Study on the sacred
Introduction
The sacred: the real paradigm
The flaw in the anthropological research of the sacred
The position of the African researcher
The inconsistency of the true-false paradigm of the irrational
The crucial importance of the event
Ancestor worship: in search of a definition
The premier event: the phenomenon agrarian
Biological Bases
The neurobiological underpinnings
Astronomical Foundations
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Welcome to this site dedicated to refuting the paradigm of the irrational use explicit about the facts of sacred archaic or traditional societies, and especially African societies.
As a member of these societies, the systematic use of the irrational as ultimate explanation of these facts is offensive and we might seem a lack of rigor in research.
In the approach to ethnology-anthropology there is always explicitly or implicitly begging the question that traditional societies through their culture could not produce something intellectually coherent. This profession of faith explains the systematic irrationality as an explanation of the ultimate sacred facts.
By irrational, what is heard is indeed something wrong, incoherent, that defies logic, in short, what escapes reason. From the pen of an anthropologist, or irrational "thinking different from ours" is a euphemism for "pre-logical thinking" that contemporary anthropology pretends to fight. It must be said that the substitution of one by the other was the politically correct before the hour. There is not, in substance, a difference between the word irrational and the term "pre-logical thought." Whether using one or the other is used, the same thing that is said. We change the form but the substance remains the same. It remains outside of reason, logic.
Treating the cultures of other kinds of machines as irrational is producing serious injury that is not without consequences for the people concerned especially when we know that these people have suffered centuries of slave trade with the key inculcation an inferiority complex maintained by colonialism and neo-colonialism.
No one has the right to bring the cultures of others to mere epiphenomena of human thought. Producing a crop is always a highlight in the history of the genus Homo. So to speak of a people that has a culture, or a piece of its culture, which is absurd, or inconsistent in any case, beyond the rational, is to invite these people to turn away from its culture, c ' is to remove him from his soul, is an attempt of annihilation of other cultures. It is a crime and he should not remain without impunity.
It is nonetheless curious that a science that claims human study has provided and still provides much contempt the productions of the Others. But how could anyone think for a moment, despite good intentions, that myths are a hobby of thought, scrap the human psyche? The thought "wild" can not be both efficient and handyman, working with waste. We will see in what follows that the most cosmogonic myths are not fabrications and / or crafts, they are rather academic buildings.
If you met a wise African worthy of the name in full possession of his culture and if he had all these explanations using the irrational, which would appear to be DIY, incoherent and absurd will all these explanations and theories arbitrary evoking irrational. It is clear that we will not understand and congratulates himself proclaims as a specialist African sacred facts without any of those that claim never presented to a panel of African elders for an evaluation of their knowledge of the sacred in Africa to be proclaimed expert. But no matter, as it is true that these experts believe have superior knowledge to the legatees of those cultures. At every corner, is the contempt for the Other found in this approach to anthropology.
What anthropologists who study African sacred facts seem to have mostly done so far looks like intellectual tourism, walking in foreign lands and then tell and invent stories about the culture of others, stories that interested them and that does nothing or do not advance the peoples concerned.
As a member of these cultures, we can not let them say such things evoke the irrational with a vengeance. It is our duty to draw attention on the essentials, what guides the discussion to something basic and true, into something constructive.
We'll talk about ancestor worship and present the facts of this worship and go against an alleged irrationality. We will present facts that cut some current concerns in the neurosciences and are present in the rituals of initiations and myths. We will discuss the structure and location of the myths recorded knowledge relating to the molecule of life, DNA, one of the foundations of ancestor worship. We will also schemes that involve rituals of astrophysical knowledge including the system of Sirius.
And all this will be done without pulling the thing by the hair. All this to make it clear that there is no irrationality. Advocate any irrationality in this area is that we missed the point.
The Sacred: The True Paradigm
As defined by Rudolf Otto the sacred is an experience in which the individual is confronted with quite different. An object, a space ... which is within our field of vision is suddenly invaded by a presence that tears at our conscience, we caves, petrified us and we pierce the soul. It no longer feels being of flesh and bone, but only gasoline. It feels thrown out of time because the here and now no longer exists, it is in another place. The experience of the sacred by his strength, his power, is a terrifying experience but at the same time attractive.
After the duration, in fact brief, experience the individual returns gradually or suddenly to him. The object or space is dispossessed of this presence that came over there a few seconds. But the individual confronted with this experiment is given notice to understand because the experience creates an evil being who will not be appeased with the understanding of the experience he has been witness and victim.
The effort to understand the Wholly Other, but also to reconnect with this All Other is the basis for the construction of the initiation rituals.
What the experience of the sacred shows among many other things is that something that is not part of this world are broke and retired. Therefore, this thing is in another world, another dimension of reality. We must therefore admit the existence of various levels of reality.
