, animals or minerals disclosed for remedial purposes are

prominently absent from such publications. The result is that many of these

publications however good they may be, have been swept aside by many

professionals as “not worth of the salt”.

He cited a verse of Eji Ogbe

Adeyemi ni a wo Ajiki

Adeyemi awo Ajike

Adeyemi awo aa ji fi oro rere lo

Awo mi dun ladunju awo oba

Lo d’Ifa fun Lala ni Ode Oyo

Afaka ni a nfe ina,

Alakaye ni orun nla

Esinsin a fi a moni ko ni mora,

Aso alaso ni Oga gba

Ijo ti ilu gangan ba wo ilu t’eru t’omo ni jo:

Isaju lo ni ki ese iwaju mi,

Oriji lo ni ki efi ire gbogbo ju mi

Ogo mide, omo lewuyi

Ire kan soso ni mo pe,

Igba ire ni ko ma je mi.

AYAJO (AFEKA)

IWORI MEJI

II II ibi ti a ni ki gbegbe ma gbe ni gbegbe gbe

I I ibi ti a ni ki tete ki o ma te ni tete te

I I

I I I I Ibi ti a ni ki Ekuya ma gbe ni nfa

Ewu gburugburu

Odi Meji

Oju se meji awo ran,

Bebe idi se, meji ajoko lori eni

A d’Ifa fun olora ni Moro

Won ni ki oruboyun ati ibujoko

OGBEDI

Oni winniwinni ogbodi

Ola winniwinni ogbedi

Gunnugun ba le owule

Oju re to aye

Oju re to orun

A d’Ifa fun Elese, ti nsokun airibi,

O nsokun airipon

O fi owo osun te ogiri gbigbe

Bi a se agbere loko

Bi a se agbere l’odo

Omo lere ogbedi

OGBEWEHUN

Ikini ni ijeni

Isoro ni igbesi (idanilohun)

Iji owo ni iki Oyo

Oke e l’ohun Ijesa

Majamaja ni nwon nki ara won ni ketu

Bi aba ki Agbe ni akiju a se bi eni ntoro isuju lowo nwon

A dif a fun Agba ti nsokun omo re ode igbehin

Nwon ni ki ofi eku Emo rubo, ki ofi Agbebo run

Ogbo o sir u ebo, o di Olomo

IWORI-WO-DIN

Isin ni nse awo won ni ile Alara

Oburo f’ ehinti awo won ni ode Ajero

Owu ki la ki inu bi oloko

A d’ Ifa fun Iwori ni ijo tin re wo idi loju

Kini wo oju idi san,

Iwori lo wo oju idi san, iwori.

IKA MEJI

Aroko kala wa’aiye,

Ejo nla ko lagbalagba wo sa

Lo d’Ifa fun Orunmila

Nijo ti o nlo ko omo orun bo wa s’aiye

Ika meji lo ni kin won ma gbogbo ibi kuro lona.

The dynamic nature of Ese Ifa –

Ologose da Ifa si le, ore idire so awo

Arere da Ifa sile Ore idire je eru

Akeke te tire sile sinu Aga Oyinbo,

Sowola, Sowola jingbin jingbin sinrinjinja

A d’Ifa fun Orunmila.

Ifa yio mu owo kan se owo ola ni Out Ife.

Respect for the creative mind of the white man (Aryan culture)

Ti eyinju tan ina Aw Alara

Abebe mu iwa-gun Awo Ijero

Ara ti Oyinbo da ko le baje Awo Oyinbo

Lo d’ Ifa fun Oloyinbo

Nwon ni Oyinbo ru Eiyele Merindinlogun

Ki oru egberindinlogun,

Ki gbogbo ara ti nda ki o ma le baje

Oyinbo gbo oru…

The Irunmoles which employ some odu as their mouth pieces or as the

medium of manifestation are:

Sango = Otura Oriko - Ogun Ogunda Meji

Ibeji = Ogundasa – Yami osoronga = Osa meji

Egungun = Oturupon Meji – Oke = Otura Meni

Erinle Iwori Obara – Oranyan = Obaraka

Sopono Ogbe Egun – Elegbara = Ogbe Egun

Oro Iwori Wofun – Oya = Owori Ayoka

Obatala Eji Ogbe – Agemo Eluku = Oyeka Meji

Igun Ofun Maleka – Osun = Idinleke

Odu ti afi da awon ilu sile

Ile-Ife Eji Ogbe (Ejerindinlogun)

