Fela Sowande The Learning Process

THE LEARNING PROCESS

STANDARD RULES FOR THE STUDENT

By Chief Fela Sowande (19061987)





STANDARD RULES FOR THE STUDENT
Never be overawed by authority. Not at any time whatever, nor for any
reason whatsoever, can any one with safety or profit permit his faculty
of thought to take a 'sabbatical,' least of all when that individual's
mind is exposed to the thoughts of other people.
Be open to conviction, but refuse to be convinced until conviction
becomes a necessity. In other words, do not imprison your mind in the
padded cell of the comfortable rut of your own preferred beliefs,
prejudices, biases, or egocentricity.
Read little, think deeply and much. Avoid acquiring the
grasshoppermind. Books are highly suggestive, therefore, choose your
authors with care. Take time to think through the full implications and
connotations of what you read, testing its validity from as many angles
as you can. Even nourishing food leads to indigestion if swallowed
whole. Avoid mental indigestion at all costs. It is not to be cured
merely by going to the Drug Store!
Seek TRUTH and pursue it, to the extent of remaking your own mind no
matter the cost should it become necessary. Never forget that the
"superstitions" of today were the "truths" of yesterday;the "truths" of
today will be the "superstitions" of tomorrow. Do not allow them
"permanent residence" in your mind. Seek not mere "knowledge" but
UNDERSTANDING. Perchance WISD0M may follow. One thing is certain: Only
when the rational mind is stilled can the ears of Understanding open to
the voice of 'Wisdom.
If you must lie, lie to others; they will find you out and know you
for the fool that you are. But if you lie to yourself, you are a lost
fool.
Learn to "think beyond the thoughts of men that lean on things they
see." Inevitably they become "obsessed by the perceptible" to such an
extent that, for them, thinking has become synonymous with repeating
parrot-fashion the cast off -thoughts of others, with less intelligence
than the (so-called) "dumb" animals. On no account should you visit
that Club, much less join it.
Make it your golden rule, never to be broken, NOT under any
circumstances to consult any author on any subject until you shall first

have thought deeply about it a meditative act and shall have reached
some conclusions, no matter how tentative. Remember at all times:
NOTHING BELONGS TO YOU EXCEPT YOUR MIND HAS HAD A HAND IN ITS
FORMULATION. The moral is obvious ensure by every means at your
disposal, that your mind is actively functioning on oiled wheels, and
that it functions as your servant and not your enslaver.
Heed well the words of Herbert Spencer: "There is a principle which is

a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and

which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance: That principle

is contempt prior to investigation."

Author's Copyright Howard University, 1969, revised at the University of
Pittsburgh, 1973, and restructured at Dartmouth College, July 1975.

hen, at their first class meeting, a Faculty member introduces himself to
his students by handing them a sheet of paper headlined STANDARD RULES FOR

THE STUDENT which he himself has drawn up, some of those students might
well jump to the conclusion that the Faculty member sees himself as the
assuredly wise, his students as the decidedly ignorant.
The first sentence that meets their eyes, however, is: NEVER BE OVERAWED
BY AUTHORITY. Hard on its heels follows the comment:* "Not at any time
whatever, nor for any reason whatsoever, can any one with safety or
profit permit his faculty of thought to take a 'sabbatical,' least of all

when that indivIdual's mind is exposed to the thoughts of other people."
There is no suggestion that that Faculty member considers himself to be
excepted. As each of the Standard Rules is examined, it becomes clear
that students are not being told that they must be docile and meek and
submissive before their "betters," who are their teachers. On the
contrary, each student is being urged to develop and apply precisely the
opposite attitude, in and out of class, on and off campus, day in, day
out.
The fact is that these Standard Rules, along with several others not
included in them, were formulated over many years by myself for my own
guidance, in response to my own needs. They emerged slowly, one at a
time. It was not till 1969, when I was at Howard University, that seven
of these rules were grouped. together, initially under the heading
"Guidelines for the student," because these particular seven rules seemed
relevant and applicable to what I saw as the needs of the particular group

of students whith whome I was then interacting. But I was not drawing up a

legal code for them. Those students seemed to be facing the same kind. of
problems that had dogged my footsteps some years back; these rules had
helped me, and I was but sharing whatever general values they might have
with them. Hence the final caption: STANDARD RULES FOR not "students,"
but THE STUDENT. And who may he be?
Anyone, anywhere, on or off or a total stranger to campuses, who is
completely involved in a consistent and determined search for an adequate
understanding of what makes Life tick, with the specific intention of
applying the results of that search to advantage, in his or her own
life-experiences. An unremitting search for that kind of Knowledge which
leads unerringly to that real Understanding that matures rapidly into that

Wisdom that unlocks, for that individual, the Halls of TRUTH.
But what is Truth? We are told that for the Hindu, Truth is that which is
affirmed as such by the Soul of an individual for that individual. This
may satisfy some people, but leave others cold. The fact is that Truth is

one of those intangibles, - like Love, Hate, Life, Death, and a whole host

of others, each of which defies precise definition. Truth has been said
to imply those spiritual and cosmic laws by which the universe is built
and operated, and by which the twin processes of involution and evolution
are ensured. But it is most unlikely that this concept will find general
endorsement.
The problem here is that Truth, like Life, is forever inconsistent. Logic
is consistent. But Logic is far from being synonymous with Truth. I am
reminded here of Henry Osborn Taylor's 1923 publication of his FREED0M OF
MIND IN HISTORY. "The constituents of the human animal" he said "are
infinite. Myriad are the factors entering his.life, striking upon it,
moulding it, limiting and conditioning, and again becoming very part of
it. They appear as irifluences and compulsions from without, and as
determining inheritances, impulses, not to say compulsions, from within."
And also: "In imagining or in justifying our ideas of a living working
God who is Spirit, one need not struggle for an impossible consistency. .

. . No working religion ever has been consistent in the idea of its God.
Indeed, the endeavour for such consistency means scholasticism. The
religion that is living, like life itself, knows no consistency, which is

of logic."
Thus I incline to the view that, in the final analysis, it is the
individual who determines what, for him at that point in time, is "truth."

But only at that point in time, for such an individual is as prepared to
reject a previous truth that has outlived its truthfulness, as he would a
shoe that had become too small for his feet. That truth which relates
directly to the life-experiences of an individual can not be static, for
those life-experiences are not static either.
'The search, then, for this kind of Truth through Wisdom, through
Understanding, initially through Knowledge of a particular kind is what I
identify here as the Learning Process, and as Education in the proper
sense of that much misused term. Other kinds of knowledge make for, and
often stop at, the accumulation of "facts," which are often no more than
opinions, and therefore lead nowhere. At best one might call it
"schooling." But the old saying "Do not let your schooling interfere with
your education" is much more than a spate of words.
And so, the Standard Rules encourage "the student" to be himself and
remain himself while,he searches for nothing else but that which, for
him, is Truth. That was precisely what I needed, over a
quarterof-a-century-ago, when at last I woke up to the fact that while I
was an African/Nigeria/Yoruba, I knew hardly anything about my own African

tradition. At that time, I was domiciled in Britain. It was, largely, the
negative stereotyped image of "the African" that I kept running headlong
into iri Britain, that forced me to take stock of myself.
As a result, I became obsessed by the need to know precisely what the
score was. I knew there was the risk that I might uncover facts which
proved conclusively that the stereotyped image was indeed correct, and
that Africans were in fact uncivilized subhumans just making their way out

of heathenism. That risk I had to take.
But then, domiciled in Britain as I was at the time, I had no access to
those much older Nigerians in Nigeria who would have been of inestimable
assistance to me. But this was Nemesis. For when I was living in Nigeria
and these same people were within walking distance, I was much too busy
learning all I could about William the Conqueror, Henry the Fifth and
Agincourt, English Literature, Latin, a brief excursion into Greek, to
have any time for the "uneducated Nigerians" as I then saw them to be. Now

I had to pay for my folly, for the only resources available to me were the

Bookshops in London.
"Never be overawed by authority" owes its birth to the fact that for a
long time I was overawed by authority. Only by degrees did I realize that,

the uncritical acceptance of the views of other people, and especially of
"experts" or "Africanists," means that one renounces one's own common
sense, one mistrusts one's judgement. Falsities become 'truths and
half-truths assume the nature of veiled wisdom. Chronic mental
indigestion is then only half-a-step away. One's thought-processes become
subverted, the person's mind loses all tonicity and goes flabby, unsure of

itself, unreliable, dull-edged and cowardly. The entire system of the
person is permeated through and through with self-injected.generous
dosages of an inferiority-complex that quickly becomes self-perpetuating.
Even today I shudder when I look back and see how close I was to disaster.

What saved me? Frankly I do not know. I suspect that quite a measurable
amount of the soil, water, air, sunshine, food, and sounds of Africa had
managed, in spite of myself, to penetrate to the core of my being when I
was growing up, and had remained lodged there throughout the period when I

was behaving like a mad-hatter. The Spirit of Africa had not written me
off, and She came to my aid.
It was thus that, in time, I began to see that knowledge was one thing,
insight was quite another. In "knowledge" the observer deals with the
externals of the thing observed, which plays a passive role in the whole
process. Most "experts" seem to fall into this category. The observer
speaks for the observed period.
In INSIGHT, the consciousness of the observer projects itself inside the
observed, and in the end it is the observed that speaks on its own
account, but through the observer. But authors like Dennett who fall into
this category are scorned and rejected, if not hounded.
Reaching such conclusions was a very slow process. Many were the
frustrations, sometimes bordering on despair. Had the search not been an
obsession from the very start, I doubt if I would have gone through with
it. But I simply had to know. I had no choice anymore.
Recollections of old Yoruba sayings sometimes spurred me on, For example,
in an approximate English translation, "Not to know for sure where one is

heading for carries no blame. But not to know where one has come from is
unpardonable."
Then at other times, I would find myself jotting down words on paper on
impulse, only to be startled when I read what I had written. Let me give
you three examplesat random.
The First: "To lack conscious awareness of one's roots is to become a weed

in the Garden of Life, a fallen rotting leaf in the Orchard of Humanity."

