Friday, May 22, 2015

Iwori Meji As Documented by Baba Ayo Salami (Ibae) - with Interpretations by Awo Falokun Fatunmbi

Laamboko Cricket
Let her not lament again
Before dusk it may be clothed

Commentary:  In Nature Crickets sing all night and then stop at sunrise.  In Ifa when there is a serious problem egbe Ifa meets from sundown to sunup to chant oriki and pray for good fortune.  The awo literally sing all night just like the crickets.

Cast divination for Ode Gbansasa
The one that had been crying of having no companion
‘Would I have companions in life’? He asked

Commentary:  Odu Ifa promises blessings of children, abundance and long life.  In this verse Odu is promising a blessing of good relationships.

They asked him to perform sacrifice
Ode Gbansasa brought out his sacrifice
And performed it.

Commentary:  The word iwori from the elision I awo ori meaning I am the mystery of consciousness.   The mystery of consciousness is the idea that consciousness is in a constant state of change.  This change can be for the better or worse.  When we make offerings we are making a covenant with Creation we are making a commitment to change for the better.  That means we are making a commitment to develop iwa pele.

Once Èsù becomes attracted to the sacrificial money
Immediately after the observance of the sacrifice
It would mark the arrival of fortunes

Commentary: This means the offering was accepted and Esu took the clients prayers to the Immortals in Orun.

The sacrifice proved efficient for Ode Gbansasa
Life pleased him
He said it was as his Babaláwos said
Laamboko Cricket
Let her not lament again
It may be clothed before dusk
Cast divination for Ode Gbansasa
The one crying of having no companion
They had asked him to perform sacrifice
Ode heard about the sacrifice
And performed it
The success of Ode merits dancing
The success of Ode deserves being joyful
Ode Gbansasa
Come and see the functions being performed by Ode
Ode Gbansasa
Come and dance to rhythms of drums
Ode Gbansasa.

Commentary:  These lines are the oriki ire, or the prayer that is spoken when making ebo to transform ibi into ire.  Iwori is the idea that everything in the universe is in a constant state of change.  Ifa teaches that ori or consciousness can be guided by ori or consciousness through the use of inovcaton and prayer.

As topographical metaphor iwori is the fire in the center of a star that heats atoms creating the table of elements.  Iwori is the fire in which the atoms are in a state of creation that has not yet been completed.



Awo Falokun is available for Ifa / Orisa Initiations and Workshops. Call: 775-741-0188 or email: awofalokun@ifabooksinc.com for more information.

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Thursday, May 21, 2015

ORIN OYEKU MEJI: Song For Good Fortune

Ìyòyò ke wa yo fun mi o.  Ìyòyò ke wa yo fun mi o.

Joyfullness, let people come with joy to me.  Joyfullness, let people come with joy to me.

A mi yò nilé,  a mi yo lájò.  Ìyòyò ayè e, Ìyòyò.

Be joyfull at home and be joyfull at the farm.  Joyfullness, let the world be filled with joy.



Mo ru iyán, mo ru ìyán o.  Ule edun pa pòjù.  Ule edun pa pòjù.

I sacrificed pounded yam, I sacrificed pounded yam.  Ape's children become many.  Ape's children become many.

Mo ru iyán, mo ru ìyán o.  Ule edun pa pòjù.

I sacrificed pounded yam, I sacrificed pounded yam.


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Saturday, May 16, 2015

Ifa and the Physics of Nikola Tesla by Awo Falokun

Agbo Ato,

I believe Ifa is rooted in deep physics. Last week I posted an article on the difference between the world view of Einstein and Nikola Tesla, making the observation that I believed Tesla was close to Ifa physics than Einstein.  I want to make comments on that article to support my belief.

Tesla vs EinsteinMarc J. Seifer, New Dawn
Waking Times
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an electrical inventor, well known as a competitor of arch rival Tom Edison. Where Edison’s inventions include the light bulb, the microphone in the telephone and the phonograph, Tesla’s inventions include fluorescent lighting, the AC hydroelectric power system and wireless communication. Tesla is therefore mostly billed as an inventor.

COMMENTARY:  Tesla applied for over a thousand patents.  He claimed the ideas for his inventions were given to him by Alien Beings who communicated with him telepathically.  His description of that dialogue is very similar to the communication that occurs when in possession with Ela.  Tesla’s mother was a gifted medium and all through his life Tesla communicated directly with animals especially pigeons.

The fact is, Tesla was also a physicist who studied in college such courses as analytic geometry, experimental physics and higher mathematics.1 In his early 1890s lectures at Columbia University, the Chicago World’s Fair and at Royal Societies in Paris and London, building on the ideas of Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin, Tesla demonstrated and discussed the structure of atoms as being similar to solar systems and wave-like and particle-like aspects to what later became known as the photon. Colleagues he lectured before and corresponded with included many Nobel Prize winners like Wilhelm Roentgen, J.J. Thompson, Lord Raleigh, Ernst Rutherford and Robert Millikan and other scientists such as Elmer Sperry, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Lord Kelvin, Heinreich Hertz and Hermann von Helmholtz.

COMMENTARY:  Tesla concept of the atom is based on the idea of inter-dimensional energy patterns.  This concept is expressed symbolically in Ifa by the marks of Ode.  The structure of atoms as described by Tesla is consistent with the ancient Egyptian idea of the Merkaba as the basic energy pattern in the universe.

As far as I know, no standard text on the history of physics mentions Tesla even though these ideas would lead to Nobel Prizes when they were further developed by Rutherford and Bohr (with their solar-system description of the atom with electrons orbiting the nucleus) and Einstein’s discovery of the photoelectric effect, which was equivalent to Tesla’s wave and particle-like description of light.

COMMENTARY:  There is no doubt that Tesla’s ideas have been deliberated suppressed.  There are clear indications his research was confiscated by the government after his death and that it was used to produce secret technology used the US intelligence community.

However, another idea which Tesla discussed was abandoned by modern physicists, and that was the concept of the all-pervasive ether. This led to a number of key differences between Tesla’s view of the world as compared to that of Albert Einstein (1879-1955). Tesla disagreed with the findings of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in a number of ways. As far back as the turn of the century, Tesla thought that he had intercepted cosmic rays emanating from the sun that attained velocities “vastly exceeding that of light.” In the last decade of his life he also claimed that these cosmic rays could be harnessed to generate electrical power. Tesla also saw radioactivity as evidence of the material body absorbing energy as much as it was giving it up.

COMMENTARY:  In the topographical metaphor of Ifa symbolic language what Tesla called ether is called Ala in the language of Ifa.  Ala represents white light or the fundamental building block of creation.  This light has consciousness and weaves together the entire fabric of creation which is why Ala is sometimes translated to mean white cloth metaphor of cloth describing the threads that hold creation together.  This metaphor is consistent with string theory in quantum physics which postulates narrow bands of energy as the gateway between dimensions in a multi-dimensional universe.

On a separate front, the inventor stated that the impulses transmitted from his turn of the century Wardenclyffe wireless transmitting tower would also travel at velocities in excess of the speed of light. He likened the effect to the moon’s shadow spreading over the Earth.

COMMENTARY:  The secret of free electricity is coded into Odu Ifa and is one of the ancient mysteries of Ifa that is preserved in the awo of Ifa.