Ile-sa Owon rinsogbe

Egba Iwori wofun

Ibadan Ose Meji

Ijebu Ose Turu

Lagos (Eko) Idinka

Ijero Odi Meji

Iseyin Okanidu tutu

Ikole Oturupon Arin

Ofa Irete Arin

Owu Obeaate

Ado Obara Meji

Oshogbo Idin-leke

Alahusa (Hausa land) Otura Meji

Oyo Otura gorogbe

Tapa (Nupe) Ofun Maleka

Aganyi (Ghana) Obaraka

Ketu Ogbe Egun

Iru in Lagos Ogbe Aate

Ilawe Osetura

Dahomey (Benin Republic) Ogunda Meji

Saro (Sierra Leone) Osalogbe

Sexual Relation of the Odus

Male Female Male Female

Eji Ogbe Oyeku Oturupon Ika

Iwori Odi Owinrin Irosun

Obara Okanran Otura Irete

Ose Ofun Ogunda Osa

Ebo otura meji

Pay your debts and be relieved or to employ a Pauline phrase “No shedding of

blood no remission of sins”.

“Awonrinwon nla ni nse oju maromaro,

On lo bi Ebo ni Igba iwase

Awonrinwon nla tin se oju maromaro on lo bi eiey keiye

On lo bi eniyan k’eniyan ni igba iwase.

Ebo la olu,

Oya awon Aladelade, oya awon olo, aloja, oya Alara

Oya Ajero, oya Orangun Ila ni Owo o wa di lehin na

Ebo ku o lo si orun Alakeji. Awon omo Eleiye dide won ni awon yio

gba gbese ti awon Alade alade awon oloja oloja je; awon yio gba

gbese ti awon Alara, awon ajero ati awon Orangun Ile Ila je Ebo.

Nwon ko won ko san owo gbese won. Awon omo Eleiye lo fi ejo

sun Orunmila. Nwon pere si mura ki ara ni awon tin won je Ebo

nigbese tin won ko san. Awon omo Aladealade, awon omo

Olojaoloja, awon omo Alara, awon omo Ajero, omo Orangun Ile Ila

bere si saisan. Awon Aladealade, Olojaoloja, Alara, Ajero ati

Orangun Ile Ila sure lo ba Orunmila lati lo d’ Ifa. Ifa wa so fun won

pe ki now lo san gbese tin won je Ebo fun awon omo Eleiye. Nwon

rue be ara awon omo won da.

AWURE

II II Oyeku Meji

II II Tutu ni aa ro ide

II II Tutu ni aa ro baba

A ki ri idi Okun

A ki ri idi Osa

Aso alaso ni oga gbaa

A gbe kit e ni oko idaro

Odidere kit e ni oko Isepo

Afaila olojo

Dandan nka isai la ni temi

Gbogbo ara ni Orisa fi n fe Afin

Arobi

Dundun ni ti odundun

Ero wo ni ti Tete

Er ni ti rinrin

Ijo ogede ba pon ni ti inu re di obu

Gbigbona ni adie ye eyin re

Ti o ba de ile a di tutu…

Eji ogbe

Oluyana la ona rere fun mi loni

Ti Osan ba pon ni igbo se ni ala ona to o

Bi eyin ba pon ni igbo se ni a la ona to o

Bi Ata ba pon ni igbo se ni ala ona too

T’igbo t’iju ni nran owu egungun.

To punish a witch

“If you are be witched, boil a beef heart and while it is cooking, keep striking it

with a needle, the witch well have the same pains, and the spell upon you will be

broken German.

If someone is bothering you and you don’t wasn’t them to, you take a handful of

salt and call their name and throw it over your right shoulder and they will not

bother you Negro.

Ebe Awon Agba

1. Omunu ewe Iyalode Opolopo

2. Omunu ewe Ewuro “

3. Ewe Apaisa (Imi Esu) “

4. Ose

Ori, epo – adin – ni a ma fi po Kankan tuntun – ijo keta keta.