The Second: "'The search for roots is the search for identity, for
self-knowledge, for self-realization through consciously designed and
creatively implemented purposeful living. There is no other way by which
one finds meaningful and satisfactory answers to the basic questions: WHO
AM I? WHERE AM I? WHY AM I HERE? HOW CAN I DERIVE MAXIMUM BENEFIT FROM
THE FACT.THAT I AM NOW HERE?"
The Third: "Only when a seed begins to sprout its roots does it begin to
live. It must first have embraced Mother Earth before it can hope to catch

a glimpse of the Sky. Only through those roots can it take what it needs
from Mother Nature in order to grow and mature. Only then can it hope to
realize its potentialities. The more deeply and powerfully entrenched its
roots are in the soil native to it, the more able it is to weather all
storms. So it is with a tree. So it is with every individual. So it is
with every group of individuals, large or small. Roots are the only
absolutely reliable and fool-proof channel of communication with Life, the

only authentic affirmation and confirmation of being, in the real sense,
alive. Proof of one's BEING-ness.
It was in this manner that each of the seven rules that were incorporated
into the original Standard Rules emerged. If there is any feeling of
"talking-down" in any of those Rules, the answer is that in that case, I
was "talking-down" to myself originally. When I shared them with the Howard
University students, the thought of editing them occured to me, but in the
end I decided not to. The very tenor of these rules was more than enouah
counter-balance. They remained unaltered.
Of course, I have never required their adoption by students. The Rules make
such a requirement impossible. Today, I give them to students, more with the

intention of letting them see how my mind works, in the hope that they will
in turn permit me to see how their minds Work.
Sometimes, this occurs in quite an amusing manner. It was at Pittsburgh
during a course I was teaching for the Black Studies Department. A
colleague of mine from the same Department sat in on that course, and
participated freely in the discussions. One day, he disagreed with me on
something I said, and we argued back and forth again and again but to no
purpose. The students watched, fascinated.
At length, in desperation, I said to him: "If you would only look at Rule 6
and apply*it to what I have been trying to say, you would see my point." Pat

came his answer: "But I am still on Rule 2, which says Refuse to be
convinced until conviction becomes a necessity, and you have not convinced
me yetl" All of us were in hysterics, and the point at issue suddenly became

insignificant. That incident was a boon, for those students, who seemed to
find it difficult to believe that they were really expected to tell me I was

in error if they saw that I was, provided they gave cogent reasons for their

views. It was following that incident that the students began to give real
attention to the underlying implications of those Rules.
Now, on any Campus we find, I think, two main categories of registered
students and likewise of teaching staff. Let us take the students first.
Students who fall into one category are those who seek active involvement in

a learning-process, in the sense clearly outlined above. For such students,
education and expansion-of-consciousness are two alternative terms for one
and the same thing. Namely, an unfolding, as when the bud unfolds into a
flower. But the bud of a particular flower unfolds into that particular
flower and none other. Hence education, for them, is necessarily an
individual organic process, which takes place from the inside outwards, and

not the other way round. Such students expect, as of right, to think for
themselves. To ask awkward questions of their teachers, if necessary. To
refuse to accept anything at face value. To point out what they see as
inconsistencies and seek an explanation from the teacher. They know that
being relatively uninformed about a particular subject does not mean that
they are dolts and ignoramuses. They are neither fools nor ciphers.
While they naturally expect their teacher to prepare and offer them food for

their minds, they reserve the right to select what they want individually,
for each must then chew the food, trusting in his own system to extract
from it what that system needs, ejecting the rest. Not for such a student
the accumulation of facts and figures, but rather insight into what those
facts signify by being there.
Students in this category are sensitive to a degree. Especially to the
general atmosphere of a classroom, and to what lies under the
personality-mask of the teacher. They are by nature intuitive, and so
finely tuned emotionally that any kind of crude militant activity is
abhorrent to them. They are the least likely to turn a classroom upside.down

for any reasons whatever. But precisely for these reasons, they are the
students who suffer most at the rough hands of a crude, insensitive and
opinionated teacher (so-called), who would have been much better employed as

something else somewhere else far away from any campus. For to such a
teacher, the mind of a student if such a thing can be said to exist is a
roughly shaped object which he, as teacher, is qualified. to reshape and
polish, label and price, and stamp. For it is above all malleable; of that
he is positive.
But that type of.teacher did not come from nowhere. He was produced by the
system. Or alternatively, if he was not produced by the system, then he
managed to get through the system's defences, stake out his claim and setlle

permanently within the system. His presence there is the relevant fact, for
he will.breed his own kind within the system. He is a thorn in the flesh of
the type of student we have been considering, whom we may identify as the
learning process student. When such a student feels shortchanged by the type

of teacher mentioned above, he tends to become passively immobile, to
withdraw behind his own thoughts so effectively that he gives the impression

of being apathetic. In fact, his instincts have warned him to lie low,
rather than pit himself against a teacher-mechanic. Wisely he does just
that, as we shall see.
Now the learning-process student is not a creation of my imagination. On
every Campus that I have visited I have met them. Sometimes I get letters
from them, frank letters that are obviously private. I am not writing a
scenario here, but recording as much as I can of an existing situation,
without embarassment to anybody that would result from citing specifics.
When any such student signs up for a Course, he is not after "getting" so
much as "finding." He will work round the clock to "get" good grades, but
only if he finds what he is looking for in the Course and in the teacher.
What is he looking for in the Course? Perhaps he himself does not know in
detailed categorical terms. But when I found that I had to uncover for my
own benefit what my African heritage was, as I have recounted above, I could

not have been specific about what precisely I was looking for, although I
knew I would recognize it if I found it. The learning-process student is in
the same boat. Thus, he is looking for a teacher who can help him find his
own bearings, structure his own thought processes in such a manner that they

become indispensable aids to articulating his own objectives. Not a teacher
who will take him in hand and map out his life for him, but a teacher who
will make it possible for him to map out his life for himself, to the
advantage of his own unique life experiences.
In short, he is looking for a teacher who holds the same basic ideas and
attitudes about the learning process that he subscribes to. Now that
learning process has been said to consist of the three phases: (a)
understanding, (b) discovering, (c) opening and entering. Significantly,
"knowledge" is not even included.
It is one thing merely to "know" that minerals are buried underground. It is

quite anot her matter understanding the process that produced the minerals
in the first place, and then buried them underground in the second place.
But even this is not to be equated with discovering the precise locations in

which specific minerals are to be found by digging. The entire cycle yields
concrete results, however, only when one has successfully concluded the
opening and entering of the mine containing the minerals, and has taken
possession of those minerals. It is in the actual possession that the end is

achieved.
A learning process must complete that cycle, if it is to be what it claims
to be in practice and not merely in theory. This means that the student's
dependence on the teacher is maximal only during the first phase of
Understanding. In the second phase of Discovery, the student must
necessarily depend more and more on himself. In the first phase, the
teacher deals, not with specifics, but with generally applicable Principles,

with Truths that are universally recognized as such. As for example that the

type of seed you plant determines the type of fruit you will reap at
harvest. Or, that the acorn that became the oak-tree came from another
oak-tree which produced that seed.
Such Principles, within the context of the specific Course, is what the
Understanding phase covers. But in the Discovery phase, the student must now

discover which of these Principles are directly relevant and applicable, by
himself and for himself as an individual. Now the teacher becomes more of a
friend and confidante than anything else. It is the student that now
indicates the general direction in which teacher and student will go. The
role of the teacher becomes advisory, for each student must accept
increasing responsibility for himself, as himself. Each draws on his own
life experiences.
This is why large classes undermine the very foundations on which a learning

process necessarily rests. For what is required in this second phase of
Discovery above all else, is rapport between teacher and each student, for
it is here that the individuality of the student must be encouraged to
function, as itself on its own account. To make its mistakes under guidance
and learn from those mistakes, but protected from making costly ones
through the experience of the teacher. A large class reduces the
possibility of that kind of relationship to virtually zero. The tendency to
evaluate the effectiveness or competence of a Faculty member by a body count

of his students, is unfortunately not as rare as one would wish. But it
turns the very concept of Education into a cash-and-carry commercial
venture. For practical purposes, students become inanimate objects on a
moving tray. And the teacher; an employee in the assembly line standing.in
front of the moving tray. His job is to catch as many objects on the tray as
they pass by him, and wrap them up. At the end of a stated period, his
competence and efficiency is determined by how many objects he succeeded in
wrapping, and how well he wrapped them. It would be a comic situation if it

was not so tragic. For what is at stake here is the human mind, not pieces
of chocolate or packets of tack-pins.
In the third phase of Opening and Entering, the student is entirely on his
own. Often this may not begin until after he has left the Campus. But there
are exceptions, of course. In either case, the student-teacher relationship
becomes a relationship between two colleagues, one of whom (the teacher) is
perhaps more experienced. It boils down to this, then that the
learning-process student expecting that with Ppcb term he !7nends on Campus,

with each Course he signs up for, he will acquire greater facility and
assuredness in his own ordering of his own life-experiences to his own
benefit, not only while he.is on Campus, but more especia-Ily when he has
left Campus. How often does this happen? Perhaps the rea-1 question is
whether it is'.happening at all today on any Ca-mpusl
For the second category of students have a numerical superiority that is far

from being negligible. This other category consists of students who demand
to be spoon-fed. To them the whole idea of a learning-process is so much
bunk. The teacher must identify for them which books to read, which
authorities to consult, which, "facts" to endorse and which to reject. He
must teach (?) in such a manner that they can take down lucid notes, from
which to draw for examinations or term-papers in such a way that the teacher

can not but be satisfied and give them their grades. After all, they have
paid their cash, so, they are entitled to the goods. Easily irrational,
readily militant.
The spoon-fed student expects everything to be found for him. And by the
teacher. Such students never ask awkward questions. They never seriously
question the validity of what they are told. In effect, such a student sees

