Blog

Adinkra are the traditional symbols of the Akan people found in Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo. There are hundreds of these symbols that span all kinds of concepts, from cosmology to those found in daily life. They are found mostly on cloth, however in recent times, we find them more and more being used online in symbology.  In this article, I delve into some of the research I have conducted on Adinkra symbols to make use of them as tools for developing intellectual and spiritual awareness.

Studying the mathematical symmetry of Adinkra symbols

About 10 years ago, I wrote a detailed article titled A Mathematical Analysis of Akan Adinkra Symmetry [click], which has an introduction to the history and use of Adinkra symbols. In the article, after analyzing 84 different Adinkra symbols, I noticed that 39 out of the 84 symbols (or 46%) have a reflection and rotation symmetry of order 2. This means that almost half of the symbols can reflect horizontally and vertically with a mirror image, or only require 2 rotations to return to their original shape.

From a mathematical standpoint, that is intriguing. A lot of objects in nature also have natural symmetry. From a spiritual standpoint, the result is also interesting because it means that Adinkra symbols are great as mandalas, because of their natural symmetry. For a few years now, I have been thinking about internalizing Adinkra symbols in order to develop consciousness and even possibly activate DNA .If you visualize Adinkra symbols, and use them for spiritual practices, you can tap into the natural symmetries both to develop your visualization abilities and to access the energies of symmetry. There are connections with the 4 esoteric elements (Fire, Air, Water, Earth). There are also connections with the two fundamental forces (electric and magnetic). In short, Adinkra symbol symmetries make them great candidates for use as magical symbols and also as tools to develop your clairvoyant abilities through visualization.

Adinkra as Kabbalistic tools

Due to those results from the symmetry analyses of Adinkra symbols, I became interested in studying ways to use them for spiritual purposes. About a year later, I was also researching Akan connections to the Kabbalah, so I wrote a follow-up Adinkra article, titled Manifesting Intent using Adinkra symbols [click]. That was a first attempt at tapping into the power of Adinkra symbols. This is because as an Akan man, I innately felt a drive to use the symbols of my own culture to communicate in the cosmic language. Why is this? Well, I have been training in Daoism for over a decade and a half now. Daoism and Daoist thought is very close to the Ancient Egyptian/Kemetic system. I believe the two systems ultimately have the same basis. Among Daoist adepts, those at a high level are known to be able to “speak Kabalistically”. For instance, using their chi/qi or bioenergy, which draws on universal energy, these adepts, with the power of speech, have been said to be able to project a Chinese symbol onto a rock, effectively imprinting it. The Chinese people use their cultural symbols very intimately. Why shouldn’t we, I thought?

The power of the spoken language is supreme. In the book of John in the Christian Bible, it is said [paraphrased] “in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

Okay so, the Divine is in you and in me, and in everyone. So, you are ‘God’. You are the Divine. If you learn to use the power of the Divine, you can be an instrument of Divine Providence on this plane of physical existence. With that in mind, I wrote the paper in 2011.

I am not the first to suggest that Adinkra symbols can be used for spiritual purposes. In fact, there is a history of it among the Akan. In the 2011 article, I share accounts from Rattray’s work of how Adinkra has been used spiritually among the Akan people in earlier times. It might interest you to learn that Adinkra is still being used spiritually in shrines among Akans.

Charles Korankye provides us with an Adinkra system

You can imagine how excited I was when I found out that Charles Korankye has done some fantastic work putting together a workable system of Adinkra symbols as alphabet and as symbol, elucidating the physical as well as the metaphysical properties of Adinkra. He has given us an Adinkra alphabet that we can use intellectually and spiritually. Charles, Ayekoo!

Also, not only did Charles provide the symbols and their correspondences with the English/Latin alphabet for use as an intellectual resource, he also went a step further to make connections with the esoteric, and provided connections to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Now, isn’t that interesting? Charles gave the Adinkra Kabbalah in his book Adinkra Alphabet. We did not work together, Charles and I. In other words, Charles did this work on his own. This tells me that the need for such a connection between Adinkra and the Kabbalah is imminent in the group mind also known as the morphogenetic field of the Akan people. It is now in the ‘morphogenetic field’ of Akan people that this link between Adinkra and Kabbalah must be strengthened and developed. That is how I see it. So, in this article, I want to first and foremost applaud Charles for his amazing work and the gift of the alphabet system he has given us Akan and other people through his work

Secondly, I would also like to add that in the spirit of pushing the frontiers, I would like to both draw on the work Charles did, as well as offer a counterpoint to one particular aspect. First, the part that I would like to draw on. So, Charles gives us letter correspondences for all English alphabet in Adinkra symbols. I think this is great, and I agree with his selection of symbols. I think, as a people, we should use this format for writing and for other symbol work. We should teach ourselves and our children how to use these symbols for writing.