The irruption of the sacred in our world is not an unforeseen event. The experience of the sacred intentionality: up to humans to other living standards of the Real beyond our immediate perception. From the perspective of the sacred, the experience itself, the Wholly Other, man must open or participate in various levels of life that make up the Real. And this is the ultimate function of any initiation ritual worship of ancestors, we open or put us in contact with a piece of real different from the here and now.
What we should look for in an initiation ritual is how he makes the individual access to that other dimension of real world it is dead, geniuses or else ... how through gestures, washing, food, it reaches a change of mind and therefore of consciousness that will correlate with another level of reality.
See the sacred and what follows any aspect irrational, as is wont to do, is absurd and denies a reality. The plurality of levels of Reality or overlapping the universe is in our debate among astrophysicists. Rudolf Otto was rightly noted that:
"Failing to recognize the sacred in the primary factor in qualitative original and irreducible, and the spring of all the historical evolution of religion, all the explanations animistic, magical and sociological origins of religion and stray from the outset misses the real problem. " PP30-31
The real paradigm is the experience of the sacred, it requires:
Different levels of Reality with intentionality.
Different states of consciousness that correspond to each of these levels of reality and the need for the individual to change his consciousness to access those other levels.
It is the pre-construction initiation rituals because the ritual is the tool to reconnect with this other dimension of reality.
She presided over the construction of cosmogonic and cosmological myths mostly by alternating and coincide sacred and profane.
The flaw in the anthropological research of the sacred
Anthropology was born as a result of contact with Western societies called exotic cultures, archaic. He had to know the Other, the "wild", it had to be studied. Moreover, it seems that what mattered most was to identify its modes of operation in order to enslave it more. It was thought that these people were not nearly as Men, primitive people who were at the bottom of the ladder of human evolution. In the early 20th century, even to the edge of physical anthropology, he was still subject to justify racial differences and an alleged difference in intelligence between races by anthropometric measurements. A turnaround occurred, the study of ancient societies to be without prejudice.
What would it then the advent of a new approach to the study of the Other. He had to know the Other not as primitive or savage, but as cultural beings. It must be said that it remains unsatisfied with the outcome of this approach.
Anthropology became the final step of a process. The study of the Other must begin with an ethnography, observation with collection of data, description ... The second step being the ethnology synthesis, analysis, interpretation and modeling. Finally there anthropology, floor generalization from ethnological work. Anthropology must reach generalizations from ethnographic comparisons. It seeks a better understanding of Man.
But there is a flaw in the ethno-anthropological research, especially concerning the field of sacred. Often researchers do not belong to the culture of the phenomenon, their position implies a certain lack observer: that the experiences of the phenomenon. And from the moment we do not have access to self-experienced the phenomenon being studied, we can not remain at the superficial level. When an experience of the thing, especially in connection with ancestor worship, the use of explanations citing the irrational becomes staggering.
There is a difference between a subject responding to the call of his ancestors for an introduction and experience of an observer, moreover, from a foreign culture. For the latter, his concern is limited to the descriptive level and intellectual curiosity. For the first when trying to take his worship, there will be a totally inaccessible to the second dimension. It is an experience that will occur between each other by questions that will foreground his subject position as a living being in the world and faced with an ancestral tradition.
There will be the problem of the rationale of worship here and now, the weight of the ancestors. Why have been chosen by the ancestors and more precisely by such an ancestor? What are their expectations? Why did they decide one day to establish the religious institution? What difficulties they met, they palliated? The emergence of these questions at the first sign announcing the use initiation and even after the latter is in itself a truly sacred experience where the profane (the body) is becoming the receptacle of the sacred. We believe that the answer to these questions were made on as and when his journey of initiation, but such knowledge is almost lost today.
Perspective, the approach may not be the same as the anthropologist will always remain at the descriptive level and curiosity. At worst it will fallacious interpretations referring to the irrational. The issue facing the culture as we have presented here will be in search of meaning. The difference is monstrous. What we mean is that there is an anthropology that does not care about the deeper meaning and opposes an anthropology that is in search of a meaning more profound and that brings meaning to the presence of being in the world.
What matters, what is important is why and how a sacred institution. In sum, the Senses. Go into the meaning and share with the community that is heir to the sacred institution. And to do it is to live yourself experience the sacred.
The position of the African researcher
Doing research is to have at least the desire to advance knowledge in a specific area because it is seeking to advance their world, seeking to improve the situation of man in this world, this situation can also be both material and spiritual. In the realm of the sacred, the research is to access meanings ignored or abolished. The work of the anthropologist who is interested in sacred facts and wants to do a significant work must be a restoration, maintenance, perpetuation and development of ancestral traditions.