his mind as a sponge which soaks up whatever liquid it . . . comes [into
contact with]. His mind is as useful as the amputated leg of a person is to
that person.
To put it another way. The spoon-fed student demands that he not only be
spoon-fed, but that every morsel must have been pre-chewed by whoever is
feeding him. All he expects to do is swallow. But of course, every
pre-chewed morsel is permeated through and through with the saliva of the
"pre-chewer," Mr. X-rated. Thus, along with each swallow, that student
off-loads on his own metabolic processes, some elements from that of Mr.
X-rated. What state of health Mr X-rated may be in, he does not know. But
even if that sate of health is good, it does not necessarily follow that a
blood-transfusion from Mr X-ra-ted will be beneficial to that student. But
such considerations do not occur to any spoon-fed student. When he signs up
for a Course, he is out, not to find but to GET "good grades," with minimum
hassle.
Unfortunately there are teachers who not only allow, not merely encourage,
but demand that students have that kind of attitude. Such a teacher is not
an educator but an instructor. He "instructs" his students every step of the

way. What is proper and relevant for them to know. Reading lists. Library
assignments. Bibliography. Lecture notes. What to do, when to do it, how to
do it, but never WHY to do it as distinct from the what and the when and the

how. The basic WHY question never arises. A teacher-instriictor behaves as
though he believes as perhaps indeed he does that in him the wisdoms of
Solomon, Socrates, and Solon have met and fused and blossomed. It is not for

any student to question his ideas or pronouncements or methods or
instructions. For he is "up here" on the mountaintop, as witness his cap and

hood and gown, while they are still "down there in the valley" crawling over

each other like ants. Only through him can any of them find the way that may

eventually lead up to the mountaintop. The operative term is "may," for
should such a student do anything that compels him to withdraw his goodwill
from that student, then the misguided student will find impassable
roadblocks in the way.
Is that an over-drawn picture? Not by any manner of means. There are, of
course, grades of teacher-instructors. But as a general picture, it is for
real. A fact-of-life which warns the learningprocess student 'to "cool it"
when he finds himself dealing with a teacher-instructor. Now and again I
find an exception in a learning process student,who bluntly refuses any
compromises, and places his whole fijt~ire -in the scales. But in Feneral,
the learning-Drocess student considers discretion to be the better part of
valor, and the type keeps his mouth shut, assumes a poker face and a low
profile. But the teacher- instructor type sketched out above is real, and as

large as life.
In her THE ANCIENT ATLANTIC, Lucile Taylor Hansen made mention of a Dean
Reiber of the University of California in Los Angeles, who from all accounts

seems to have been the very embodiment of what we have identified as the
learning-process here. He is said to have been "a most inspiring person and
a privilege to have known." Now Dean Reiber referred, not without cause, to
"The Bastile Mind." He is also recorded to have said that that type of mind
"sometimes fancies that he is a scientist. He may even have a doctorate in
his specialty, which on occasion he dusts off and wears like a shining
medal. Unfortunately, however, he has the type of intelligence which has
come thus far and no farther. Once he has discovered an idea which his
emotions tell him is favorable to the retention of all the creature comforts

that he enjoys, he grooms it, manacles and blindfolds it, and entertains it
listlessly to the end of his life. Of course, he never changes his mind or
reevaluates his primary ideas. His is the true Bastille Mind into which it
is most difficult to get an idea and almost impossible to get it out."
Not.all members of the Teaching Staff on Campuses are free of that disease,
and very very few are immune to it.
Then there is Jolande Jacobi's THE PSYCHOLOGY OF C.G. Jung, in which we find

Jung's recorded views containing the following pertinerit comments:
"Identification with one's office or title is very attractive indeed, which
is precisely why so many men are nothing more than the decorum accorded to
them by society. In vain would one look for a personality behind this mask.
Underneath all the padding one would find a very pitiable creature. That is
why the office or whatever this outer husk may be is so attractive,
providing, as it does, cheap compensation for personal inadequacies. We all

know the professor whose individuality is exhausted by his professorial
role; behind the mask, we find nothing but peevishness and infantilism."
It is not the Professorship per se, or Doctoral Studies as such that is in
question here. Dean Reiber and Dr Jung were Professors. We do not have here
a case of "sour grapes" that are sour because they are out of reach. It is
not the cap and hood and gown that is being faulted, but the vacuity and
brittleness that hallmark some of the minds parading under those same
paraphernalia to which others like Reiber and Jung have brought so much
grace and lustre. But in them and in their likes we have the other type of
teacher, the teacher-educator. He sets out to involve his students along
with himself jointly in a learning process. Deliberately he blurrs
teacher-student distinction insofar as it downgrades students and places
the teacher on a pedestal. For he never allows himself to forget that gods
have a curious habit of developing feet of clay. The teacher-educator has,
as his primary aim, not so much "teaching a class," as establishing a
classroom atmosphere that will be conducive to establishing and maintaining

free and pleasurable interaction among all those present in the room at any
time. Every teacher-educator has his own philosophy. His very own, evolved
out of his life-experiences. But I think that Gibran provided us with a
general blue-print in his THE PROPHET. There, a teacher asked the Prophet
to speak on Teaching. The Prophet replied: . . . "No man can reveal to you
aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your
knowledge. The teacher who walks in the.shadow of the temple, among his
followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his
lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his
wisdom, but rather ieads you to the threshold of your own mind. . . . For
the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man."
That much all teacher-educators have in common. But that is why he is such
an enigma to the spoonfed student, to whom he appears as either lazy or
incompetent; otherwise why does he not come up with reading lists, library
assignments, etcetera? Why does he notlecture so they can take notes? Why
turn the classroom into a sort of glorified round-table-conference? What,
in Heaven's name, is.he up to?
When, however, a teacher-educator finds that the gods have provided him with

a compact class of learning-process students, then that Course becomes for
him as for them an exciting adventure in the realm of-mind. A peculiar kind
of mental energy is generated, which benefits teacher and students alike,
and carries over, well beyond the classroom into the personal life of each
of them, for the duration.
It was Dean Reiber, previously referred to above, who is said to have told
his students, "Knowledge is a ball floating in the sea of ignorance." A
curious statement which first baffled me. For what Dean Reiber was saying in

effect was that the more you know about a thing, the more ignorant you are
about that very thing. But of course the Dean was absolutely on track. It
was the imagery he used that gave me the clue. Knowledge is two dimensional.
Life is multidimensional. Knowledge cannot contain any aspect of Life, even

of a microorganism, in its totality.
Imagine, for example, that someone has invented a pair of shoes that enables

you to walk on vvater in perfect safety and swim as and when you wish, also
completely safe. Now imagine that you have those shoes on, and are
standing'on one of the shores of the Atlantic. You walk forward, until the
waters of the Atlantic reach your knees. You can no. longer see the ground
on which you are standing, but can feel it. You can even bend down and scoop

some of the soil from that non-visible ground in your hands. A few more
steps forward, and the waters now reach to your waist. Still the ground is
under your feet. Now the further you go forward, the more quickly the ground

from under your feet disappears. It is still there, but you can no longer
feel it, much less see it.
Now you surface, and walk for miles forward. If you were to write up an
account of that trip, you would have to confine yourself to the surface of
the Atlantic Ocean, as though it existed apart from the rest of that ocean,
and bore no relationship to the ocean floor. The greater the surface of the
ocean you covered, the greater the area that you did not and could not
reach, and multidimensional to boot, whereas the area you covered is but two

dimensional at best. Thus, far from looking at his students as so many
bodies each of which is identified by a registration number on a list, far
from seeing them as uninformed immature minds and still less as guinea pigs
on whom to try out his precious theories, a teacher-educator sees a class
situation as the only profitable way, by which he can check himself out, to
see to what extent and depth ignorance has tainted his own supposed
knowledge. It is his only gilt-edged Insurance Policy against the unwitting
retention of the "Truths" of yesterday masquerading in his mind as the
"Truths" of today. Precisely because those young minds are relatively
uninformed and relatively immature, they have not yet lost the innocence of
youth, and are free of the hang-ups which beset the lives of the supposedly
informed and mature minds, if, that is, such minds are to be found on any
Campus these days, other than the rare exceptions which serve to prove the
rule.
Of course he will do everything within his power so that his contributions
at class-meetings will aim to meet and fulfill the needs of his students.
Well indeed might they feel indebted to him. But he knows even if they do
not, that he is no less indebted to them, if indeed there is any
indebtedness on either side. In this type of class situation, the
teacher-student relationship can only be compared, in my view, to the
two,poles of one and the same magnet, the joint action of which alone
produces a magnetic field. A teacher-educator n.eeds learning-process
students just as much as learnincy-process students get nowhere without a
teacher-educator.. It is a partnership, rather than a relationship.
And so, a teacher-educator that is in fact what he claims to be, encourages
his students to speak their minds freely, in terms of their own life
experiences, particularly when the conclusions they may draw are likely to
require him to recheck his own ideas and views and conclusions on the point
at issue. He is never ashamed to admit being in error, or to affirm that he
does not know the answer to a question they ask him. For well he knows that
the only ones who never make errors, and who never have to say "I do not
know," are under six feet of earth. Above all he is well aware that a
learning-process student is quick to withdraw into the innermost recesses of

his own mind, if once he suspects that any kind of game-playing is in
progress by the teacher. On that count, he must always be "above suspicion."

