Is it possible to know the future?
Does knowledge of the future imply the ability to affect it?
Can knowledge of the future be understood as memory rather than precognition? But memory of what, we may ask?
If an occurrence has not taken place, how can it be the object of memory?
This paper explores questions about relationships between the present, the past and the future through the stimulus of three sites of precognition in relation to trauma. These are two examples of prophetic dreams reported by a couple of Eastern European Jews before they were caught up in the events the dreams foreshadowed-the deportation to Nazi labour camps and the eventual efforts at the extermination of their race, as depicted in Yaffa Eliach's collection of Holocaust short stories, Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust. The second comes from an account by the Nigerian human rights campaigner Ken Saro Wiwa in which he prophesies his own death at the hands of the oppressive forces he was in conflict with.

These accounts are explored through the matrix of what the Austrian-Nigerian philosopher and artist Susanne Wenger describes as the act of remembering forward,which we interpret as a form of anticipatory memory in which the future is anticipated through matrices of possibility that underlie the stream of time and so represent possibilities that may manifest at different points in the time steam and can therefore be perceived as future possibilities. This perspective is related to Elisabeths Haisch's conception in her autobiographical novel Initiation in which the events represented by these matrices of possibility represent possibilities of consciousness. These possibilities are actualized through the focus of the individual on a particular locus of reality to the exclusion of others. This focus makes possible the actualisation of a sequence of possibilities.

We also examine the development and implications of of a similar conception in Depark Chopra's transformation of Arthurian legend by projecting Arthur's final battle with Mordred as a conflict that permeates the stream of time ranging across and collapsing the present, the future and the past in a matrix that can only be unravelled through a focus of consciousness within and above the permutations of time.

Finally, we integrate these points of enquiry in terms of what we describe as the cosmoprobabilistic mapping of the Ifa divinatory system that originates among the Yoruba of Southern Nigeria. Possibilities of experience, as understood in terms of probable situations and possible responses to them, are delineated in relation to a correlation between cosmographic forms and the total range of terrestrial and celestial phenomena, whether concrete, abstract or situational. Again, a conception is developed here of the interpretive potential realised through a privileged focus of consciousness. Only through the discipline by which this is achieved can a path be found through this matrix.

We conclude by summarizing our exploration and restating the questions we hope to throw light on. We do this in the context of the _expression from the Ifa corpus about Eshu,the embodiment of paradox, whom, it is said, throws a stone today, and hits bird yesterday. Is this merely meaningless on account of a contradiction of known laws of temporality and causality, or does it suggest a possibility of being in which time is not linear but manifold, capable of realisation at various levels, so that what may be memory can become precognition and what may be precognition may be grasped as memory?










the eternal now
PRESENT
FUTURE
PAST





The spiral or concentric circles motif appears prominently on many edan. Informants offered two different but related interpretations for it. According to some, it represents the spin (ranyinranyin) of the cone-shaped bottom of the small snail shell (okoto), a children's toy associated with increase, dynamic motion ,and, by extension, with the transformatory power of Esu, the divine messenger who mediates between the orisa[the divinities] and Ile[the Earth understood as a
divinity][1]



“Formation, transformation,Eternal Mind's eternal re-creation.1







The spiral or concentric circles motif appears prominently on many edan. Informants offered two different but related interpretations for it. According to some, it represents the spin (ranyinranyin) of the cone-shaped bottom of the small snail shell (okoto), a children's toy associated with increase, dynamic motion ,and, by extension, with the transformatory power of Esu, the divine messenger who mediates between the orisa[the divinities] and Ile[the Earth understood as a
divinity][2]




















the eternal now



ori
odu
One of the most powerful creatures in the universe……

Embodies/embodying multidimensional doorways….

The bipedal creature who populates the earth/planet/planet earth

Consciousness and Time

What relationships exist or may be inferred between time and consciousness? This question is provoked by my reading of Eilsabeth Haisch’s Initiation where she dramatizes a notion of consciousness as the central source of human experience, presenting it as embodying possibilities which are actualized in the individuals interaction with the possibilities afforded by the spatiotemporal matrix of their lives.
Haisch’s autobiographical work is fantastic in its depiction of reality, even though it develops very effectively the humanity and the verisimilitude of its characters and narrative and setting..
Despite the divergence between the reality of the narrative and reality as conventionally understood have chosen to explore the ideas this work express in relation to the relationships between consciousness and time not because I think the ideas reflect human reality, or do not reflect this reality, since they deal with metaphysical issues which there is no consensus and on which there will never be consensus as long as human consciousness is as limited as it is, not because I found the work inspiring even though with time I have been able to retain the inspiration it has given me while acknowledging that i do not have to accept the reality of an ideas for it to inspire me, but because i an convinced that ideas which are far from our understanding of reality could motivate us in our quest for meaning, for understanding of the mysteries that constitute the metaphysical structure of the universe, in as much a such a structure exists./


[1] Babatunde Lawal, “Ayagbo Aya To:New Perspectives on Edan Ogboni”, African Arts, Jan1995, Vol. 28, No.1.p.

[2] Babatunde Lawal, “Ayagbo Aya To:New Perspectives on Edan Ogboni”, African Arts, Jan1995, Vol. 28, No.1.p.