Our African Unconscious by Dr. Edward Bruce Bynum uncovers all aspects of our human evolution. It sheds light on how the arts, sciences, philosophy, and religious roots originated in Africa. Author Edward Bruce Bynum, Ph.D., ABPP is an award-winning psychologist and former director of the behavioral medicine program at the University of Massachusetts Health Services. If you want to learn more about Dr. Edward and his fascinating work in the field, here’s your chance.
Hi Dr. Edward, how do we all share a common origin? How do we all come from Africa?
I sought to create a modern medically and scientifically sound understanding of our unity as a species that was also a complete vision absolutely undergirded by the great spiritual traditions of both East, West, and Africa. Thus a good deal of anthropology, m medical genetics, ancient history, and the living history of religions.
Why did you decide to write Our African Unconscious: The Black Origins of Mysticism and Psychology?
It was a natural evolution from an earlier book called DARK LIGHT CONSCIOUSNESS: Melanin, Serpent Power and the Luminous Matrix of Reality. It dealt, as a clinical psychologist, with the effect of this deep hidden bodily and spiritual energy better known in classical literature and practices of meditation and yoga.
What’s the best way to truly appreciate our shared consciousness and identity as a species?
A meditative discipline you are drawn to plus a deep love for another person beyond what you can explain to yourself.
What are your thoughts on the varied different ethnicities that exist? How can we thrive in today’s world?
This is a complex question. However, as a species at war with itself, we have come to the point in our development as a species on this volatile planet of vast changes and rapid changes that we either learn to love each other despite our difference or we die !! It is that simple and uncomfortably true.
Would you say one of the predictions made by George Washington is yet to come?
Yes, 2 of them have already occurred. He predicted the American civil war and a great civil confrontation yet to come involving Africa and the notion that ‘all men are brethren”. Is that not where we are today in the USA?
Could you share one fascinating piece of information that you came across during your research for the book?
Yes. That America’s first war over slavery was not our civil war but about ‘white slavery,’ the war with the Barbary Coast pirates of north Africa that far arose soon after the founding of the republic. They were raiding ships at sea and stealing white women to sell to the harems of the sultans.
How do quantum mechanics, string theory, and relative physics weave into the book?
They are all part of the emerging new paradigm in science that takes us past Einstein.
Could you answer some of these rapid-fire questions for your readers?
The most peaceful place for you…
On the deck at home on a warm summer afternoon or in my meditation setting in the early morning at home.
A book that made a significant impact on you
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramansa Yogananda and also The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard De Chardin
Dusk or dawn
Both actually, but perhaps dusk most
Jazz or country music
Jazz but I also like classic country music by the greats like John Denver
Podcasts or documentaries
Documentaries
What’s your next project?
I am also a published poet with an equal number of texts in psychology/psychiatry as in poetry: I am finishing up a long poem that is 7,777 words in length titled “If I Trusted Poetry Completely”
Tell us one thing about yourself that we likely don’t know
I was an altar boy as a child.