How does the teacher-educator know all these and more? Because he too was
once a learning-process student. It is this bond which is thicker than water

and than blood, that establishes the common ground on which total strangers
in a student-teacher relationship within the four walls of a classroom sense

affinity, each with the other. In the same manner, the teacher-instructor
and the spoon-fed student also "belong" together. But there the parallel
ends. In the case of the former pair, the affinity is life giving. Whereas
with the latter pair of teacher-instructor/spoon-fed-student, it is
death-dealing because it dehydrates Mind, subverts Reason, prostitutes
Intellect.
The difference between the two pairs is summed up accurately as the
difference between the manner in which their minds function. What is that
difference? Two authors make it possible to attempt to answer that
multiple-aspected-question in any depth. They are Carlos Suares and Vera
Stanley Alder.
Carlos Suares brought the fruits of forty years of research into the writing

of his THE CIPHER OF GENESIS. His aim was to establish that the original
document on the Creation of the World was written by Cabalists, using the
Hebrew language, but in code. When that account is read with the aid of the
code, the Creation account is found to be awe-inspiring, and seen as the
sacred fount of revelation and of knowledge. Then came the time when that
document was translated into Hebrew, but without first having decoded it.
Perhaps they were unaware that it was in code. Perhaps they could not find
the code. Whatever the reason, the translation ended up as a mistranslation
of the original document, a complete distortion of the record contained in
the original document. But it was this Hebrew mistranslation which became
the version that was subsequently translated into English and other
languages. It formed, the basis for the English Bible as it currently
stands. Thus it is that the first chapters of the Book of Genesis in that
English Bible presents us with a Creation Story that is absurd and an insult

to man's intelligence, then expects us to accept that story in faith as the
revealed Word of Godl A story as puerile as the one in the original
cabalistic document was immeasurably profound. In his development of this
theme, Suares considered (a) language as a channel of communication, and (b)

the mind of man. Our immediate interest in Suares lies in these two areas.
Let me restate Suares' comments on the Hebrew Alphabet in my own words,
using homely illustrations.
Imagine a cable carrying an enormous voltage of electricity. If there is a
control switch, then the current can be switched off and on as may be
necessary or desired. When the current is off, the cable can be handled with

impunity, but not when the current is on. Thus there is quite a measure of
distinction between cable and current.
But imagine that there was no control switch. That for untold centuries,
that cable has always carried its unbelievably massive volume of electric
current at peak. Now the distinction between cable and current becomes
virtually academic. Cable and current have become, for all practical
purposes, two interconnected, interrelated and inseparable aspects of one
particular thing, a specific type of Energy-in-operation, a Living
Spiritual Potency whose body is the cable, whose spirit is electricity. We
can say that the consciousness of the cable is the electric-current that it
carries, and that the cable is the vehicle-for-manifestation used by the
electric current. Its body.
In exactly the same way, each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is surcharged
with a specific Spiritual Potency, to which it relates as the cable in the
preceding illustration relates to the current it carries. Thus in order to
arrive at the meaning of a Hebrew word of, say, three letters, one must
first discover each of the three Spiritual Potencies that are in operation,
and then the Energic situation that arises from their interaction, in the
order or sequence specified by the three Hebrew Letters. That sequence is
of cardinal importance.
When one tries this out with the aid of the code given by Suares in his
book, the result is rather like looking at a three-dimensional film that is
projected from six directions at the same time: from the front, the back,
the right, the left, above, and below. One no longer experiences a film
being projected towards him, but of being projected in the most literal
sense into the actual situation recorded on that film. Thus it becomes quite

clear why Suares termed the Hebrew Language a Projective Language. Each word

projects the reader into an actual situation. Just as to touch that cable is

to touch electricity at the same moment. In other words, there is an
"ontological link" between the concretely visible cable and the nonvisible
electricity, the reality of the existence of which is affirmed and
established by the cable.
But the language we use today, English not excepted, is not Projective. It
is a by-product of sensorial references. It is therefore inadequate for
transmitting anything from the unknown. The words are purely conventional.
They do not emanate from the objects which they designate. Suares went on
to amplify.
It is only through linguistic agreements that "house" in English, "maison"
in French, "casa" in Italian, each specifies the same object. But neither
"house," nor "maison," nor "casa" projects every reader into one and the
same specific building contained in essence within the term, as a tree is
contained within the seed. In other words, none of those three terms has an
ontological link with the essence,of the object specified. Every reader
creates in his own imagination just what "house" or "maison" or "casa"
implies. No two imagined pictures can be assumed. to be.reasonably
identical. In fact, no reader has any idea of what any other reader has
imagined as the specific building identified. as "house" or "maison" or
"casa."
Thus we see that the language currently in use today has serious
shortcomings. Suares said, in fact, that we need to atomize our
psychological structures that have been built with and upon words that never

convey the things they specify, but which are only our ideas of what we
recognize their appearances to be. I think that Suares is stressing here
that we have conditioned ourselves into reacting psychologically to the
appearances rather than to the essences of things. That this is a most
unhealthy and unprofitable state to be in, and that we ought to "atomize" it

and be rid of it.
"There will never be any.explanation of why anything exists at all," he
declared. In fact, "our many sided sciences make almost daily discoveries
or inventions of collaterals which, by mere impact of observation acquire
the status of distinct branches, thereby splitting further our already
scattered body of knowledge. In spite of the increasing hold of mathematics
on departments as far apart as optics, philology, biology, or ethics, it
cannot and will never discover a basic postulate befitting the simultaneous
existence of a universe and of man." Is it not the most fantastic thing, he

commented, that we are alive, and yet we do not know what life isl We have
within us the whole mystery of Life, and yet we search for revelations about

it in books!!! Do we derive any knowledge of what "God" is from thinking or
speaking about "God"? Our reasoning faculties are not adequate for
expressing, in terms of daily language, any vital truth about existence,
life, death, the cause of thought, and the like. The words we use have been

fashioned in a world where everything is "measureable and contradictory," as

for example: life and death. But moreover.
We also make -two fundamental errors. First, we do not realize that our
language is an exclusive one. Words like "chair" or "hot" or "yesterday"
immediately exclude all thoughts that do not relate to "chair" or "hot" or
"yesterday." Secondly, we attempt to use this limiting thought to perceive
the totality of life. But as soon as we designate something that we do not
know, we do not designate something that exists, Thus we land ourselves in
the projection of our dreams, and such terms as "God," "The Eternal Supreme
Being," "Universal Mind" produce indefinite imagery and nothing more.
Moreover, such imagery is very mediocre and puerile, "since it is in
accordance with the limited measure of our own thought." And again: "we have

to remember that the instrument of investigation that we possess is our
mind. If we do not completely understand how our mind works, this instrument

will twist and disfigure whatever of "reality" we may discover. The quality
and condition of the telescope govern the observation resulting .from its
use. If there is dust on our lense, we see dark spots in the heavens."
Furthermore, when, in our thoughts, vie try to relate to something that we
do not know, we are in actuality imagining something about which we are
ignorant. What is required is not faith but direct perception. This
includes, first of all, knowledge of ourselves. We ourselves are the
instruments of perception. Therefore we need to check our instrument for
flaws, instead of searching for truth with inadequate means. "To discover
where and what is the error: that is what truth is."
We turn now to our second author: Vera Stanley Alder, who devoted Chapter 6
of her book THE SECRET OF THE ATOMIC AGE, to the consideration of "How the
Mind Works." In her preceding chapters, Vera Alder had established that the
mind is "an electrical instrument with attributes which resemble both radio
and radar." That it could act "as a miniature cosmic ray of unpredictable
influence," but only if that mind is one-pointed, or "whole."
But the average.mind is far from whole today. It is divided against itself
in quite a number of ways. That part of our mind of which we are most aware,

is the part that deals with our daily lives, and is called "'the concrete
mind." It is the concretion of many memories, and can be likened to the
records of all the instructions we have received from babyhood, along with
all those other influences that have impinged on us. These are etched on our

mental apparatus just like a set of gramophone records. By continually
reacting to a memory, a series of reflexes is set.up which displaces our
processes of thought. Thusa stimulus activates this series of reflexes which

select the "right-thinking records" from our mental store and plays them.
From these, the individual is supplied with certain sentences, attitudes, or

platitudes, as his "right response" to the situation. Such an individual
fondly believes that he has been thinking, when in fact he has done nothing
of the sort at all. Actually some people never think. They rely entirely on
their store of mental records, and live like automatons. As Vera Alder
observed, "it is disconcerting to realise that most of us can live for days
on end, perhaps talking incessantly, without thinking one thought that is
original to ourselves but merely repeating parrot-like from our store of
records."
Thus we use our concrete mind to form a hard shell around our consciousness,
within we feel safe. It saves us from having to think afresh, and we live
on our bank balance of mental possessions. Like the snail within his shell,
we use that hard shell to protect our nakedness and ignorance, and are thus

able to keep at arm's length, any new ideas or attitudes which require us to

make changes. If the individual is lazy, he settles into a rut. If he has a
greedy mind, he becomes acquisitive, and acquires facts at such a rate that
he soon clutters up his thinking apparatus completely. Vera Alder summed up
this region of the concrete mind as "that stratum of our consciousness which

functions in the lowest or coarsest of mental vibrations."
Just so that the idea of a "concrete mind" does not create problems for
anyone, let us take temporary leave of Vera Alder here, and think of the
String Family in an Orchestra. As we all know, there we find the Double
Bass, the Cello, the Viola, and the Violin. The Double Bass plays the
lowest notes, and covers a certain range of the musical scale. These notes
are lower than those that the Cello plays, because they vibrate at a much
slower rate than the Cello notes. The strings used by the Double Bass are
also much heavier and longer than those used by the Cello. But some of the
highest notes on the Double Bass can be reproduced as the lowest notes on
the Cello. So that there is a continuum between Double Bass and Cello, just
as there is between Cello and Viola, and between Viola and Violin.
The consciousness of the individual can be likened very roughly to this
String Family. An individual with a concrete mind can then be compared to
one who has never touched his Cello or Viola or Violin, but has come to
believe that the Double Bass produces all the possible notes in the entire
musical scale, and will brook no argument on the subject. He has locked up
his Cello and Viola and Violin for such a long period that he has forgotten
that he has them. Now he argues vehemently against their very existence, as
a figment of the imagination, an.illusion that can not possibly have a
factual foundation. And so, the individual with the concrete mind is one who

has become bogged down in that stratum of his consciousness which functions
in the lowest and in this instance also the coarsest of mental vibrations.
But it need not be so.
Thus Vera Alder points to that other region of mind, which is the abstract
mind. This region operates in a higher and more subtle vibration altogether.

