The Sunday News
SYMBOLS are technically forms of writing. They are representative, expressive beyond the symbol itself. A symbol will have a context in terms of a people or community who share the same understanding, explanations and interpretations of a given symbol.
After looking at a number of symbols, I get the impression that what we term art may actually be a form of writing. We shall refer in this article to one symbol and figure out what it represents and therefore the meaning behind it.
The two symbols that launched me into the orbit of greater orbital energy was the chevron, the motif and the pattern.
A single V shape or triangle represent or symbolise something circular, a womb and the organ that is in. For quite some time now, I have been pontificating about the circular design. I have argued that it is the basic design for bin humans and indeed other species of fauna.
Ubiquity of the circle and the related circular design and circularity are never in doubt. We shall continue to seek a deeper and more incisive perception, representation, expression and symbolisation of a circle and its various forms.
However, as we do so this time, we are alert and cognisant of the subject at hand. We are dealing with Ancient African Science (AAS). In that thrust and endeavour, we seek to isolate applicable underpinning and informing principles, rules and laws at work.
One of the numerous ardent readers and followers of this column showed interest in learning about the principles that underpin flying that the so-called wizards and witches apply in their nocturnal errands. Should we not draw some lessons that we could replicate and make use of knowing that AAS essentially is a science that recognises the ubiquity of various forms of energy. Energy is indestructible and may only be transformed from one form to another.
We have come to a point where we acknowledge that the universe is actually about energy more than things material. Many realms in the world that are not necessarily material or physical. The world that we have confined ourselves to, is the material or physical realm, part of several realms beyond our access.
That limits our understanding of the world, let alone the universe with a multiplicity of realms. Our limited nature denies us access to the numerous realms and, that way, we are denied other existing sciences and therefore acquisition of knowledge.
The other day I was reading about Shamanism. Shamans link and connect with spirit beings and access their wisdom and knowledge. Shamans who operate, accompany departing soups to the next realm from both realms-the material and the spiritual intangible. They possess healing powers. All this will happen when someone assumes a different or altered consciousness.
I was persuaded to view the concept as akin to spiritual possession. A spirit medium acquires or assumes a different consciousness. It is that consciousness that connects and links him/her to another realm. When our consciousness is circumscribed, why should we think there is just one realm beyond the physical and the material? Why do we think a science that is restricted and confined to the material realm has capacity to access all the knowledge there is to acquire when numerous realms remain inaccessible to it?
The African, through AAS, is capacitated to acquire a different consciousness that allows him/her to migrate from the physical or material realm and his/her other forms of consciousness allow him/her to access knowledge available within other realms, thus allowing an individual to access mew forms of knowledge.
The altered consciousness that we are here referring to may be enhanced, thus capacitating an individual to navigate a bigger and deeper world and a bigger universe, comprising realities beyond the material that are understood within the context of western science.
Spirit, we do posit, is like and probably is, the other side with some theoretical potential to access and engulf the entire world and, indeed, the universe. Spirit is indestructible, so is energy. Spirit incarnates, through a process where it dwells in matter. We see a similar phenomenon in energy that can be very dangerous and humans rely on its versatility or transformative quality to deal with it.
Humans know how to tame energy and have it exist in matter, where it is domesticated. For example, electricity, a form of energy, is extremely dangerous and yet humans can manipulate it and have it flow along safe channels or routes-along electrical conductors. It may also be stored in cells of batteries for later utilization. AAS can create lightning that is understood in a different way from that applicable in the West.
This is a very important consideration to comprehend. When one is afflicted with a disease, different communities will understand, explain and interpret the same condition differently. Understanding depends on a variety of factors such as surviving and transmitted, customs, history, cosmology, beliefs and environmental relatedness, inter alia.
Where I have a serious problem is when some community decides “trash and rubbish” other communities’ explanations and interpretations. Not all communities access the same number of different realms that exist on our planet.
That translates to differential possession of knowledge. How does one community that accesses one realm, the material realm, tell all other communities that their knowledge counts for naught? For example, the San, through shamanistic practices accumulated, over millennia vast knowledge that relates to their environment.