We have access to feel more and deeper of a myth, a rite, an aspect of a ritual or a myth, but also the whole of a sacred institution. In doing so, we provide answers to existential questions of the subject confronted with his culture, committed to a greater understanding of its culture. For modern man at odds with the sacred, we offer an alternative vision of the world, the deep sense of extreme experiences that may at first seem devoid of interest. We direct his thinking and his being to other levels of reality. In sum, we must lead to a better understanding of the world.
It goes without saying that the approach of going to Africa for a few weeks to sit and observe a rite, describe and interpret it by twisting the facts to match a theory referring to the irrational is a null and Free for knowledge. What to put in the center of research of this type is the culture itself in its original aspect, its goals, its future and the subject confronted with this culture. We must keep in mind that our work should lead to elucidation of the situation of the individual as a subject confronted with his own culture, and better, improving the situation of man at all.
What interests us as Africans, it is not a sort of ethnological narrative account of a particular phenomenon. As an African, we already know these
phenomena: either we have often heard, or we have been directly or indirectly faced where we live from the depths of our souls, it is equally possible that we never heard of. Ethnographic and ethnological aspects are useful to us only under comparative but also to show the extent of a phenomenon and its diversity. These aspects are also useful for anthropological sit demonstrations.
But it must be noted that African researcher who merely tell us or describe a phenomenon on their community, accessing in any way to any new knowledge for him any more than it helps the community better understanding of the phenomenon. This leads to an increased quantity of information and not to a new qualitative contribution. We can say that when working with this in mind we do not research because does not lead to any new knowledge. What may pass for new knowledge for this type of research is something that is delivered to him by an informant, so something that was already known even though it was shared by a circle of insiders. And it's not because we're going to make classifications in chapters, in tables, which we will enter a new understanding, a sense that previously remained hidden or lost. Any classification, any interpretation, any hermeneutics should lead us beyond the ethnological meaning provided by the informant here and now. This is not to advance knowledge fantasized, but rather farfetched ideas approach the meaning as was understood by Homo religiosus to highlight the development of the sacred institution because we know advance that this meaning is now lost
The inconsistency of the true-false paradigm of the irrational
It must be said that this is a mock trial that was done in archaic societies on their cultural creations and abilities of their minds. It is worth repeating that those who are harnessed to the study of ancient societies and their rituals and have claimed and still claim the irrationality of such practices do not understand their object of study.
It was agreed in the literature that the initiation function is to effect a change of mind. It is quite inconsistent to work on rites of initiation that aim a change of mind and disregard of the body that is so sought during these practices. It is equally inconsistent to ignore the consumption of hallucinogens when they occur and yet changes the person in depth in relation to the objective pursued by the same rites. Worse yet, it is quite unacceptable disregard of human morphology is so important in certain initiations to serve as a reference point of symbolic basic architecture of the temple, similarly, it is incomprehensible that we do no serious account of the embryological aspects present in the rituals.
To be consistent we must find what is the role of these elements in an approach to the mind. If after making the turn we find no relationship between these elements and the question of the mind, it only remains to ask where were coming from the builders of these rites and not condemn their work as a production irrational. If cons by a review of the matter we find a consideration of these elements (and therefore stress the importance of body body, human morphology of the temple rites in embryological aspects) we must then conclude that these highly rational rites and agree with the principles of petitions claiming the irrational but also, it will identify what the builders of these rites have to understand the spirit in terms of their thinking and seize the advantage obtained in that initiation.
It turns out that the above mentioned elements are taken into account in the matter of the mind, they were highlighted by the neurobiology and these elements are present in initiation rituals. And their presence does not depend on luck.
The crucial importance of the event
All credit to those researchers of the first half of the 20th century that stressed the paramount importance of the event (including Adolph Jensen) that spawned the phenomenon or the sacred institution because it contains within itself all the force all the power necessary for its understanding. It is quite futile to be limited to information of the contemporary and sacred claim to understand a phenomenon as we know that the basic institutions in this area are ancestral legacies.
The attitude of many scholars of African sacred phenomena that ignore the paramount event is like an archaeologist who would, for example in Egypt before the ruins of a temple, collects data and calls the people an explanation. The answers will be of three kinds: some will advance into or responses that have no basis because they have not been passed, others will advance knowledge evasive or superficial, or we will simply say that the ruins have always been there for generations ancestral. Cons by our archaeologist provided with its collection of information about the ruins and their description will claim to have understood what this temple in the ruins for taking what the temple would have been. Worse, it will be considered by his peers as an expert when in fact such an approach lacks any basis in archeology and in no case lead to a reconstruction of the temple as it was and can not lead to any speculation on the utility or function of this temple.
Yet specialists perform acts as our sacred African archaeologist, they only interested in facts than in their contemporary look as if they were still together when it comes to facts thousands of years old. Furthermore, we know that in the realm of the sacred, preservation of the material is often accompanied by a loss of meaning, fundamental, and sometimes there is a deterioration of the material.