It is here that "ideas" take shape as against the "facts" of the concrete
mind. Here we find appreciation of beauty, of quality, of arts and sciences,

and of abstract conception. Indeed, this region of the abstract mind can
become so refined. and subtilized that the individual acquires extra-sight
or "clairvoyance" and extra-hearing or "clairaudience."
But, we are told, a person can possess both the concrete and abstract minds
without being creative or original. For that part of the mind that does the
real thinking lies beyond the range of the abstract region. It is called the

creative mind. It is this region of mind that is able to contemplate so many

facts or memories, and then fuse them into a new compound, so that something

new comes into being. This new thing may have been formed by other minds
before. That makes absolutely no difference, for "when an individual does it

by himself, it becomes, for him, a creative act." That makes sense. If Jack
turns up with his painting of a landscape, the fact that other people have
produced landscape paintings is totally irrelevant to the fact that Jack did

this one on his own and as himself. The creative act, as Vera Alder states,
is one that "has been achieved through a personal effort, brought about by
the inner urge of creative living, which springs from the very essence or
spirit of the human being," in this case, Jack.
From these brief visits with Carlos Suares and Vera Alder, we see how the
very presence of the spoon-fed-student and of his counterpart, the
teacher-instructor, indicates several major problems and weaknesses in the
educational system which has produced them, or has made it possible for them

to function, and preserves them. One major problem is, of course, the
inadequacy of the language that we have to use. Perhaps some degree of
exposure to a Projective Language, or to a pre-alphabetic form of writing,
might retrain the mind to think projectively, and thus to handle the
non-projective language we have to use, with more precision and informed
care. Perhaps also an attempt to become reasonably proficient in the use of
symbolic writing might in the process exercise the abstract mind, with
profit to everybody involved.
Another problem arises from the fact that the.vast majority of members of
[the] Teaching Staff plunge into classroom activities, where we influence
other people's minds and thought processes, without ever having given a
moment's thought to how our mind works; unaware of the individual as the
instrument of perception, and the need for the teacher to check himself out

first. Identification-with-the-office is a ditch into which so many of us
are prone to fall, and we would in all probability be shocked out of our
skins, if we realized how rampant "peevishness and infantilism" has become,
in some form or another, among members of most Teaching Staffs.
A third problem is the splinterization of the fragmented Discipline which is

taught today. It is not merely that no Discipline is taught as an organic
whole. It is rather that no Discipline is seen as an organic whole that
interrelates with other similar organic wholes. The teacher-educator who has

a holistic view of man and of the world he lives in, has, today, to be as
wise as a serpent, as harmless as a dove and as long-suffering as Job, in
his attempt to persuade spoon-fed students not to be content to settle for
chaff in place of wheat. Even so, that teacher-educator is likely to lose
out in the end hands dowm. But this is due in no small measure to the other
fact that at a conservative estimate perhaps ninety per cent of [the]
Teaching Staff on almost any Campus no longer have a clue as to what in fact

a holistic view of man is, and are in any case far too busy guarding the
rights and privileges of the particular splinter of the particular fragmpnt
of the Discipline, in which they claim expertise, to have time for much
else. Inevitably they mistrust the very concept of a greater whole which
contains and transcends all the Disciplines, as being likely to encroach on
their particular preserves. But it is the student who picks up the tags in
the end.
A fourth problem that I see is the overemphasis on the teaching of facts as
opposed to encouraging the development of ideas. This is, in effect, placing

a premium on the mechanics of existence via the concrete mind, rather than
on the art of living through the natural development and maturation of the
abstract mind. For it is in the latter, as Vera Alder took pains to stress,
that we find the faculty that enables the individual to appreciate beauty,
quality, arts and sciences, and abstract concepts. It is the development of
that faculty that leads, naturally and logically, to extra-sight and
extra-hearing.
That fourth problem is hinged on to a fifth and the key problem of all. Vera

Alder comments in her book that the atomic scientist is in a way assisting
the evolution of the atom. But he is doing so by violent methods, as a
direct result of which we have deadly fallouts. Nature does not work that
way. Man does not have to do so either. In Nature, she states, the
evolution of the mineral does not leave behind deadly fallout gases and
other poisonous by-products. Otherwise, we would all have been dead by now.
In Nature's method, there is an interplay between all living things, and in
such a manner that good fertile soil, live electrified water, pure
nourishing air, all of these are continually produced. Yet the evolution of
the atom goes on steadily. Of course it is slow. Alder explains why.
"The evolution of all the living forms in nature" to quote her directly
"is brought about by the response of the innermost life to gentle stimuli
from outside. It is the inner life which finally expands to the extent that
it produces change, from the inside to the outside, due to the influence of
the higher vibrations upon the lower ones. That is normal development, due
to the growth of the soul in all things."
That innerlife obeys no laws other than its own.
But itis only when one has managed somehow to touch base with the abstract
mind of a student, that one can hope to establish contact with that
student's "innier life." Only then is there meaningful communication
between teacher and student, and it is meaningful because it is at that
level that the life experiences of student as well as of teacher articulate,

and jointly fructify that relationship.
Where that is not the case, normal development through the free
self-determined and natural expansion of that inner life can not occur. In
its place we have, and can only have, the abnormal development and further
calcification of the concrete mind, a further intensification of the
vibrations of the lowest and coarsest stratum of that student's
consciousness, which very substantially reduces that student's ability to
cope with life's problems in the world outside the campus, into which sooner

or later he is bound to go.
This is possible of course, because it is not only individuals who turn
concrete minds into impregnable fortresses. Organizations, too, suffer from

the same disease for the same reasons. A Department has a concrete as well
as an abstract and a creative mind. It, too, can turn its concrete mind into

a hard shell to keep out any new ideas and attitudes that would require it
to make basic changes in its structure or general orientation or methodology

or objectives. It, too, can esconce itself in its ivory tower and refuse to
budge, supremely indifferent to the problems it creates for those for whom
it accepted direct responsibility. The history of almost any Black Studies
Department of the past ten years [Sowande is writing in 1977] or so provides

numerous examples. But so does the record of almost any Department on any
Campus today. In the process of being "educated" students become virtually
estranged from their own individual abstract minds, because the system that
assumed responsibility for "educating" them is itself estranged from its own

abstract mind. You can not give what you have not got.
But the repercussions follow all the same. The mind of man, as Vera Alder
says, is an electrical instrument that was given to him to be used in the
transmutation of knowledge into wisdom. Knowledge is the accumulation of
facts, which are by their ve ry nature static. it is the mind of man that
manipulates and transmutes them into a new product. If this is done by a
mind that is aligned to the laws of nature, then that new product is an
expression of Wisdom. And Wisdom she defines as "the elixir, distillation or

essence of the genius within man," which seems to me to be only another way
of identifying what she also called "the creative mind." But the mind that
is focussed in self-interest and materialism will manipulate and transmute
these facts into a product that has a destructive and explosive quality.
Why? "Because wisdom always works towards unification and interplay, in
line with natural law; it shares, and radiates and gives out. Whereas a
self-centered mind accumulates, draws unto itself rather than radiates,
creating a self-protecting shell and shortcircuits the subtle and
electrical interchange of evolutionary living" In other words, the concrete

mind in action. Thus it is that Manly Hall said in his MAN that to teach
a man all the classified phenomena within the bulging archives of science
and send him forth devoid of grace and human kindliness, is to launch a
monster of Frankenstein upon the world. (Or words to that effect). I may
say in passing that here we see the stark difference between the two pairs:
learning-process-student/teacher-educator, and spoon-fed-student/
teacher-instructor. The first pair seeks to operate from the level of the
abstract mind. The second pair has taken up permanent residence within the
concrete mind. To sit back and watch these two types of mind in operation in

the classroom or at Staff meetings or elsewhere is quite an education in
itself.
But the concrete mind remains a prison only lor so long as one permits it to

be so. It can be transmuted. As Vera Alder affirms, in the process of
transmuting his own self-centeredness and materialistic tendencies, an
individual becomes radio-active. Because in that same process, all the cells

in the body of that individual have become radioactive. Such an individual
is as cmnipoteht compared with the undeveloped human being, as nuclear
energy is, compared with energy emitted by burning coal or wood.
Furthermore, "such a person could have access to, and control of, an
unlimited flow of power from within his own periphery. He could use it for a

variety of purposes; for rejuvenation; for the acceleration of mental
powers; for the withstanding of heat and cold; or for the radiation of
powerful thoughts for the help of mankind."
The pursuit of that goal is that which motivates the teachereducator and the

learning-process-student alike. It is this common objective which each
senses of the other, that turns teacher and students into, as it were, a
brotherhood of knights committed to the same ideals. In such a brotherhood a

hierarchy must necessarily exist. But the teacher-educator knows he is by no

means a supreme commander. You can not "command" an individual to transmute
his own concrete mind, no matter how "supreme" you, consider yourself to be.

