Alone with the Alone

A Commentary on Psalm 91

An offering to my Ẹlẹ́dá, the source of all I am and all I have, always the first to remember me, who will never leave me.

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Verse 1¹

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Commentary

The highest principle is the principle of individuation. To ascend to unity is to be more unified, to be more of one’s self, not to dissolve identity. Dissolution is the work of lower principles, good in themselves, but not substitutes for the highest. The highest is not even itself by itself, as it is the non-entitative principle of entities. It is those who “dwelleth” in the “secret place”, the heart of hearts, their heart of hearts, that are each itself by itself. In such a space, one is indeed in the fullness of their Orí², united to their Orí, married to Orí, “one flesh” with their Orí. It is the Orí who proceeds from their “father and mother” – i.e. Limit and Unlimited mixed together, the Primary Mixture, the self-generated Highest God and paradigm of all things, Olódùmarè – to be united with the Ẹmí³, the continuum that we are, that is each of us, to become one “flesh”, one substance, one life. The profundity of such union is infinite when this union is so complete as to be in the mode of the Primary Mixture, the activity of the Highest God. This mode is the “secret place”, and those who are in this state of henosis “abide” – i.e. subsist – in its “shadow”, in its hiddenness, the darkness of occult unification.

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Verse 2

I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Commentary

The unified Soul, the unified life, turns to her causes, and in so doing embodies – even in its presumed distinction between herself and its Lord in the very reference to the Lord and the turning – her identity with her Lord. Her Lord is her Orí, and She always remains in her Orí even as She proceeds and reverts from Him. The Soul is in all three phases at once. There is no constitution as separation without union, as the Sufis would tell you. It is in her Orí that She will trust.

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Verse 3

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

Commentary

Only your Orí can deliver you from the snares of those who seek to kill you. Not just physically – we should pray against sudden death, but the goal is also good death – but “spiritually”, understood as including the “physical” but more expansive than it. The Soul “flies”, She is a bird in the skies of life and freedom, giving life to many bodies, physical⁴, mortal⁵, pneumatic⁶, and astral⁷. The “fowler” are those powers, otherwise necessary to the world (and thus good when considered in that perspective) that are not beneficial to the Soul. These are the accidents of life that hinder, maim, and kill. We pray against death, sickness, for help against vices and undertakings that will destroy us, because there are so many veils that hide the true end of things. The “pestilence” also includes, apart from biological sickness, sicknesses of the Soul, of the agent, that impede our agency by diffusing our potency. These include general vices, but also otherwise neutral things that are not beneficial for our specific flight through life. The parent of a future devotee of this or that Òrìṣà (a devotee is called an olórìṣà), whose identity is traditionally (but not exclusively) divined for them very early in their life olórìṣà, is usually told to instruct the child in specific taboos. They might avoid certain colours of clothing, certain meals, certain general or specific locations, and so on. To make this general, a devotee of St. Solomon, Son of David, might be told to not be promiscuous. A devotee of St. Peter might be told to be careful about their anger. To make this more specific to things not morally controversial, let’s assume Superman were an object of Cult. A devotee might be told not to wear the color green, because his mythos has green kryptonite as a major obstacle to him. As one who participates in his myth so intimately, that color would be thought to war against the very person’s nature, even as it is neutral in itself and is not evil. To stick with one’s Orí is to avoid what one should avoid, and in so doing one is promised deliverance from the snares that prevent the fruition of life.

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Verse 4

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Commentary

Continuing this theme of protection, those who are united with their Orí are in turn “covered” by said Orí. It is a double covering à la Ibn ‘Arabi. In reversion, one “covers” their cause, their Orí, but in turn their Orí covers them. They are “one flesh”; the Soul (Eve) covers her Orí (Adam) in being “brought to him”, but it is the Orí that proclaims that the Soul (Eve) is “flesh of my flesh”. The devotee is covered by the “feathers” (powers, the potency of His Life), and the devotee shall trust “under his wings” (in the influence of his divine activity). The “feathers” are the divine powers of the Orí. The “wings” indicate “the dianoetic knowledge of the life a soul has chosen”⁸ known by the Orí considered as separate. But the “truth” of one’s Orí that shall be one’s “shield and buckler” is divine truth, the one for which each God knows “the agency involved in the original choice, which is alone utterly unique to that person.”⁹ It is a providential knowledge unique to the individual Soul, and only what is truly the agent’s can hold the agent together. This “truth” is from the perspective of the unity of the Soul and her Orí, the henosis beyond dianoetic knowledge. In such a state, even physical loss, which happens to us finally in death, does not destroy “us”, because who we are is so transcendent as to both be impassive to dissolution and actively ordering all things – the “shield” implying a state of conflict, another symbol of divine activity ordering the world.

