Monday, November 26, 2018
LUCUMI IFA INDEPENDENT STUDY: Internet and Facebook November, 2018
#Lucumi #Ifa #Orishas #Santeria
PREFACE:
Today we’ll look at IFA Independent study and its positives and negatives as it relates to the internet and Facebook Groups. This is a monograph that is longer than a standard article and more in depth. Understand that my writings almost always target those outside our culture and those new to it. This monograph is also for those of you who are new or on the outside looking in and are curious. Before we start though, let’s start with a few basics and myths. Our culture called IFA comes from West Africa and primarily from the indigenous peoples the colonists called Yoruba. MT mapping and
The free peoples of Western Africa were stolen by pirates or sold by the Kings of Western Africa before colonization. 600 years before and until the westerners came, these Kings sold their peoples to civilizations that were geographically closer than the new world. These included the Egyptians and by the tenth century mostly Islamic cultures. In the Western Diaspora the majority of slaves went to slave markets in various colonies largely on plantations throughout the New World. The Spanish brought their captives mainly through Havana, Cuba and these practiced what became Lucumi IFA. The Portuguese slaves went mostly to Brazil where several forms of IfA flourish, but are dominated by Candomble. The French favored the slaves from the Congo and these went to Haiti, New Orleans, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadalupe and Saint Lucia where what we know as Voodoo is practiced to this day. The Dutch and American ships also dealt in slave trade, yet it theirs was less regionally specific as the Spanish, Portuguese and French.
Our focus today is the Lucumi IFA culture and in the next paragraph I will generalize the basics of it. All of the IFA cultures are related and you probably are wondering why not just choose the Nigerian IFA culture? There are several reasons, such as it is conservative and not progressive. Politics enters it where politics does not in the other branches. There is a substantial Islamic influence and Christian influence as opposed to those in the Diaspora where there is only one branch of Christianity (Catholicism). Others insist their line was broken and the chain remade. Most legitimate ceremonies must be performed in Nigeria, thus it is not a simple as it seems. I for instance practice my beloved Lucumi without Christianity, yet others in Lucumi and even my ile mi the two. Lucumi or any IFA tradition can be combined with any tolerant spirituality.
Like many indigenous cultures IFA is Nature based. There is no Hell, Purgatory or even the devil in IFA culture. The two principal themes of IFA culture are 1) What some call soul and IFA culture calls ori moves on after this body expires. Ori in our culture is more than just the soul, it is our relationship with the divine spirit and in many cases is the divine spirit or our access to it. 2) A’che (also ase, ashe, axe) is the energy of the divine spirit that exists in all natural things be they alive or dead. Therefore a rock or dead branch has a’che as does a tree or human, while plastic does not. This energy of nature is acquirable and in some cases transferable. Our ori typically acquires temporal a’che while the body lives, but can also acquire permanent a’che that goes on with ori after the body expires. Of course permanent a’che is more difficult to acquire and I’ve never heard of it being transferable.
There are four roads to the divine spirit and each has unlimited power, knowledge to be acquired and protection. They are illustrated in the following chart that I made for you to consider:
Briefly explaining these, I have already spoken to the two at the base (ori and a’che). The easiest way to be concise is to look at the Ancestors first. Ancestor worship and reverence is by far the largest spirituality in our world today. Ase or a’che ancestors are those we receive through ceremony, the leader of the ceremony shares his with us and these go all the way back generationally. Blood and
I’m guessing you have already heard something about our Orisha (also Orisa, Orixa). They are the rock stars of our spirituality and most are tied to Nature. They are not the actual element of Nature, but more like a guardian who can manipulate the element of Nature that they guard. They are also immortal and we humans are made in their image, not in the image of the deities. Each human (whether they know it or not) has Orisha parents and this is determined through divination. Finishing up the illustration we have Olorun and Olofin on the next level and both are deities. The top is Olodumare who we compare to God, the almighty. Olodumare is the creator and Olorun and Olofin are his two avatars. Olorun rules the sky and decides where and when ori moves on. Olorun does not visit earth as he once did. Olofin does visit earth and interacts with all things. These three are deities and the Orishas serve the deities. This is the very concise, oversimplified version.