Ogun kokoro

Asunrun Oyinbo die, Jankariwo Oju ina, Eru Alamo pu

Imin ojo pupa. Ose dudu, a o gun mo ose, a o ma fi we.

MIRACLES

In the early church, St. Sebastain healed a Roman soldier’s wife by making

the sing of the cross. St. Christopher (Martyred 250 AD) the saint for travelers

calmed the storm a number of times. St. Nicholas of Myra around the

Mediterranean coast, performed many miracles right from his birth in 280 AD. St.

Nicholas of Zion walked on the sea during his time in the 4th century, St. Patrick

performed so many miracles that one of the pagan kings of Ireland was marveled

to ask him. “Tell us about your God. He has given you greater power” in the

Middle Ages, St. Authony (1195 – 1231) of Padua worked extra-ordinary

miracles. Fish are said to have listened to him preach their heads attentively raised

out of the river when unrepentant and hardened hearts refused to heed his words.

A donkey knelt reverently before the blessed Sacrament, convincing heretics who

had doubted Christ true presence in the host – the Eucharist. A severed foot was

reportedly joined to its owner; a Psalter that was stolen and returned on account of

which he has become the patron of those who have lost something, and the story

of how he saw him holding the child Jesus in his arms when he looked through his

window… St. Dominic worked many miracles with the Holy Rosary and even

used it to defeat heresies and converted hardened sinners.

MOREMI

Igbo vs Ile-Ife

Odu Ose Oniwo

Asa ki se Ode Omu

Omoran kan ki fi ara re joye

Ani iwo l’apo

Awo rere Aiye (aye)

Owo aiye titi bi ki aiye pin

Asa ti obi r’odo lo ko’we inu agbami lo nlo

Okun ki si wo hiho (making a noise)

O sa ki si wo sisan si oke (flowing)

Bi a ti da omi ni aiye ni omi nse

Esuku kogbodo ba ara aiye pe…

Ose worin ki ogun ija

Ofi ariwo ogun bo enu

Oruko t’aiye ko ba ti orun mu

Enikeni ti a bi ko gbodo pe ara re ni Ife

Bee ni eniyan keyan ti abi ko gbodo pe ara re ni ogun

Ko si eniti o gbodo pe ara re ni odo (river)

Pe kin won ma pon on mu

Nakanakan ko gbodo pe ara re ni oro

Omo langidi ko gbodo se bi omo

Itumo eyi nipe ki a mase koja agbara

Ti Oluwa fi fun ni

Arabinrin kan fe oba ni Ile-Ife

Fun odun meedogun ko si bi omo

Nigbati Lowa – gba fun ba ti ko ogun wa

Amaa ta ofa asi ra a fi opa je

Bi ogun lowa-gbafin yi ti po to

Eyi ti o maa wag be ba Ife

Lati ilu igbo, ni bi ti osa lo ‘pelu’ orisa nla.

Igba gbogbo ni ogun re maa bori ti Ife

Nigbati o di osu keta tin won ti nja ogun yi

Orunmila so fun Ife pe akoko to lati boro ogun igbo

Awon Ife se ipade pelu Orunmila ni ile oba winrin

Orunmila ni bi eba tiri awon igb ti asigbo

Ohun aro nwon pe a-gbode e – gbe gba

Ki e da won loun pe agbode-gba je

Ti won ba so nigba meta, ki e da nwon loun ni igba meta

Orunmila tun wipe, ti awon Ife ba ri awon igbo

Ti eru won ba pupa bi eje

E ma sa fun won

Iko ni nwon di mo ara, tin won kun ni eje

Ki eso eru eje yi ni oruko

Ki e pe ni ogun-ni gbo

Ti won ba wipe agbodo – e – gba

Ki e wipe agbode – gbe je

Ti now b a pee (ni) odoja

Ki ewi pe, odi awona

Ti nwon ba wipe pokulere

Ki e so pe okunkun-doru-osa

Ki e si pada si ibi ti eti mbo

Awon na yio si pada,

Ti eba pada si (aye) yin, ki e so eru

Eje, ori tiyin kale

Awon naa yio si so ti won kale

Ki ewo aso funfun

Ki esi gba ona Abuja (shot course)