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Verse 5

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Commentary

Living in the realization of union entails being immune to the disintegrative effects of the many powers in beyond the sensible (night) and the battle (demiurgy as process) in the sensible (day). The night sky is the visible underworld, and its powers are of fate, and what some consider its terrors. But the underworld simply is the “intelligible” beyond the access of the senses. It is the “inner” world, not just our inner world, but that of each thing. Each Stone has a pneumatic body, and such bodies can be inhabited by even Gods if necessary. The realization of the state of union entails acting in concert with these powers, in the great choreography that is the Cosmos, without disintegrating ourselves.

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Verse 6

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

Commentary

Continuing this theme, the immortality of the intelligible spirits means that our constant brushing up against them is dangerous for us, as we are mortal. Only the immortal can withstand the immortal, and one united with their Orí is immortal. The Soul is naturally immortal in her natural state, but her embodied life is not. Immortality – or near immortality – for such a frame is only found in union with the Orí. In such union, the “pestilence” of the darkness – such that many powers vie for our lives – and the destruction of the sensible – such that we will all eventually die because the body dies – there will be no “loss”, and we shall not be afraid. Those who live deeply in their Orí are such that “their identification with the oriṣa may become ritually complete: such people can be remembered and worshipped as “parts” or manifestations of particular oriṣa.”¹⁰ The “remembered” are the “resurrected”, whose pneumatic body is suffused by the light of the astral body, who have become deity in activity and shrine to deity in form.

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Verse 7

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Commentary

The left and right hand represent the two kinds of activities. Assuming the “side” mentioned first is the left, the hand of “severity” for a certain kind of esotericism, of the “less ideal path” for the Yorùbá tradition, these are the activities corresponding to a disintegration. One might map this structure reserved to deities onto the Soul herself. The “right hand” are the “merciful” attributes, the soul’s beauty, mercy, happiness, optimism, etc. The “left hand” represents its “severe” attributes, its anger, desire for justice, for self-preservation, etc. Neither of these is evil; they are necessary. The question is always “in what way?” Those who “fall” are these attributes in action, which for the Soul is a constantly changing activity since She is in time. The Soul in union knows She is immortal because She knows her Lord. Her activities live and die, proceed and return, fail and succeed. She lives and dies, but it does not “come nigh” to her, because She is immortal.

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Verse 8

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

Commentary

Beyond the true reading of escape from the consequences of falling into the trap of the fowler – the reward for the wicked is utter destruction, their constructed identities dissolved for the sake of freeing their Soul – this can also be read ontologically. The “wicked” are those who fall short of full participation in the higher principles. That is, it is agent qua mortality in general. This reading of “Sin” is, I think, important for any philosophical reading of biblical texts that want to move away from an excessive moralism. Those who are “lost” in the waters of mortality will experience its fate as theirs in a rather visceral way. Those who know they are immortal see the “reward of the wicked” as separate from them, because they know they are more, not less, than whatever they might be on the mortal plane. Thus, it is not a rejection of the body but a proper enlivening of the body. The Yorùbá are not really known for asceticism, although one’s path might go through states of de facto asceticism, even if not de jure.

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Verse 9

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

Commentary

That is, because the Soul has made her Orí her refuge and habitation, certain consequences follow. To realize the state of “remaining” as essential to even our procession into and as the world has consequences.

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Verse 10

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

Commentary

The consequences include the inability of “evil”, the events of disintegration, to affect the Soul in her union with Orí. “Plagues”, i.e. the specific sicknesses of body and soul, are also incapable of disintegrating the agent in Her fullness. This is the state of remaining.