THE INTERNET:
Independent study is not a substitute for a qualified mentor, yet the reality is people are curious and the wise understand this and tolerate it. The mentor – student or godparent -godchild relationship is historically the preferred method of study in Yorubaland and in the Diaspora. However the IFA tradition is historically an oral tradition. Four centuries ago when the IFA culture started writing knowledge down, this too was shunned by the majority. With the Internet, the Traditionalists are still shunning, yet there is an excellent reason for this. Misinformation (innocent and malicious), poorly presented information, fabricated information and misunderstood information are why. There is also the fact that information alone is not sufficient without intense supervised training. The vast majority of this supervision must be face to face, not over the phone, or on a video call, but face to face. We can look as something as basic as Wikipedia and there is plenty of poor information about our culture on this site. Search engines will lead those who are curious to a web of misinformation some innocent and others malicious.
Consider this fact if you will, credible practitioners do not chase clients, because clients chase them. Anyone contacting you out of the blue you should run from. It does not matter if they are hooking you by offering something free, because that is simply the hook and once you bite, you will be paying later. ANY website that offers services such as ceremonies, divination, study, consultations, etc. has an ulterior motive. Some of these are more obvious than others, one even has a 501c corporation (tax free non -profit) and calls itself IFA College. They are selling a wide array of goods and services. There are many societies that look valid and some of them are, yet if they are selling anything, they have an ulterior motive. Iya Brenda Vice and I wrote the only book in our culture that exposes fraud, scams and cons, so I know what I am talking about. The other thing is that every credible practitioner is proud of their bona fide credentials, just as we are with our educational diplomas. Lucumi demands that when asked any and every practitioner produces or states his or her credentials. These include their ile or ocha house, their rank, who they trained with and even who attended their ceremonies. When anyone tells you they will not or cannot, they are in violation of Lucumi law and you should run fast and far from them.
There is nothing wrong with selling goods or services provided that those selling them are credible, qualified and honest. Unfortunately many are not. The wise know that the most successful cons and scams are the ones that shroud themselves in truth. Making the con or scam believable is a key element of a successful con or scam and to achieve this malicious practitioner’s use the truth. The reason scams and cons are called confidence schemes, is their objective is to gain your confidence. Finding a principled practitioner can be an expensive time consuming and frustrating road. If you follow these simple rules, you will improve your chances greatly, because it is a mine field out there. The same is true with any religion or spirituality. Many Christian churches now require or demand a percentage of your earnings and a percentage of your will when you die. Spirituality is big business and it does have great value, but only IF you receive the quality of the goods or services you pay for. All Religious and spirituality fraud are very difficult and expensive to successfully prosecute in US courts.
My personal opinion is that the time for independent study is at the beginning when you are nosing around and at the door knocking to get in. Your goal should be to find a qualified, credentialed and gifted honest mentor. Mentors minimally frown on independent study on the Internet. The reason is that the more polluted your glass becomes, the more time they have to spend purifying it. An empty vessel is ideal, but rarely happens these days because of the Internet and to a lesser extent some books. The less polluted your glass is, the quicker your mentor will be able to help you build your foundation. How quickly you build your foundation is instrumental to your growth. I divide students into two categories: 1) Those who wish to use IFA culture and spirituality for themselves and their immediate families and 2) Those who wish to go into business or practice for others. The reality is an early fork in the road where the two become significantly different in a student’s educational needs and requirements. I do not help those interested in helping those outside of themselves and their immediate family.