E o ri nwon nibi tin won ti npero

Ife yan Orunto ati Aloran ati Awinrin,

Now di eru ati obadio, won yan Lowa

Won di eru na ni ita Iremo

Won fori le ona Obalufon, nibiti awon igbo maa gba si ogun ti Ife

Bi won ti rin die, ti won de ojude Latale

Won gbo ohun (aro) kan lati enu Lowa-gbafin

Ti owipe “Agbode – e gba

Awon omo lehin Orunto si wipe Agbode-egba

Nwon wa ripe ara won ni aoun igbo ti n ti igbo wa ja ogun

Lati igba na Lowa ki wo ilero lati per ati ile du ati ile ‘mole

Lowa –gbafin so wipe, ki se lati pa awon ebi mi ni mose wa,

Nko ko won leru,bi kosepe kin won le mo gbe pelu mi,

Nitoripe emi ko’le da’gbe

Akoko igba Olofin Irokaegbo ni

Lowa –gbafin pada si Ile-Ife.

Orunmila wa to nwon lo

Osi fi owo bi awon ilero si ehin osi wipe

Oloyore se pele

Awo Ilero si se ni pele,

Akeke-luke-ki o won tun so wipe werewere fe

Orunmila si so pe ija aworo-meji

Nwon tun wipe, oda-de

Orunmila wipe Ade nbe ni di Obalufon

Ade nbe ni afin, Ade Oduduwa,

Ade Obamakin, ati Kutukutu oba igbo.

Ayajo fun okan bi bale

Irosun meji –

Iba buru

Awoowonni ode ibaburu

Iba buru

Awoo won ni ode ibaburu

Awoo Ode Ibarakta

Ada Ifa fun igba

Ti n se awo lo si ode Oyo

Gbogbo ile igba ni ogbona

Won ni ki igba ki oru ebo

Igba fi Ila rub o

Osi fi osun tutu ru’ bo

Fun Erigi Alo tan

Ni ara tu ninini.

AWON AYAJOO FUN IWOSAN ATI ISORI

Joe Hudson – Mother Catherine Hudson

Experiencing numbness on his left side

(Numb = Be numbed – without sensation and motion;

To make numb or torpid = to deaden)

Divination 0ll0 – 0lll Leg disease cause – age –

Readings into cream rub the affected part.

Pipe I’ Awo Olofin

Alobeleje, Awo Orisa Nla

A d’ Ifa fun Aisewesewese

Omo orisa nla,

Nigbati nse arun ese

Ifa ni pipe ni a da mi

Orisa nla ma je ki nyaro

Perfection the priest of Olofin orun

Flexibility that of Orisa-Nla

Both divinate for Ajisewesewese

When feeling numbness in the legs

Ifa told me I was created perfect

Orisa Nla don’t let me be crippled

Snail never develops in numbness in its legs.

Brenda – elevation in career – help in interview – auditing company: second

interview – help to get job. Special and financial strength needed.

l001 – ll01 progress through the help of Sango. A praise song of each of both

Sango and Esu – give them respective feasting shared with some devotees.

Ewe ina (Urera Manli)

Ewe Aaragba (Bridelia Atroviridis)

Ewe Esisi funfun (Tragia Benthamii)

Ewe Oloyin (strigia Asiatica)

Ayajo – to quicken action of Ifa or Oogun

ll l

ll ll

l l

l ll kankan ni Ewe ina jo omo

Kankan ba yi ni ki Ifa mi yi je fun emi ____________

Warawara ni omode ti oko Esisi bo

Warawara ni ki ifa mi yi je fun emi _____________-

Igbo ko gba ona ko gba

Ni se Ewe Aaragba

Ki le ki omo gba _______________

Ki ona ki o mo gba _____________

Gbogbo Ifa ti mo ba sa si __________

Ni oni, ni ki o je bi ina (fire)

Ki o la bi oorun (sun)

A o je eyo atare Meje a o fi pe ayajo yi – a o bo si ita, a o tu atare enu wa

dani ki ole ba afefe lo.

