13/07/2025
**Walking Ìṣẹ̀ṣe: Its Dangers, Manipulations, and True Path**
*A kìí bá ikú jà kó má bá ẹni tán.*
You do not wrestle with death and come away unscathed.
Today, we wrestle with the slow death of Ìṣẹ̀ṣe. Not because outsiders attack it with weapons, but because **our own custodians aid its destruction**.
**Fear-Based Spiritual Hustling and Moral Collapse**
Babaláwo tell men they cannot touch their wives unless they sacrifice a goat.
Some charge **₦10 million for Ìtẹ̀fà initiation**, turning sacred rites into exclusive luxuries.
Others perform rituals for yahoo boys, empowering fraud that destroys families and tarnishes Yorùbá dignity.
Even worse, some exploit the diaspora—Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad, Haiti—who preserved Ìṣẹ̀ṣe not as a religion but as **a civilization blueprint**.
They maintained chants, drums, Ifá verses, and Òrìṣà reverence despite slavery and oppression.
Today, they stand prouder in Ìṣẹ̀ṣe than many born in Yorùbá land. Yet some custodians treat them as clients to exploit, inventing taboos and charging exorbitant fees for half-truths.
This is fear-based spiritual hustling, not Ìṣẹ̀ṣe.
Ifá teaches discipline, clarity, courage, and accountability—not fear, greed, or exploitation.
**Not All Custodians Are Lost**
✅ True custodians exist—Babaláwo and Ìyánífá who teach with dignity, Oníṣègùn who heal without fear, and Ogboni elders who uphold ethics.
✅ Many are unconscious victims repeating inherited corruption they never questioned.
✅ This is not to shame them but to call them back to duty. Doing it right preserves culture and civilization. Doing it wrong destroys generations.
**Hoarding Knowledge Kills Civilisation**
Worse than fear-selling is **hoarding knowledge**.
🌿 Ifá encodes nature’s sciences, plant medicine, animal behaviour, psychology, binary coding, governance logic, and mechanised intelligence (*Sìgídì*).
Yet few teach these to youth. Knowledge that should build communal power is locked away to maintain personal power and income.
⚡ We praise Ifá’s binary code as proof of African intelligence, yet we import Western AI without studying Ifá’s computational logic.
📚 We marvel at National Geographic, while Ifá holds **centuries of environmental documentation, animal behavior, migration patterns, agriculture, philosophy, and governance strategy** encoded within Odu verses.
Our schools should decode Òrìṣà knowledge as embodied sciences:
🔧 Ògún – metallurgy, tool-making, engineering, and technological development
⚡ Ṣàngó – physics of electricity, energy systems, justice, and leadership
💧 Ọ̀ṣun – hydrology, herbal medicine, aesthetics, and riverine ecology
⚖️ Ọ̀bàtálá – ethics, philosophy, law, and moral governance
🧠 Ọ̀rúnmìlà – logic, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, and knowledge system design
🌳 Ọ̀ṣọ́ọ̀sí – ecology, environmental management, forestry, and geographical intelligence
🌿 Ọ̀sányìn – botany, pharmacology, herbal medicine, environmental chemistry
🤖 Sìgídì – indigenous robotics, mechanised intelligence, and embodied AI principles
These are knowledge embodiments—not just deities to worship but sciences to decode for civilization building.
Ifá says:
“Ọgbọ́n tí a fi í dá ilé, tí a fi í dá ọ̀run, kó yẹ kó di àpò òpè.”
The wisdom that builds earth and heavens should not be locked away like palm kernels in a sack.
When knowledge is hoarded, civilization dies.
**The Consequences**
❌ Children ashamed of their heritage
⚠️ Youth divided politically, lacking clarity of identity and history
🎭 Cultural inferiority, where aṣọ òfì becomes costume play while suits become symbols of power
💤 Intellectual laziness, preferring imported ideas over decoding ancestral wisdom
🔮 Spiritual confusion where fear replaces ethics, and rituals become transactions for sale
We stand like exiled royalty begging for crumbs in foreign markets, forgetting we once owned the orchard.