In managing what he has achieved, Charles reminds me of Sequoyah, the Native American (Cherokee) polymath who gave the Cherokee people their language script. As a result of Sequoyah’s work, the Cherokee language could be written in its own symbols. The Cherokee people then went on to write their sacred formulas and incantations in their own script. You can find some of that material in James Mooney’s book Sacred formulas of the Cherokee. Below is one of the videos Charles Korankye put online that goes through his Adinkra alphabet system:

A note about Kabbalah and about the Tree of Life

So, onto the esoteric and beyond. My first little remark here is that over the past decades, I have come to learn that the most commonly found tree of life has 10 spheres. Then, you tend to also find the tree of life that has 10 main spheres with an 11th sphere stuck in at the top. Rarely do you see the 12-sphere tree of life. These tree of life grids are actually maps of creation from the the unmanifest unity to tangible reality. I will also add that there is a connection with DNA codes. The original Earth human being had 12-strand DNA coding. Today, most of us have 2 active strands. The rest is called “junk DNA”.

The reason why these grids are so powerful, and why the Kabbalah too can be so powerful, is that these grids represent something like the blueprint of energy and life in the cosmos, the macrocosm, which is also represented within us, as DNA, in the microcosm. For that reason, if you are a being that was originally of 12-strand DNA, you would be best served accessing a tree of life grid that has 12 spheres. These spheres are also representations of realities going all the way from the manifest to the unmanifest. Today, the 10-sphere and the 11-sphere trees are most common. In fact, the 10-sphere is the most common. The 11-sphere is somewhat common too. There is much more to it than that, but I will leave it here for now.

The cosmic language in Akan Adinkra symbols

To add to some of the work I already did on Adinkra, and to incorporate the alphabet system that Charles Korankye has given us, I shall use Charles’ alphabet to show how we can learn to internalize the Adinkra symbols into our very being, energetically, acting as a sovereign of Divine Providence. “God” on Earth, speaking the cosmic language of colour sound/vibration, and symbol.  Speaking with colour, sound/vibration and symbol is a high form of language that allows for interacting with the universe. Franz Bardon writes in The Key to the True Quabbalah (a variation in spelling to Kabbalah), that:

“To understand the quabbalah and to use it practically means comprehending the cosmic language on the basis of universal legality. Thus, the cosmic language is a language of the law, a language of power and authority, and at the same time also a language of dynamics (i.e., of condensation, materialization and realization. Seen from the quabbalistic angle, to speak the cosmic language means to form and create within the scope of the universal laws. Only the initiate who understands and masters the universal laws in their absoluteness may avail himself of the cosmic language when dealing with human beings and beings of other spheres. To speak the cosmic language, to be truly creative, i.e., to deputize for God as His true image, is something that is only possible for someone what is able to concentrate quadripolarly.”

It is worthy of note that Franz Bardon claims the original Kabbalah (he spells the term as Quabbalah) came from Ancient Egypt, and that the Hebrew people got it from Ancient Egypt. I would like to posit that regardless of whether that is true or not, I am convinced that the Kabbalah came to us on Earth from beings associated with the Sirius Star System. Those from Sirius influenced Egypt/Kemet greatly. They also influenced the Hebrew people. But that is another story.

Main point is the the Kabbalah is ancient indeed. Harkens back to the initiates of the Ageless Wisdom. The Kabbalah/Quabbalah gives access to the universal laws of creation through language. Its use must be seen as embodying the highest divinity. Basically, an initiate who ranks highly in the use of quabbalah acts as a representative of Divine Providence (what some call, ‘God’) on Earth. So, I do not say this lightly. To master and to speak quabbalistically, you are acting as a “God-man”, a microcosmic representation of the macrocosm. So, it is onto you not to use this Divine, cosmic science for any other purpose than the highest good. If not, there can be real consequences for your spiritual evolution.