Where do they get these experts the idea that going to Africa to spend a few weeks or months observing and describing a ritual allows them to interpret and make believe they have understood? The contemporary phenomenon is the culmination of an initial phenomenon. To understand the contemporary phenomenon must have understood the initial phenomenon. By following the evolution of the latter that we can understand how it became what it is today, if changed or not from the original phenomenon.
A study on the worship of ancestors or something on the worship of ancestors by not taking account of its origin and one of its basic elements, perhaps most important, which is agriculture, nor that the shift from agriculture to the theory of ancestor worship is a futile undertaking. In this case we can only lead to conclusions that have nothing to do with this cult. And how many of the sacred African specialists have considered this aspect: shift from agriculture to the theory of ancestor worship?
Ancestor worship: in search of a definition
In the current state of knowledge, any definition of ancestor worship can only be provisional. It goes without saying that we propose is incomplete but it has the merit of sticking to the facts, we have developed afterwards. It will appear evident when the reader has taken knowledge of the biological foundations.
Ancestor worship is the conquest of Life, its meaning and responsibilities to be taken as a living being in the world.
Ancestor worship is an apology for always triumphant life, life that conquers death. Through the veneration of ancestors, it is question for the living to recognize as they are the continuation of the ancestor and as they are carriers and carriers of the same species as the ancestor of the lineage responsible , clan, ethnicity, race, species. Ancestor worship is life, it is this flame that is passed from generation to generation and the generations past are responsible for perpetuating.
Ancestor worship is also proving to be the exaltation of the force that frees the dead. This is yet another apology for always triumphant life here, this victory is manifested by the election of a descendant as a carrier of the vital force of the ancestor to safeguard, maintain, perpetuate the tradition ancestral and participate in the perpetuation of life and improved living conditions.
The key event: the phenomenon agrarian
The origin of ancestor worship is a serious moment. Ancestor worship is born following the discovery of agriculture, it is a consequence. He is extremely tied to agrarian phenomenon. And the invention of agriculture took place in an era of a great explosion of human creativity which has also preceded the invention of agrarian phenomenon. The origins of agriculture and ancestor worship there is a murder, or perhaps simply a death. We must therefore try to understand what happened.
Is that the Mesolithic has been the discovery of agriculture that began a profound revolution. At the beginning, even before the Mesolithic period, it was essentially about végéculture or tuber crop and later Neolithic culture of cereals or cereal. How did the discovery of agriculture? Is it only the result of a long-lived as the pace of plant life or is it an inference drawn from other things? What had happened in Men Neolithic agrarian revolution that has so much impact in their lives?
To understand the phenomenon of agrarian revolution as it operates, Adolph Jensen started from the observation of the killing present both in the myths in the rites. Some have the origin of agriculture from a deity who was killed, fragmented, dismembered, buried, and from which sprang the agricultural plants. Other update this killing. Here and there, during planting, human sacrifices were performed. They killed a man, woman, child, we shed blood in the furrows, they buried a piece of flesh in the fields ... There has therefore been among farmers an act of killing.
What drove these men to kill their fellow voluntarily and that the act was perceived as a creator of cultural forms, to know the ultimate nature of the world, and its renovation was a repetition of things to transmit to new generations that achieved?
What is known is that mythical thought always comes back to what happened the first time, the creative act rightly believing that it is he who brings on a given fact the testimony more alive. For Jensen, it is the oldest agricultural stage that we must seek the reason for the killing, an act which may reveal the origin of most sacred character of agriculture.
For Grant Allen, agriculture was possible only when there has been clearing the land and the only opportunity for clearing the "primitive" has been funerals. In addition, since the Paleolithic burials were accompanied by deposits of tools, animals, edible plants. Under the action of the putrefaction of the corpse and offerings, libations frequent over the tombs, agricultural crops have emerged.
When this was done for the first time, we conclude that the death of his grave had led to the growth of plants.
This agricultural production became a gratuity of the deceased and even the incarnation of the deceased himself. The revival of the dead had been through the plants, they lived the spirit of the deceased. When the effects of this first harvest began to decline, the need to sacrifice a victim appeared since his burial accompanied by edible plants, we repeated the act of creation:
"Each new victim must have the same qualities and powers as the previous victims, she should be treated as a human being who was the first of his grave, led the growth of beneficial plants." Goblet of Aviel, p.12.
Grant Allen's hypothesis is plausible but has not been confirmed, it may be too good to be true. In any case, it reflects the inextricable link between agriculture and the worship of ancestors just as it validates the mythic structures and rituals of killing in hindsight, a posteriori.