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Verse 11

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

Commentary

The Orí, in the ineffable unity, simply is the God, and for Proclus, every God has “an appropriate series of angels, heroes, and daimons, for every God leads a multiplicity which receives his own form” (IT 3.166). These are the “superior genera”. The “Abrahamic” traditions, unlike the Hellenic¹¹, have developed an emphasis on the Angelic. Of course, the categories do not always overlap, but for the sake of this essay, I am assuming Proclus’ structure of a hierarchy of Angels, Daimons, and Heroes respectively. Many functions of named Angels in the biblical corpus match the Proclean category of the same name, including being the primary agents of revelation and language to human communities. Given the privileging of this perspective, it is not strange that the Daimons, who at best maintain a sort of equilibrium with the higher beings and actually maintain as well as manage the embodiment of beings, came to be seen as problematic in the Christian tradition particularly. As bearers of revelation and divine message, Prophets like Moses and Jesus are primarily “angelic”, not daimonic. While the Hellenistic Platonists were more likely to name all three categories of Angels, Daimons, and Heroes as “Daimonic”, the Christian tendency is to use the word “Angelic”, seeing Daimons according to “Angelic” measures, in which they inevitably fall short. The “heroes” are not much regarded either, as they have often been identified with “nephilim”, the “children” of fallen angels and human women. This can of course be read ontologically as well. The Angels are highest; next are the “fallen angels”, i.e. the daimons. In between the Daimons and the mortals – symbolically the “union” of both sides – are the “heroes”, the Nephilim, thought of as “great men of old”. In this way, we might be able to read this hierarchy in light of Proclus’ system, and especially without unnecessary moralism about what it means to be in any of these categories.

The “Angelic” as “revelatory” is a kind of “remaining”, “procession”, and “reversion”. As the head of the three main members of the superior genera, it is in a position of “remaining” with respect to the remaining two, the daimonic and heroic, who enact “procession” and “reversion” respectively. In this way, they express the devotees remaining in the Gods. The Soul, in remaining in her Orí, expresses a kind of angelic agency.

As the first of a series of intermediaries, the “Angelic” is also the head of a procession, revealing the God to all subsequent to it. The Soul in the phase of “procession” (prohodos) is walking a road (hodos), and Angelic guidance is necessary for this. The guardian daimon is in this way “Angelic” (hence also called “guardian angel”). The guardian daimon is the Orí in the phase of being the separate agent with respect to our Soul, who guides us and reveals all things to us. The Orí as guardian daimon knows all things through the perspective of the destiny it embodies. It is our God in enlightened activity, the one we propitiate and to whom we must turn. No other God works for us without the permission of our Orí¹². It is one’s Orí that keeps one in all their ways.

As an Intellectual hypostasis, the “Angelic” is also a kind of reversion on one’s causes. I mean, what is the purpose of revealing the Gods and guidance through life if not reversion to the Gods. This is how we even started the prayer. Those who “dwell in the secret place” of their Orí are those who “revert” to it. The Angelic is helps establish the possibility of revelation in concert with other kinds of divine activities through its revelatory activities.

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Verse 12

They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Commentary

The Soul’s Orí shall “bear her up” with “hands” – i.e. the activities of mercy and severity – so that She doesn’t “dash her foot against a stone”, i.e. so that She does not fail and fall in the journey of life. Our own Orí will chastise and teach us when we go wrong. Our own Orí will have mercy on us. Our Orí will hold us together when we seem like we are falling apart. Our Orí will keep us sane in insanity. Our Orí will do anything for our ultimate felicity, such that the one thing that our Orí will not do is abandon us.

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Verse 13

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Commentary

Those who keep to their Orí will tread on their enemies. They will crush those who seek their disintegration and death. Unity is unifying, and those who have greater unity also unify other things each into their proper self. What greater defense against disintegration – symbolized by death by poison and predatory consumption – but the powers of integration and self-determination that one realizes in union with their Orí?

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Verse 14

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

Commentary

Here the Orí himself speaks, confirming the devotion of the Soul that remains and yet proceeds from him in reversion. The relationship is one of Love. Love is the Great Daimon, but also the great Paradigm of all things, the first and highest God. Just as it is the highest God (Phanes, who is the Primordial Eros) from whom originates all living beings, that is, in another phase, the God of Daimonic Life (The Eros of Diotima), so too here the highest God that is the source of all things – Olódùmarè – is also the source of the Orí. The Orí confirms the love of his devotee and promises the devotee, the Soul, deliverance and transcendence. To know the “name” of a thing is to know its deepest nature, and to have some sort of influence over it, or at least to have access to it in a way others who don’t know said “name” do not. To know the name of one’s Orí is also to know our true name, and in this way the hiddenness of the deity and our deity coincide. This coincidence is the very heart of transcendence. The most “transcendent” are the things most themselves. The Paradigm, the highest phase of manifest divinity, is literally autozōon, the Living Thing Itself. To be “set on high”, to be transcendent is to be one’s peculiar self, to live out one’s peculiar destiny in full.