Personally I do occasionally help, but my time is valuable because I am writing for the masses and consultations take away from that. This is not a business for me, if it were I would market my books. People who need to find my books and wrtings do find them or often an ancestor, dead friend or an Orisha gives them a nudge in my direction. The most important advice the curious receive is the how to or where to. It is a wise investment to make because getting on the wrong path will cost you plenty of time, money and frustration. I charge 150.00 USD for an hour. Almost always I can share a roadmap in an hour of less. The fact is that having a correct road map is the best way to proceed at the beginning. The other times I personally help people is when they get to a fork in the road that is unexpected or not on the map. This sometimes happens as life does not always go according to even the best laid plans. I also help people once in a great while when and if a very complex situation arises, sort of crisis management. To be honest a challenging situation stimulates me and the wisdom I have acquired. Ceremonies, becoming your godfather, doing Ifa consultations, ebbo, I am just not interested in, it is too rudimentary for me and to be honest I am easily bored. My specialty is The Dead and Ancestors and this is a path to wisdom that is largely free. It is by far the biggest bang for the buck in our culture and it is also the road less traveled. This is mostly because there is little financial profit in it for the practitioner.
Understand that independent study coincidently occurs at exactly the same places where I help people. Is that odd, no not at all, I have been a dedicated and ardent student of IFA culture for many years and have identified the points where need exists. My ile is one of (if not the) strongest in Havana and we unlike the vast majority, we study and teach like a university. We specialize after we have built our foundations. When any practitioner tells you they are an expert you should run away. All experts are students until the last breath, sure they may teach, but the wise are always students. No, I am not the leader of our ile, just an elder who teaches on occasion. People calling me Baba is a nice compliment, but I certainly do not call myself Baba, and never will. When you see any practitioner telling you they can do all things, remember to run. These are the Jack of all trades, and the master of none. Just like seeing a doctor, the credible will recommend you to a specialist. They won’t try to do brain surgery on their own mothers, unless they are the best brain surgeon. This is the great thing about out ile, when someone has a complex problem with the dead or ancestors they come to me. When I want to best divination, ebbo or other advice, I go to them, we work together.
FACEBOOK GROUPS:
Maybe the biggest minefield of misinformation is Facebook groups. Here is where you’ll find yourself in quicksand. There are a few groups about our culture that are somewhat credible such as those that teach you how to speak Yoruba. However you’ll still find shysters trolling for clients there, contacting you rather than you contacting them. Very few qualified and credible elders respond on Facebook groups, because it is an invitation for a fight. There are huge amounts of ego in Facebook groups and plenty of misinformation, greed, and the unqualified trying to seem qualified. People like to challenge the wise to make a name for themselves and credible and qualified elders avoid giving them the opportunity, usually. There is also a lack of respect in the groups to the elders who are used to being heard and not peppered with questions and disagreements.
I’m sure anyone reading this is in a group or a few; I’m even in a few where I post my FREE articles occasionally. Let me point out what should be obvious to you. The first thing is very few groups are specialized, most are general, right? How many times do you see someone ask a question and identify themselves and the tradition they practice? We see Nigerian Ifa answer questions about Candomble, Lucumi, Voodoo, etc, or we see these answer questions about Nigerian Ifa! How many of the responders identify themselves and their tradition? The only answer so far is almost none. Then there is the regurgitating of odu and other information from the Internet and other Facebook groups. People ask about an odu and they do not even bother to ask if it came with ire or osogbo (big difference). We almost never see anyone cite a source in these groups, most are huff and puff despite the good intentions of those who started them. We’ve all heard when we get free advice; we often get what we paid for (not much). Being a mentor or a godparent requires copious amounts of time and time has value. The wise understand that their time is valuable and they understand that those who try to guilt shame them or squeeze them are a waste of time. Those who try to circumvent the process with their thumbs online get what they paid for too (not much).
I wish you all a’che and all things ire, nature’s blessings and luck.
Lucumi Baba Awo, ogbe osa (Charles Spencer King)
Most of my free articles are found on academia.edu https://independent.academia.edu/CharlesSpencerKing/Books-~-Libros-+-Capitulos-~chapter-teases
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My books can be found in most US libraries or ou can have them order one for you or you can find both paperbacks and electronic versions on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Spencer-King/e/B002ELIWKI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3?qid=1472687137&sr=8-3
