The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination

The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778612
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The first book to provide complete, specific instructions on casting the Diloggún, the cowrie-shell oracle of the Orishas. • Provides step-by-step instructions never before published, detailing requirements and procedure for casting the Diloggún. • Includes a detailed “mojuba” or prayer used to awaken the Orishas (spirit entities) for divination. • Devotes an entire chapter to each of the twelve basic Odu (random patterns in which the sixteen shells fall), providing ritual mechanics and oracular meanings for all possible castings. The Afro-Cuban faith, known to outsiders as Santeria and to adherents as Las Reglas de Ocha de Los Lucumi, is not a static religion but a living conduit of energy for connecting the spirit world to our own. It came to the New World with the slave trade where it has evolved in response to the surrounding culture. For adherents of Lucumi, the Diloggún is the most important focus of worship: the sacred shells reveal the forces at play in an adherent's life. These forces are redefined and placated by the Orisha priest, who makes direct contact with the spirit world in an effort to help the adherent evolve. While many books have been published about Santeria, The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination is the first to provide complete information on how to cast the Diloggún, including opening, reading, and closing the oracle, and how to give a comprehensive reading. With a detailed discussion about why each prayer is offered and insight into the metaphysical core of the religion, this book will bring those seeking the wisdom of the Diloggún closer to the living Orishas than they have ever been.

The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination

The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778612
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first book to provide complete, specific instructions on casting the Diloggún, the cowrie-shell oracle of the Orishas. • Provides step-by-step instructions never before published, detailing requirements and procedure for casting the Diloggún. • Includes a detailed “mojuba” or prayer used to awaken the Orishas (spirit entities) for divination. • Devotes an entire chapter to each of the twelve basic Odu (random patterns in which the sixteen shells fall), providing ritual mechanics and oracular meanings for all possible castings. The Afro-Cuban faith, known to outsiders as Santeria and to adherents as Las Reglas de Ocha de Los Lucumi, is not a static religion but a living conduit of energy for connecting the spirit world to our own. It came to the New World with the slave trade where it has evolved in response to the surrounding culture. For adherents of Lucumi, the Diloggún is the most important focus of worship: the sacred shells reveal the forces at play in an adherent's life. These forces are redefined and placated by the Orisha priest, who makes direct contact with the spirit world in an effort to help the adherent evolve. While many books have been published about Santeria, The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination is the first to provide complete information on how to cast the Diloggún, including opening, reading, and closing the oracle, and how to give a comprehensive reading. With a detailed discussion about why each prayer is offered and insight into the metaphysical core of the religion, this book will bring those seeking the wisdom of the Diloggún closer to the living Orishas than they have ever been.

The Diloggún

The Diloggún PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778620
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 716

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Book Description
The first book on Santería’s holiest divination system to thoroughly explore each family of odu and how their actions and reactions affect the spiritual development of the client. • Includes the major considerations for sacrifice, providing the diviner with ways to placate and supplicate the Afro-Cuban deities known as orishas. • Demonstrates how to properly end a reading so that negative vibrations are fully removed from the diviner's home. • Provides a thoroughly detailed description of each of the 12 families of odu that exist in the diloggun--from Okana through Ejila Shebora. The diloggun is more than a tool of divination. It is a powerful transformational process, and the forces that are set in motion when it is cast determine the future evolution of the adherent. The Diloggun is the first book to explore this Afro-Cuban oracle from the perspective of diaspora orisha worship. It is also the first book to explore the lore surrounding this mysterious oracle, which is the living Bible of one of the world's fastest growing faiths. The twelve families of odu that are available to the diviner include 192 omo odu, the children of the odu, and each of these patterns or letters has its own proverbs, meanings, prohibitions, and sacrifices. Ócha'ni Lele provides the secret but essential information that the adept diviner needs to know to ensure that every element affecting a client's spiritual development is taken into consideration during a reading. His book is also the first to detail how to properly end a session so that negative vibrations are absorbed by the orishas and fully removed from the diviner's home. For those seeking the wisdom of ancient Africa, The Diloggun is an indispensable guide to the mysteries of the orishas.