It is very difficult to explicate the first two speculations concerning tachyonic (faster than lightspeed) cosmic rays and radioactivity. However, with regard to the third claim, this suggestion that he transmitted energy at speeds in excess of the speed of light can be discussed from a variety of points of view. As the Earth has a circumference of roughly 25,000 miles, and light travels at about 186,000 miles/second, one can see that it would take light approximately 1/7th of a second to circle the Earth. But does the Earth itself exist in its own realm, that by the nature of its size transcends the speed of light? For example, does the north pole, interact/exist with the south pole instantaneously?  If so, in a sense the theory of relativity is violated as nothing, accordingly, can “travel” faster than the speed of light, yet the Earth’s very electromagnetic unity belies that theory.

COMMENTARY:  The idea of sub-atomic particles moving faster than light is consistent with paranormal phenomena accessed by Ifa.

Taking this concept a step further, does the solar system, or galaxy, when perceived as a functional unit, interact with itself in some way that by necessity makes a mockery of the speed of light? (The galaxy, of course, is hundreds of thousands of light years long.) In fact, when we look at photographs of galaxies, we are seeing entities that are hundreds of thousands of light years long. Certainly these systems have an orthorotational stability, and/or angular momentum which exists as a gestalt (totality) in a realm that easily transcends the speed of light and therefore, in that sense, violates relativity.

COMMENTARY: This theory explains the dynamics of Spirit communication.  It also explains the ability to see into the past and the future.  Particles that travel faster than light carry information into the future.  

Concrete proof that relativity can be violated can be found in George Gamow’s watershed book Thirty Years That Shook Physics. Gamow, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, tells us that in the mid-1920’s, Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck discovered not only that electrons were orthorotating, but also that they were spinning at 1.37 times the speed of light. Gamow makes it clear that this discovery did not violate anything in quantum physics, what it violated was Einstein’s principle that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Paul Adrian Dirac studied the problem. Following in the footsteps of Herman Minkowski, who used an imaginary number i, (the square root of -1) to be equivalent to the time coordinate in space-time equations, Dirac assigned the same number i to electron spin. In this way he was able to combine relativity with quantum mechanics and won a Nobel Prize for the idea in the process (1966, pp. 120-121). That was the upside. The downside was that the finding that elementary particles spin faster than the speed of light as a matter of course went the way of the passenger pigeon. No physicist talks about this anymore. What this means is that the entire evolution of 20th and nascent 21st century physics is evolving ignoring this key Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck finding. The ramifications suggest that elementary particles, by their nature, interface dimensions. Because they are spinning faster than the speed of light, the idea is that they are drawing this energy from the ether, a pre-physical realm, and converting the energy into material form.

COMMENTARY:  This is exactly what would be expected when you view Odu as Merkaba and Merkaba as inter-dimensional portal.  If the science of sub-atomic particules was fully understood it would open the door to accessing free energy, because the portal opened by movement faster than the speed of light allows energy from an invisible dimension to enter the visible universe.

The Structure of the Ether
“On a body as large as the sun, it would be impossible to project a disturbance of this kind [e.g., radio broadcasts] to any considerable distance except along the surface. It might be inferred that I am alluding to the curvature of space supposed to exist according to the teachings of relativity, but nothing could be further from my mind. I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties. It might as well be said that God has properties. He has not, but only attributes and these are of our own making. Of properties we can only speak when dealing with matter filling the space. To say that in the presence of large bodies space becomes curved, is equivalent to stating that something can act upon nothing. I for one, refuse to subscribe to such a view.” – Nikola Tesla3

COMMENTARY:  This is similar to the Ifa idea that Olorun cannot be limited by concepts rooted in human perception.

In Tesla’s model, a force-field would curve light around large bodies. These ideas were related to Tesla’s original theories on gravity which do not seem to have ever been published but can be ascertained by decoding related articles by or about Tesla from the 1930s and 40s. They also coincide with some of the most recent theories on physics, gravity and magnetism which challenge Einstein’s claim that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

COMMENTARY:  The ancients understood that gravity comes from the outside the earth and presses down it does not pull things from the earth towards the earth.  Because the ancients understood the true nature of gravity they could move huge stones by altering the effects of gravity.

E. Lerner, writing about “Magnetic Whirlwinds” in Science Digest in 1985, stated that “magnetism is as fundamental as gravity.” Citing the research and theories of plasma physicist A. Peratt of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lerner noted:
Astronomers using [a]… radio telescope [have]… observed filaments of gas arcing far above the galactic plane. These twisting spirals appeared to be held together by a magnetic field… stretching across 500 light years…. Such magnetic vortices [may] play a major role in the universe… as important… as gravitation.4

COMMENTARY:  In Ifa this phenomena is called Ajalaye Ajalorun the winds of heaven and earth.  The symbol for this phenomena is a spiritual pattern known by the ancients as the Golden Mean.  The pattern of the Golden Mean is coded into the sequence of the senority of Odu.

Another key mystery where Tesla differs from Einstein involves the paradoxical findings of Michelson and Morley who in 1887, tried to detect the ether by using two sets of mirrors pointed at each other and placed miles apart. One set was aimed in the direction the Earth was moving and the other set was aimed at right angles to the movement of the Earth. It was hypothesised that if the ether existed, once an impulse was sent, there would be a difference in the return times of each set, yet no difference was found.

Einstein essentially agreed with the findings by stating that by its nature, the ether could not be detected. However, Einstein also upped the ante considerably by also saying that if the ether could be detected then his theory of relativity was in error.5 Einstein further stated that if light could travel like a particle it would not need a medium (i.e., the ether) to travel through. Even though most of the great scientists of the day such as Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin, Fitzgerald and Lorentz all accepted the obvious conclusion that there had to a medium of transfer in space, i.e., the ether, all of this was glossed over. This led to a generally accepted conclusion that the ether did not exist and that is the situation today, a full century later! It would take Einstein 15 years before he addressed this glaring misconception but the damage had already been done.

COMMENTARY:  The concept of ether or Ala has been deliberately censored in academia because it is the key to free energy.  The math of the ether or Ala was clearly written down by Clark Maxwell who discovered the zero point in the earth which is the portal or Odu through which free energy travels between dimensions.  It has been proved by historian of science that Maxwell’s math was deliberately distorted by academics.  Not that this is commonly known when you see Maxwell’s tables certain equations are eliminated with a footnote saying the information has been removed from text books for reasons of national security.

In 1920, lecturing at the University of Leiden, on the topic “Ether and the Theory of Relativity,” Einstein stated outright that the ether did exist, that is was necessary as a medium of transfer because light also had wave-like properties. He even wrote Lorentz to clarify this point.6 But by now, the damage had been done. This lecture received little notice, it was ignored in Roland Clark’s watershed biography on Einstein published in 1971, and so the 20th and early 21st centuries evolved in such a way to dismiss entirely ether theory.

COMMENTARY:  Even Einstein admitted that part of his theory which continues to be taught in academia was incorrect.  This is absolute proof of censorship in academia by those who want to control information so they can continue to control resources on the planet.  I believe that knowledge belongs to everyone.