As teacher, he is first-among-equals. He becomes that only to the extent
that he realizes that indeed, as Vera Alder told us earlier on, only the
influence of higher-vibrations on lower ones produces change from the inside

to the outside, and that this alone is normal development. "Normal" in that
it respects the integrity of the individuality of the other person, student
or colleague or whatever. Also that for him "higher-vibrations" means
"experience," and "experience" does not imply wisdom, but is synonymous with

the making of mistakes and learning from those mistakes. In other words,
that a teacher who claims to be an educator but who is forever standing
guard over the skeletons in his cupboard is a fraudulent rogue. "I was born
perfect and have remained perfect" is the trade-mark of an accomplished
confidence trickster. It is the fool that has stopped his foolishness that
is on his way to becoming a wise man. It is the sinner that has turned his
back on his sins that is unfolding into a saint. The value of such a person
lies squarely in the experiences undergone in the reversing of former
tendencies, in the transmutation of previous attitudes of mind. Thus, he is
"first among equals" because he has fallen-down-flat-on-his-face far many
more times than all of his students put together, and is more than willing
to place at their disposal all the experiences he acquired as a result. One
must have been a greater fool to know how to rid another fool of his folly.
That too is "higher vibrations" influencing lower ones. The extent to which
he is open and candid, as the need may arise, about his own shortcomings and

inadequacies determines the depth and permanence of his relationship with
his other "equals," inside and outside the classroom.
The teacher-instructor is at the other end of the scale. Even so, the wide
awake learning-process-student can gain immeasurably through contact with
him. For one thing, such a teacher provides that student with a laboratory
specimen of the concrete mind at work, and the experience thus gained is
invaluable. An excellent example is provided by Joseph ' Campbell in his
MYTHS AND SYMBOLS IN INDIAN ART AND CIVILIZATION, where he relates a
humorous Jewish parable. The key figure was one Rabbi Eisik, son of Rabbi
Jekel, who was living in.the ghetto of Cracow, the capital of Poland. Life
was hard for Rabbi Eisik. Then one night he had a dream, in which he was
told to go to the Bohemian capital, Prague, where he would find a hidden
treasure buried under the principal bridge that led to the castle of the
Bohemian kings. Rabbi Eisik ignored the dream. But this dream came back
again, and then again. So he went to Prague, to the bridge, only to find it
guarded day and night by soldiers under the command of a .captain with a
fierce moustache. Rabbi Eisik was in a fix. However, each morning he would
go to the bridge and wander around, studying the masonry, the soil, and the
sentries. The captain of the guard noticed the old man's persistence, and
at last approached him, asking gently if the Rabbi had lost something, or
was waiting for somebody. The Rabbi told the captain of the dream that had
brought him to Prague.
The captain was beside himself with laughter. "Really, you poor fellow!'
he said "have you worn your shoes out wandering all this way only because
of a dream? What sensible person would trust a dream? Why, look, if I had
been one to go trusting dreams, I should have made just such a pilgrimage
as this silly one of yours, only in the opposite direction, but no doubt
with the same resultsl" And the captain told the Rabbi how, in his dream,
he had been told to go to Cracow, find the house of a Jewish Rabbi named
Eisik son of Jekel, and dig behind the dirty corner of the stove in that
Rabbi's house, where he would find a buried treasure.
"Eisik son of Jekel!" the captain laughed. again with brilliant eyes. "Fancy

going to Cracow and pulling down the walls of every house in the ghetto,
where half of the men are called Eisik and the other half Jekel Eisik son of

Jekel, indeed!!" And the captain laughed and laughed, and laughed. Rabbi
Eisik listened intently, bowed his thanks to his stranger -friend, hurried
back to his ghetto home in Cracow, dug behind the stove, and found the
treasure which ended all his misery. He used a portion of the treasure to
erect a prayer-house which bears his name to this day. Campbell's
commentary on that Jewish parable is'best given as a direct quote:
"Now the real treasure, to end our misery and trials, is never far away; it
is not to be sought in any distant region; it lies buried in the innermost
recesses of our own home, that is to say, our own being. And it lies behind
the stove, the life-and-warmth giving center of the structure of our
existence, our heart of hearts if we could only dig. But there is the odd
and persistent fact that it is only after a faithful journey to a distant
region, a foreign country, a strange land, that the meaning of the inner
voice that is to guide our quest can be revealed to us. And together with
this odd and persistent fact there goes another, namely, that the one who
reveals to us the meaning of our cryptic message, must be a stranger, of
another creed and a foreign race."
The immediate point here is that the captain in that story represents the
teacher-instructor vis--vis the learning-process student. Compared with
the attitudes and priorities and objectives of the learning-process student,

the teacher-instructor is virtually a stranger, of another creed and a
foreign race. Yet it was precisely that fact along with his skepticism that
enabled the Rabbi to find the treasure he was looking for. Furthermore, as I

have already recounted, I had to leave Nigeria and settle in Britain before
the need to find myself as an African even occurred to me. When I was first
introduced to Campbell's book, only a few years ago, that parallel struck me

right between the eyes. But there is one more lesson which the
learning-process student must learn from the above story.
A learning-process does not know what it is "to distinguish between people
in terms of race or creed or whatever. It will have no part of it either.
Two Yoruba sayings occur to mind at this point. The first is:
"Human beings are the clothes that cover your nakedness" and the second:
"Your next door neighbours are the children of your parents."
There is nothing to imply, even remotely, that there are other qualifications
beyond the fact that they are Human Beings, or your next door neighbour. A
third Yoruba saying that is perhaps even more relevant is:
"Good fortune comes to you only through another human being,"
as Rabbi Eisik found out. Thus, discrimination of any kind for any reasons
whatever must be taboo to any one who seriously considers himself a
learning-process student. By extension, any educational system that sets up
artificial barriers through which people become persona non grata on account
of differences of race or creed or color or whatever, is no more than a House
of Instruction; one, moreover, that has cut off its nose to spite its face.
All this and more are implicit in Rule 8 of the Standard Rules, which warns
against "contempt prior to investigation," especially when taken in
conjunction with Rule 4 which urges the search for Truth at all costs.
As a matter of fact, what I have been doing in the preceding pages is to apply

Rule 3 of the Standard Rules to the Standard Rules as a unitary structure. I
have been examining the implications and connotations of the Standard Rules,
and testing the validity of those implications and connotations from various
angles. Thus the division of the student group and the teaching staff into
categories, and all else that followed from that.
Of course it is important to think through the full implications and
connotations of each of the eight Rules. Only so does one fully grasp what in

fact the Rule is saying. Without that grasp one cannot test its validity at
all. Moreover, one runs the risk of reading into the Rule what is not there,
and was not intended to be there. Take for example Rule 1, which says "Never
be overawed by authority." It does not say "never be awed by authority," still

less does it suggest that one should flout authority. It does advise against
being OVERawed by authority, which is quite a different kettle of fish.
Real authority cannot help but induce a kind of respect which is tinged with
awe. But such an authority never has used a town crier to announce its
impending arrival. On the other hand, that type of authority will not bestir
itself in your favor unless it knows that you recognize and relate to it for
what it is, authority born of experience. What this implies has already been
spelt out above. But there is much more that must be said. For I fully believe

that there comes a time when the learning-process student be he a registered
campus student, Dean of a College, or not on any Campus at all must find
himself a "guru," some one that in his view has that kind of real authority
mentioned above, access to which provides him with a compass as it were a
reliable compass for his journey through life.
I think this is what we find in D.H. Lawrence's AARON'S ROD, in the dialogue
between Lilly and Aaron which ends the novel. Lilly was saying to Aaron: "Men
must submit to the greater soul in a man for their guidance, and women must
submit to the positive power-soul in man for their being." Aaron replied:
"You'll never get it." "You will" was Lilly's rejoinder, when all men want it.

All men say, they want a leader. Then let them in their souls submit to some
greater soul than theirs. At present, when they say they want a leader, they
mean they want an instrument, like Lloyd George. A mere instrument for their
use. But it's more than that. It's the reverse. It's the deep fathomless
submission to the heroic soul in a greater man. You, Aaron, you, too, have the

need to submit. You, too, have the need, livingly to yield to a more heroic
soul, to give yourself. You know you have. And you know it isn't love. It's
life-submission. And you know it. But you kick against the pricks. And perhaps

you'd rather die than yield. And so, die you must. It is your affair." There
was a long pause. Then Aaron loked up into Lilly's face. It was dark and
remote seeming. It was like a Byzantine eikon at the moment. "And whom shall I

submit to?" he said. "Your soul will tell you," replied the other.
Now those of you who, like me, have had to find a teacher under whom to study
for an examination, will know that it is one thing finding the teacher you
wish to study with, but it is quite another thing being accepted by that
teacher, for a variety of reasons. Either he has not the time, or he does not
think it worth his while, or something else. I am assuming of course, but I
think reasonably, that it is one thing finding that "greater soul" to whom to
submit, but it does not necessarily follow that that greater soul will be
willing to accede to one's request.
But now we have saddled ourselves with one more nut to crack. Vera Alder told
us that normal development is what it is, "due to the growth of soul in all
things." This is why there are no poisonous aftereffects. Now D.H. Lawrence
has been ringing the changes on that same term, as he talked about "the
greater soul in a man," "the positive power-soul in man," "some greater soul
than one's own soul," "the heroic soul in a greater man," and so on. But what
is Soul? The colloquial usage of the term in such phrases as soul food, .soul
music, soul brother, soul sister is no help. And Suares did warn against
imagining the unknown, for in the end, we only come up with nonsense. My
impression of Jung's MODERN MAN IN SEARCH OF A SOUL is that he seemed to
identify the "soul" with the "Unconscious." And in FORM AND COLOUR, Lisle
March Phillips confirms that in the East, the soul is held to be the sum of
all consciousness. It is the soul that breathes through the nostrils; that
speaks through the voice; that smells through the nose; that sees through the
eyes; that understands through the mind. In his words, "the soul is thought of

as the essential knowledge which shines within the heart. It can not itself be

known; its nature is not subject to any analysis that can be brought to bear
upon it; for the source of perception can never itself be perceived." Which
seems rather like saying that no tree can ever write the history of the seed
from which it came.
But the fact that the soul cannot be analysed and thus defined does not mean
that we throw in the towel. A fortress that proves impregnable to frontal
attack can nevertheless be taken by an army that is resourceful.
It is clear that Vera Alder uses such terms as the "inner life" or the
"innermost life" or "the very essence or spirit" as synonyms for the term
"soul." That suggests what we might in turn identify as the Being-ness or the

"I"-ness or the "Self"-ness of an individual. After all, such other terms as
Self-ish-ness and Self-less-ness are meaningful terms, denoting two opposing
attributes of Self-ness. And in a way, to find one's self and be one's self is

one of the several implications and connotations of the Standard Rules. For,
to protect one's mind from the influences impinging on it from other minds, as

