Foolishness, Wisdom and African Secret Societies

>>The Mysteries are for initiates and what is an initiate is that like a priest? <<
>>but if you are a "layman" what is his option a layman?<<

There has been much discussion about the “mysteries,” secret societies and initiation lately and I wanted to take the time to briefly add what little I know to this discourse with the intent of helping members of this group understand better African wisdom centers, their methods of wisdom transference, and their visionary ideals.

Before we can address the two questions above, we must first map African ideals in order to guide us successfully on our journey. I do not intend to present pre-Western modes of thought and being as monolithic or as possessing an agreed upon body of traditional theories and concepts. I however do recognize a familiar spirit that undergirds African centers of wisdom. I will try to do my best to synthesize African traditional modes of thought and being in a manner that preserves the essence of the ideals in which countless African sages have developed over the millennia.

According to African wisdom traditions, life is an unending stream of mysteries that arms itself with dual weapons of life: day and night, summer and winter, male and female, joy and grief. These dual weapons of life are engaged in an eternal quarrel whose unceasing battles will rage until everything flows together into one eternal river.

African sages believe that it is these unceasing battles that are responsible for the one thousand and one challenges that plague human life on earth. To counter these challenges, African sages in various wisdom centers have developed sacred arts as a means to find balance between these dual weapons of life. By mastering these sacred arts, they empower the muntu (human being) to achieve the state of perfection or enlightenment which is the ultimate goal of African sages. By mastering these arts and reaching the state of perfection, man can therefore assume their rightful place as children of the earth and children of the stars.

The mastering of the sacred arts (verbal arts, ecstatic arts, healing arts, and divinatory arts) helps the wisdom seeker to do the following:

1. Unveil life’s mysteries
2. Celebrate life’s beauties
3. Stave off the syndrome of foolishness

While mastering the sacred arts helps us to realize these objectives on our quest of perfection, it also helps us to attempt to solve the most fundamental human problems according to African wisdom centers: the dual hunger which fuels our eternal quest for meaning. The sacred arts assist us in reinforcing the powers of the mind in order to grasp the purpose of life.

Charles Handy, an Irish philosopher quoting an African, claimed that human beings experience two types of hunger: the lesser hunger and the greater hunger. The lesser hunger deals primarily with the needs and wants of life on Earth. Material things can satisfy this hunger. The greater hunger however concerns the meaning of life. This type of hunger can only be satisfied by looking for wisdom.

African wisdom centers (misnomered “secret societies”) are organizations that guide human beings in the pursuit of wisdom. They are designed to help the human being to know life and provide tools to help stem the tide of its challenges. Wisdom centers, like spiders, create webs that give meaning to all dimensions of existence. Wisdom centers conceive and construct wisdom traditions. Wisdom centers are populated by wisdom seekers who are the brightest minds of the community who provide enlightened leadership and guide others in knowing life and stemming the tide of its challenges. Wisdom centers serve three primary functions:

1. Are schools of enlightened leadership
2. Are schools of lifelong learning
3. Provide strategies to assist human beings in their search for perfection

Teaching and learning are at the heart of wisdom centers. In African centers of wisdom, initiation is the method par excellence for helping an initiate to know life and stem the tide of its challenges. Amadou Hampate Ba informs us of the purpose of initiation:

“The purpose of initiation is to give the psychological person a moral and mental power which conditions and aids the perfect and total realization of the individual.”

In the book The Religion, Spirituality and Thought of Traditional Africa, Dominique Zahan says:

“Initiation in Africa must be viewed as a slow transformation of the individual, as a progressive passage from exteriority to interiority. It allows the human being to gain consciousness of his humanity.” (Zahan 1979:54)

What we call “priests” are actually the Nganga: the doers, masters, specialists, healers, pillars, enlightened of the community who know life to the highest degree and have mastered the use of tools which allow them to battle against the syndrome of foolishness. In the Kongo, among the Luba especially, we call these walking pillars bantu basunguluke, which means the most accomplished sages. We also call them the bakoles. These accomplished sages excel only with the help of other sages. This is suggestive on many accounts. Primarily, this suggests that to excel in wisdom, it is recommended that you keep company with other wisdom seekers and share what you know between yourselves and teach other wisdom seekers who follow you. This is peer pressure on the “light” side of the force.