Ifa ti a o sa si eniti a da oruko re loke

Te Ifa Osetura – 00l0 – 10- 10 si owo osi re pe Ifa yi sii

l l

ll ll

l l

l ll Osun ni oni ki iye (memory) – ki osun (sleep (3ce)

Ifa mu iya _______ lo lo ni (3ce)

Efun (calcium bi carbonate) wa lo fun (press)

Iye _________ mole (3ce)

Ki o ma le gbe ogun tie mi _________- mo

Bo soi ita – fe ifa na si ode, ki afefe gbe lo).

ASTRAL EXPERIENCE

The spiritual notebook – by Paul Twitchell Ilumnated way press –

California.

It is an area of consciousness (spiritual force) not to be tampered with,

unless one is under the guidance of a competent master. The only guides whom I

know to be capable of handling person who can get into this field of consciousness

are the ECK masters.

This is the reason why so many neophytes are suddenly plagued with

problems, and do not know what is troubling them. They think it comes from

outside cause and put pressure on to read more, to study deeper works, only to find

their troubles increasing. Even the saints can have many of their deep-seated

problems laid to this sort of thing, for this is the danger awaiting those who are

crying and seeking God too deeply I discourage this type of thing because too

often it loads only to harm for the individual.

RELIGION

Most Nigerians practice Religion on the surface. Reverend Father John.

Sheehan, A jeshuit, Priest. The Sunday Guardian, Sunday July 4, 2004. P30. He

said this after a 12 – years assignment in Lagos.

Question – How will you assess the religious life of Nigeria?

… in terms of religion, it is very hard, unless you know somebody very

well, to assess his or her personal faith, it is a bit difficult I have a sense that for

many Nigerians, religion is very much on the surface. There is priest who served

here for many years and he said, he loved Nigerian very much but he said that, the

Nigeria church is a Palm Sunday church. What you hear is hosanna and dancing in

the streets and wavering palm branches. The crux will come when the church is on

the persecution, then we will se how people react because I see people who belong

to two, three or four churches all as the same time, churches who believe very

different things on Sunday, they go to the catholic church, on Tuesday, they go to

Cherubim and Seraphim, on Wednesday, they are in evangelicals preaching and on

Thursday Mission. Then, if you look at the theology of the different groups, they

do not believe the same thing.

MIND

Theurgy = ni the working of the divine agency in human affairs (The Eji)

Demiurg (e) )demi-erj) Demiurgus (demi ergus)

A maker, the creator.

USE OF METRONYM IN SPIRITUAL WORLD

The message of the Qur’an – Volume 1.

Translated and explained by Muhammad Asad.

Mouton & Co. The Hague –

The most excellent sustenance – is a metonym for “the spiritual raptures arising

from the knowledge of God, the love of Him, and the self – immersion (insighraq)

in worshipping Him” If Razis interpretation is accepted, this expression would

refer to the spiritual reward of faith in this world.

Kama means “just as” or “even as”

Lo! Thy sustainer inspired the angels (to convey this His message to the believers

“I am with you”.

Lo! You were praying unto your sustainer for help, where upon He thus responded

to you: I shall, verily, aid you with a thousand angels follow one upon another!

The war of Bad

AND YET (O believers) it was not you who slew the enemies, but it was God

who slew them; Quraysh – descendants of Abraham.

Abraham built the Ka’bah as an inviolable

House of worship – The Qur’an refutes the contention, just as it refutes the claim

of the children of Israel to being the “chosen people” by virtue of their descent

from Abraham.

Immediately after the battle of Badr (2.H) the Muslims were extremely

week (AL – ANFAL: 66) both in numbers and in equipment, and their community

had not yet attained to any significant degree of political organization. Under those

circumstances, the Qur’an says they could not – nor could any Muslim community

of later times, in similar circumstances – be expected to bring forth the effort and

the efficiency required of a fully developed community of believers; but even so

they should be able to stand up to an enemy twice their number.

Qur;an – chapter 2 Surah Al – BQARAH (The Cow) verse 256 –

There shall be no compulsion in (anything that pertains to religion). This

verse lays down categorically that any attempt at a forcible conversion to Islam on

the part of “those who ascribed divinity to any being beside God”… is

prohibited… God does not love aggressors (2:190 Qur’an Surah 9 (At – Tawbah -

Repentance)

Verse 13 … Nay, it is God alone of whom you should stand in awe, if you are

(truly) believers.