Since in the Michelson Morley experiment light travelled at the same speed in the direction the Earth was moving and at right angles to that direction, Einstein concluded that the speed of light had to be constant (according to the formulas of Special Relativity). He further suggested in 1905 that the ether of 19th century physics was not necessary although what he really meant to say was that it could not be detected. At the time, this was a radical view, it was soon widely accepted, even though it implied that there was nothing between the stars. This concept quickly became dogma as it helped solve a number of dilemmas, for instance, they no longer had to search for the ether because according to this view, it didn’t exist. “Einstein did not disprove the existence of the ether…. He only stated [in Special Relativity] that whether or not it existed, light would always travel at the same speed.”7

COMMENTARY:  The fact that there is ether and that particles can travel faster than light is the key to creating a unified field theory.  The failure of most academics to find a unified field theory is based on failure of academia to accept the incorrect assumptions made by Einstein.  The idea that there is ether and that particles travel faster than light is the basis for the technology associated with HARRP.  This is a machine located in Alaska that is a torsion field weapon that alters the earth’s atmosphere.  This means it can be used to change the weather and create earthquakes.  Some of the apparent natural disasters going on in the world are not natural disasters, they are deliberate manipulations used as part of a hidden war between two powers who have this technology.

From the perspective of popular science writers, “belief in the nonexistence of the ether remained alive, but in actuality, by 1916, Einstein had replaced the old ether in his theory of General Relativity by curved space-time itself. Only, this new ‘ether’ is no longer a medium in three-dimensional Euclidean space, but in four-dimensional non-Euclidean (curved) space-time.”8 It was this idea that was completely unacceptable to Tesla, and he criticised Einstein in the 1930s because of it.

COMMENTARY:  Tesla believed in a multi-dimensional universe.  Ifa teaches that Orun has ten dimensions which is a topographical metaphor for the description of a multi-dimensional universe.

One area where they were in some agreement, however, had to do with the speculations of the German physicist Ernest Mach. Taking his ideas from monotheistic and Buddhist teachings, and from Isaac Newton, who suggested that all material bodies attract one another through gravity, Mach postulated that the mass of any material body, such as the earth, was dependent upon some type of gravitational force from all the stars. In other words, all effects in the universe were related to all others. Einstein wrote Mach to tell him that this idea was intrinsically related to his formulation of the Theory of Relativity.9

COMMENTARY:  This idea is the basis for the theories associated with astrology called Gede in Ifa.  Gravity opens and closes inter-dimensional portals called Odu in Ifa.  This portals have direct influence on spiritual conditions on earth.  Astrology original was developed to chart the opening and closes of portals (Odu) and to explain the influence of these changes.

I have yet to find a direct quote by Tesla of Mach’s Principle, but in an article Tesla wrote in 1915, clearly based upon his writings of 1893, he states exactly this position.
There is no thing endowed with life – from man, who is enslaving the elements, to the nimblest creature – in all this world that does not sway in turn. Whenever action is born from force, though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance is upset and universal motion results.10

COMMENTARY:  The verses of Odu chart the various ways the motion becomes manifest.

It seems to me that the interconnectedness between all of the stars in the universe (related to Einstein’s curved space/time) is the ether.11 Similarly, Tesla’s view of the ether aligned itself with that of the Theosophists:

Long ago [I] recognised that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception and filling all space – the Akasa or luminiferous ether – which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena.

The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.12

COMMENTARY:  In the topographical metaphor used by Ifa, the inter-connected nature of the universe is symbolized by the mat which is why the mat is used as sacred space.

Removing the spiritual component from “Akasa,” Tesla postulated that everything in the universe derived its energy from external sources. This corresponded to his model of the automata or remote controlled robot, which received commands from the electrician, and also of himself, that is, of the human condition itself. Denying the Platonic concept of intrinsic motivation, as an Aristotelian, and thus a believer in the idea of thetabula rasa, Tesla assumed that all of his ideas came from external sources even though, paradoxically, his life was the very essence and expression of self-determination and the power of the will. Each hierarchical entity in his system was not endowed with a soul, per se, but rather, a self-directed electrical component which moved by attraction or repulsion.

COMMENTARY:  In Ifa this idea is expressed as the connection between the Ori and the Iponri between the self and the higher self.

As a non-psychologist, Tesla also negated, by necessity, the concept of the unconscious, the archetypes, and also the Freudian id, as primary motivators. So, for instance, a dream would always ultimately derive from some extrinsic factor, never from a completely inner source. However, unlike Einstein, who negated the mental component from his model concerning the primary forces of the universe, Tesla addressed this factor with his construction of the first prototype of a thinking machine, his telautomaton or remote controlled robot which was in the form of a wireless activated boat that the inventor displayed before the public at Madison Square Garden in 1898.13 In essence, for Tesla, the mind was at its basis, a binary electrical system of attractions and repulsions, stimulated from an outside source, and wholly compatible with Pavlov’s stimulus-response reflex model for cognitive processes.

COMMENTARY:  Here Tesla is trying to explain how ideas seem to come to him from nowhere.  In Ifa the source of these ideas would be identified as Orisa.

Smashing Atoms
Tesla also differed with Einstein and the quantum physicists in his view of the structure of the elementary particles and the possible consequences caused by the smashing of atoms. “I have disintegrated atoms in my experiments with a high potential vacuum tube… operat[ing] it with pressures ranging from 4,000,000 to 18,000,000 million volts…. But as to atomic energy, my experimental observations have shown that the process of disintegration is not accompanied by a liberation of such energy as might be expected from present theories.”14
To Tesla, the Theory of Relativity was just “a mass of error and deceptive ideas violently opposed to the teachings of great men of science of the past and even to common sense. The theory wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying error. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king. Its exponents are very brilliant men, but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists.” Writing a decade before the explosion of the atom bomb, and ignoring the space curvature data from the 1919 eclipse which supported Einstein’s idea that space was curved around large bodies such as stars, Tesla suggested that the existence of a force field would account for the same mathematical results. Thus, Tesla brazenly concluded, “Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved.”15

COMMENTARY:  The force field described by Tesla is the source of free energy which is why his ideas are not taught in academia.  I believe the idea of relativity as taught by Einstein was a deliberate deception that continues to this day.

It would be shortsighted to simply judge Tesla wrong and Einstein and the quantum physicists right for at least two reasons. (1) Both relativity and quantum theory have been established as incomplete, and in some sense, incompatible, theories on the structure of the universe.16 (2) Tesla was discussing these phenomena from a different perspective that was not completely analogous to the one espoused by the theoretical physicists. In Colorado Springs, for instance, Tesla was generating over 4,000,000 volts, whereas only about 1,000,000 volts is required for separating electrons from the nucleus of an atom. Thus, Tesla was able to disintegrate atoms, but in an entirely different way than that postulated by Einstein or the quantum physicists (for Tesla did not destroy the nucleus). No atomic explosion could ever occur with his type of apparatus. Tesla completely misunderstood the ramifications of Einstein’s equation E = mc2, and the corresponding suppositions of the equivalence of mass and energy. Unfortunately, he would never live to see the proof that tremendous amounts of power were locked inside the tiny space occupied by the nuclei of atoms.17

COMMENTARY:  The ability to separate energy from an atom without causing a nuclear explosion is the basis for the science of alchemy.

