Wisdom and Initiation in Gabon PDF Download

Author: Bonaventure Mvé Ondo
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739181459
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Wisdom and Initiation in Gabon: A Philosophical Analysis of Fang Tales, Myths, and Legends is a study of the philosophical significance of Fang mythology and the rituals of Initiation that lead to Wisdom. Bonaventure Mvé Ondo argues that Fang tales, myths, and legends are components of the foundation of a worldview that sustains and protects a unique, historical Fang identity. For Mvé Ondo, the contemporary challenges to the existence and identity of the Fang require, perhaps more than ever, recognition of the central role of mythology. At an historical moment when Africans are faced with the challenges of westernization, the metaphysics of the Fang, illustrated and preserved by tales, myths, and legends, is a critical element of Fang survival. Mythology is far more than a collection of amusing or awe inspiring stories, they are profoundly important moral lessons for the Fang in their continuing encounters with such contemporary challenges as materialism and, as the “stories” in this book illustrate, the constant struggle to live lives of purpose and meaning. For Mvé Ondo, the critical, central issue for the Fang is to focus on the distinction at the heart of his analysis, i.e., the crucial distinction between “to have” and to “to be.” The lessons transmitted from generation to generation by these marvelous stories are, Mvé Ondo argues, central to living lives that reflect and perpetuate the eternal truths of the Fang experience.

Author: Bonaventure Mve Ondo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fang (West African people)
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
"Wisdom and Initiation in Gabon: A Philosophical Analysis of Fang Tales, Myths, and Legends is a study of the philosophical significance of Fang mythology and the rituals of initiation that lead to wisdom. Bonaventure Mvé Ondo argues that Fang tales, myths, and legends are components of the foundation of a worldview that sustains and protects a unique, historical Fang identity. For Mvé Ondo, the contemporary challenges to the existence and identity of the Fang require, perhaps more than ever, recognition of the central role of mythology. At an historical moment when Africans are faced with the challenges of westernization, the metaphysics of the Fang, illustrated and preserved by tales, myths, and legends, is a critical element of Fang survival. Mythology is far more than a collection of amusing or awe inspiring stories, they are profoundly important moral lessons for the Fang in their continuing encounters with such contemporary challenges as materialism and, as the "stories" in this book illustrate, the constant struggle to live lives of purpose and meaning. For Mvé Ondo, the critical, central issue for the Fang is to focus on the distinction at the heart of his analysis, i.e., the crucial distinction between "to have" and to "to be." The lessons transmitted from generation to generation by these marvelous stories are, Mvé Ondo argues, central to living lives that reflect and perpetuate the eternal truths of the Fang experience."

Author: Douglas A. Yates
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538110121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
This new fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Gabon brings up to date the political affairs of the country, since the accession to power of Ali Bongo, eldest son of Omar Bongo, the former president-for-life, who died in 2009 after the publication of the third edition. Themes of “continuity” and “change” are present throughout the entries, not only as the Bongo family continues its half century of dynastic rule (there are a dozen Bongos in this new edition), but as the rare primeval tropical rainforests continue to dominate the landscape yet are menaced by destructive logging and palm oil plantations, and as this former French colony after independence continues to collaborate with the French African sphere of influence yet seeks new partners from America and Asia (China, Singapore), and as the country’s numerous ethnic groups perpetuate a multicultural mosaic that is nevertheless threatened by globalization of communications and cultural convergence. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Gabon contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Gabon.

Author: David Seal
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725268027
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Mythology and religious-studies teachers will appreciate World Mythology for its thematic approach, historical background information, commentary, and discussion questions provided for each myth from a range of geographic regions. For the same reasons, any reader interested in mythology will enjoy the contents and format of the book.

Author: Abiola Abrams
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401962955
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
A sacred feminine initiation of self-love and soul care rituals, tools, and exercises. Spiritual teacher, intuitive coach, and award-winning author, Abiola Abrams invites you to activate African goddess magic to transmute your fears and limiting beliefs, so that you can create more happiness, abundance, and self-acceptance. Africa is a continent of 54+ countries, and her children are global. There is no one African spiritual tradition. Our ancestors who were trafficked in "The New World" hid the secrets of our orishas, abosom, lwas, álúsí, and god/desses behind saints, angels, and legendary characters. From South Africa to Egypt, Brazil to Haiti, Guyana to Louisiana, goddess wisdom still empowers us. Writes Abiola, "Spirit told me, "We choose who shows up." And if you are holding this book, then this sacred medicine is meant for you. In this book, you will meet ancient goddesses and divine feminine energy ancestors, legendary queens, and mystical spirits. As you complete their powerful rituals, and ascend through their temples, you will: . Awaken generational healing in the Temple of Ancestors; . Manifest your miracles in the Temple of Conjurers; . Release the struggle in the Temple of Warriors; . Embrace your dark goddess self in the Temple of Shadows; . Heal your primal wounds in the Temple of Lovers; . Liberate your voice in the Temple of Griots; . Open your third eye intuition in the Temple of Queens; and . Surrender, meditate, and rise in the Temple of High Priestesses. Welcome to your goddess circle!

