PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:RELATING WITH THE GROUND OF BEING THROUGH WENGER'S "MEDITATION IN INNER AND OUTER SPACE"

Writers who have the Greek pantheon at the back of their minds have labelled the Yoruba orisha the god of war, the god of the sky, the god of the sea, the river god, the god of medicine, etc. Such attributions are not incorrect. The forces named do belong to or are associated with different orisha. But on another level the orisha is also an historical figure, an ancestor, war leader, hunter or city founder; an animal, a tree or a rock; a Jungian archetype. Such a many-layered complex of associations is neither arbitrary nor merely picturesque. The comparison with the Greek pantheon is particularly misleading, because we know little about the Greek gods as magic forces and our image of them has been constituted by a Greek literature that has reduced the original religious symbols to mere dramatis personae.

The Yorubas on the other hand, even today, are particularly sensitive to the inner vibrations of the world; they are still in tune with nature; they want to be part of rather than masters of the world. They can still see meaningful relationships between certain natural forces, historical personalities, the forces associated with certain animals, the magic qualities of minerals or even colours. They also know that to certain individuals some of these forces are congenial, others destructive, and that the art of living consists of knowing who has to be in tune with what. The real African science is the accumulated knowledge in the collective consciousness of a people of how to live in tune with the nonhuman world.

Again, we could use the term ‘to make orisha’.

The magic knowledge that is employed to build up the power-symbols of the orisha is not just superstition. It is during the building up of such an ibo that the priest has to display his personal intuition guided by the subconscious knowledge of the tribe. Outwardly the ibo, the mystic magic object that contains the actual power of a shrine, is nothing but a lump of materials in which all kinds of ingredients have been embedded feathers, bones, leaves, ashes, stones and beads which are included because of their colour value. What is practised here is a knowledge of the inner tensions of the universe, a knowledge of the psychic radiations of plants, animals and minerals, an understanding of which of these forces are congenial to certain kinds of people and certain kinds of gods. The making of an ibo, which is left only to the most senior priests, is like a process of clarification and purification, a final sifting of psychic forces that prepares the priest for his ‘mystic adventure’.

The artist, like the priest, operates on a certain level of consciousness, where he is in closer contact with trees, animals, spirits. Susanne Wenger believes that there is an intelligence of water, an intelligence of trees. Man becomes more man, learning to respond to these forces.
He learns to stretch out his antenna in all directions, he learns to constantly to make more contacts with the forces that surround him. Objects we merely pass become to him encounters and conversations. It is on this level that the priest and the artist develop their personality. It is on this level that they discover the all important affinities or spiritual relationships.

Ulli Beier,The Return of the Gods:The Sacred Art of Susanne Wenger(Cambridge:Cambridge UP,1975)