In this article, I draw attention to the value of community in John Mbiti’s philosophy using his famous axiom by reconciling the tension between the individual and community his philosophy envisages. To do this, I offer a reconstruction of Mbiti’s communitarian axiom: “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.” Mbiti is considered one of the forerunners of the communitarian debate in African philosophy. His axiom, which describes his idea of Afro-communitarianism, accounts for the importance of (...) individual and community in thinking about social existence in African thought. However, Mbiti’s argument for the direct influence of the community in the formation of the individual is taken to mean the supremacy of the community over the individual. Mbiti’s concept of community has implications for the idea of personhood in that it raises the question of individual agency. This has affected the reception of Mbiti’s contribution to the idea of community in African political thought. While Mbiti’s contributions to Afro-communitarianism transcend the discourse of personhood, I argue that maximising the potential of his idea requires reconstruction and a critical analysis of his axiom. In doing that, I demonstrate that a possible relationship exists between the “I” and “we” in his axiom that represents a harmony between the community and individual and does not suggest a primacy of either but the significance of community. This analysis will enable fair engagement with Mbiti’s conception of community. (shrink)

Since Antoine Faivre's emergence and establishment of "Western esotericism" in the late twentieth century, the discourse of globalising esotericism (beyond the West) has been fraught with controversy. As there are several polemical conversations about how such an effort should manifest itself in esoteric scholarship. This comparative, descriptive, and religionist approach to esotericism explores the intricate relationship between sexuality and spirituality by understanding the intersections of these aspects as manifested in Western, Eastern, and African esoteric currents, from Aleister Crowley's magia sexualis (...) to Marie Laveau (The Widow Paris)'s "Gris-Gris". Firstly, this is achieved by bringing said geographical regions into dialogue with one another, determining how esotericism fits into the overall trajectory of the origins of religion. Secondly, delving into the polemics and history of sexuality: from Foucault to Freud. Thirdly, positioning an esoteric spirituality in the digital era. Consequently, through identifying currents in the West, East, and Africa: including Paganism, Thelema, Satanism, New Age, and Theosophy in the West and Egyptian Paganism, Hinduism, and Buddhism in the East, in addition to African Traditional Religion (ATR), Sufi Islam, and Afro-American "Conjure" in Africa. This study, when intersected with philosophical conceptualisations of the self, contributes to a novel understanding of sexuality as sacred post-theistic (self-) spirituality, with esotericism serving as the foundation for such an approach. (shrink)