Babalawo

Babalawo PDF Author: Frank Eyiogbe
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738744085
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Cuban Ifá From An Insider Hidden within the mysterious Afro-Cuban religion of Santería, also known as Lucumí, there is a deep body of secrets and rituals called Ifá. This book pulls away the veil of secrecy to reveal exactly what Ifá is and how it works, exploring its history, cosmology, Orichas, initiations, mythology, offerings, and sacrifices. Join Frank Baba Eyiogbe in this fascinating introduction that discusses the functions of the babalawo, the role of women, the future of Ifá, and much more. Praise: "A wonderful and much needed addition to the literature on Afro-Cuban religion. Engagingly written, scholarly while remaining accessible . . . it presents an up-to-date exposition of both the history and contemporary philosophy of one of the world's most complex systems of divination."mdash;Stephan Palmié, Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and author of The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion

Obí

Obí PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Destiny Books
ISBN: 9780892818648
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
• The first book to provide complete, specific instructions for casting the obi oracle of the Santería faith. • Uses the shell of a coconut, which embodies the spirit of Obí, as a divination tool. • Includes a detailed “mojuba” or prayer that awakens the orishas and invites them to speak. • Examines in depth the five basic patterns that appear when obí is cast and explains how to interpret the oracle's answer. • Explores the fifty additional patterns and meanings contributed by ten orishas closely associated with the orisha Obí One of the paths to the spirits within Santeria is through a divination technique known as obi, the coconut oracle, which gives the petitioner access to the orisha of the same name. The orisha Obí began as a mortal human who ascended to become an orisha as a reward for good deeds done on Earth, then fell from grace because of excessive pride. When he descended back to Earth, his spirit was embodied in the coconut palm. Though he no longer has a tongue, he can answer questions posed to him through the patterns made by four pieces of coconut shell cast as a divination tool. Obí: Oracle of Cuban Santería is the first book to fully explore the sacred body of lore surrounding Obí, as well as his particular rituals and customs, including opening considerations, casting and interpreting the oracle, and employing advanced methods of divination. Also explained are the previously unpublished secrets of closing the oracle properly so that any negative vibrations will be absorbed by the coconuts and permanently removed from the diviner's home.

Truth in Motion

Truth in Motion PDF Author: Martin Holbraad
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226349209
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Embarking on an ethnographic journey to the inner barrios of Havana among practitioners of Ifá, a prestigious Afro-Cuban tradition of divination, Truth in Motion reevaluates Western ideas about truth in light of the practices and ideas of a wildly different, and highly respected, model. Acutely focusing on Ifá, Martin Holbraad takes the reader inside consultations, initiations, and lively public debates to show how Ifá practitioners see truth as something to be not so much represented, as transformed. Bringing his findings to bear on the discipline of anthropology itself, he recasts the very idea of truth as a matter not only of epistemological divergence but also of ontological difference—the question of truth, he argues, is not simply about how things may appear differently to people, but also about the different ways of imagining what those things are. By delving so deeply into Ifá practices, Truth in Motion offers cogent new ways of thinking about otherness and how anthropology can navigate it.

Osogbo

Osogbo PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620553449
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
By understanding osogbo, the spirits of misfortune, we can better overcome them and return to health and balance in our lives • Explains how misfortune works in this world as living spirits that plague humanity but are also a catalyst for self-development and conscious evolution • Shows that we can overcome osogbo through ebó, sacrifice, and hard work as prescribed by consulting the orishas through the casting of the diloggún • Shares more than 40 ancient African sacred stories about the spirits of osogbo Beginning with the story of his goddaughter's battle with stage IV cancer, Lucumi priest Ócha'ni Lele explains the role of osogbo, or misfortune, in our lives. While everyone seeks blessings in life, undeserved blessings make us weak and lazy. It is tragedy that encourages us to grow and persevere. Exploring the Lucumí beliefs regarding osogbo, he shows that the Lucumí faith is neither fatalistic nor defeatist but healing and life affirming. He shares more than 40 patakís--stories stemming from the ancient Yoruba of West Africa--about the different spirits of osogbo, who like the orishas once walked the earth in human bodies. He explains the place of these spirits within the 256 odu of the diloggún, the divination system used in Santería to receive guidance from the orishas. Lele shows that the spirits of osogbo are not only concepts but also real deities and that we can, if we understand their nature, fight them through ebó, sacrifice, and hard work. He reveals how the osogbos see themselves as entities of misfortune who stand against life and all that is good in the world, but in truth it is misfortune that strengthens us, misfortune that motivates us, and misfortune that brings great evolution to the world. As the author shows, “Without bitterness, one could not know sweetness.” Likewise, without misfortune in our lives, we would never know blessings or what it means to be blessed.