In the current state of knowledge all that can be said with certainty is that with agriculture, the Neolithic Man acceded to the fact that the seeds in the ground forever lost their shape in putrefying . The birth of the new plant went through a hiatus, a dissolution of forms accompanied by a reduction in water, new life was going through a necessary death of the seed. Neolithic Man has approved the drama of vegetable seed to his own death and that he broke with the Paleolithic Man on several points. First, because there was no room for parthenogenesis and because the Paleolithic hunter-Header by killing the animal, attributed responsibility for the act to the deity. The Neolithic farmer, seizing more than the Paleolithic what life has taken its responsibilities as a living being in the world and has agreed:
"When the man was aware of its mode of being in the world, and responsibilities that being in the world, a decision was made ... The design of these peoples is that the plant Food is the result of a primordial murder. A divine being has been killed, fragmented, and pieces of his body gave rise to previously unknown plants, especially the tubers, which since that time are the main food of humans. Hence the human sacrifice, cannibalism, and other rites, sometimes cruel. The man has not only learned that his condition is that he must kill to live, he assumed responsibility for the vegetation , its durability, its assumed that the human sacrifice and cannibalism ... ... it is not an animal behavior but a human act, that is man, as being free to take a decision in the world, who decided to kill and eat his neighbor ... " Mircea Eliade: the labyrinth test, pp. 138-140
His worldview accused so far-reaching changes. In human terms, semen and blood became the essence of life and expressed its sacredness. With the assumption of sperm, fertilization was now clearly inferred from the coupling. This inference and others showed that little or nothing was given in Nature as a finished product.
For hunting, the animal was given in nature, it "enough" just to get to him. For the picking, vegetable food was also given in nature and better than hunting, it was enough to really get it. With agriculture was no longer the case, it involved acts of work. To get something, it was now an active participation of the individual. The farmer was obliged to develop its plans several months before applying them to perform in a specific order, a complex series of events for a particular outcome and distant at first, never certain: the harvest. Taking care of the success of his harvest, the farmer has surveyed the Neolithic times, has been the experience of cosmic time, circular and cyclical. All these elements have burst into the consciousness of the farmer were not in vain. In developing the structure of rites, the farmer has registered his sadness, anxiety, uncertainty, and hopes.
It is by these instructions that we also know that the agrarian revolution had an impact on the spiritual life of the Neolithic, we also know that the empirical knowledge of the seed that loses its forms in the soil was very revealing. After the dissolution of forms, and reduction in water, it was clear that within this chaotic state was organizing something, a force which, with agricultural work was sprouting new plants. What agriculture revealed that for which it operated was a revolution awareness, recovery and excitement of this force, this power that is grown, which begets Life. Through the many rituals of the harvest, it was not the plant itself that was venerated, but the force which the plant was just wonderful expression. We can say that what Neolithic man has seen, what he has understood and learned of the tragedy of seeds, the lesson he has learned is the existence of this force, this power that animated the plant and by extrapolation all the vegetation and the cosmos.
These considerations are central to what was disclosed in agriculture and presented as such do not explain the fundamental link between ancestors and descendants: the pivot point of the worship of ancestors. In other words, these considerations do not allow us to grasp the shift from agriculture to the theory of ancestor worship.
We'll look at two myths where farmers have recorded their understanding of the seed rotting and to help signal the shift from agriculture to the theory of ancestor worship. These are myths and myths Ogdoad the dismemberment of being anthropomorphic.
Biological Bases
To understand the biological basis of ancestor worship, we must insist on a kind of myth: Myths of Ogdoad location record this knowledge. It requires that we go back to ancient Egypt.
Khéménou was a city of Middle Egypt and the name means "City of Eight" (Serge Sauneron George Posner). Coptic language became Shmoun that gave Arabic Ashmunein, current city of Egypt. At the time of the pharaohs and maybe even before, Khéménou was a major religious center. This city is best known in the literature under the name of Hermopolis and it was his original name Khéménou, "City of Eight", a collective of eight demiurgy gods who were present at the emergence of the chaotic city of waters mound as paramount. Cosmogony type Hermopolitan under the auspices of eight primordial gods is called Ogdoad. Often this turns into Ogdoad Ennead: a cosmogony orchestrated by nine gods. Historically, that Hermopolis the cosmogony of Eight is attested for the first time, this city was probably the center of diffusion of these myths.
The Egyptian Ogdoad said that originally there was an egg that contained the breath of life universal. It is unknown whether the egg was produced by the Eight gods or whether they were content. But the Eight gods are autogenous, or they have produced the egg or because they come from the egg. In all cases the Eight are linked to the egg and its contents: the universal breath of life.
In the beginning there was therefore Ogdoad, Eights primordial gods and egg. The name of Eight is itself the story of a genesis, a cosmogony. Eights are the base four male gods who each have a women's doubles, there are four pairs of deities representing the basic reproductive force. There are:
Noun and · Naunet: water primitive
Heh and · Hehet: the spatial infinity
Kek and · Kekette: Darkness
· Amon and Amaunet: indeterminacy space, the vacuum ...
