African Unconscious

• Examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul of Africa, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious • Draws on archaeology, DNA research, history, and depth psychology to reveal how the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science came out of Africa • Explores the reflections of our African unconscious in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern psychospirituality The fossil record confirms that humanity originated in Africa. Yet somehow we have overlooked that Africa is also at the root of all that makes us human--our spirituality, civilization, arts, sciences, philosophy, and our conscious and unconscious minds. In this extensive look at the unfolding of human history and culture, Edward Bruce Bynum reveals how our collective unconscious is African. Drawing on archaeology, DNA research, depth psychology, and the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science, he demonstrates how all modern human beings, regardless of ethnic or racial categorizations, share a common deeper identity, both psychically and genetically--a primordial African unconscious. Exploring the beginning of early religions and mysticism in Africa, the author looks at the Egyptian Nubian role in the rise of civilization, the emergence of Kemetic Egypt, and the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious. Revealing the spiritual and psychological ramifications of our shared African ancestry, the author examines its reflections in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern Black spirituality, which arose from African diaspora religion and philosophy. By recognizing our shared African unconscious--the matrix that forms the deepest luminous core of human identity--we learn that the differences between one person and another are merely superficial and ultimately there is no real separation between the material and the spiritual.

"The African Unconsciousness, originally published in 1999, is a bold new paradigmatic look at human history based on archaeology, genetics, and the biospiritual roots of religion and science. Author Edward Bruce Bynum offers a captivating and controversial viewpoint on the roots of our human existence, positing that all humans at their deepest core are variations on the African template, creating a shared identity and collective unconscious in all. He looks at both phenotypical types and psychic structures that form and identify us as human beings. Ideal for humanistic and transpersonal psychologists and those interested in African American art and culture, The African Unconsciousness is a blend of modern and ancient psychology that provides a relevant backdrop to humanity and our daily life"--Cover.

How to awaken the Ureaus--the serpent power of spiritual transcendence within each of us--and connect to the superconscious of the universe • Reveals the biochemistry of how the body’s melanin provides the template for the subtle energy body or light body • Shows how embracing the dark light consciousness of the awakened Ureaus opens a portal to the sacred darkness of the superconscious • Provides illustrated instructions for meditation practices, breathing exercises, and yoga postures to safely awaken Ureaus/Kundalini energy Within each of us lies the potential to activate a personal connection to the superconscious. Called “Ureaus” in ancient Egyptian texts and “Kundalini” in ancient Hindu yoga traditions, our innate serpent power of spiritual transcendence inhabits the base of the spine in its dormant state. When awakened, it unfurls along the spinal column to the brain, connecting individual consciousness to the consciousness of the universe enfolded within the dark matter of space. At the root of creativity and spiritual genius across innumerable cultures and civilizations, this intelligent force reveals portals that enfold time, space, and the luminous matrix of reality itself. Combining physics, neuroscience, and biochemistry with ancient traditions from Africa and India, Edward Bruce Bynum, Ph.D., explores the ancient Egyptian science of the Ureaus and reveals how it is intimately connected to dark matter and to melanin, a light-sensitive, energy-conducting substance found in the brain, nervous system, and organs of all higher life-forms. He explains how the dark light of melanin serves as the biochemical infrastructure for the subtle energy body, just as dark matter, together with gravity, holds the galaxies and constellations together. With illustrated instructions, he shows how to safely awaken and stabilize the spiritual energy of the Ureaus through meditation practices, breathing exercises, and yoga postures as well as how to prepare the subtle body for transdimensional soul travel. By embracing the dark light of the shining serpent within, we overcome our collective fear of the vast living darkness without. By embracing the dark, we transcend reality to the dimension of light.

This is a cross-disciplinary meditation on how all human beings may be linked through a primordial African collective unconsious. The author uses a non-Western intellectual paradigm and draws his documentation from many fields including biology, physics, history, anthropology and archaeology, mysticism, psychology and psychoanalysis, and astronomy. The text unfolds a vision of the human species from our earliest days up to contemporary times.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’ (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.

Race and the Unconscious engages the archetypal African consciousness that enriches our knowledge regarding the foundational mythopoetic of Africanist dreaming. Featuring crucial historical context, Jungian and post-Jungian theory, clinical case studies, and dream series interpretations, the book offers readers a rich framework for exploring and understanding the language, images, and symbols of African and African American dreamlife. It expands the modern understanding of dreaming with the inclusion of Africanist perspectives, philosophy, and mythology while emphasizing the potential for and process of psychological healing through dreamwork. Race and the Unconscious is a must-read for Jungian analysts and analytical psychologists in practice and in training, as well as anyone interested in understanding psychological processes inclusive of those of African descent and their culture, including academics and students of sociology, anthropology, African American studies, and African diaspora studies.

Professionals, whether engaged primarily in theory, research, or practice, will welcome the freshness and depth of vision this anthology affords into the history and teaching of psychology, into the methodology of culture-specific research, into the peculiar predicament of the African American, into the effects of oppression and the very nature of human personality. Students of psychology, at every level, will find in this book valuable and proactive alternatives to the prevailing Eurocentric analyses.

By the 1920s, psychoanalysis was a technology of both the late-colonial state and anti-imperialism. Insights from psychoanalysis shaped European and North American ideas about the colonial world and the character and potential of native cultures. Psychoanalytic discourse, from Freud’s description of female sexuality as a “dark continent” to his conceptualization of primitive societies and the origins of civilization, became inextricable from the ideologies underlying European expansionism. But as it was adapted in the colonies and then the postcolonies, psychoanalysis proved surprisingly useful for theorizing anticolonialism and postcolonial trauma. Our understandings of culture, citizenship, and self have a history that is colonial and psychoanalytic, but, until now, this intersection has scarcely been explored, much less examined in comparative perspective. Taking on that project, Unconscious Dominions assembles essays based on research in Australia, Brazil, France, Haiti, and Indonesia, as well as India, North Africa, and West Africa. Even as they reveal the modern psychoanalytic subject as constitutively colonial, they shed new light on how that subject went global: how people around the world came to recognize the hybrid configuration of unconscious, ego, and superego in themselves and others. Contributors Warwick Anderson Alice Bullard John Cash Joy Damousi Didier Fassin Christiane Hartnack Deborah Jenson Richard C. Keller Ranjana Khanna Mariano Plotkin Hans Pols