Divining the Self

Divining the Self PDF Author: Velma E. Love
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271061456
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Divining the Self weaves elements of personal narrative, myth, history, and interpretive analysis into a vibrant tapestry that reflects the textured, embodied, and performative nature of scripture and scripturalizing practices. Velma Love examines the Odu—the Yoruba sacred scriptures—along with the accompanying mythology, philosophy, and ritual technologies engaged by African Americans. Drawing from the personal narratives of African American Ifa practitioners along with additional ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Oyotunji African Village, South Carolina, and New York City, Love’s work explores the ways in which an ancient worldview survives in modern times. Divining the Self also takes up the challenge of determining what it means for the scholar of religion to study scripture as both text and performance. This work provides an excellent case study of the sociocultural phenomenon of scripturalizing practices.

Teachings of the Santería Gods

Teachings of the Santería Gods PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594779082
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The first book to explore the sacred myths of Santería • Includes more than 100 myths, stories, and histories about the odu and the orishas • Reassembles the oral fragments from the African diaspora into coherent stories • Demonstrates that the African peoples, specifically the Yoruba, were deeply spiritual At the core of the diloggún--the sacred divination system of Santería--are the sacred stories known as the patakís, narratives whose themes are as powerful and relevant today as they were in the minds of the ancient Yoruba who safeguarded them. Each patakí is connected to one or more of the 16 odu, the principal creative forces of Santería. Some recount the lives of orishas on earth, others the lives of individuals in heaven, and some tell of the odu themselves, for even they once walked the earth as mortals. The first book to explore these ancient African stories in English, Teachings of the Santería Gods recounts more than 100 of these sacred parables, including many stories reassembled from the oral tradition of the African diaspora. Ranging from creation myths to what happens when a love potion works far too well, these stories share the wisdom and spirituality of the Yoruba people of ancient Africa and form the living, oral bible of one of the world’s fastest-growing faiths.

Diloggún Tales of the Natural World

Diloggún Tales of the Natural World PDF Author: Ócha'ni Lele
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594778035
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Sacred myths from Santería centered on nature and the natural world • Includes more than 40 myths, stories, and histories from the Lucumí tradition • Reassembles the oral fragments from the African diaspora into coherent stories • Demonstrates that the African peoples, specifically the Yoruba, had deep philosophies and metaphysics involving nature and the natural world Since ancient times the Yoruba of West Africa created sacred stories--patakís--to make sense of the world around them. Upon arrival in the New World, the Yoruba religion began to incorporate elements from Catholic and Native traditions, evolving into Santería, and new patakís were born, adding to the many chapters already found in the odu of the diloggun--the sacred oral teachings and divination system of the Yoruba, or Lucumí, faith. Comparable to the myths of ancient Greece and Rome and rich with jewels of wisdom like the I Ching, these Santería stories are as vast as the Hindu Vedas and as culturally significant as the parables in the Torah, Talmud, and Christian Bible. Diloggun Tales of the Natural World presents more than 40 patakís that shed light upon the worldview of Santería. Each story in this collection, reassembled from the oral tradition of the African diaspora, is centered on a spiritual principle in nature: the waxing and waning of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses, the phenomenon of shooting stars, the separation of sky and earth, and the origins of the animals and birds who play key roles in Santería symbology. Revealing the metaphysics, theology, and philosophy of the Yoruba people, this volume shows these stories to be as powerful and relevant today as they were to the ancient Yoruba who once safeguarded them.

The Light Inside

The Light Inside PDF Author: David H. Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000008185
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 467

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Book Description
Originally published in 2003, The Light Inside is a ground-breaking study of an Afro-Cuban secret society, its sacred arts, and their role in modern Cuban cultural history. Enslaved Africans and creoles developed the Abakuá Society, a system of men’s fraternal lodges, in urban Cuba beginnings in 1836. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the country, the book’s novel approach builds on close readings of dazzling Abakuá altars, chalk-drawn signs, and hooded masquerades. It looks at the art history of Abakuá altars, not only tracing changing styles but also how they evolve through cycles of tradition and renovation. The Light Inside reflects the essence of the artists’ creativity and experience: through adornment, altars project the powerful spirituality of Abakuá practice, an aesthetic strategy. The book also traces a biography of Abakuá objects – their shifting forms and meanings – as they participated in successive periods of Cuban cultural history. The book constructs close rhetorical and visual analyses of changing representations of the Abakuá, spanning nineteenth-century arts and letters, modern ethnographic texts, museum displays, paintings, and late twentieth century commercial kitsch. This interdisciplinary work combines art history, African Diaspora, cultural studies and cultural anthropology with Latin American.