Rule 1 implies, is to ensure that the vehicle through which one's own Self or
"soul" understands is not ever in need of repairs. Hardly anything could be
more important.
But of course, finding one's Self means being in direct communication with
one's own "inner life" or "innermost life" of Vera Alder, or with one's own
"Unconscious" in Jungian terms. No matter how we interpret that, it surely
requires withdrawal from the gregarious crowd, periods of loneliness, of
blotting out everything that does not have its origin and direct-ion from
within the person, of being able to experience that frame of mind (or mood) in

which the entire Cosmos contains nothing else other than that particular
individual.
I think this was the point Lilly was trying to get across to Aaron in D.H.
Lawrence's AARON'S ROD when he said to Aaron: "The responsibility is on your
own shoulders all the time, and no God which man has ever struck can take it
off. You are yourself and so be yourself. Stick to it and abide by it. Passion

or no passion, ecstasy or no ecstasy, urge or no urge, there's no goal outside

you, where you can consummate like an eagle flying into the sun, or a moth
into a candle. There's no goal outside you. None.
"There is only one thing, your own very self. So you'd better stick to it. You

can't be bigger than just yourself, so you needn't drag God in. You've got one

job and. no more. There inside you lies your own very self, like a germinating

egg, your precious Easter egg of your own soul. There it is, developing bit by

bit, from one single egg cell which you were at conception in your mother's
womb, on and on to the strange peculiar complication in unity which never
stops till you die - if then. You've got an innermost, integral, unique self,
and since it is the only thing you have got or ever will have, don't go trying

to lose it. You've got to develop it, from the egg into the chicken, and from
the chicken into the one-and-only phoenix, of which there can only be one at a

time in the universe.
"There can only be one of you at a time in the universe and one of me. So
don't forget it. Your own single oneness is your destiny. Your destiny comes
from within, from your own self-form.
And you can't know it beforehand, neither your destiny nor your self-form. You

can only develop it. You can only stick to your own very self, and never
betray it. And by so sticking, you develop the one and only phoenix of your
own self, and you unfold your own destiny, as a dandelion unfolds itself into
a dandelion, and not into a stick of celery. . . . .
"Remember this, my boy, you've never got to deny the Holy Ghost which is
inside you, your own soul's self. Never. Or you'll catch it. And you've never
got to think you'll dodge the responsibility of your own soul's self, by
loving or sacrificing or Nirvanaing or even anarchizing and throwing bombs.
You never will. . . .
"If your soul's urge urges you to love, then love. But always know that what
you are doing is the fulfilling of your soul's impulse. It's no good trying to

act by prescription: not a bit. And it's no use getting into frenzies. If
you've got to go in for love and passion, go in for them, But they aren't the
goal. They're a mere means: a life-means, if you will. The only goal is the
fulfilling of your own soul's active desire and suggestion. Be passionate as
much as ever it is in your nature to be passionate, and deeply sensual as far
as you can be. Small souls have a small sensuality, deep souls a de.ep one.
But remember, all the time, the responsibility is upon your own head, it all
rests with your own lovely soul, the responsibility for your own action. . . .

"You thought there was something outside, to justify you: God, or a crowd, or
a prescription. But remember, your soul inside you is your only Godhead. It
develops your actions within you as a tree develops its own new cells. And the

cells push on into buds and boughs and flowers. And these are your passion and

your acts and your thoughts an d expressions, your developing consciousness.
You don't know beforehand, and you can't. You can only stick to your own soul
through thick and thin. You are your own Tree of Life, roots and limb and
trunk. Somewhere within the wholeness of the tree lies the very self, the
quick: its own innate Holy Ghost. And this Holy Ghost puts forth new buds, and

pushes past old limits, and shakes off a whole body of dying leaves. And old
limits hate being empassed, and the old leaves hate to fall. But they must, if

the tree-soul says so. . . .
By piecing together what we have gleaned from Vera Alder, Lisle March Phillips,
and D.H. Lawrence, each of us can determine for himself in what sense the term
"soul" can be understood with advantage.
I may add further that several of the references to Carlos Suares, Vera Alder,
and D.H.Lawrence, seem to me to amount to quite useful amplifications of some of

the Rules in the Standard Rules. But of course such links serve a practical and
useful purpose if they are tracked down, checked out, and evaluated by the
interested individual himself. For then they are more likedy to relate to that
individual's life experiences.
Up to this point, the distinction between the two suggested categories of
students and of teachers has been total. They have been considered as two
distinct and opposite type of students, as of teachers. In reality, however, it
is more objective to recognize that in the teacher-educator there is also "the
instructor" and vice-versa. In the same manner, a learning-process student has
his full quota of the spoon-fed student in his make-up. The same is true, of
course, of the spoon-fed student. He was not born that way and fated to remain
as such for life, neither have the gods ordained the learning-process student to

be what he is. But all the same, the difference between the two types is real,
whether we are considering the teacher or the student. But the difference is one

of attitude.
In every educator there is an admixture of the instructor, just as in every
instructor there is an underlying strain of the educator. The teacher-educator
is one who has kept the instructor aspect of his nature under control and in
leash, to subserve the educator aspect of that same nature. He is therefore
comparable to an individual who functions basically through his abstract mind,
but who has not therefore jettisoned his concrete mind, knowing fully well that
it too has its place in the scheme of things, but that it may not be permitted
to encroach on the territory of the abstract mind. The teacher-instructor is one

that has reversed the priorities, to everybody's disadvantage but especially his

own. Everything is referred to the court of his concrete mind, to the lowest and

coarsest vibrations of his mental life. But it is not by any means impossible,
and perhaps it is not as rare as one would wish, that the teacher-educator
succumbs to the wiles of the instructor-aspect in him, and then he, too, is no
longer an educator. On the other hand, it is well within the bounds of
possibilities, that the unwitting teacher-instructor undergoes an experience
which opens his eyes to the real situation he has been in all along, with the
result that he switches priorities, and "transmutes" the instructor-aspect into
an educator-aspect, by switching his internal allegiance from the concrete to
his abstract mind. There are, of course, hardened specimens of the
teacher-instructor type, each beyond salvaging. Not so with the
teacher-educator, for allegiance to his abstract mind propels him forward
towards his creative mind.
These observations apply equally to the student-types. There are spoon-fed
students who have become so wedded to their concrete minds, that their abstract

minds no longer function. But these are also the extreme specimens. Spoon-fed
students do wake up to the realities of their situation, and successfully turn
around. In the same way, a learning-process student has to "watch and pray" that

he remains one. That, for example, he is not tempted to "sell-out" for peace and

quiet and comfort. That he always remembers Lilly's warning to Aaron: "You can
only stick to your own very self, and never betray it. And by so sticking, you
develop the one and only phoenix of your own self, and you unfold your own
destiny, as a dandelion unfolds itself into a dandelion, and not into a stick of

celery." Once the learning-process student gets that far, once his total
allegiance is to his abstract mind, then that mind is in line to receive
influences from his own creative mind, and he is securely rooted.
These STANDARD RULES FOR THE STUDENT have no value whatever unless they serve as

practical aids towards the realization of that kind of goal. But they can be
useful in one of two ways. As they stand, provided in that form they meet the
needs of the individual who checks them out and decides to adopt them and use
them. Or by inducing the individual who does not find it possible to relate to
them, to draw up his own and apply them.
In some of the outlying villages in Yorubaland, where snakes are a problem, the
woman was expected to keep a sharp look out for them, but it was the duty of the

man to kill the snakes. But a Yoruba proverb.says "The man saw the snake, the
woman killed it. What does it matter so long as the snake is dead!"
Moreover, Rule 7 of these Standard Rules states most clearly that NOTHING
BELONGS TO YOU EXCEPT YOUR MIND HAS HAD A HAND IN ITS FORMULATION. The
individual who finds the Standard Rules acceptable as they stand, still has to
involve his mind, by thinking out the full implications and connotations of each

Rule. The areas we have explored above may help in that essential activity.
The other individual who finds he has to draw up his own may also find the same
explored areas useful, either in pointing out what needs to go into his own set
of rules, or what should be left out of them. Either way nothing is lost.
What is of primary perhaps even sole importance, is the envisaged end, that
any set of Standard Rules should substantially aid its user to achieve. Several
indications as to what that envisaged end should be are either explicit or
implicit here and there in the preceding pages. By that I mean, of course,
several alternative ways of articulating the envisaged end, for surely no
Standard Rules are of any value, except they aid the individual towards
self-discovery, that "innermost, integral, unique self" to borrow D.H.
Lawrence's terminology for, as Lilly was saying to Aaron in effect, to live is
to develop and gradually unfold that self. It is to develop it "from the egg
into the chicken, and from the chicken into the one-and-only phoenix, of which
there can only be one at a time in the universe."
Surely that is worth an effort.
Author's Copyright.
Fela Sowande, Kent, Ohio January 1977.
Webmaster's Note: Chief Fela Sowande died on March 13, 1987. This draft could,
therefore, no longer undergo as Sowande envisioned the "quite substantial
alterations [that] may yet be made for a final draft." HieroGraphics Online has

taken the liberty of publishing this draft to preserve his educational thoughts
for students, teachers, educators and parents. Please do not download or print
out this webpage or use portions of it for other than educational purposes.



APPENDICES

1. The Reactionary Nature of the Bastile or Concrete Mind.
The Bastile or Concrete Mind is essentially reactionary, in an irrational and
sometimes malicious manner. This is not through deliberate wickedness but
through anxiety and fear, caused by the threat of feeling inadequate.
My memory is very hazy on the dates, but I think it was around the 13th century
or so, when a new generation of musicians arose in Rome, and asserted that Music

could be written in douple time, that is two beats in a bar. This simple view
caused a furore because of another simple fact. The Music Professors and
authorities of that period had been born into quite another world of musical
thought. They had been trained in that world, and had gradually acquired
expertise in it. That musical thought held rigidly not that Music could or
should be written in triple time,- i.e., three beats in a bar but that Music
WAS triple time, in which the first second and third beats represented,
respectively, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. In short, any

notes on paper that were not written in this triple time was not Music, whatever

else it might be.
Thus when the young[er] generation of musicians began to state that Music was
not, and did not have to be "three beats in a bar," but that it could be "two
beats in a bar," the Professors of Music of that time reacted. They had to react

for obvious reasons. This new idea threatened to remove the foundation on which
they stood. It promised to reduce their expertise and authority to less than
nothing, and to unfit them to teach. Thus it could easily deprive them of their
jobs and their security.
The verbal war that broke out was apparently very noisy and fierce, neither side

yielding an inch. In the end, it was the Pope who issued a restraining order,
and pronounced that the old ways being better, everybody should go back to them.

