Ifá: A Forest of Mystery
Autor: Nicholaj | Publicado: 2016-10-03T11:41:00-07:00





My book about Ifá is finally out – and yes I
say, finally. This book took around two years to compose and nearly the same
amount of time with the wonderful Peter and Alkistis at Scarlet Imprint to
manifest in the form of ink, paper and talismanic design. 



It could not have been in any other way. Ifá
deems patience as a virtue that lies at the root of blessings and in this
nearly 1500 day project patience have been the virtue of writer and publisher
alike. And speaking of patience, I met the Araba&nbsp;Olayinka Babatunde Ogunsina Adewuyi for the first time in 2003 and shortly after I started study
traditional Ifá with this sage and it was only a good decade later I felt I had some
sort of idea of the complexities of Ifá sufficient to write a book about this
traditional African philosophy.&nbsp; Prior to
this I went to Cuba and made Ifá there as well, but it was traditional Ifá that
captivated me, because here I found philosophy and here I found tradition
expressed in a timeless manner befitting every living soul in profound and mysterious ways with the overarching aim of making sense of life and attract good fortune in all its variety.&nbsp;



In the upcoming interview with Gordon at
Runesoup, Gordon pointed out that the marvel with Ifa is not that it is a modus
of divination, but a tradition that have a divination system – and the
profundity in that observation lies at the root of Ifá as a practical
philosophy that includes the invisible realm and the visible realm related to
vibration, effect and solution born from knowledge and wisdom. The word Ifá
have no straightforward translation but it means ‘to pull’ or ‘to attract’ and
if the development of good character is the axis that ensures attraction we
will reap blessings or lessons that enables the cunning that turns lessons into
blessings. 



To develop good character is key here, because
it means that character is something that is forged through the journey of life
with its pull to do good and its pull to curse, like carbon turns into diamonds
under pressure. 



The insistence on imperfection and the joy of
this imperfection spreads out in Ifá through thousands of poetic meters and
proverbs that speaks of situations replicating themselves &nbsp;in difference and repetition, always aiming
towards solutions. These situations and solutions are not bound to Africa or
more specifically the Yoruba speaking people, but speak of the human condition
at large and touches any and every living being they be on the visible or
visible side of the veil that separates the worlds. 

I can go on and on with this, but a book
counting 400 pages can’t hardly make a blog posting justice to the richness of
Ifá, so I will only state that with this book my attempt was to compose an
introduction to Ifá that would also benefit practitioners in demonstrating the
rhythm and essence found at the core of Ifá philosophy as revealed in its
verses that unveil a profound metaphysics as well as a practical wisdom.




On a more personal note this work presents my
concept of what ‘tradition’ is through its practical philosophy and I believe
this book is ‘something good’, a book that will aid towards making sense of
life and also answer the big questions concerning meaning and reason. We are
divine beings on a human journey, we are bound to fail and succeed, if
character is the goal and if character is what attracts all possible fortune,
well you might find something of worth and resonance in the page of this book.



The book can be ordered directly from Scarlet Imprint by a click on the link