I argue that this is the result of trying to place some of the Western constructs within the African conceptual

frameworks. One such alleged dichotomy is between "logic" and "emotion." My understanding of African approaches to spirituality sees no such conflict and it proven in the language. In the West, for example, we speak of the "heart" AND "mind" as two separate and independent constructs. In Africa, we have the "heart-mind." You would say this simultaneously with no conjunctive term. A case-in-point is the Ancient Egyptian word /jb/ "heart, mind, understanding, intelligence, will, desire, mood, wish." As we can see here the concept of "heart and mind" are brought together under one term. This word is cognate with the ciLuba-Bantu word /mwoyo/ is "heart, life, mind, soul, courage, will, desire, inclination, sense, mood, thought, salvation, greeting." The phonemes /j/ and /y/ are switched in the respected languages (metathesis). The /b/ and /m/ sound also interchange (/m/ is a nasalization of /b/). In Kikongo this word is /moyo/ "heart, life, soul, spirit" and in Yoruba /moye/ "to have power of perception; to be prudent; discreet; sagacious; judicious; skilled." This is a reminder that when discussing African concepts, it is important to understand the terms we are using. They may not always correspond to concepts found in English without additional qualifiers. There is no dichotomy between the concepts under discussion: they are one and the same. When I went back to reexamine some of the major Egyptian concepts as discussed in the Egyptology books, I had to reinterpret most of theme because the evidence, as presented in the language and the culture, did not match up with what was being presented by modern academia. I argue that this is primarily because Western culture and African culture (if we can speak of such) is so drastically different and it causes us to interpret things incorrectly when analyzing our own traditions. So I felt that a new work was needed to create a proper foundation for us in the West to reinterpret African spiritual phenomena. * in traditional yoruba culture when an elder says think they typically point to their heart not their head. Linguistically the word ori meaning head and or consciousness is part of the continuim between ori ori inu meaning inner self and iponri meaning higher self there seems to be a clear indication that ori inu is associated with okan or heart and that any head cleaning calle abori meaning offering to the head involves cleaning the back of the neck called ipako meaning i dont dicaptiate myself so this suggests to me some understanding of the polarity between head and heart.