These are the elements of chaos précosmogonique, reproductive forces, obscure, but an inorganic world in the making. The Egyptians were personified as a being having the appearance of frogs and snakes. Commentators Egyptian texts have not failed to associate with this personification of muddy water creeping creatures that evoke the dark heavy, wet and infinite moments précosmogoniques (Serge Sauneron George Posner). Within this endless dark or the egg, the Eight had issued a light that brought forth the sun. Other versions recounts the emergence of the star from a lotus. If we add to the primordial gods the sun, then we move to a Ogdoad Ennead.
The priests of Memphis have developed a cosmogony which also operates the Eight (Serge Sauneron). It focuses on the god Ptah-Ta-Tenen and Eight are clearly identified its hypostasis. The Memphis Ogdoad includes: "Ptah who is on the great throne," Noun and Naunet, Ptah the former, four other deities whose names are lost.
What can be learned from the Egyptian Ogdoad is that their representation in eight animal associated with water and reproductive forces. If one considers that the eight were contained in the egg, then they are associated with the breath of life universal. When Ogdoad-Ennead is embodied by the god Ptah, we understand that it has granted life and made the gods exist, it is what everything comes from. The Egyptian Ogdoad remains attached to the idea of life, the genesis of life. The Ogdoad is present in everything that exists from the mineral, plant, until the animal world.
Dogon cosmogony also offers a Ogdoad (Griaule / Dieterlen Germaine: The pale fox). The starting point is both an egg and a plant, the Po, the smallest seeds. Early drafts of the creation are the responsibility of the god Amma.
Originally the Po pilu was a spiral that began first by wrapping its coils in the lyrics of Amma then wound on itself around its germ. Amma placed one by one the elements of creation in the seed. But first things he had created had no names, they were first put in the seed that, through its spin, carried out the binding of a thing with the next thing. The names were a sort of thin shell, like a skin. In turn, this skin has become like a pipe in which things were beaded and spiral wound. That's when Amma gave them their names. For all the things, Amma had decided that four names on the map of the Word, the Word, and spellings correspond to the four elements emerging within it. The four names were the Word, the Word.
By putting the names into the Po, the intention was to spread Amma's the Word in the world and particularly on the ground. In Amma's womb, the PO extended until it reaches its limits. The foundation held the Amma PO tight like a spring that eventually relax the PO broke. The coiled on the seed germinates and turned it on itself. The spiral was held in the other direction and Amma brought out the eight words of the OP he distributed in the universe. The OP was pilu male and female. The two seeds were swallowed by the demiurge Nommo who also will be sacrificed. These first drafts of creation is spent in outer space. Eight Words for the coming on earth, they were dumped into an arch.
On the arch were first raised and the demiurge Eight ancestors avatars of the Word and formed four pairs of twins. The Dogon Ogdoad-Ennead consisted
From
Nommo
· Sérou Amma and her go
· Lebe Sérou and has his
Binu · Sérou and has his
· Dyongou Sérou and has his
Eights are also seen here as a hypostasis of the demiurge and the entire Ennead is the representation of this genius resurrected. The Nommo himself as a father is the head, Amma Sérou chest, abdomen Sérou Lebe, Binu Sérou arms still alive Dyongou Sérou navel and sex, the four binoculars are the four members. On the arch were also all animals and all plants. Some animals because of their links with certain body parts and certain spiritual principles of the demiurge became totemic taboos. Among these animals we find the black alligator and catfish, which represent the two arms, varan varan water and earth represent the two legs, antelope and birds donu earned are related to the spiritual principles of body crawling.
Thus loaded, the ark is it down to earth. To begin the descent, she was suspended from a chain of copper or iron rings which symbolize the ancestors holding hands. This channel through which the arch is also down compared to a link made of two twin ropes, punctuated by a series of knots. These nodes are called nodes of large Amma "or" nodes that do not break the string of (descendants) of the breast. " They symbolize the continuity of generations. The ark is the link tight, almost inseparable, established by Amma between ancestors and descendants.
"The ark was suspended from a chain of copper or iron rings which symbolize the ancestors holding hands. This support is also compared to a link made of two twin ropes, punctuated by a series of nodes called" nodes Amma's great "or" nodes that do not break the rope (descendants) of the breast "(that is to say generations). By itself, each node represents both the arch and the rope descent, this "not to forget that the descent of the ark," which is the bond tight, almost inseparable, established by Amma between ancestors and descendants. " (Griaule / Dieterlen, ibid, p.423-424)
During the descent, the arch swung and drew a double helix that carried the movement of life, the whirlwind that animated the first seed. This movement was sustained by the breath of ancestors who seemed to pass through a nozzle, which was like a breath whirling propeller by promoting the descent.