Gravity
Concerning the curvature of space (Einstein) versus the idea of a force field (Tesla), I discussed this point with Edwin Gora, Professor Emeritus, from Providence College. Gora, whose teachers include Werner Heisenberg and Arnold Sommerfeld, agreed that the two concepts might actually be different viable ways of describing the same thing. Both Tesla and Einstein are trying to describe the fundamental structure of space and its relationship to the constancy of lightspeed and gravity.
In an obscure paper I discovered on the web published by M. Shapkin but supposedly written by Tesla, Shapkin/Tesla states that the reason why light only travels at one speed, 186,000 mph, is because the ether, its medium of transfer, slows down photonic energy to that rate the same way air slows down sound to its constant speed.18 According to this view, the ether is a specific medium that restricts the speed of light to exactly the speed that it is. This is a very exciting theory because it suggests that the energy which manifests itself as light ultimately exists in a tachyonic realm, that is, in a realm that exceeds the speed of light.

COMMENTARY:  This suggests that unlimited energy can be produced by creating a vacuum which is exactly the point of alchemy.

Another aspect of this ether theory which derives from Tesla and numerous other modern writers such as Price and Gibson, Ed Hatch, Vencislav Bujic, Ron Heath, Warren York and David Wilcox outlined in detail in my book Transcending the Speed of Light, is that matter is constantly absorbing ether all the time.

COMMENTARY:  This is the process of transformation described in the Odu Iwori Meji which is the mystery of change in the universe.

If we look at the structure of matter, we see that it is comprised of atoms, which is, essentially, electrons orbiting protons and neutrons. But neutrons are, by definition, protons sandwiched to electrons. So the fundamental structure of matter is just two particles, electrons and protons and a glue that binds these atoms into molecules, which are photons. These particles spin. What keeps them spinning? Ether theory suggests that elementary particles are absorbing ether all the time to maintain their spin. And when they do this, they emanate the absorbed energy as electromagnetic fields. That is the link between gravity and electromagnetism.

COMMENTARY:  This is a description of the inherent balance in nature that comes from combing any Odu with its opposite Odu, meaning balance through male and female equity.  Using the topographical metaphor of Ifa gravity is female and electromagnetism is male.

Take the Earth, for instance. Classical physics sees the force of gravity as some type of almost magical attractive force between stars and planets. Ether theory has a totally different view. The reason we fall back to the Earth when we jump up is not this mystical force of gravity, but rather it is because the Earth is constantly absorbing a tremendous amount of ether to keep all of its elementary particles spinning. We are just in the way of this influx. This view explains what gravity is, and also explains Tesla’s seemingly odd statement that the sun is absorbing more energy than it is radiating. The more you think about it, the more this seemingly nutty idea makes perfect sense. The sun requires a gargantuan amount of etheric energy to keep its integrity.

COMMENTARY:  The energy absorbed by the sun comes from the ether meaning the sun is proof of the ability of free energy.

Grand Unification
Now we go to Einstein, who as we learn from the new Isaacson biography, came to reject Mach’s principle. Einstein did indeed see a connection between gravity and acceleration, but he was not ready to accept the etheric view, because to do so would mean to drive a stake through his precious theory of relativity. Remember, he said that if ether could be detected, then his theory was wrong.
According to the etheric view as espoused by the various writers listed above, Price and Gibson, et al., ether is easily detected. If you are driving in a car and accelerate greatly, you will feel a G-force. This is an increased absorption of ether. That’s what a G-force is. Ether flowing into matter is gravity, matter flowing rapidly through ether, that is, acceleration, is experienced as a G-force.
Einstein started to become aware of this in 1916, just as Louis de Broglie’s wave mechanics was coming into vogue. Where before that time physicists were looking at electrons and protons as particles, de Broglie emphasised the wave aspect of their nature. Looking at electrons as waves rather than particles makes it a lot easier to understand a quantum leap, or the shift of an electron from one orbit to another without going into an in-between state. From this de Broglie wavelike point of view, quantum leaps occur when electrons simply shift their point of focus. Once de Broglie began to gain acceptance, elementary particles including photons were now looked at more from the wave point of view and this view was more in accord with the necessity for an ether as the medium of transfer for light, for instance, to get from the sun to the Earth.

COMMENTARY:  A quantum leaps is the mechanism through which one Odu evolves into another Odu.

Initially, Einstein was still too caught up in his particle view and in Mach’s principle which suggested that all matter in the universe was interdependent. Thus, concerning rotating bodies, Einstein would write the young mathematician Karl Schwarzchild on January 9, 1916, “Inertia is simply an interaction between masses, not an effect in which space of itself is involved, separate from the observed mass.” Schwarzchild, Isaacson points out, disagreed. Now, four years later, in 1920 after reconsidering the necessity of the ether, for instance, as a means to propagate light, Einstein changed his mind. He abandoned Mach’s Principle and now saw that a rotating body did not obtain its inertia from, and in relations to, all the rest of the matter in the universe [Mach’s Principle], but on its own accord due simply to “its state of rotation [because] space is endowed with physical qualities.”19

COMMENTARY:  The topographical metaphor of Ifa expresses this idea by saying everything  in Creation has Ori or consciousness,

Because of the power of de Broglie’s emphasis on particle wave theory, Einstein shifted gears to be current. Back ahead of the curve, he lectured on the ether at Leiden University (discussed above). Einstein never came to view gravity as the absorption of ether by elementary particles and electromagnetism as a product of this process, because to do so would be to abandon relativity. Einstein also never was able to integrate gravity into his grand unification scheme, a problem he wrestled with for the entire last half of his life.

COMMENTARY:  In simple terms Einsteins theory does not work and the question is why is it still the basis of academic physics?

Once it is realised that electrons spin at speeds in excess of the speed of light, a new paradigm is born. The idea simply is that the elementary particles, by their nature, are absorbing ether all the time. This influx is what gravity is. As ether is absorbed two things happen. (1) The process enables the elementary particles to maintain their spin, and (2) Simultaneously, this etheric energy, probably stemming from what some physicists call the zero point energy realm, which is a vast reservoir of untapped energy, is transformed into electromagnetic energy. That is Grand Unification, Einstein’s dream of how to combine gravity with electromagnetism.

Tesla understood ether theory a lot better than Einstein did, but obviously, Tesla also did not truly understand the ramifications of Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2. He dismissed it as mathematical poppycock. Had he lived a few more years to see the explosion of the atom bomb, Tesla would have been forced to re-evaluate what he had discarded, and had Einstein re-evaluated the full ramifications of Tesla’s ether theory, he may have been able to achieve his grand dream of unifying gravity with electromagnetism, a process explainable by a full understanding of ether theory.
A large number of thinking physicists believe that an ether of sorts exists, and that forces of some type may transcend lightspeed. Once one begins to study ether theory, profound new insights concerning such things as particle spin, zero point energy, the fundamental structure of matter and space, the constancy of lightspeed and the link between gravity and electromagnetism begin to emerge.

COMMENTARY:  The structure of the ability of atoms to asorb ether is coded in the marks of Odu.  These marks are a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional energy pattern called a Merkaba by the ancient Egyptions.  Odu Ifa is the map of unified field theory as explained by Tesla.  It is the key to understanding the structure of the Universe.