You will know if you belong to a wisdom center if:

1. The center of wisdom is about unraveling the mysteries of life
2. Explores the physical world in which human beings live
3. And they look for ways and means that enable human beings to achieve perfection

Wisdom centers are primarily about education. Malidoma Some in his book Of Water and the Spirit discusses education in Dagara wisdom centers as such:

“Traditional education consists of three parts: enlargement of one’s ability to see, destabilization of the body’s habit of being bound to one’s plane of being, and the ability to voyage transdimensionally and return.” (Some 1994:226)

Wisdom centers and communities are designed to help fertilize our seeds of greatness. They introduce to us the sacred arts used to help the muntu reach the state of perfection. The state of perfection is embodied by three interrelated concepts:

1. Adversity quotient – the will to tower above everything, including the self and the world
2. Imaging quotient – the creative ability to perceive the hidden layers of reality
3. And emotional quotient – the visionary leadership that is achieved by sages

>>but if you are a "layman" what is his option a layman?<<

As part of your “spiritual grand strategy” I would suggest that 1) you actively seek a living wisdom tradition that has clear ties to a lineage that has its roots planted in the rich soils of the continent, and 2) do what the sages do: read tons of books on wisdom, practice sacred arts, build a relationship with one’s ancestors, sit at the feet of elders, grow a garden, develop great character and most importantly, create wisdom poetry.

As a fellow wisdom seeker and poet, I cannot stress how important and valuable wisdom poetry is in the spiritual grand strategy to achieve perfection. Wisdom Poetry is the tool sages use to guide human beings along the path of wisdom. It is the verbal art par excellence that uses proverbs to encode the insights, secrets and teachings of initiations among wisdom traditions.

Wisdom Poetry is not poetry of one’s own feelings. It is created by taking African proverbs of similar theme and weaving them together to create a poem. It is a form of deep talk. It is a language of initiation. It is a way to learn how to “see” the hidden realities of life. To demonstrate how a wisdom poem is constructed, we will use the following African proverbs to create a poem.

• When the moon is not full, the stars shine more brightly. (Buganda)
• Rain does not fall on one roof alone. (Cameroon)
• If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them? (Ethiopia)
• The leader has ears, he does not have a mouth. (Kongo)
• Nations are forests (Kongo)

We would rearrange the proverbs to look something like this:

Nations are forests
Rain does not fall on one roof alone
If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them
therefore
The leader has ears, he does not have a mouth
When the moon is not full, the stars shine more brightly

All of these proverbs, converted into a wisdom poem, deal with the central theme of community. We can see how each of these respective ethnic groups view the value of community and where the real leadership/power resides. It is these types of lessons that await the wisdom seeker who wishes to learn how to put together wisdom poetry.

All in all, the mystery is finding the joy in the journey on the road to knowing life. The joy is in finding the courage and the tools to stem the tide of life’s challenges: finding cures for the syndrome of foolishness. It is these critical issues wisdom centers seek to address by creating an environment where one can fertilize their seeds of greatness. I hope that you have found this article of value and in our next discussion, we will discuss the Spiritual Grand Strategy used by African sages to reach the state of perfection (you have already been introduced to one: wisdom poetry).



Asar Imhotep is a philosopher, activist, poet and author of the book Esodus: Internal Reflections and Conversations with the Sun. He is also the founder of the MOCHA-Versity Institute of Philosophy and Research and the Houston Ministry of Culture: http://www.houstonministryofculture.com

Selected Bibliography

Ba Hampate, Amadou (1972). Aspects de la civilisation africaine: personne, culture, religion. Paris: Présence africaine

Fu-Kiau, K. Bunseki (2001). African Cosmology of the Bantu Kongo: Principles of Life and Living. Athelia Henrietta Press

Imhotep, Asar (2008). Esodus: Internal Reflections and Conversations with the SUN. MOCHA-Versity Press

Kajangu, Kykosa (2006). Wisdom Poetry. Blooming Twigs Books

Kajangu, Kykosa (2005). Beyond the Colonial Gaze: Reconstructing African Wisdom Traditions. Unpublished PhD dissertation

Neimark, Philip John (1993). The Way of the Orisa: Empowering Your Life Through the Ancient African Religion of Ifa. Harper Collins

Some, Malidoma (1994). Of Water and the Spirit: Ritual Magic and Initiation In the Life of an African Shaman. Penguin

Zahan, Dominique (1979). The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. University of Chicago Press