Akan and Hebrew alphabets and practice of the Kabbalah

Astute observers would have noticed that both Akan and Hebrew languages have 22 sounds that make up their respective alphabets! Some of the sounds can easily be mapped to one another, such as the Akan Aa, and the Hebrew Aleph. By use of pendulum dowsing as my divination methodology, I was able to map the remaining Akan and Hebrew alphabets in the table below. To my knowledge, no one has yet done or tried this. Next, I match some of the Akan letters that Charles Korankye gives us with their corresponding Hebrew alphabet, and associate each with a corresponding English alphabet. In this mapping, I used the 22 Akan alphabet by Charles Korankye.

What are the affordances of this? Well, with these 22 Akan symbols, you can practice the Kabbalah, which is the light-sound language of the cosmos. You basically take an Akan symbol, and visualize it in its given colour, and pronounce the sound. Say you want to invoke life, which in the Akan language is the word ‘nkwa’. How do you call on this cosmic power? Well, first you imagine the corresponding Adinkra symbols for ‘nkwa’. You visualize each one in its corresponding colour, and as you visualize each letter, you sound the musical tone. This puts your intent into the cosmic akasha, to bring about your desire. Remember that this is NOT magic. This is higher than magic. This is the high science of creation. So, you will be beholden to use this high science for the highest of intentions. Otherwise there can be karmic consequences for your spiritual evolution. So, just remember that. One more thing. I have not given the elemental, colour and sound correspondences of all 22 Akan symbols. I invite the interested reader to find these out if they so choose. You can divine them in Franz Bardon’s book The Key to the True Quabbalah. The Correspondences with human body parts given below align both with what Franz Bardon gave in The Key to the True Qabbalah, and also what is found in the Hebrew Sephir Yetzirah:

The practice of developing yourself Kabbalistically, with the Adinkra alphabets

Here is the method that Bardon gives for the letter A. Here, rather than use the English or Hebrew alphabet, you can use the Adinkra alphabet Charles Korankye provided. What is written below for the letter A can be done for the rest of the alphabets. In a similar way that the instruction is given for visualizing, you can also use sound. If you imprint the Adinkra alphabet into your energy, and develop the power, this can potentially assist your spiritual evolution to get closer to being a ‘sovereign on Earth’, a ‘God-man’, or a representative of Divine Providence. Again, just remember cosmic ethics, and do not use this knowledge for purposes that can harm your spiritual evolution.

According to Bardon:

“The student start again with letter “A”, appertaining to the air element, and conducts it to the air regions of the body, i.e., into the chest, where he pronounces it intellectually and imagines it to be there in a light blue color. Having imagined the existence of the light blue color in his chest for a longer period, he may resolve it again by his imagination. He must have the impression that the light oscillation of the blue color has completely disappeared from his chest.

In a further exercise, he starts to speak the “A” in his mind and to invoke the light blue oscillation in his chest. Whenever pronouncing the “A” in his mind, the light oscillation of the blue color will be intensified in the region of his chest. However, this condensation must not have any influence on the color. It must only retain its power of expansion, which will increase from exercise to exercise. All these exercises must, of course, not affect his breath.

They must not make the student try to hold his breath at the moment of accumulation. The student will be overcome by this temptation only at the beginning. Later, when he has got used to evoking dynamics of whatever type inside or outside of his body, obstructions like irregular breathing or undesirable muscle tension, a.s.o., will not occur any more. After having condensed the “A” in its light blue color to a point where it resembles a pneumatic tire pumped full, he makes it resolve again in the universe by pronouncing it.“

So, there’s that. If you want to learn more about how to practice Kabbalah this way, you can refer to Bardon’s book The Key to the True Quabbalah.

Final note

As a final note, I would like to showcase the video below, which was sent to me by my friend in Germany. It draws some interesting parallels between Akan and Hebrew letters, so again that is another individual who is making these connections. I think she is also drawing on Charles Korankye’s alphabet system or a system similar to it. In any case, it is yet another example of how, what I call the “morphogenetic field” of the Akan people is tracing back to these concepts of connection between Akan and Hebrew. Ultimately, this takes us back to Sirius. The beings from the Sirius Star System influenced Egypt/Kemet greatly. They also influenced Mesopotamia, and those Annunaki that were there. You can learn more about Earth peoples and which ET groups influenced which cultures on Earth in my book The Guardians, Earth Humans, and Ascension.