On Divine Reward


 

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I've been, half playfully, half seriously, writing an essay describing the scholar and writer Toyin Falola as a wizard. Why so? I find the wizard paradigm useful for integrating the scope of his cognitive identity and professional culture.                     What do I mean by "cognitive identity" and by "professional culture"?        Cognitive identity By "cognitive identity" I refer to a person's style of developing and using knowledge. In Falola's case, this cognitive identity consists in an oscillation between intellectual work and what he describes in a personal communication as "spiritual direction" and “spiritual journeys”, along with entry into trance states, trance as fully alert mentation, yet deeply focused in an activity, perhaps to the exclusion of anything else, both orientations facilitating creativity.       ...
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