The above is excerpted and adapted with permission from Marc J. Seifer’s book Transcending The Speed Of Light: Consciousness, Quantum Physics & the Fifth Dimension (Inner Traditions, 2008).
Footnotes:
1. Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life & Times of Nikola Tesla, New York: Birch Lane, 1996, pp. 18-19.
2. One need not resort to Bell’s theorem of non-locality, or instantaneous transference of information, or the new worm hole theories, each which suggest extra dimensions, to follow the argument as far as I have taken it.
3.Nikola Tesla, Pioneer radio engineer gives views on power. In J. Ratzlaff (Ed.), Tesla Said. Millbrae, CA: Tesla Book Company, 1984, pp. 240-242.
4. E. Lerner, ‘Magnetic whirlwinds’, Science Digest, 6/1985, p. 26.
5. Roland Clark, Einstein: The Life & Times, NY: World Publishing, 1971, p. 78.
6. Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life & Universe, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 318.
7. Edwin Gora, Physics Department, Providence College, private correspondence, 1991.
8. Ibid.
9. Einstein had really postulated two theories. The special theory of relativity postulated in 1905, dealing with uniform motions, and the general theory, which dealt with motions speeding up and slowing down. Mach’s principle is linked to the general theory.
10. Nikola Tesla, (1915), in Lectures, Patents, Articles, Belgrade: Nikola Tesla Museum, 1956, p. A-172.
11. Or one hierarchical dimension of it. Further, each point in space (in a galaxy) codes for every other point, as each contain the intersecting light from every star in the system. This idea is associated with holographic principles and the “enfolded order” where the whole is distributed throughout each part, as expounded by such theoreticians as David Bohm.
12. Nikola Tesla, 7/6/1930; J. Ratzlaff, (Ed.), Solutions to Tesla’s Secrets, Milbrae, CA: Tesla Book Company, 1981, p. 91.
13. Einstein, however, did not negate the conscious component from his philosophy. “I want to know how God created the world,” Einstein said. “I want to know his thoughts; the rest are details” [from E. Mallove, ‘Einstein’s Intoxication with God and the Cosmos’, Washington Post, 12/22/1985].
14. Nikola Tesla, ‘Radio power will revolutionize the world’, Modern Mechanix & Invention, 7/1934, pp. 40-42; 117-119.
15. Nikola Tesla, ‘Tesla, 79, promises to transmit force’, New York Times, 7/11/1935, 23:8; in Nikola Tesla, 1981, pp. 128-130.
16. “A principle of physics that Einstein held even more dear than determinism was the principle of local causality – that distant events cannot instantaneously influence local objects without mediation. What the EPR [Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen] argument did… was to show that quantum theory violated causality. This finding startled most physicists, because they held the principle of local causality sacred. This mean that either quantum physics was incomplete or non-local events [i.e., instantaneous information transmission] occurred.” The Cosmic Code, by Heinz Pagels, Bantam Books, NY, 1982, p. 139.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is also incomplete, as physicists have not, as yet, obtained a Grand Unification Theory based upon it. See, for instance ‘Einstein’s Dream’, by Gary Taubes, Discover, 12/1983, p. 48, whereby an 11 dimensional graviton (gravity particle) has been postulated as the ultimate particle to explain supergravity, quarks, electrons, etc.
17. It would take approximately 55 million volts to vaporise carbon, but only 4.37 million volts to change carbon into helium, the latter case within the parameters Tesla was capable of achieving [calculations performed by E. Gora]. A pound of carbon, on the other hand, if converted into nuclear energy, could provide enough electricity to run the country for an entire month [from Coleman, 1958, p. 54].
18. Mikhail Shapkin, “Unknown Manuscript of Nicola Tesla.”Farshores.org/wmtesla.htm.
19. Marc Seifer, Transcending the Speed of Light, p. 96; Isaacson, p. 125.
About the Author
MARC J. SEIFER Ph.D. is well known to the International Tesla Society, has spoken at all 7 biennial Colorado Springs Tesla Symposia 1984-1996, as well at the United Nations, West Point Military Academy, Brandeis University, the University of Vancouver, Canada, Cambridge University and Oxford University, England, in Jerusalem, Israel, in Zagreb, Croatia and in Belgrade and Novi Sad in Serbia. He is the author of Inward Journey: From Freud to Gurdjieff, Wizard: The Life & Times of Nikola Tesla and Transcending the Speed of Light, Consciousness, Quantum Physics and the Fifth Dimension published by Inner Traditions. His website iswww.marcseifer.com.
The above article appeared in New Dawn No. 113 (March-April 2009).
If you appreciated this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn.
© New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.
© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice.
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Awo Falokun is available for Ifa / Orisa Initiations and Workshops. Call: 775-741-0188 or email: awofalokun@ifabooksinc.com for more information.

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Awo Falokun and los ancianos de la comunidad de el ile Iwa pele efectuamos las siguientes iniciaciones.

Ori
Guerrero
mano de Orunmila
Obatala
Olokun
Yemaya
Shango
A ganar
Oya
Oshun
Ozain
Ibeji
Egbe
Sopera de odu
Iyaami Osorango

Para más información por favor comunicarse con Awo Falokun Fatunmbi A mi correo electrónico awofalokun@hotmail.com o mi celular 775-741-0188

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Awo Falokun and The Elders of Ile Iwa Pele Do the Following Intiations

Ori
Ebora (Warriors)
Omolawo (one hand of Ifa)
Obatala
Olokun
Yemoja
Sango
Aganyu
Oya
Osun
Osanyin
Ibeji
Egbe
Ifa
Odu Pot
Iyaami Osoranga

For more information contact Awo Falokun Fatunmbi at awofalokun@hotmail.com
or call Awo Falokun Fatunmbi at 775 741 0188

Saturday, May 9, 2015

ORÍKÌ OYEKU MEJI: Invocation for Good Fortune

Oyeku Meji, Oyeku Meji, Oyeku Meji leemeta.
The Averter of Death, the Averter of Death, the Averter of Death, I call you three times.

Mo be yin, bi iku ba sunmo itosi kie bami ye ojo iku fun.
I beg you, if Death is coming, help us to avert it.

Si ehin Ogun tabi ogorun odun, tabi bi iku ba nbo kie bami yee si ehin ogofa.
For all the years that I will be on the Earth, avert my Death until the pre-ordained time of passing.

Odun tiatibi mi sinu aye kie bami ye ojo iku fun ara mi ati awon omo mi ti mo bi.
Avert Death for all my children and avert Death for all those I include in my prayers.

Kiamaku ni kekere, kiamaku iku ina, kiamaku iku oro, kiamaku iku ejo, kiamaku sinu omi, Ase.
May they not die young, may they not die in fire, may they not die in tragedy, may they not die in shame, may they not die in water.  May it be so.

Ire,
Awo Falokun

Monday, May 4, 2015

Oyeku Meji as documented by Baba Ayo Salami - Interpretations by Awo Falokun Fatunmbi

Oyeku Meji as documented by Baba Ayo Salami (ibae), with Interpretations by Awo Falokun Fatunmbi


The sunshine is just brightening over the horizon
It is an indication of the onset of a new day

Commentary:  Oyeku from the elision oye iku means understanding death.  I believe the word death as it is used in Ifa scripture has a wide range of meanings.  It can mean physical death, but most frequently refers to the end of cycle.  It is common to interpret an end of cycle as a negative, and I believe this would be a mistake.  If we are invoking an end to confusion, an end to poverty, an end to ill health, we are invoking for the creation of positive influences by getting rid of the negative influences.  The entire corpus of Odu is based on the natural cycle of life, death, transformation and rebirth.  Ending the old, always makes room for the new.  That is the meaning of the metaphor of the sun coming up over the horizon it is a metaphor of unlimited possibilities.  Even physical comes with the promise of atunwa or reincarnation.