Angels – 9:26 whereupon God sent down this (gift of) inner peace unto His

apostle and unto the believers, and sent down (to your aid) forces which you could

not see – commentary by Muhammed Asad The Message of the Qur’an. Comment

34 – i.e. spiritual forces, such as described in the Qur;an as “angels”.

And the Jews says Ezra is God;s son while the Christians say, “The Christ

is God’s son”. The Arab – Jews are here referred to…

As regards the belief attributed to the Jews that Ezra (or in the Arabicized

form – Uzayr – was “God’s son” it is to be noted that almost all classical

commentators of the Qur’an agree in that only the Jews, have thus accused.

According to a Tradition on the authority of Ibu Abbas – quoted by Tabari in his

commentary on the verse – some of the Jews in Medina once said to Muhammad,

“How could we follow thee when thou hast forsaken our giblah and dost not

consider Ezra a soon of God?”). on the other hand, Ezra occupies a unique

position in the esteem of the Jews, and has always been praised by them in the

most extravagant terms. It was he who restored and codified the Torah after it had

been lost during the Babylonian Exile and “edited” it in more or less the form

which it has today; and thus “he promoted the establishment of an exclusive,

legalistic type of religion that became dominant in later Judaism” (Encyclopaedia

Britannica 1963, Vol IX, P. 15). Ever since then he has been venerated to such a

degree that his verdicts on the Law of Moses have came to be regarded by the

Talmudists as being practically equivalent to the Law itself: which, in Qur’anic

ideology, amounts to the unforgivable sin of shirk, in as much as it implies the

elevation of a human being to the status of a quasi-divine law-fiver and the

blasphemous attribution to him – albeit metaphorically – of the quality of

“sonship” in relation to God (f in this connection Exodus 4:22 – 23 (“Israel is My

son”) or Jeremiah 31:9 (“I am the father of Israel”, expressions to which, because

of their idolatrous implication, the Qur’an takes strong exception.

- God is utterly remote, in this limitless glory.

Calendar 9:36

Behold, the number of months, in the sight of God, is twelve months, (laid down)

is God’s decree on the day when He created the heavens and the earth; (and) out of

these, four are sacred: this is the ever-true law.

The months spoken of here are lunar months, progressively rotating through

the seasons of the solar year – the pagan Arabs used to intercalate a thirteenth

month in the third, sixth and eighth year of every eight – year period, with a view

to making the lunar calendar more or less stationary, and thus roughly

corresponding to the solar year.

USE OF POWER

Sigidi clay image

One of the earliest example of the use of clay image is found back in

Paleolithic times (roughly 25000years ago), when it was used by early Man

against animals as a means of securing food. As a charm against a human it is

mentioned by the ancient Egyptians. There was a conspiracy against Raineses ill,

who reigned about 1200BC in which a treasury official used wax dolls to try to

kill the king. There is also a Greek tale of the Egyptians king Nectanebo III (350

BC) who fought his battles with wax figures.

From time to time throughout history mention of the wax or clay magic

crop up. Another of such was the plot of the Berwick “witches” lead by Francis

Earl Bothwell, against England’s King James VI. There was another similar plot

against Queen Elizabeth.

ECTOPLASM

In a dictionary of modern spiritualism, Norman Blunsdon describes

ectoplasm as a “subtle living matter present in the physical body, primarily

invisible but capable of assuming vaporous liquid, or solid states and properties. It

possesses characteristic smell and is cold to the touch. This matter excludes from

the various orifices of the medium’s body and afterwards returns thence. When not

molding itself into quasi-human bodies it acts as a “rod” to support a trumpet,

through which a voice may speak, or to levitate a table or other object.

In the world of spiritualism are found two main types of mediums, mental

and physical the physical type is described above. From a distance ectoplasm

looks as lot like a piece of damp cheese – cloth which molds itself into shapes

representing persons long since dead. Mediums who produce ectoplasm usually

work in darkness or semi-darkened rooms. The ectoplasm itself is slightly

luminous.

Hyponopedia – sleep learning