They have developed spiritual ways to immobilise an identified animal from a chosen spoor. They have used their art to achieve ends beyond art. They know how to materially blend with the local environment. They know how to access an animal through immobilisation. They will get close to the spiritually and ritually immobilised victim and kill it. They possess power and capability to conceal themselves and, if you are pursuing them, you will walk past without ever seeing them. There are members of the Bantu group who possess the same scientific skills. Witches and wizards possess the same and this is the reason we highlight San power.
I term this, Shamanistic technology or spiritual technology. It works on known spiritual or shamanistic principles and rule . Then in life, those principles are applied. That is what technology was all about in ancient Africa. To those who are not in the knowhow, all this makes sense. The underpinning science does not make sense to them. When that is the case, how can the resulting technology make sense?
What we need to bring out here is the fact that knowledge may be gained through spiritual media. Those who conquered Africans and sought to have them abandon their ways discredited their indigenous spirituality.
The African was undressed, disempowered and had links with the past severed. The African began having the world defined to him. He fell into the trap, completely.
Instead of seeking opportunities for new forms of energy as capitalized upon by the witches, he has seen nothing beyond paganism, primitivism and supernaturalism. If anything, super nature and, in particular super nature, should be seen in positive light. It is about the alternative realms that I alluded to above.
The problem is not about super nature, but that the concept and practice relate to Africans who are despised and now effortlessly despise, laugh and deride themselves. Do witches really fly? What energy do they harness to achieve the seemingly unbelievable, mythical and magical feat? I would not be surprised when, in the future, Africans have their science snatched from below their noses.
Back to circularity. We should never imagine that circularity or the circle expresses a single idea. As already alluded to above, different communities will express the circle and circularity in different ways. It might very well be that all the posited expressions are related. A circle has no beginning and no end. It thus expresses eternity. It will also express unity, cooperation and connectedness.
I see it as an expression of fertility, which is/was eternity symbolized. Through sexuality, humans attain eternity in terms of continuity, perpetuity and endlessness of their species. When one perceives a circle as comprising joined units, holism becomes apparent. This is important in understanding and application of AAS.
Unity and some holistic approach are integral parts of circular expression. To the Africans, the world is one, a scintillating oneness and unit. You tap a single component; the whole web resonates. Flora, fauna and all the environmental elements are linked and connected. One example is the blood that runs through blood vessels of relatives. When one relative courts the wrath of a particular family, the repercussions identify the culprit’s relatives through their blood network.
Africans have known genetics for a very long time, certainly, before the west discovered it in times that are more recent. Similarly, cloning has, for millennia, been an integral part of AAS. One cannot begin to talk about witches and wizards without reference to what some people will refer to as goblins, ontikolotshe, izituhwane, imikhoba.
These sub-human species come to the assistance of witches. They provide requisite protection and seem, like their human counterparts, to revel in sex. Therefore, their acquisition has to take into account gender balance. When man acquires males only and does not provide females, a man’s wives must be ready to provide sexual pleasure to the hard working creatures.
Some men, who purchase these creatures that have been created through cloning, use the fellows to bring money, to herd cattle and do other household chores. For example, before a bride left her own people to go and live with her groom’s people, when she was counselled, ukulaywa, one aspect in the counselling episode was telling her to obey instructions about putting aside some food when she dishes. There was no explanation given her. She would later learn that the food was being reserved for the goblins. That was reference to the goblins that, like human beings require food.
Some future article will feature the various familiars that a wizard has around him and the purposes they serve. Where it is animals, the animals or birds, they must be those that travel or fly at night. Equally important, is that the animals and birds must have night vision. A witch has night vision and applies known navigation principles to figure out coordinates where he is going.
They learn how to navigate their crafts and hardly singly. They travel as a group, several of them in a small chitundumuseresere.
There is transformation of the material component, reducing its size and transforming into little material beings and more energy. There is thus reduced mass and weight.