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Verse 15

He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

Commentary

The Soul shall call upon her Orí, and her Orí will respond. For her Orí can never abandon her. She will be in trouble, and her Orí will come through for her. Her Orí will honor her. All this follows from the “reversion” and the realization of “remaining”. Don’t run away from your Orí.

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Verse 16

With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Commentary

Long life for the Yorùbá, like many other peoples, is a blessing. There is no “good death” for most without living into a “ripe old age”. It is understood that dying young prevents one from fulfilling their destiny. But this blessing goes beyond a long life in a mortal frame. As mentioned before, to be rooted in one’s Orí means that one’s pneumatic body is suffused by the light of the astral body, itself immortally enlivened by the Soul. In this state, one is deity in activity and shrine to deity in form. Such a state is “salvation”, and it is “shown” to you as you, rather than the distance the devotee has with respect to the mortal frame. In this state, which is in a sense “prior” to even the state of “remaining”, the light with which you see is your seeing, and there is no object, not even yourself. One just is, nothing more, nothing less. In this way, the divinized personality is always who they were in life, but “all at once” in a way productive of novelty throughout time.

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Through Gabriel the messenger, to the one who knows my past, who always is present, and who sculpts my future.

Amen.

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1. Verses are from the King James Version

2. “According to Ifa, before coming into the world, the newly animated person chooses an ori, a “head” or “destiny.” As one of Hallen’s collaborators explained, “It (ẹmi) chooses what it will come to do. . . . So also it is the act of the self (ẹmi) when it is with the supreme deity (Ọlọrun).”22 This ori inu or “inner head” is differentiated from the physical or “outer head,” ori ode, which serves as a symbol and vessel for the former. The inner head is regarded as the essence of one’s individual personality and destiny. This ori is at once a personal divinity or guardian angel, the divine aspect of a person, one’s fate or destiny, and one’s own personal archetype of a felicitous and successful life.” - Oludamini Ogunnaike, Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions, Africana Religions 5 (Penn State University Press, 2021), https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271087634. Pg. 239.

3. I will translate Ẹmí as “Soul” going forward in this essay as it is close to the older meaning of “Psyche” that is resonant in Platonic usages of the term: The Life-giving Living agent beyond the body but that gives life to all our bodies, beyond just the physical (such as the bodies in our dreams, and our conceptual thoughts considered as “objects” and thus “bodies” in some sense). It is the “breath” in the sense of the continuum of life that joins all its parts.

4. The body as described by modern natural sciences, the “quantitative” body.

5. The “physical body” is not the same as the “body of mortality”, the “oyster body”. The latter is “form” to the latter as “matter”.

6. The body of impressions, whose presence we see as “aura”, “vibes”; It is the body of dreams, the “social body or bodies”, etc.

7. This is the body of “place”, fundamentally the “role” or “aspect” each Soul gives life to. Its effects include physical and spatial location, but also the metaphorical “place” in a system, institution, society, etc. If anything, it is the mundane physical location is the “metaphorical” and the otherwise “metaphorical” is the real “place”.

8. Edward P. Butler, “The Henadic Structure of Providence in Proclus,” March 11, 2010, https://henadology.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pronoia.pdf. Pg. 9.

9. Butler, “The Henadic Structure of Providence in Proclus.” Pg. 9. The full quote includes the previous reference: “The daimon assigned to the individual before birth has a dianoetic knowledge of the life a soul has chosen, a knowledge that would infringe upon the person’s perception of freedom were they aware of it, whereas the Gods know the agency involved in the original choice, which is alone utterly unique to that person.”

10. Ogunnaike, Deep Knowledge. Pg. 298

11. “Hellenic” here refers vaguely to the people who are Greek by ethnicity, as opposed to the “Hellenistic”, which I take as referring to those who speak the Greek language and have Greek “sensibilities” but are not necessarily ethnically Greek. For instance, many Jews in the first century were “Hellenistic”, including the Apostle Paul.

12. From Odù Ògúndá Méjì. See Ogunnaike, Deep Knowledge. Pg. 242.