Cast divination for Oye
The one that would from the sky become bright like
the king of cotton

Commentary:  When the sky becomes bright like the king of cotton the metaphor is for the end of a cycle to be transformed by the light of Obatala.  The light of Obatala is called Ala in Yoruba.  Ala is pure consciousness in its primal form.  When we are guided by Ala we are guided by the Source of Creation which always illuminates our higher self.

‘Would I be rich’? He asked
He was asked to perform sacrifice
They said his ray would brighten
He performed the sacrifice
His ray became brightened
Life so pleased him.
He then started to dance and rejoice
He was praising his Babaláwos
His Babaláwos were praising Ifá
He said it was as his Babaláwos had said
The sunshine is just brightening over the horizon
I think it is an indication of the onset of a new day

Commentary:  This is a request for the good fortune that comes from letting go of that which needs to be discarded in our life.  Holding on to ideas that do not work takes effort and that effort can easily lead to depression and even physical illness.

Cast divination for Oye
The one that would from the sky become bright like
the king of cotton
You are not changed
I am not changed

Commentary:  to say you and I have not changed is to say that our eternal nature remains constant and unaltered by circumstances in the physical realm.  We can avoid embracing our essential and true self but we cannot alter our essential and true self.

Oye becomes a pair
And the tray becomes very full

Commentary:  When we transcend the limitation of Iku we become an inspiration to others.  Whatever we fix in our life is medicine for others.  That is why Awo have a responsibility to function as role models in their communities.  When we inspire others to embrace their essential nature and true self by embracing our own essential and true self the number of people in the world aligned with their higher self-doubles.

As a topographical metaphor the idea of a Merkaba with all eight portals closed is the process of transforming a first generation star into a second generation star.  A first generation star produces hydrogen atoms.  When the fuel that creates the heat that produces hydrogen atoms is expended the star collapses in on itself.  The pressure from the collapse causes the star to explode into a super nova.  A super nova is a huge gas cloud made up of all the elements in the table of elements.  When this cloud is pressed into a spherical form by the influence of gravity it becomes a second generation star reproducing all the elements.  The discharge from a second generation star leads to the creation of planets.

So it is with human life, every time the old self is destroyed, we open the door to recreating our self with a closer alignment to our fullest potential.

Ire,
Awo Falokun

Available for Initiations.
Email: awofalokun@hotmail.com

Sunday, May 3, 2015

ORIN EJIOGBE (Song for Good Fortune)

Elénìní ilé, elénìní òde o.  Elénìní ilé,  elénìní òde o.
Home Slanderer, Outside Slanderer. Home Slanderer, Outside Slanderer o.
Kini mo ra l´owo yin? Elénìní ilé,  elénìní òde o.
What did I buy from you?  Home Slanderer, Outside Slanderer.
Ifá ni yoo yo idà pa won tan.
Ifa says that put aside your sword.

Ire,
-Awo Falokun

Thursday, April 30, 2015

BALTIMORE: Divine Justice on the Left - Divine Justice on the Right

Divine justice on the left
Divine justice on the right
Divine justice for those in the wrong
Divine justice for those in the right

Ogun modupe (Ogun We / I thank you)
Ogun modupe O (Ogun We / I thank you)
Ogun, onija ole (Ogun, the strongest fighter)
Ogun, adigirigiri rebi ija (Ogun, the one clever in fighting)
Onile kangunkangun ona orun (Ogun, the owner of shapeless houses in heaven)

Ogun, it is you who forges divine justice
Ogun, it is you who severs the truth from the lies
and dances on the head of our true enemies
Ogun, it is you who molds our character
and bestows on us discernment.

Divine justice on the left
Divine justice on the right
Divine justice for those in the wrong
Divine justice for those in the right.

Ase.

- Ifasalewa Gbemi Ogunride
eOsw

Thursday, April 23, 2015

OGUN: The Spirit of Iron (The Ifa Concept of Ogun)