"At the same time she swung the ark was suspended at the end of the string, rotated on itself in a sort of comes and goes. She drew down as a double helix, making the movement of life itself , the vortex that animated the first seed. This motion was sustained by the breath of ancestors, as if passing through a nozzle. The nozzle has the shape of the swirling breath, called "wind turning point," which promoted "the helix of the descent. "" The hole in the nozzle is the great way of breathing ancestors descended from above. It is their spirit that helped him turn to go down and down. "(Griaule / Dieterlen, ibid, p.434)
Arriving on earth, the ark hit the ground first and then found himself in the water which is the haunt of eight primordial ancestors. In another version (Marcel Griaule: God of water) it is stated that the demiurge Nommo containing eight as a primordial couple is associated with water, it is present in any water, there is water .
Cosmogony of Ogdoad are found in Africa in the Niger bend in the neighboring peoples of the Dogon. They also occur in the central area particularly among ethnic Teke where the resemblance to the Dogon myth is quite striking (A. Masson Detourbet). Myths Ogdoad any place in Africa seem to be from a single center:
Hermopolis. The deeper meaning, first, such myths have been the same everywhere where it occurs. That is, the deeper meaning Ogdoad granted by the Dogon, the most elaborate that reached us, is valid for others.
What one can say for now is that through the Eight, and like the ancient Egyptians, the Dogon have seen the basics of life. It is in the water and may even be confused with it. But the Dogon reveal more things, life is defined as a movement: movement of a helical coiled double helix driven by four main ancestors dressed each with a double. The ark and the medium on which it descended represent the continuity of generations, the link tight and indissoluble between ancestors and descendants. This movement expresses life is what was at work in the smallest of seeds, PO pilu, and by extrapolation any seed. Myths Ogdoad are related to the fact agrarian, lessons learned from the plant seed. These myths help us understand the approach taken by the Neolithic to switch from agriculture to the theory of ancestor worship. We can already point out that the myths of Ogdoad are of paramount importance, they alone constitute a revolution, a major epistemological problem.
What knowledge on the life these people have recorded in these myths Ogdoad?
It must be said that the worship of ancestors is as old as the monarchy and the first time that royalty is reflected in the history of humanity is in ancient Egypt (and probably also in Nubia) that the meeting around 3000 years BC. The worship of ancestors is already in its finished form. The monarchy, especially through the royal succession, was the first practical application in the religious and social lessons learned from the plant seed. This means that the worship of ancestors in its current form is aged for at least 5000 years.
What knowledge the neolithic man, the protohistoric have they recorded in the myths of Ogdoad? Why have they considered the Eight as the genesis of life, as primordial ancestors? Why did they define life as a helical movement of a double helix twist? Is this rant, mere speculation about what life on the part of people who lived there over 5000 years? Or is it rather a reflection orchestrated?
In 1928 a researcher named Griffith had demonstrated the existence of a chemical carrier of heredity. In the same vein but in 1953 two other researchers, Watson and Crick, explained for the first time the chemical structure of this support. This is a molecule called DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid nucleic). The DNA molecule is a double helix consisting of two strands coiled in a knot. Each strand consists among other a succession of four bases are: adenine, tymine, guanine and cytosine. Each of the bases of a strand specifically associated with the bases of the other strand. The four bases are teaming up two to two four couples, so eight bases. These associations are:
Adenine · - Tymine
· Cytosine - Guanine
· Tymine - Adenine
· Guanine - Cytosine
The DNA molecule is the nucleus of every cell, the genesis of life, the life support. It contains the information necessary for its realization, it is through her that life is transmitted from generation to generation. We can summarize the DNA molecule, the molecule of life, like a helical motion of a double helix twist driven by four pair of bases. Is not this the main knowledge contained in the myths of Ogdoad?
As a reminder, we note that all these cosmologies have mastered the Eight to life. These are the four original deities or primordial ancestors who, because of the rule became gémelliparité Eight. Eights are present in the universe, everything that moves and grows on earth. In the Dogon cosmogony at the time of preparation of initial drafts of the creation, Amma God had created four things he had given four names. These things were put in series in a kind of nozzle. When the seed broke things Eight symbol of the Word out. The medium in which the content was eight drawings a helical movement of a double helix twist. This movement and its contents symbolize life, continuity of generations, was tight and indissoluble link between ancestors and descendants.
On one side or the other, the support of Life is a helical motion of a double helix twist. Contemporary science speaks of strands, the Dogon cosmogony speaks of nozzles. In each we find among others a series of four bases, in others it has a string of beads in four things. The four bases because of their associations form a structure with eight bases. The four primordial ancestors or deities because of the gémelliparité become Eight. The DNA molecule is the carrier of heredity, the support of life and its transmission across generations, the link between ascendants and descendants. The Ogdoad prints and the movement he symbolized the continuity of generations, the link tight and indissoluble between ancestors and descendants. There is no doubt there is a formal and conceptual identity between the DNA and Ogdoad.