The Pope thus disposed of the threat of the "two beats in a bar" idea, but only
for that moment. For it came back and stayed.
The situation is the same with the concrete-mind devotee. Especially the
teacher-instructor. When he is faced with a problem for which he can find no
record in his mental store of records, the hitherto solid ground on which he has

been standing feels to him like changing rapidly into a bog. Naturally his
instinct of self-preservation comes to the fore, and - in his view - anything he

can do to remove that threat is not only fair but must be done quickly and
effectively. Hence his peevishness. Hence his infantilism. Hence his reactionary

attitude that is only too readily also vicious. But what he has done is to
project his fears onto whomever he holds responsible for having caused that
situation. He never checks himself out. Perhaps because instinctively he knows
he dares not. A scapegoat must be found, and d.ealt with summarily.
It is the same with the spoon-fed-student. He can be as sweet as pie for as long

as he does not need to look to resources other than his own mental store of
records, or can add to them. But to suggest to him that he should junk his
mental store of records is, for him, like trying to divest him of his clothes in

public on a busy thoroughfare. He too becomes victim to a fear that makes him
irrational and hostile.
Of course, in each case, that fear masquerades as "courage." Those old Music
Professors who were waging relentless war against, the douple-time proponents
must have been certain that they were doing what they had to do to defend
established "principles" and not that they were fighting to retain their own
authority and jobs. We are in precisely the same terrain with reference to
either the teacher-instructor or the spoon-fed-student. The point here is that
these conclusions are not judgemental.
2: On Not Reading into the Standard Rules What Is Not There.
Reference has already been made above to Rule 1 in this respect One more example

is certainly not out of place. Rule 2, for instance, states: "Be open to
conviction, but refuse to be convinced until conviction becomes a necessity."
Obviously the keyword is conviction. The keyphrase is, however, NOT "refuse to
be convinced" but rather BE 0PEN T0 C0NVICTI0N. The commentary that follows
this Rule in the Stardard Rules, emphasizes the point. So, this Rule is not
saying "dig your heels in, and dare the other person to make you change your
mind, if he canl" No. That is NOT what this Rule 2 is about.
It is about "conviction," and this does not mean either the things you were
taught to accept and did accept in good faith as true, or the things you
prefer to accept as true for any reasons of your own. I believe it was
Schweitzer who said that there can be no "conviction" without previous thought.
To hold a conviction means, properly, that one has examined the subject matter
dispassionately and accurately from as many angles as possible, has thought
deeply about the whole thing, and has reached a rational conclusion on the face
of the evidence. But such things are not achieved overnight. It took Carlos
Suares forty years of research before he came to holding firm convictions about
the Story of the Creation, and about the Hebrew Alphabet. So, a conviction must
have been preceded by long, hard, and sustained thought processes, allied to a
dispassionate objectivity and.a passion for seeing facts as they really are and
accepting them as such, no matter what they do to one's pet theories.
Jung seems to underscore this last point in his MODERN MAN IN SEARCH OF A SOUL,
where he writes:
When we speak of man in general, we do not have his anatomy the shape of his
skull or the color of his skin in mind, but mean rather his psychic world, his
state of consciousness and his mode of life. Nothing goes to show that
primitive man thinks, feels, or perceives in a way that differs fundamentally
from ours. His psychic functioning is essentially the same only his primary
assumptions are different . . . . It is true that primitive man is simpler and
more chilctlike than we, in good and evil alike. This in itself does not impress

us as strange. And yet, when we approach the world of archaic man, we have the
feeling of something prodigiously strange. As.far as I have been able to analyse
it, this feeling comes mainly from the fact that the primary assumptions of
archaic man differ essentially from ours that he lives, if I may use the
expression, in a different world. Until we come to know his presuppositions, he
is a riddle hard to read, but when we know them, all is relatively simple. We
might equally well say that primitive man ceases to be a riddle when we have
come to know our own presuppositions.
This means, of course, that in any thought processes that precede a conviction,
one must have given full weight to one's own primary assumptions, so as to be
awake to the degree to which these primary assumptions might easily turn out to
be so many subtle hindrances, in what one observes as fact, how one evaluates
that fact, and the final conclusion one draws from that and other facts.
To be open to conviction implies, therefore, that one already has pretty firm
views on a subject, but is prepared to alter those views provided new insights
require him to do so. That in turn implies that those "pretty firm views" are
the result of long and sustained "thought processes," not merely something taken

from books or jotted down at lectures or filched from somewhere else. You cannot

offer convictions to a weathercock.
Closely allied to this Rule 2 is Rule 8, which lays the emphasis squarely on
"contempt prior to investigation." That attitude hallmarks the concrete-mind
gone berserk. One dravis "conclusions" about something that one is totally
uninformed about. A classic example is the blanket condemnation of "communists"
by "capitalists" and vice versa. It is precisely the same attitude that
undergirded the Holy Inquisition, when "heretics" were "burnt at the stake" in
order to "save their souls" and, presumably help them to find their way to
"heaven." All racial, political, and religious putdowns stem from this same
root, that of having contempt for something one knows nothing about, because one

is essentially certain that any investigation will necessarily confirm one's
subjective feelings about the thing, thus being unnecessary.
Such a person cannot even be compared to a weathercock, but rather to a piece of

rag tossed hither and thither by the wind. At least the weathercock points to a
certain area of the compass. That piece of rag has no.idea of any such thing.
Thus, to run foul of this Rule 8 is to ensure that one shields one's self from
all information; one is insulated from all arguments and lives permanently in
everlasting ignorance.
This is much worse than the concrete-mind. I think it is what Ouspensky
identified as The Defective Mind. Like an auto that has landed on the
scrap-heap.
3: Vide Reference to R.E. Dennett, Second Paragraph, p. 45 Above
"In insight, the consciousness of the observer projects itself inside the
observed, and in the end it is the observed that speaks on its own account, but

through the observer. But authors like Dennett who fall into this category are
scorned and rejected, if not hounded."
In 1906, R.E. Dennett's AT THE BACK OF THE BLACK MAN'S MIND was published by
Macmillan. His NIGERIAN STUDIES followed in 1910. Dennett's crime was that in
the 1906 publication he expressed views like the following: (in his Chapter XVI)


"Have the Bavili a conception of a divinity or God? You ask me, and I,
immediately, am overcome by an almost irresistible wish to evade your question,
not because I shall be obliged to answer you in a roundabout and hesitating way,

but because, on the contrary, the conception of God formed by the Bavili is so
purely spiritual, or shall I say abstract, that you are sure to think that I am
mad to suppose that so evidently a degenerate race can have formed so logical an

idea of a God we all recognize and try in various ways to comprehend. The name
for God is NZAMBI and its literal meaning is the personal essence (IMBI) of the
fours (ZIA or ZA = fours). What then are the fours? They are the groups each of
four powers called BAKICI BACI, which we have just discussed. The prefix BA the
plural of N proving that these powers are personalities or attributes of a
person, that is they are not ZINKICI like the mere wooden figures. Each group
may be said to be composed of (1) a cause, (2 and 3) male and female parts, and

(4) an effect. The group Nzambi itself may be said to have four parts NZAMBI,
the abstract idea, the cause, (2 and 3) NZAMBI MPUNGU, God Almighty, the father
God who dwells in the heavens and is the guardian of the fire, NZAMBICI, God the

essence, the God on earth, Ihe great princess, the mother of all the animals,
the one who promises her daughter to the animal who shall bring her the fire
from heaven, (4) KICI, the mysterious inherent quality in things that causes the

Bavili to fear and respect. This word was translated as "holy" by the first
missionaries that came to the Congo, but many people now speak of it as
"fetish," and in SEVEN YEARS AMONG THE FJORT, I write of NKICI as evil. I had
then only heard the word used in connection with fetish as NIKICI and had hardly

heard of the BAKICI BACI.
"It is not unnatural that one of the personalities of ZAMBI being KICI his
powers (or perhaps attributes), are called BAKICI BACI, the speaking powers on
earth and that their product or the final effect is NKIC'CI (KICI on earth), one

of the titles of the King MALUANGO.
"The word adopted by the old Rhemish missionaries for Holy was NKICI. The late
Mr Bentley in his interesting book entitled PIONEERING ON THE CONGO considers
this "a most unfortunate selection" and certainly it would have been were the
current translation of the word to be taken as correct, i.e. "fetish."
Mr Bentley considers that the old missionaries made a still more egregious
blunder in the word which they adopted for Church "nzoankici" which he says is
the common word used for "grave' (Bulu XIBAYI Luango) and is a euphemism meaning

"fetish .house."
"Now I wonder whether these old missionaries were the asses Mr. Bentley seems to

look upon them as, or whether they found the true religion of the natives less
overgrown by "fetishism" than it is today. We must remember that some 400 years
have passed between the arrival of the first missionaries and that of Mr.
Bentley. What the words meant then and what they appear to mean today may well
be two widely different things. Missionaries as a rule do not look for any high
virtues in any religion but their own, and refusing to study the religion of the

native set about to destroy it. The greater the play of civilization and
Christianity so-called the greater the havoc we may expect in the religion of
the indigenes.
Dennett went on to show how certain categories were associated with trees, with
the senses, etcetera. The "experts" were amused. They knew that there was
nothing at the "Back of the Black Man's Mind," and if Dennett found anything
there, he must have put them there himself in the first place.
Dennett's response to this accusation was to publish his WEST AFRICAN CATEGORIES

in 1911, in which he maintained that he had in fact discovered a formula which
is at the back of the Black Man's Mind, and has been the foundation of his
religious and social systems. Here he reaffirmed that the "great categories of
thought" which he had drawn from folklore and primitive forms of philosophy and
government did indeed exist. "My observations have been ridiculed by some," he
wrote, "while others say that such ideas never existed in the Black Man's Mind
until I put them there. Well, I shall endeavor to demonstrate that they exist in

the classes into which the Bavili and Bakongo divide their language, and I take
it for granted that no one will honor me by saying that I drew up the language
of the Bavili (people of Loanao, now part of Congo Franais)."

Fela Sowande, Kent, Ohio, January 1977.

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