*The Rising Change
🌟 There is hope.
🎬 Nollywood films like Bàṣọ̀rún Gáà, Lísàbí, and The King’s Horseman reclaim our history, showing governance, betrayal, strategy, courage, philosophy, and political structures embedded in ancestral life.
They prove our civilization was structured, philosophical, and dignified—not primitive chaos.
💡 Influencers now teach tonal greetings, proverbs with moral logic, and Òrìṣà meanings beyond superstition.
👗 Fashion, cuisine, and architecture are re-emerging as valid aesthetics, not relics.
This rising change proves Ìṣẹ̀ṣe is living, adaptive, and capable of guiding modern life with dignity.
**Walking Ìṣẹ̀ṣe Without Fear**
Ifá says:
“Ìṣẹ̀ṣe là ń wò kí á tó bẹ́ Òrìṣà.”
It is Ìṣẹ̀ṣe we must honor before calling any Òrìṣà.
Walking in Ìṣẹ̀ṣe means:
✅ Ethics before ritual
✅ Clarity before offerings
✅ Truth before worship
✅ Discipline before declaring custodianship
Òrìṣà knowledge is not a foreign religion for status or a fear-based hustle for survival. It is the blueprint for intelligent, responsible, and dignified living.
Our children will not defend what they do not understand. They will not love what they are taught to fear. They will not build with knowledge hidden from them.
**An Ifá Affirmation To Start Your Week**
Instead of searching for imported affirmations disconnected from your ancestors, remember:
Ìṣẹ̀ṣe carries thousands of daily affirmations, prayers, and decrees encoded within Ifá and our oral traditions.
Here is just one example: you can speak, especially on Monday—the day of wealth—to call fortune in alignment with your path.
**EJIOGBE WEALTH DECREE**
Aròmọ̀gégé (He who robes the child to befit the child)
Aròmọ̀gégé (He who robes the child with utmost care)
Òjí ní kùtùkùtù mókun ọlá dáni (The one who wakes early holding the robes of prosperity)
Olómọ̀ ṣíjú pé e wọlé. Ayé lorúkọ Ifá (He who looks after Earth is Ifá’s name)
Ẹni tí ó bá ṣíjú rere rẹ̀ wo níí lọ́wọ́ (Whoever Ifá looks upon with compassion is blessed)
Ifá kí ó ṣíjú rere rẹ̀ wo mí kí n lọ́wọ́ (Ifá, please look upon me with compassion so I am blessed)
Nítorí (Because)
Èmi l’Ọmọ Olúkẹ̀nkẹ̀ (I am one people give to)
Èmi l’Ọmọ Olúgẹ̀ngẹ̀ (I am one people pamper)
Èmi l’Ọmọ Olú fi gbogbo ara kẹ̀ mí kẹ̀ mí (I am one people wholeheartedly give to)
Èmi ni Atewogbire ọmọ Agbọnmiregun (I am offspring of Agbọnmiregun, who stretches forth his hand to receive blessings)
Ẹni tó ní ẹja méjì kì ó fi ìkan kẹ́ mí (Whoever has two fishes should give me one)
Ẹni tó ní ẹran méjì kì ó fi ìkan kẹ́ mí (Whoever has two meats should give me one)
Ẹni tó ní ire méjì kì ó fi ìkan kẹ́ mí (Whoever has two fortunes should give me one)
Ọ̀nà kì í dì mọ́n aládàá (Roads never block one holding a cutlass)
Kí Ọ̀nà ire má ṣe dì mọ́n mí (May my roads never be blocked)
Èjìogbè gbé ire t’emi kó mi lónìí o (Èjìogbè, bring my fortunes today)
Irè gbogbo kó jẹ́ ti t’emi (All good fortunes are mine.)
**Ìṣẹ̀ṣe is not something you join. It is something you live.**
Live it with dignity, clarity, and fearless truth—as an honorable child of Olódùmarè, rooted in the path your ancestors laid for you.
