Can One Achieve Wealth and Power through the Yoruba Origin Ogboni Esoteric Order? : Insights from the Universal Ogboni Fraternity and Yoruba Philosophy

Search for Self Actualization through Ogboni

In describing myself as founding the Universal Ogboni Fraternity, people approach me in the hope that I can help them achieve strategic goals of getting along in the world-jobs, economic security, wealth, power and spiritual protection the Yoruba Ogboni esoteric order is reputed to provide.

I explain, as I also do on a number of my posts about founding this new branch of Ogboni, that I have never been nor do I aspire to be a member of traditional Ogboni, preferring to create my own system based on the older one.

I also explain that I do not possess any spiritual powers that can provide for them access to the well being and power they desire.

I also do not yet have a network that can assist with finding jobs or advancing capital for business, some of what may be gained by belonging to a close fraternal group like Ogboni.

But I am developing knowledge about how to cultivate those powers and use them in achieving those goals.

I am using that knowledge myself in pursuing similar desires along with more spiritual aspirations.

I am also building a network of advisers and guides who can assist people meet concrete needs.

These people do not necessarily subscribe to my Ogboni orientations, but are well wishers willing to help others.

Distilling Essential Principles with the Guidance of Yoruba Philosophy

Having journeyed across various spiritual and philosophical systems, I am able to distill what I understand as their unifying principles, the essence of what humanity has learnt about the nature of the human being in relation to the cosmos, and how to put this knowledge into practice to shape one's life creatively.

This understanding can be summed up in terms of two concepts from Yoruba philosophy on which Ogboni is based.

Guided by Yoruba philosophy and its associated Orisa spirituality, I am concentrating my exposure to religious and philosophical ideas in terms of these two concepts.

These ideas are "ase" and "ori".

"Ase" is the creative power unique to each person.

It is described as a force pervading the cosmos and as expressed in each form of existence in a distinctive manner.

"Ori" is the essential identity of a human being.

It is depicted as embodying a person's ultimate potential.

It is described as transcending time, space, death and birth.

It is understood as rooted in the source of existence where Olodumare, the source of being, is centred.

But it is also portrayed as active in the daily life of the individual and can be daily dialogued with for guidance.

Exploring the Validity of these Ideational Distillations

Are these ideas true?

Do they describe what actually exists as different from what one may believe in?

How can one find out?

They have a lot of value as sources of inspiration and guides to action.

But I don't know if they are true.

It would take a significant degree of comparison and interpretation of experiences and a depth of exposure to the nature of the human being to conclude in an adequately informed way on these ideas.

I have not reached that level of understanding but my personal experience and broader knowledge so far convinces me that those ideas are not far fetched.

Ritual, prayer, meditation, divination, imaginative and intellectual thought, living in a manner guided by principles, cultivating relationships with nature, are some of the ways through which these ideas are explored or applied in their various expressions in different spiritualities and philosophies.

One is best guided by seeking the method/s one finds most congenial at various point in one's life.

Edan Ogboni as Ogboni Symbolic Nexus

The pictures in this essay show a version of an edan ogboni, the male part of a male and female unity symbolizing the human family as children of Earth as universal mother.

Edan may also be used as vessels into which which non-physical but sentient entities-conscious and capable of action- are described as invoked to act as guides and protector of the Ogboni initiate to whom the edan is consecrated.

This edan demonstrates strategic symbolism from Ogboni and general Yoruba art which the Universal Ogboni Fraternity builds upon to construct an image of human aspiration.

These are the eyes of vision, expanded in the edan to suggest the correlative development of physical vision and the capacity to see beyond the physical or the obvious. 'Oju inu, 'inward vision', in Yoruba thought.

The crescents of renewal and creative transformation, adapted from the self renewing qualities of the moon as it waxes and wanes.

The triple concentric circles of totality, representing the trinity of principles demonstrated by cosmic creativity evident in all phenomena, as enabled by ase, and the integration of all possibilities in Earth and beyond Earth.

The beard of wisdom and occult power, a power enabled by the penetrative vision of 'oju inu'.

The edan staffs held by the main figure, encapsulating those principles symbolized by the main edan as instruments of knowledge and action.

The crown of accomplishment.

This interpretation builds upon the work of Babatunde Lawal in "Ayagbo Ayato: New Perspectives on Edan Ogboni" and " Aworan: Representing the Self and its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art", as well as from a scholar whose name I don't recall, on the symbolism of enlarged eyes in Yoruba art.

Learning More About the Universal Ogboni Fraternity

To learn more about the vision and methods of the Universal Ogboni Fraternity, you may acquire, for a donation of any amount of your choice, the book Initiation and Practice in the Universal Ogboni Fraternity.

You may contact me on Facebook Messenger, by email at toyin.adepoju@gmail.com or on whatsapp at +234 805 143 9554.