Author: Achille Mbembe
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509551085
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In October 2016, thirty intellectuals and artists from Africa, its diasporas, and beyond gathered together in Dakar and Saint-Louis, Senegal, to reflect on the present and future of Africa in the midst of transformations that are sweeping through the contemporary world. The aim was to take stock of the renewal of Afro-diasporic critical thought and to discuss the new perspectives emerging from the ongoing projects constructing political, cultural, and social imaginaries for and from the African continent. This book brings together and makes available to the English-speaking world the material presented at the 2016 Ateliers de la pensée – Workshops of Thought – in Dakar. The authors deal with a wide range of issues, including decolonization, the development of social utopias, and the pursuit of new forms of political, economic, and social production on the African continent. Running throughout is a constant concern to interrogate the categories and frames of meaning that have served to characterize the dynamics of the African continent and a shared desire to produce new frames of intelligibility through which to see Africa’s present realities and its future. The contributions also attest to the view that there is no African question that is not also a global question, and that the Africanization of the global question will be a decisive feature of the twenty-first century. To Write the Africa World and its companion volume The Politics of Time will be indispensable for anyone interested in Africa – its past, present, and future – and in the new forms of critical thought emerging from Africa and the Global South.

Author: Andrew Strathern
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351903012
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 613

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Book Description
This volume consists of a number of carefully-selected readings that represent a wide range of discussions and theorizing about ritual. The selection encompasses definitional questions, issues of interpretation, meaning, and function, and a roster of ethnographic and analytical topics, covering classic themes such as ancestor worship and sacrifice, initiation, gender, healing, social change, and shamanic practices, as well as recent critical and reconstructive theorizing on embodiment, performance, and performativity. In their Introduction to the volume, the Editors provide an overall survey and critical consideration of topics, incorporating insights from their own long-term field research and reflections on the readings included. The Introduction and readings together provide a unique research tool for those interested in pursuing the study of ritual processes in depth, with the benefit of both historical and contemporary approaches.

Author: Daniel Pinchbeck
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781585425921
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Draws on cosmological phenomena of the modern world as well as the author's own research into shamanic and metaphysical belief systems to support the Mayan theory about an unprecedented global shift predicted for the year 2012.

Author: Daniel Pinchbeck
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101578114
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 659

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Book Description
Now in the years beyond 2012—discover the true meaning behind the hype that captivated the world. It should be no surprise to us now, but the pomp surrounding the coming of the year 2012 that grasped the human race’s attention in those preceding years was not at all about the end of the world. Instead, much to the contrary, Daniel Pinchbeck believes that the passing of the year 2012 marked the beginning of a global shift in consciousness—where the human race would begin to see the world and existence on this planet through a different lens, embracing fresh ideas about who we are and what it means to be human. Discover the true wisdom behind the 2012 phenomenon with these two captivating works by one of the leading minds in the movement—both in one place for the first time, and at one low price. 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl Cross James Merrill, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda—each imbued with a twenty-first-century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology—and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographer of hidden realms. Throughout the 1990s, Pinchbeck had been a member of New York's literary select. He wrote for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Harper's Bazaar. His first book, Breaking Open the Head, was heralded as the most significant on psychedelic experimentation since the work of Terence McKenna. But slowly something happened: Rather than writing from a journalistic remove, Pinchbeck—his literary powers at their peak—began to participate in the shamanic and metaphysical belief systems he was encountering. As his psyche and body opened to new experience, disparate threads and occurrences made sense like never before: Humanity, every sign pointed, is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. The Mayan calendar's "end date" of 2012 seems to define our present age: It heralds the end of one way of existence and the return of another, in which the serpent god Quetzalcoatl reigns anew, bringing with him an unimaginably ancient—yet, to us, wholly new—way of living. A result not just of study but also of participation, 2012 tells the tale of a single man in whose trials we ultimately recognize our own hopes and anxieties about modern life. Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age An informed, challenging, and engaging collection of essays on the new choices in lifestyles and community as we begin the countdown toward the year 2012. This fresh and thought-provoking anthology draws together some of today’s most celebrated visionaries, thinkers, and pioneers in the field of evolving consciousness—exploring topics from shamanism to urban homesteading, the legacy of Carlos Castaneda to Mayan predictions for the year 2012, and new paths in direct political action and human sexuality. Toward 2012 highlights some of the most challenging, intelligent pieces published on the acclaimed website Reality Sandwich. It is coedited by Daniel Pinchbeck, the preeminent voice on 2012, and online pioneer Ken Jordan, and features original works from Stanislav Grof, John Major Jenkins, and Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky); interviews with Abbie Hoffman and artist Alex Grey; and a new introduction by Pinchbeck. Here are ideas that trace the arc of our evolution in consciousness, lifestyles, and communities as we draw closer to a moment in time that portends ways of living that are different from anything we have expected or experienced.

Author: Erika Dyck
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262546930
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
The first collection of its kind to explore the diverse and global history of psychedelics as they appealed to several generations of researchers and thinkers. Expanding Mindscapes offers a fascinatingly fluid and diverse history of psychedelics that stretches around the globe. While much of the literature to date has focused on the history of these drugs in the United States and Canada, editors Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock deliberately move away from these places in this collection to reveal a longer and more global history of psychedelics, which chronicles their discovery, use, and cultural impact in the twentieth century. The authors in this collection explore everything from LSD psychotherapy in communist Czechoslovakia to the first applications of LSD-25 in South America to the intersection of modernism and ayahuasca in China. Along the way, they also consider how psychedelic experiments generated their own cultural expressions, where the specter of the United States may have loomed large and where colonial empires exerted influence on the local reception of psychedelics in botanical and pharmaceutical pursuits. Breaking new ground by adopting perspectives that are currently lacking in the historiography of psychedelics, this collection adds to the burgeoning field by offering important discussions on underexplored topics such as gender, agriculture, parapsychology, anarchism, and technological innovations.