Basic Tenants of Traditional African Religions

basic tenants that verify the Africanity of a religion. without any of these - you are not looking at an african religion

Homage to the Ancestors
[/color]
Ancestors are real. You can talk to them. They can literally talk to you.They can give you advice on whats going on in your life. They can protect you. They can fight for You. They will punish you if you break a family code of ethics. You should offer them sacrifice.
- Divination & Posession as a Means of Communication w/ God[/color]
  
  Living religions maintain a verifible means of authenicating any message received or delivered. Divination and possession are used access directly to the Creator. Any event from the past, present or future can be studied in these two ways.
  - Character Development
    [/color]
    You must develop ethics. You must grow. You must challenge yourself.
    
    Sacrifice & Ritual [/color]
    
    You must sacrifice something to get something. You should use the alchemy passed down by past generations if you want to insure your sacrificial success. Just as you must attend medical school if you dont wish to make the mistakes of pasts doctors. You must participate in ritual to have any real comprehension of african spirituality. there is no book that even remotely comes close to conveying the EXPERIENCE. modern society falsely teachs that any experience can be bottled in words.
    
    Priest/Devotees - Guru/Student Relationships
    [/color]
    Everyone has a teacher. Everyone must be willing to submit. Submitting to a teacher or idea is uncomfortable. This is a part of the experience. No one is capable of learning as much alone as they can with a teacher. Guru relationships give you access to the teaching of thousands of years of observation and practice. Self study gives you access to your own lack of understanding.
    
    Using Multiple Lesser (g)ods as a Means of Understanding
    One Uncomprehensible God
    [/color]
    There is ONE God, who is understood through a variety of personalities. We are multiple personalities and attitudes in one body.
    
    Reincarnation
    [/color]
    You will back until you learn everything you are sent here to know. Your primary goal to remember and FULL embrace your divinity and to release yourself from ALL fear, worry, doubt, confusion, hesitation, hate, pity, worry and anger. You will return again until you can do this.
    
    Acknowledgement of a Spiritworld
    [/color]
    You are not the only thing that exists. You are not the center of the Universe. There are spirits all around you. Some masquerade as humans, animals etc. We all come from the same place, the Creator - which is the sum total of every reality and dream in one.
    
    Practice through a specific Lineage traceable to its founder, and then to Africa
    [/color]
    Genuine indigenous faiths of ALL colored people practice through lineage. If someone wishes to introduce to a tradition, they must first introduce to their lineage or they are frauds. Traditions straight from Africa can tell you the village/community and head priest of their origins. Traditions from Latin America and places like Brazil can tell the name of the ACTUAL AFRICAN brought here in slavery that carried the initiation of that African God. There is no exception to this rule. You can only practice indigneous faiths through lineage.
    
    Initiation.
    [/color]
    There are varying degrees of initiation for devotee and priest. Initiation fortifies us. Provides us with spiritual tools tht help us in Life. We receive inititions according to the work we have to do. Initiation is done by someone who has already completed the process. The first initiates were taught by the Divinities themselves before ascending back to Heaven. Now we initiate one another. You can not initiate yourself. Initiation requires specific knowledge of a spiritual science.