Spiritual growth is a journey. To begin the journey there is a need for an opening. The opening is the door that appears when the dogma you hold is shattered by an experience that challenges your preconceived notions about self and world. The door appears as a result of the universal presence of the Divine Messenger, meaning all interaction contains a potential message from Spirit. The message from the Divine Messenger as the trickster is always the same. The trickster brings the message there is more to life than you can imagine. This message can be extremely disruptive and confusing. To work our way out of confusion and back to integration and clarity we call on Osoosi to give us a vision of how to assimilate the message from Esu in a way that will give great depth and clarity to our understanding of self and World. Once the door is open and you see where the path is leading Ifa says invoke Ogun to clear away the obstacles. This is why Esu, Osoosi, and Ogun are grouped together as Ebora. Their interaction is the fundamental Ifa paradigm for growth. This paradigm is rooted in the structure of Ori and Ori is protected by Osun the source of the symbolic map of consciousness through which the Ebora travel.
The relationship of the Ebora is frequently misunderstood outside of traditional Yoruba culture. There is in the West a common misconception that the Ebora have a function to hurt people who upset you. This is a spiritual tit for tat based on the notion that the person with the most powerful Ebora wins. It is a childish notion of spiritual warrior usually rooted in deep insecurities and fostered by a uniformed media that thoughtlessly associates African spirituality with the idea of hexing people. In addition to being childish and silly it has no basis in traditional Ifa metaphysics. It is true that we can be affected by negative thoughts but only if we allow those thought to generate fear.
If you read the traditional religious literature of Africa closely you will discover there is a very ancient, wide spread, cross cultural reverence for the Spirit of Iron. In Yoruba, this Spirit is called Ogun, north of Nigeria you will sometimes find the Spirit of Iron called Ogun, and other similar sounding spiritual names. Throughout West Africa there is a tradition of making the profession of blacksmith a sacred vocation. This tradition is a logical development of the time when humans were dependent on hunting for survival. Ogun created tools and the tools lead to farming and farming leads to the stability of cities and the development of culture. There are indications these trade skills represent a cross cultural interaction stretching between the Middle East through Africa and across the ocean to South America. I am referring to interaction that predates the voyages made by Christopher Columbus. The clearest example is the Olmec culture of what is now Mexico. The sculptures of this culture in Mexico show indications it was based on cooperation between Phoenicians and West Africans.
The word Ogun is difficult to translate into English, but we have some indication from the word oogun. The letter O in Yoruba is used to indicate owner, or one who possess something. The letter O is also used to suggest that someone or some Spiritual Force has mastered a particular form of wisdom. The word oogun means medicine. So in a sense the word for medicine is owner of ogun. I am using the word medicine to mean both physical and spiritual transformation. If we can look at medicine as something that attacks illness, or as something that restores vitality, believe it is a reasonable translation. In a sense you have Ogun as the suffix of oogun, suggesting it is the source of vitality or the source of aliveness. In my opinion this gives us an indication that Ogun is a linguistic reference to the will to survive. It could also suggest survival of that which asserts its own will to make a place for itself in the world. English does not have a single word expressing this idea clearly, but is a commonly understood concept in Ifa associated with the Spirit of Ogun.
There is also an element of aggression implied in the word Ogun. In Nature there is competition for the available resources. To become successful in the survival process, vitality and assertiveness are required. The relationship between antelope and lions on the savannah sets us a dynamic in which the lions make sure only the strongest antelope survive. This is Nature’s way of guiding evolution in the direction of vitality. If we take this idea and see how it relates to the concept of medicine we can get some sense of the origin of the word in metaphysical principles. It suggests that development of consciousness as a way of improving our ability to adapt to our environment.
Unfortunately the notion of survival of the fittest has been used historically to justify racist ideas. In particular it has been used to rule the world. Vitality is a part of the human condition, but it does not define the human condition. Vitality coupled with empathy, compassion and a sense of community is what ultimately creates a foundation for spiritual growth. The notion of controlling others based on the creation of weapons to use as a threat is an idea rooted in greed and the mentality of scarcity. If you believe the world has limited resources than the use of violence to insure survival might make some sense. Ifa teaches the idea that we live in an abundant universe and that living in alignment with Nature can insure survival without the need to resort to violence.
We do have in the theological concept of Ogun the idea of survival through assertive and aggressive action directed towards maintaining survival. The idea is not the ruling principle of social organization in traditional Yoruba culture. In the Ifa creation Myth, the world is described as originally being ruled by Ogun and goes on to say this era of civilization was a failure. To put the idea in contemporary language we are talking about male testosterone. It is what I would call the dynamic, assertive aggressive, expansive quality in Nature itself which is expressed by the Spirit of Ogun. This is an observable Force in Nature that only becomes destructive when it is out of balance with the nurturing, contractive qualities associated with female structure. This is why patriarchy does not work. When Ifa came to the diaspora the influence of patriarchal religions smothered the original African idea of gender equality.
When Ifa speaks about Ogun it is often in reference to blacksmiths and tool makers. This is a limited perspective because it suggests a person figured out how to make use of iron technology and now we are deifying that person. If we limit our perception in this way we are missing the primal manifestation of Ogun as a force of Nature. I call Ogun the spirit of Iron because it is the common translation of the word and because Ogun is the Spirit who is honored by the tool makers but he is not limited to the methodology of tool making.
I believe the historical genesis of the human relationship to Ogun may have emerged out of the tradition of men as hunters and women as time keepers. This is a separation of gender roles likely established for practical reasons. Women on their cycle leave a scent easily picked up by animals and making it difficult for women to effectively hunt at certain times of the month. At the same time the cycle becomes a built in clock. These two social functions became separated by gender as a matter of practical convenience. The point is there is no indication in this separation of functions that men are better than women. There is simply an indication of aptitude making certain tasks easier to accomplish.
We get another indication about the genesis of our understanding of Ogun by looking at the symbolism used to represent Ogun. In Ogun’s pot we have an iron cauldron with three legs, wrapped with a chain and filled with spikes. There is usually a knife and maybe some tools in the pot. We can look at the pot and ask what do these things represent? With the pot itself we have the symbolism of the womb, and we also have the idea of three legs. Three is the symbolic number of Onile or Mother Earth. Ifa says that whenever two Awo (diviners) meet three are always present, the third being the Earth Herself. Three symbolizes the relationship to the Earth; this gives us the symbol of the womb supported by the symbol for the Earth a clear indication of the relationship between masculine dynamics and famine form.
The pot is surrounded by the chain. In Ifa the chain is used as a symbol for the link between Heaven and Earth, a link that is sustained by the genetic chain of DNA. There is a piece of red cloth around the pot which is filled with iron spikes. There is some scientific indication the rust on the iron deposits at the bottom of the ocean created bacteria which became the source of the first single cell life forms on Earth. This would be the beginning of evolution and the basis for Ogun’s praise name Oguntobi meaning Ogun is the Father of all. The seed of life in the womb of the ocean is now symbolized by the iron spikes in the iron cauldron of Ogun. In the pot iron spikes or tools symbolize sperm in the womb. The female component of Ogun is frequently diminished in the West. What is used to consecrate the Ogun pot is irosun. Irosun is red powder from the camwood tree. In Yoruba the word irosun is sometimes used to refer to menstrual blood from the elision ire osun meaning good fortune comes from the guardian of the head which I would interpret to mean genetic inheritance from our ancestors. If you are putting red camwood powder on the Ogun pot you are symbolizing the primal procreative drive for survival.
Historically the urge for survival led to the development of hunting, and to the development of marking time. The value of marking time was the ability to anticipate a shift in the seasons and to develop adequate protection for winter eventually leading to the ability to plant crops. We are talking about the primal motivational forces in the development of human consciousness leading to the development of civilization.
In the Ifa Creation Myth, Ogun’s initial effort to create civilization fails due to an excess of aggression. Civilization is saved through the efforts of Orunmila who teaches Ogun the principles of good character. I believe this is a historical memory of the fact that unchecked procreative, aggressive behavior is not the optimal principle for social organization. We have the idea of ethical judgments tempering the pure unbridled aggressive nature of Ogun as a Spiritual force in Creation. The story about Orunmila’s relationship with Ogun does not mean that Ogun is “evil”, it does not make Ogun “bad”, it does not make Ogun “the devil”, it does not make Ogun a “blood thirsty warrior”. It does make Ogun part of the bigger picture, in which the issue of balance becomes important. Every aspect of the wheel must play is part fully. To emphasis one spoke of the wheel over another is to create dogma and dogma is never true.
