The Role Of The Indigenous African Psyche In The Evolution Of Human Consciousness

" ... a major work ... an intellectual and cultural tour de force. [Loutzenhiser's] range in the world of the metaphysicians is sure. [His] sections on the arts [are] most penetrating and offer original ideas and insights." -Edward Bruce Bynum, author of The African Unconscious, Director of Behavioral Medicine, University of Massachusetts Amherst "I was impressed with the range of issues and thinkers covered ... It is a rare thinker who can find the thread that connects hegelian phenomenology, transpersonal psychology, holonic theory, the chakra system, the [prose] of Jack Kerouac and the music of Sun Ra." -Samuel Oluoch Imbo, author of An Introduction to African Philosophy " ... thought-provoking ... thoroughgoing " -Nikitah Okembe-ra Imani, associate professor of Sociology-Africentric Critical Studies, James Madison University " ... brilliant and intriguing ideas. [Loutzenhiser's] mind is amazing, vigorous and rich." -John Davis, professor of Transpersonal Psychology, Naropa University " ... important." -Molefi Kete Asante, author of The Afrocentric Idea

Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics of Presence: A worlded philosophy explores a notion of education called ‘worldedness’ that sits at the core of indigenous philosophy. This is the idea that any one thing is constituted by all others and is, therefore, educational to the extent that it is formational. A suggested opposite of this indigenous philosophy is the metaphysics of presence, which describes the tendency in dominant Western philosophy to privilege presence over absence. This book compares these competing philosophies and argues that, even though the metaphysics of presence and the formational notion of education are at odds with each other, they also constitute each other from an indigenous worlded philosophical viewpoint. Drawing on both Maori and Western philosophies, this book demonstrates how the metaphysics of presence is both related and opposed to the indigenous notion of worldedness. Mika explains that presence seeks to fragment things in the world, underpins how indigenous peoples can represent things, and prevents indigenous students, critics, and scholars from reflecting on philosophical colonisation. However, the metaphysics of presence, from an indigenous perspective, is constituted by all other things in the world, and Mika argues that the indigenous student and critic can re-emphasise worldedness and destabilise presence through creative responses, humour, and speculative thinking. This book concludes by positioning well-being within education, because education comprises acts of worldedness and presence. This book will be of key interest to indigenous as well as non-indigenous academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, indigenous and Western philosophy, political strategy and post-colonial studies. It will also be relevant for those who are interested in philosophies of language, ontology, metaphysics and knowledge.

This book aims to serve as a foundational text in the emerging field of African psychology, which centers the knowledges and experience of continental African realities and postcolonial concerns in psychology. Drawing from the author's key essays as a leading thinker in the field, African Psychology: The Emergence of a Tradition describes this discipline's meaning and scope, as well as its epistemological and theoretical perspectives. Part I presents the theoretical context for the book, proposing the Madiban tradition as a framework of inclusion for the study of psychology in African universities. Part 2 focuses on the epistemological, methodological, and theoretical perspectives in African psychology. Part 3 of the book introduces the reader to the field of African therapeutics, and Part 4 highlights the healing rituals and practices provided to the traumatised in contemporary Africa. The ultimate objective of the book is to give postcolonial Africans a fresh vision of themselves and their psychology and culture.

The stimulating program featured clinical, artistic, historical and other interests and concerns of Jungian Psychology today, with wide-ranging presentations and events. From the Contents: Cultural Complexes in the Group and the Individual Psyche by Thomas Singer, Sam Kimbles Descent and Emergence Symbolized in Four Alchemical Paintings by Dyane Sherwood An Archetypal Approach to Drugs and AIDS: A Brazilian Perspective by Dartiu Xavier da Silveira Frida Kahlo by Mathy Hemsari Cassab Images from ARAS: Healing our Sense of Exile from Nature by Ami Ronnberg Trauma and Individuation by Ursula Wirtz Human Being Human: Subjectivity and the Individuation of Culture by Christopher Hauke Studies of Analytical Long-Term Therapy by Wolfram Keller, Rainer Dilg & Seth Isaiah Rubin Analysis in the Shadow of Terror by Henry Abramovitch Ethics in the IAAP – A New Resource by Luigi Zoja, Liliana Wahba & Hester Solomon Hope Abandoned and Recovered in the Psychoanalytic Situation by Donald Kalsched In the Footsteps of Eranos by P. Kugler, H. Kawai, D. Miller, G. Quispel & R. Hinshaw The Self, the Symbolic and Synchronicity by George Hogenson Memory and Emergence by John Dourley Bild, Metapher & Symbol: An der Grenze der kommunizierbaren Erfahrung by M. Krapp Broken Vessels – Living in two Worlds: Some Aspects of Working with Clients with a Physical Disability by Kathrin Asper & Elizabeth Martigny

This brilliant and provocative view of history, archaeology, genetics, and the biospiritual roots of religion and science offers a radically new vision of the collective unconscious in its daily and historical operations. Bynum goes beyond traditional "Eastern" and "Western" perspectives and presents a powerful African vision of the human species from our earliest days to contemporary times.

• 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.

Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas explores spirit-based religious traditions across vast geographical and cultural expanses, including Canada, the United States, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this collection of original perspectives breaks new ground by examining these traditions as typologically and historically related. This curated selection of the traditions allows readers to compare and highlight convergences, while the description and comparison of the traditions challenges colonial erasures and expands knowledge about endangered cultures. The inclusion of spirit-based traditions from a broad geographical area emphasizes the typology of religion over ethnic compartmentalization. The individuals and communities studied in this collection serve spirits through rituals, song, instruments, initiation, embodiment via possession or trance, veneration of nature, and, among some Indigenous people, the consumption of ritual psychoactive entheogens. Indigenous and African diaspora practices focused on service to ancestors and spirits reflect ancient substrates of religiosity. The rationale to separate them on disciplinary, ethnic, linguistic, geographical, or historical grounds evaporates in our interconnected world. Shared cultural, historical, and structural features of American indigenous and African diaspora spirit-based traditions mutually deserve our attention since the analyses and dialogues give way to discoveries about deep commonalities and divergences among religions and philosophies. Still struggling against the effects of colonialism, enslavement, and extinction, the practitioners of these spirit-based religious traditions hold on to important but vulnerable parts of humanity’s cultural heritage. These readings make possible journeys of recognition as well as discovery.

The Evolution of Human Cleverness presents a unique introduction to the way human cognitive abilities have evolved. The book comprises a series of mini-essays on distinct topics in which technical terms are simplified, considering how humans made the long journey from our ape-like ancestors to become capable of higher-level reasoning and problem solving. All the topics are cross-linked, allowing the reader to dip in and out, but certain key concepts run through the underlying reasoning. Chiefly, these are adaptation and selection, the distinction between ultimate and proximate causes of behaviour, gene–culture co-evolution, and domain-general versus domain-specific cognitive processes. The book should help the reader draw lessons for the human species as a whole, especially in view of the environmental threats to its own existence. Entries have been carefully crafted to cut through scientific jargon, providing bite-sized and digestible chunks of knowledge, making the topic accessible for students and lay readers alike. The author draws on research from diverse fields including Psychology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, and Neuroscience to provide an unbiased account of the field, making it an ideal text for students of all levels.