The African Unconscious : Roots of Ancient Mysticism and Modern Psychology

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. Reveals how spirituality and the collective unconscious of all of humanity originated in Africa • 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 Unconscious Contents Figures Figure 1. The Hominid Family Tree: A Probable Lineage Figure 2. Hominid Dispersion from East Africa to the World Figure 3. Paleolithic Age Figure 4. Transpacific Ocean Currents Figure 5. Ancient Nubia Figure 6. Pharaoh Zoser of the Third Dynasty Figure 7. Man Hunting Geese and Ducks Figure 8. Shawabtis Figures of Pharaoh Taharka Figure 9. Pharaoh Taharka Figure 10. Sandstone Statue of a Queen Between Two Goddesses Figure 11. King Aspelta Figure 12. King Senkamenisken, Napatan Period Figure 13. Statue of Sehetep-ib-senna-ib Figure 14. Pharaoh Mycerinus and Queen Kha-merer-nebty II Figure 15. Avenue of the Sphinxes and Nile Valley at Karnak Figure 16. Tieguai, One of the Nine Immortals of Taoism Figure 17. Stone Figure of Lord Shiva Figure 18. Africoid Figure, Early Vietnam Figure 19. Colossal Africoid Figure, Southeast Asia Figure 20. Transatlantic Winds and Currents Figure 21. Olmec Heartland and the Gulf of Mexico Figure 22. Optimal Conceptualization: Methods of an Ancient Afrocentric Psychology Figure 23. Ancient Symbols of the Dormant, Awakened, and Fulfilled Life Current Figure 24. Diaspora to the Americas Figure 25. Diaspora to the United States and the Caribbean Figure 26. The Guinea Coast Figure 27. Ifa Oracle of West Africa—Binary Principle Figure 28. Kabbalistic Tree of Life Note from the Series Editor Foreword by Linda James Myers Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Kiaspora, or the Great Dispersion Prologue: The African Origin of Human Consciousness Waves of Hominids and Their Stock Kiaspora into the Ancient Americas The Rise of Civilization: The Egypto-Nubian Legacy The Emergence of Kemetic Egypt and Its Contact with Other Peoples: Asia, Mesopotamia, “Olde Europe,” and West Africa The Kiaspora into the Americas During Early Civilization The Dark Ages and Medieval Europe Dispersion, Genetics, and the Mother Tongue Summary 2 The African Unconscious Oldawan: The Ancient Soul The Nature of the Unconscious Some Basic Tenets of the African Unconscious Summary 3 The Roots of Modern Science and Religion in Ancient Egypt Medicine, Mathematics, and Astronomy The Rise of the Modern Religions in Ancient Egypt Contemporary Science and the Ancient Ideas of Fire and Energy 4 Kundalini and the Spread of African Mysticism Kundalini and the Religious Traditions Kundalini in History and Science History and the Neters of Egypt The Bodily Perception of the Living Current Psychoneurology and the Solar Logos 5 The Osirian Complex To Bind Them in Myth The Family of Human Myths The Osirian Myth, the Osirian Journey Implications of the Osirian Complex in Culture Summary 6 The African Religions in Their Diaspora to the West Roots in Kemetic Egypt West African Religions in Their Diaspora Ethnic Diaspora to the West Ifa, the Unconscious, and the Implicate Order Storehouse Memory A Science of Divine Communion: The Psychospiritual Dynamics of Embodiment or “Possession” The West African Psychology of Religion Mediums, Diviners, and Their Forms of Spirit Possession Training and Initiation Summary 7 Freud, Judaism, and the Limits of Psychodynamic Insight The Jews of Ancient Egypt: Three Theories of Origin Jews in the Americas Familial Patterns and the Cognitive Style of Psychodynamic Thinking Root Techniques of Psychoanalysis and Mysticism Insights of Psychoanalysis Some Parallels Between Jewish Mystical Thought and Ancient Kemetic Egypt Summary 8 The Present Confrontation in the Americas The Milieu of Race in the New World Reflections of Black Imagery in the New World Nurturing Images of Blackness in Eurocentric Cultures Menacing Images of Blackness Blacks’ Perceptions of Whites in the Americas The Seeds of Black Spirituality in Slave Religion and Philosophy The African Unconscious as Expressed in the Work of the American Founding Fathers 9 The Rudiments of Kemetic Philosophy in African/Indian Yoga Science The Serpentine Symbol and the Solar Consciousness Yoga Discipline, the Living Darkness, and the Light Basic Principles of the Transcendental Discipline The Evolutionary Force Operative Today A Paradigm of Spiritual Energy: Body, Breath, and Cosmos; The Km Wirian Synthesis The Multiplicity of Paths The Emerging Afrocentric Paradigm Nexus: The Living Earth, the Body, and the Stars Appendix A: Principal West African Yoruba Deities (Orisha) and Their Expressions in the Americas Appendix B: The Ten Plagues of Moses Appendix C: Partial List of Dances of African American Origin References Index About the Author