Obviously, those who developed the cult of ancestors and especially the myths of Ogdoad acceded to the supreme knowledge of what really life. Myths Ogdoad appear to be the place where have been recorded some of the investigations of Neolithic and protohistoric peoples on what they understood from the seed plant. These people also had the intelligence to use the basic structure of what life as a pattern, as an exemplary model of rites and social organization. The Ogdoad is a duplication of the DNA structure.
We thought long and we still think that the religious man of archaic societies is that idiot happy living since time immemorial and projecting the possible somehow the most fanciful. There are people from the Neolithic civilizations which often carry latent culture that refers to. In the history of humanity, that moment of special importance has been realized an explosion of creativity. We do not know yet what exactly has been the engine of the Neolithic revolution, but there is a paradox to want to see in the current ritual practices from these failings on the Neolithic of the human mind while it is these Neolithic provided the basis contemporary culture. Have they been inconsistent in their approach, consistent with the time and other mostly incredulous about the sacred?
The tight bond, unbreakable between ascendants and descendants of Life through its transmission, that is to say, this helical movement of a double helix twist hosted by the Eight. What has interested in those who developed based on ancestor worship is the movement: Life.
This explains why the link between ascendants and descendants in the worship of ancestors is so important:
"To die childless is the greatest of all misfortunes to a living human being ... For there, in the eyes of Africans, the absolute failure, the final catastrophe, which not only condemns the one who dies and childless in life, but also all the ancestors of his race who preceded him in this world to be for all eternity frustrated with what was the reason for their existence is perpetuated by replicating itself, remain over time through the chain of living which is generated at each other. So everything is focused on the precious existence of men living in that perpetuates the existing live transmitted by the ancestors. " J. Jahn
Awareness because the tragic life, culture data were not revealed but rather as incessant self-constitutions. The efforts made during the Paleolithic, were added those of the Neolithic Revolution that committed individuals more than ever.
Through this commitment the religious man had felt as a result of decisions taken at the beginning especially that of understanding reality and give it meaning. The emergence into consciousness of the universe: heaven, earth, vegetation ..., led him to explore its environment in order to make it habitable and understandable. With the sudden death in this awareness, man had courage because he realized that he is a adventure, not a mortal born to live a period of time, this man n has not abdicated its destiny. He had to leave or remain in the crisis, he had chosen to leave by facing reality and is the taming. Such a decision has transcended time, took shape in the Neolithic and has constantly Human accept as being adventurous and at the same time to transcend this reality.
Reflection of Homo religiosus Neolithic was a focused and practical very important. Seizing what he saw as life had a heavenly origin, was widespread in the universe came from something unique, he filmed his heavenly origin, membership and participation in structural whole cosmos and it consisted of the same species as the rest of the universe, gasoline was present in the primordial germ. Homo seized also increased its presence as a living being in the world because there were to take responsibility. If Life had a heavenly origin, had descended on earth, had the vehicle the mineral, vegetable and animal, it had failed so far through its various media to become aware of itself.
Realizing what the life of his point of view, realizing also that her man any more than the mineral, plant and animal life was but its container, the indicator of its manifestation, efforts have converged to this thing: Life. He needed only the latter evolves according to the accident. Man had now assumed the responsibilities of life in all areas, he assigned a direction. Allowed to continue, continue, perpetuated from generation to generation.
But do not believe that the body, the container of life, was left behind.
The neurobiological underpinnings
There is a neurobiological aspect was taken into account by those who developed the cult of ancestors. To highlight this aspect we need some clarification. Say what is the function including the initiation, say a few words about the kind of myth where record this knowledge about the temple and reports with this type of myth, ritual sequences in connection with the myths and the temple, neurobiological data taken from Gerald M. Edelman and Antonio R. Damasio that we will seize the neurobiological aspects of initiation. We'll see, these data were known by those who drafted the initiation into the cult of ancestors.
Initiation as we encounter in literature is to make a change of mind. This function attributed to the introduction is incomplete in terms of myth and what is happening during initiation. There can be a mutation of the mind without taking into account the important body. It is therefore both mutation and body and spirit.
It would take too long to recount here the details of these myths. They are called myths of dismemberment of the anthropomorphic or giant anthropomorphic. They present the origins, before the advent in the world forever, a being which totals in him the whole creation in the future. As a result of rivalries between the gods, this being is killed, dismembered, the parts of his body will be used for shaping the world. The stars, mountains, sky, clouds, bodies of water ... will be formed from elements of the giant dismembered. The final step is always decisive or a consolidation of previously scattered elements.study on the sacred
