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Ogotommeli - Egg and Atom layout
Identifier
002382
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This describes the system layout of an atom and by extension the Egg. If one understands that an atom is a series of vibrational energy levels each of which hold the systems of the universe, the following then makes sense. The cardinal directions are here used to describe where in the Egg/atom each system of the universe is to be found.
As I hope you can see, the Tree of life is also thus being described here as is the Intelligence hierarchy. It is possibly the only description I came across of how the systems of the universe are stored in an atom, although whether this is a layout long since replaced or is current is not known.
Analogously the storage of systems on computer discs changes constantly, in order to account for new systems, removed systems and changed systems, as such the layout Ogotemmeli describes may be very out of date.
A description of the experience
Conversations with Ogotommeli (An Introduction to Dogon Religious ideas) – Professor Marcel Griaule
The west stairway was occupied by wild animals. From the top stair to the bottom stair it was given up to antelopes, hyenas, cats, (two stairs for these), reptiles and saurians, apes, gazelles, marmots, the lion and the elephant.
After the sixth step came the trees from the baobab to the Lannea acida and on each of them the insects commonly found there today.
On the south stairway were the domestic animals, beginning with fowls, then sheep, goats, cattle, horses, dogs and cats.
On the eighth and ninth steps were the chelonians, the giant tortoises, which today in each family take the place of the family heads, while these are absent, and the smaller tortoises, which are slowly done to death in the regional purification sacrifices.
On the tenth step were mice and rats (house and field)
The east stairway was occupied by birds. On the first step were the larger birds of prey and the hornbills; on the second were the ostriches and storks; on the third, the small bustards and lapwings; on the fourth vultures. Then came the smaller birds of prey and then the herons. On the seventh step were the pigeons; on the eighth turtle doves; on the ninth, ducks; and last of all the great bustards, white and black.
The north stairway was that of men and fish……….
On each of the first two steps stood a male Bozo with a fish attached to his navel and hanging between his legs. This attachment to the navel had a significance for Ogotemmeli which the European could not grasp. The man’s navel was nipped between the fins of the fish; that is to say, the fish was quite clear of the man’s belly. On the other hand, the name that the Dogon give to the Bozo was thought by Ogotemmeli to indicate that the fish was in process of passing into the body of the man……
This name sologonon or soro gonon from which is derived Sorko another name for a Bozo, does in fact mean ‘which has not completely passed’. It would apply therefore primarily to the fish, but ultimately to the Bozo himself, the two – i.e. the man and the fish being twin brothers, as indicated by the umbilical connection.
On each of the next two steps was a Bozo woman, also attached to a fish. On the fifth step was a Bozo woman standing alone.
The five last steps were empty.
A question occurred to the European; ‘Only some of the animals and vegetables were on the building; where were the rest?’
‘Each of those mentioned was as it were a file leader. All the others of his kind were behind him. The antelope on the first step of the west stairway is the wlbanu, the red antelope. After him come the white, the black and the ka antelopes. So too on the first step of the south stairway, where the poultry stand, the guineau fowl, the partridge and the rock fowl are behind’
‘How could all these beasts find room on a step one cubit deep and one cubit high?’
The European had calculated that, according to the slope of the walls, the tread of each step must be six tenths of a cubit deep, but he made no mention of the fact out of politeness….
‘All this had to be said in words’ said Ogotemmeli ‘but everything on the steps is a symbol, symbolic antelopes, symbolic vultures, symbolic hyenas’ He paused for a moment, and added ‘Any number of symbols could find room on a one cubit step’.