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African Math, Truth, Rhythms Sequence |
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Ancient African math generated insights of ordered rhythms embraced the earth, the cycles of nature, the stars, constellations, and body mechanics. They saw cycles of the Nile River reflected in the celestial river overhead and in the Milky Way. African priest-astronomers (?12,000 BC) used the Astroscope (the reed of a plant) to observe the visible appearances of the stars, planets, moon, and sun for purposes of divinationâ€"a method of obtaining knowledge of the unknown. An archaic term for astrological divination was "mathesis", the "Learning"â€"literally Mother wisdom (Walker, Women's Encyclopedia, p71) or "Mother wit" (for the highest form of common sense) (Bailey, Common Sense Inside African Tradition). Later, astrocopy became Astrology proper when judgments were made as to where to place the heavenly bodies in the zodiac. Believing the stars represented spiritual symbols, watching them and their halos were viewed as clues for knowing the will of God. Also, heavenly influences were thought responsible for celestial forms and movements which reflected the order and truth of creation. Math applied to Astrology gave rise to African Astronomy--math applied to determine the planets' motions, distances, positions, etc. Principles from observation were integrated into their spiritual outlook and daily lives.
Incredibly, the Dogon of Mali acquired a precise knowledge of the existence of the companion of the star Sirius, despite it being invisible to the naked eye. This Po tolo star, the true center of the Dogon system (Diop, Civilization p314), makes a complete revolution around Sirius in one year. To the Dogons and the Woyo people of Equatorial Africa, it represented a bed-rock that was changeless overtime--and thereby indicating a fixed point of eternal order. From this and other observations, the origin of the world from a spiral mass was perceived. Thereafter, by African sages agreeing to agree--the most important social event which ever occurred among humans--truths could be reared by reason. Gathering astral observations of knowledge "staying put," and perhaps forever, led to the rise of African math (e.g. trigonometryâ€"measurement of triangles and angles) and math recordings. These were applied to the five visible planets identified up to that timeâ€"Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The Egyptian priests could now chart the movement in courses along the ways already marked by the moon and sun among the fixed stars. By their math matching the celestial order, both became sources for Truth.
From Math confirming their beliefs about the order in the sky, there emerged a reasoned structuring of the rhythm of the universe. Hence, detected rhythmic patterns were contemplated (internalizing the Truth) and made into laws, themes, and correspondences. This opened the path for the derived celestial order ("course or way") to generate organizing principles of harmony, situations for facts, and intuitive inductions (inferring general principles from particular facts present in the cosmic order). These principles were used to explain the people's life experiences as, for example, a 28 day lunar rhythm affecting the woman's womb; or, following the forest fire or the biological death of plants and trees, new plants would spring out of the rubble. By combining knowledge acquired from different planes of existence (e.g. within the supernatural realm), they fashioned laws of mythologies and laws of "being" by which gods and goddesses could come into existence and either disappear or persist (e.g. the goddess Maat). In short, math blended the heavens and the earth into one unity. This awesome revelation was mythologically (i.e. mathematically) personified by Net, the wonderful and mysterious African Great Mother --whose form and support dominates all the ritual lore of the archaic (ancient) world (Campbell, Oriental Mythology p120, 128).
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D.
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