Ifa: Reverence, Science, and Social Technology

I write science fiction. I practice a West African religion known as Ifa. I see no conflict between these two activities.Many highly intelligent people have tried to define science fiction. Me, too. I'm not immune to the lure of understanding what I do. The definition I came up with, the aphorism I wrote down and taped to the wall near my desk reads: "Science fiction is fiction that believes in science." That definition satisfied me at one level. Of course, it did raise the question of what it means to say that an abstraction "believes" in something. And then to say that one abstraction believes in another ... well, that's an obscurity dangling from an additional obscurity.Science is easier to define than science fiction. It's a system of knowing things, and it relies on forming and testing hypotheses, clearly stated suppositions about the universe. The results of these tests are supposed to be quantifiable, and the tests are supposed to be repeatable.Is it possible to believe in science? To have faith that this one system of knowing things is correct? I think so. I'm pretty sure so. When I talk about sf believing in science, though, my meaning runs more along these lines: stories belonging to this subgenre espouse, validate, support, and extrapolate from science as a belief.In the hit movie Avatar, botanist Grace Augustine defends her findings on the electrochemical network between Pandora's trees by distancing those findings from a religious belief system very much akin to my own. "This is not just pagan voodoo," she tells her corporate sponsor, reinforcing what I regard as a false dichotomy.There are solid connections between Ifa and the realm of science: Ifa divinities sacred to certain scientific methods, technologies, and areas of study; and parallels between divination and the scientific method. The flexibility of Ifa teachings and practice makes this tradition highly adaptable and able to encompass a scientific viewpoint when called on to do so. Also, the tools of divination (both the objects used and the texts referred to), the dances, songs, prayers, and offerings with which Ifa is celebrated, can all be seen as a technological repertoire for social cultivation. After exploring these points with me you may wish to read my science fiction story "Good Boy," available in my collection Filter House and on my website at www.nisishawl. com. In "Good Boy" a psychologist living on an extrasolar planet conducts experiments using an isolation tank, a la John Lilly. These experiments bring her and her detractors into contact with entities recognizable as members of the Ifa pantheon.I'm not going to try to thoroughly define Ifa, but I'll tell you some things about it. It's animistic-that is, the Ifa universe lives and grows and changes, and is full of subjects rather than objects. It's old. But also, it's new, because it's syncretistic-that is, it adapts itself to cultures it comes into contact with, adopting elements of them for its own purposes, thus co-opting Christianity, European paganism, and other philosophies.As a practice, Ifa focuses on the concepts of balance and alignment. The Ifa ideal is to live a life of good character in accordance with the guidance of one's best self and the precepts of heaven. There are sacred texts, there are priests, there are offerings and ceremonies, all of which help in achieving this. There are ancestors. We all have ancestors. There are deities, and in the Ifa worldview we all enjoy interactions with these deities, whether we're aware of them or not.So what do these ancestors and deities have to do with science, and thus with science fiction? Everything.Some ancestors, or egun, were scientists. (By the way, Ifa recognizes that not all descent is a biological matter. You can feel a strong affinity for someone- say Madam Curie-and so regard them as your ancestor.) Revering scientist ancestors affords us one way to perceive science and religion as in harmony with rather than in opposition to one another. …