An Afrocentric conceptualisation of life and immortality of values: A critical investigation on the paranormal and human dignity in southern Africa

Abstract

Many scholars across the disciplines in the humanities have overwhelmingly accepted Placide Tempels’ theory of force as an authentic expression of African cosmology and cosmogony. On the other hand, the theory of force has been critiqued by other African scholars because it failed to recognise the primacy that is given to life as engendered in traditional African cosmological and cosmogonic theories. While Tempels’ theory of force remains attractive as an authentic articulation of the traditional African cosmological and cosmogonic existential outlook, the argument that has been proffered by African scholars is that Tempels’ concept of force should be replaced with the concept of life. In this article, I agree with critics of Tempels by arguing that life remains an all-encompassing element in the traditional African worldview and that life supervenes on the general African conceptualisation of para-existential experiences. In this regard, the phenomenon of African para-existential experiences serves as the cement that binds both the realms of the material and the spiritual. The dignity of the person is thus premised on the idea of the spiritual essence of the human soul which is ultimately enabled by the continuity of life after death.