Further Readings
Akesson, S. K. (1965). The Akan Concept of the Soul.
African Affairs, 64 , 280–291.
Bockie, S. (1993).Death and the Invisible Powers:The
World of Kongo Belief. Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press.
Buxton, J. (1973).Religion and Healing in Mandari.
London: Oxford University Press.
Cortez, J. G. (2000).The Orisha Secrets of the Yoruba,
Lucumi,Santeria Religion in the United States and
the Americas. Brooklyn, NY: Athelia Henrietta.
SPACE ANDTIME
In Africa, the time–space dimension is viewed as
interrelated. The African foundation of spiritual-
ity, for example, is governed by the seen and unseen
and convergence of time and space. To understand
the relationship among humans, nature, and sci-
ence, it is necessary to consider the concept of
wholeness in the African worldview.
Reality has the characteristics of the unseen
and the seen, the concrete and the abstract, as
with space and time. In fact, what we perceive
with our senses are but representations and sym-
bols of this reality. The African idea is that the
world extends beyond the limits of empiricism.
For instance, physics cannot explain many of
the innate abilities and observations of humans
such as telepathy, clairaudience, clairvoyance,
clairsentience, or precognition. Time is also
nonexistent and cannot be measured in the
dream state, yet sleep or dream time is measured
by time in the physical world. Time, as a vehicle
or conduit that delivers the messages to be acted
on in the physical world, is also needed for
movement.
Time is then a manifestation of a physical
world or material existence, a degree of limitation
as compared with the subjective realm where time
and space are nonexistent. Time is also a represen-
tation of eternity and balance. According to some
scholars, the ancient African sages knew how to
control the vibration of the pituitary and pineal
glands in a manner that enabled them to contact
any region of the inner worlds that they desired to
visit. It is widely believed that as we dream we are
having an experience outside of time and space.
Here we can also commune with ancestors of the
spirit world, an existence without boundaries or
degrees of separation.
African philosophers have said that the uni-
verse is considered to be unending in regard
to space and time. There is no known edge to the
universe, and Africans’ idea of time consists
mainly of present, past, and little to say about
the future. Africans acknowledge time within the
cycle of birth, growth, procreation, and death.
The major rhythms of time are events like night
and day, months in connection to phases of the
moon, seasons of rain and dry weather, as well as
events of nature that come and go. All of this
suggests that the universe will never end despite
the transformations we experience in a physical
state. The symbolism of circles, used in many rit-
uals, is praised in art and other forms of cultural
expression to stress the significance of their con-
tinuity. Ongoing and permanent, the universe is
eternal and extends beyond what the human eye
can detect.
Space is defined as a characteristic of the uni-
verse that enables physical manifestations to
extend in three directions. Space is then a means
by which creation and all life forms can exist
and interact. In the West, some have said that
space, time, and matter are separate elements;
others have contended that they are combined
into a fourth-dimensional existence. The Africans
have understood that space and time are mutu-
ally dependent. This view concurs with those
who claim that absolute time is then really
the absolute order of events determined by
cause-and-effect events and not the measure-
ment of time, which is the subject of ordinary
observations.
Ancient Egyptians based time and space on the
concept of the number 6. The ancients believed
that the number 6 was the cosmic number of the
material world. Time in simple mathematics
makes up the 24 hours of the day when multiplied
by 4; multiplied by 2 it gives us 12 hours of day
and night. Furthermore, 6 multiplied by 5 gives us
our 30 days in a month. It is also symbolic of the
12 signs of the zodiac multiplied by 2.
Space is also governed by this rule of six because
it represents the six directions of extension, such as
up and down, back and forth, and left and right.
The cube, or, more specifically, a “person sitting onSpace and Time 629