When Ogun’s power or ase is needed, it needs to be fully expressed in its essence to find its proper place in the world. One of the ways this is done in traditional Yoruba communities is to allow the elders of Ogun to make life force offerings. In many Yoruba communities there is room for specialization. You can have a ceremony for Oya (the Spirit of the Wind) and when it comes time to make an offering of a goat, and initiate of Ogun can be called in to make the cut. After that he might leave the ceremony. I am speaking about what is commonly called “animal sacrifice”. The word “sacrifice” is a Christian term; the word in Yoruba is Ebo. Sacrifice does not translate to ebo. Ifa does not sacrifice animals because that suggests the animal is killed and discarded. The Ifa concept of ebo is to provide a feast for the family or the community. When you live in an environment that depends on domesticated animals for food, the slaughtering of an animal is always a sacred act, just as hunting was a sacred act when communities depended on hunting for survival.
In traditional Yoruba communities, Ogun initiates slaughter domestic animals, and hunt those wild animals that are part of the diet. They sometimes specialize, so not every Ogun initiate necessarily does both. All Ogun initiates are trained in the spiritual discipline of preparing sanctified food, meaning food that is blessed during the preparation and consumption.
When you go through a rite of passage, or a personal transformation, it is the Ifa belief that the more people pray on your behalf, the more likely it will be that your prayers will be heard by Spirit. In order to get a lot of people to support your spiritual elevation you feed them. On the day you announce you have made a commitment to move from being a child to an adult, you feed the community. After the feast no one in the community will allow you to get away with childish behavior. When someone does something foolish elders will say we slaughtered a goat to announce the day you became an adult, honor your commitment to that celebration. This was not a sacrifice it is a part of normal cycle of feeding the community.
Why would you provide a feast in a ceremonial way? This is based on the idea of reaffirming our covenant with Creation. When a priest of Ogun slaughters a goat, he precedes the gesture by saying may the Spirit of this goat reincarnate as a goat to feed my family in the future. You are acknowledging the interconnected relationship between all things in Nature. It is not about the blood. The blood is the seal to the covenant. There is a mistaken motion in the Diaspora that the more blood you use, the more power you raise. In Africa they return the blood to the Earth. When the blood is placed in the Earth it has regenerative value like fertilizer. They take a feather and dip the feather into the blood and touch the plod to the shire being fed. Quantity is not a factor. There are variations on this process, the point is food is being prepared for the community, the blood is incidental. The act of re-affirming our covenant with the Spirit only requires a small amount of blood. It is the sincerity of the ritual act that carries the power and not the quantity of blood.
There is another aspect of a life force offering essential to understanding the awo or mystery of Ogun. Based on the Ifa belief in reincarnation, animals pass into the realm of the ancestors. We pray directly to the animals so our prayers may be taken by the animals into Orun or the invisible realm. Ifa teaches the idea everything in the World has consciousness and Spirit can communicate with all things. Ifa also embraces the idea of psychometry. If I touch your shoes I can tell where you have been during the day. Your prayer against the head of the animal transfers that message to both Spirit and to those who share in the meal. It is the process of giving our prayers physical substance in the community and in the realm of the ancestors.
When you make the offering you are dealing with the power of Ajala the Yoruba word for warrior. The word Ajala is an elision of aja ala, meaning the dog of light. In Ifa a dog is a messenger to Spirit like the Nimbus in Egyptian culture, it is not a derogatory reference. When you day you are a dog of white light, you are saying you are a messenger of ethical conduct. In the act of making ebo or offerings you become Ajala. You become the vehicle in which ethical conduct is incarnated. Light in Ifa is associated with the idea that everything is connected. To experience light in its primal manifestation is to have a mystical experience that allows you to feel your connection with all things. This experience comes into being in the Odu Otura meji. There is no Ajala without the manifestation of Otura meji. Ala is a symbolic reference to the mystical vision. Aja is a symbolic reference to the ability to remain connected to spirit to reinforce your original mystic vision with information relevant to the moment.
The Ifa concept of Ajala includes the component of mystic vision and the Ifa concept of Ogun includes the component of s’otito s’odido, meaning state the facts and tell the truth. In the folk lore associated with Ogun there is a story about Ogun working as an executioner for an Oba or king. Someone has stolen one of the Oba’s goats and the Oba’s messenger has accused a specific suspect who the messenger claims he saw take the goat. The messenger brings the suspect to the palace for execution. When the messenger arrives with the suspect, Ogun decapitates the messenger saying it is taboo to lie. Ogun says “I know the suspect is innocent because I stole the goat.” The mystery of Ogun becomes finding a place that will open a portal for truth. In Ifa unconditional love or Ife is the only truth, all else is illusion or ibi. This is not the Ultimate truth of God’s will; it is the relative truth of how to live effectively in the world.
Within Ori we find a place to balance between the head and the heart. Balance gives us a sense of self and World. It is Esu who disrupts our sence of complacency given us a vision of self and world beyond our immediate perception. The disruption of Esu thows us into a world of fear, confusion, panic and dread. Through the invocation of Osoosi our higher self can guide us to a vision of the path that will lead us out of darkness and into light. When the speps we need to take are clear it is Ogun who gives us the will power and determination to actually walk the path. Ifa teaches when you invoke Ogun you are asking to transform that which obstructs your growth. These obstructions always originate in ourselves as ideas that do not accurately reflect the World around us. Ogun clears away inner obstacles that lead to the transformation of the external environment. In simple terms we are the masters of our fate.
Odu Ifa does speak of the dangers of Ogun unleashing his ase or spiritual power without the tempering balance of female spirit. At times people grouped together in community are confronted with the need to defend themselves. The Odu Osa Ogunda speaks of a time when it is necessary to go to war. This is symbolically referred to as the time when the water buffalo stirs up dust. The water buffalo is sacred to Oya the Spirit of the Wind who is considered the guardian of the forest. To say the water buffalo is stirring up dust is to say the stability of the rain forest is threatened. In traditional Yoruba culture a threat to the rain forest is understood as a threat to survival. Oya in turn opens the door to the realm of the ancestors who have the insight and vision to fix that which is being threatened. The first step in the process is saying Ogun cannot go to war without the guidance of Oya to protect the village from extinction. In the verse Osa Ogunda Oya is described as a shape shifter meaning she has a spiritual power associated with the women of Iyaami Osoranga. This is the power of astral travel and the ability to use astral travel as a weapon to torment those who threaten the stability of the culture.
Approximately two hundred years ago there was a huge reaction to slavery in Nigeria initiated by the women of Iyaami Osoranga. This moral outrage led to skirmishes with the British and the eventual end of slavery in Yoruba culture. This moral outrage was formalized into the ancestral ritual called Gelede. The purpose of gelede is to appease the anger of the mothers by holding an annual ritual where the social concerns of the mothers are directly addressed.
In traditional Yoruba culture warfare is an integrated operation coordinating the physical warriers skills of the men who are initiated into the martial arts associated with Ogun and the women are initiated in the martial arts associated with the powers of the ancestral mothers. Ogun’s martial art is called Aki meaning courage and those who are skilled in the martial arts are called Akin meaning brave men. The martial arts of the ancestral mothers are associated with Aje meaning power of the word. The Odu Osa Ogunda says that Ogun recognizes the shape shifting abilities of Oya and asks her to be his wife. Together they become a potent force for protecting the village. In other words traditional Yoruba warfare is physical combat supported by prayer.
Ifa understands the inner mysteries of warfare and understands that the ase or spiritual power used to effectively fight a war is not easily turned off. If the energy is not grounded following a battle, the ase runs the risk of becoming self-destructive. The Odu Ogunda Ose speaks of the taboo against hurting other, offending others, and punishing others. All of which are considered different from defending the community from attack. It is the role of Osun the Spirit of Fresh Water to remind Ogun of this distinction. She does this by using the medicine of honey to sweeten his soul after the trauma of war. Osun is the source of abundance, erotic elure and the promise of a good life. It is Osun who Ogun turns to when it is necessary to dispel the testosterone necessary for being an effective warrior.
Ultimately the purpose of Ogun’s ase is to clear away any and all obstacles leading to rebirth as expressed in the Odu Ogunda Odi. In this verse Ogun is promised a safe journey, meaning the removal of obstacles will result in the manifestation of a completely transformed ori or the emergence of a new self-identity with expanded parameter of grasping self and world. Odi is the Odu that incarnates Yemoja, from the elision yeye mi oja, meaning the Mother of Fishes. This is the Ifa spirit of the Nuturing Mother who gives us a sense of completion and grace when we have completed the difficult journey of self-elevation and transformation.
Classic studies of mythology described this as the hero discovering the boon of treasure in the wilderness. In simple terms this means any problem I fix in my life become potential medicine for someone else. In traditional Yoruba culture everyone older than you is your mentor and everyone younger is your potential protégé. We learn from experience and experience gives us the voice of authority to teach others. The Hero’s Journey is support of the Ifa proverb that says. “If your life gets better my life gets better.”

Ire,
Awo Falokun

Awo Falokun is available for Ifa / Orisa Initiations and Workshops. Call: 775-741-0188 or email: awofalokun@ifabooksinc.com for more information.

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