IFA AND THE BOOK OF EXISTENCE


Or Ifa could be understood as a book, which contains within it all possibilities of existence. Each chapter represents a particular structure of possibilities.

But what book is made up of chapters which are words developed from the symbolic significance of numbers along with being alive and conscious? The chapters are not simply an inert compilation of words but are themselves living forms, entities which have their own sense of direction, and whose origin and the larger part of their significance is unknown to their human collaborators, the Ifa priests.

How was she to represent, in a memorably simple but graphic manner, Ifa’s dialogue between various universes of being? Its symphony of voices speaking across various worlds of existence which speak to each other though the instruments of the system, the Odu, instruments which are wondrous in being both forms of the human mind and non-human forms?

How does one recall with graphic force the fact that in Ifa, the various selves of the human being are evoked into dialogue? The conscious everyday self and the immortal self, which encapsulates the destiny, the motive force of the individual’s existence? How does one represent the dialogue between these selves through the Odu who are spirits embodied through numbers and words?

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