REPOST from Awo Falokun: Perfectly explains my own initiatory process .

Agbo ato In order to continue our discussion on altered states of consciousness we need to first examine the ori and discuss why a healthy ori is the foundation for altered states of consciousness as used in Ifa and Orisa ritual. The ori is translated as head but refers to information that is known to the knower. Anything we can consciously retrieve from memory, or recognize in the moment is the content of ori. The Ori inu is our inner self. The idea of Ori inu is the idea that every conscious thought is supported by an emotional feeling tone response. The reason for this is because memory is organized not based on subject, or chronology. Memory is organized based on emotional memory chains. We create a memory chain by associated the feeling tone of a given experience. This means we have a memory bank of happy feelings, a memory bank of sad feelings, a memory bank of grief and so on. Some of these chains are long and powerful which is why some events will trigger the chain and create an overwhelming emotional reaction.

The purpose of initiation is to start a memory chain called connection to spirit. Oriki is a mnemonic device meaning it is the first link in a new memory chain that can be called upon to access a particular memory bank. An elder says an oriki during initiation, that oriki causes the elder to go into possession. The ase of the elders possession is contagious meaning it will push the initiate into an altered state. As part of the Ifa Orisa discipline we engage a very complex prayer cycle. Part of this cycle includes repeating the oriki that put us into an altered state commonly called possession every four days. By repeating this oriki on a four day cycle were are reinforcing and extending the memory chain linked with our initiation.

The Yoruba word for possession is oogun meaning medicine. Possession is medicine because Ifa teaches that alignment with Spirit is alignment with Destiny and Destiny brings a pleasing of family, abundance and long life meaning good health,

Oriki only work as a tool of invocation when the head and the heart of the initiate are in alignment. This is a subtle process that is not easily explained. Our head and our heart are in alignment when we have consciousness access of our feeling tone memory tape. In the language of Ifa this means the ori has access to the ori inu. What blocks access of the ori inu is fear based resistance to fully experiencing our emotions. If as children we experience severe trauma in the form of verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse we will leave our body instead of processing the emotional pain. The ability to leave our body is called oso in Yoruba.

The purpose of many Ifa/Orisa cleansing is to access unexpressed pain and to release it through grieving. The Mayans say there is no joy without grief, there is no grief without community and there is no community without trust. In the context of Ifa/Orisa this means that as preparation for initiation we need to release the emotional trauma of our childhood by experiencing it fully. This is function of the River day or the cleansing just prior to entering the sacred groove.

If the necessary grieving needed to access our full spectrum of memories does not occur a person can become stuck in the effort of avoiding painful memories. This becomes a fear based life, in which our ever action is designed to keep us in a protective shell that does not allow for the intrusion of unwanted memories. A fear based life makes it impossible to align the ori and the ori inu. When I say align the ori and ori inu I am describing the ability to access appropriate memories in any given moment. When we are in resistance to accessing certain memories the emotional content of our experience does not match what is going on in our life and we experience tension between what we think is happening and what is really going on. For example if as a man I have a really bad experience in a relationship with a women and I do not fully express the grief caused by the bad experience I run the risk of projecting that experience on to all women. I could be engaged in a positive, potentially healthy relationship, but as long as I am projecting the past on to the present I will not see, appreciate, or fully understand the person who I am with in the present moment. That is why when couples break up they tend to very quickly recreated the same problems in a new relationship.

Sometimes when we have had a long history of abusive experiences we create a very long chain of abuse memories. If those memories are suppressed, the chain becomes very long. When the chain is triggered and the person goes out of their body to avoid the pain the body itself will go into a regression. In clinical terms a regression is the act of reliving a past memory by actually believing and feeling you have returned to the moment of the abuse. Technically this is a form of possession, but instead of being possessed by Spirit we are possessed by an unexpressed part of our own consciousness or ori.

Unexpressed memories are not stored in our brain they are stored in our body. Specifically they are stored in what Eastern religions call chakra and what Ifa calls iwaju. During initiation when an elder goes into possession to read an oriki and the initiate is carrying unexpressed emotion, the oriki can trigger a regression instead of a possession. This has become so common in the Diaspora that frequently regressions are identified as possession. This is a terrible disserve to the initiate. Confusing a regression with a possession has the effect of elevating emotional illness and confusing it with spirit.

The possession I have witnessed in traditional Yoruba culture comes with suuru meaning coolness and inner peace. When a child grows up in a traditional culture and is participating in ritual on a regular basis it is very difficult to hold on to unexpressed emotion. Most folks who were raised in the West in Christian forms of religion learn to suppress their emotions so that when they are exposed to Ifa/Orisa that can be a huge emotional release. This release is not possession.

In the Yoruba language possession occurs when the ori, the ori inu and the iponri are in perfect alignment. That means possession occurs from the inside out. As someone does initiations I cannot give you something you do not already have. My job as an elder is to unlock the spirit within you. We are divine beings having a human experience. That means initiation is not being crowned with some outside force, being initiated means remembering who you really are. Sometimes remembering who we really are involves letting go of emotional abuse. As elders it is our responsibility to know the difference between release from the ori inu and connection to the iponri. If we do not recognize the difference we are doing initiations in an irresponsible manner meaning we are deifying dysfunction rather than supporting the elevation of the ori.

Ire
baba