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Date: 26 Oct 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Re: "Hoodoo Chruches" (was: Re: Magical and Religious Terminology (was Spells and Rituals of Summoning ....)
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Subject: Re: "Hoodoo Chruches" (was: Re: Magical and Religious Terminology
>(was Spells and Rituals of Summoning ....)
>From: Eoghan Ballard eballard@sas.upenn.edu
>Date: 10/13/00 1:21 PM EST
>Message-id:
>
>The fundamental error in this sort of distinction between
>religion/magic/luck is the assumption - clearly one founded in
>(primarily though not exclusively) protestant Christian discourse is one
>that defines religion as a priori non-material and other worldly. Not
>all religious traditions or cultures are interested in having their pie
>in the sky.
>
>Folk religions of almost all varieties Christian, Eastern, African, etc.
>tend to look for more a immediate response. Historically only those who
>have had a vested interest in the status quo try to negatively define
>such religious impulses.
I am not sure the exact context in which you write the foregoing, but I take
issue with it nonetheless. We have had exchanges before that dwelt on the
distinctions that may be drawn between religion and sorcery. These are
distinctions that are made in the traditional African religion, and predate
Christianity (both the original African version, as well as its later European
variations) by several thousand years. Check out an article I have cited many
times before on this group, seemingly to no avail at least where you are
concerned: "The ancient wisdom in Africa", by Patrick Bowen, in the Journal,
Studies in Comparative Religion, vol. 3, Spring, 1969. The author cannot be
dismissed as an over-reaching "afrocentrist", seeking to read more into the
evidence than the evidence can support; he is a white South African, who, even
as he speaks of this "ancient wisdom", among the Zulus, that may be traced back
to a priest of Auset from during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, seeks to ascribe
credit for this wisdom to Jews and Berbers. Neither proposition can stand, for
if Bowen knew his history, he would know that as of the reign of Khufu, Abraham
had not yet been born, and the Berbers had not yet made their entrance to
Africa.
At any rate, all the evidence (see Herodotus, Massey, Higgins) points to
religion being an African creation. As is sorcery. These distinctions have not
come latterly to Africa following European invasion and conquest.
I appreciate that the term "religion" is hard to define, and the delineation
sought between religion and sorcery also may be difficult. Nevertheless, the
primary clue is in the etymology of the word religion itself, which comes from
re (back) + ligare (to tie or bind), yielding the essential meaning, namely a
tying back to oneness with the Creator, or from another angle, the reclamation
of one's own divinity. The word yoga, from the same root that gives us the word
"to yoke", has similar connotation.
It would be seen that such a concern is quite different from the concern of
sorcery, which by definition (I didn't establish this European usage and
connotation) is the use of superphysical forces, themselves of an evil nature,
to cause certain desired effects, also with evil or malicious intent, on the
physical plane.
From these definitions, it should be clear how ridiculous it is to suggest,
whether directly or by implication, either that Africans make no such
distinctions, or that they became aware of such distinctions only after contact
with protestant christian theology.
I have cited the Bowen article because it is out there in the literature and
interested persons can go and check it for themselves. (I have an electronic
copy which I can post if anyone is interested). However, I did not need Bowen
to know that traditional African religion is very much concerned to address the
question of the true nature of God and Man, God's purpose in creating Man, and
Man's role in God's creation. I have had it now from at least four different
teachers, one from the Vodou tradition, another from a Kongo tradition, another
from the Zulu tradition, a fourth from the Yoruba tradition.
I am beginning to think, Eoghan, that it is your avowed interest in sorcery
that prevents you from seeing certain things where traditional African religion
is concerned.
>
>Eoghan
>
Peace,
Grisso
"Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?"
"Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside."
-- from One-Minute Wisdom
Also this: "... when the wind subsides, the leaves still fall."
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