Asar Imhotep is a dynamic and passionate speaker who has mastered the art of translating inspiration into experience. Asar is the founder of the MOCHA-Versity Institute of Philosophy and Research based in (Houston, TX) which is a virtual network of scholars who uses the pedagogical framework entitled “Putting on your Thinking CAAP” (Creative Application of African Philosophy) to develop fresh and creative solutions to problems facing the African-American community. He is available to speak for conferences, Black Historical programs, spiritual gatherings, middle & high school classrooms, leadership retreats and just about any gathering where people are looking for new and creative solutions to modern problems, while being historically grounded. Below are a few of the major lecture topics currently being discussed by Asar Imhotep. However, new lectures can be produced that caters to your specific event theme.

Ancestrally, 

Asar Imhotep
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
210.429.3823

Current Lectures:

The Philosophy of Hip Hop Culture and the Utilization of African Languages in the reshaping of African-American Identity: The Case of the Bakala of North America

Abstract:This paper demonstrates how Hip Hop Culture and African languages were utilized in the construction of a new African-American (AA) identity. It is the author’s contention that AAs are in a cultural and identity crisis and it is these crises that prevent AAs from maximizing their creative, economic and political potential. Prominent researchers in the fields of Sociology and Psychology, such as Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop and Dr. Amos Wilson, realized this predicament in their early writings and both called for the “reconstruction of a new Afro-American identity” as a base solution for the issues that plague AAs. This calling, along with other events of history, inspired the author to create the African-American Cultural Development Project (AACDP) which seeks to restore/replace (aaluja) those elements of agency that were forcefully purged from African people during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Holocaust. One of those elements of agency was a meaningful identity-label created by the people themselves. Inspiration and models of excellence were found in the early Hip Hop movement which informed the methods used in this reconstruction process. This paper essentially argues that Hip Hop is a sovereignty movement and it is this movement which created space for a more critical nation-wide discourse on African-American identity and agency. It was decided early on that the new identity-label had to be a term that was firmly grounded in a shared African ontological framework and chosen from the languages formally spoken by the enslaved Africans on the continent. As a result, hundreds of African languages were surveyed and the name selected was Bakala and/or Nkal(a,e). During this process, the name was matched against an inventory of AA personality traits, values and themes collected by Dr. Wade Nobels and the author. From here we explore the social dynamics of such an identity and its potential impact on African-American ethnic solidarity, cultural expressiveness, economic and political development and its subsequent power relations..

Egyptian Hieroglyphics: A Catalyst for an African-American Scientific & Cultural Aaluja (restoration)

Abstract:

This paper will demonstrate how the study of Egyptian Hieroglyphs can stimulate creativity, fuel innovation and facilitate the continued discovery of processes found in nature that can be utilized to revitalize the African-American economic and political industries through science. Contrary to popular belief, hieroglyphs (mdw ntr) is more than a writing script, it is a pedagogical tool and method which teaches one how to be inspired by nature and how to imitate its functional genius in order to solve human problems more sustainably. In modern science this paradigm is called Biomimicry (coined by Janine Benyus). Many studies have demonstrated that the success of a people is intimately connected to culture. It is this presenter’s contention that the vitalization of African-American industry and agency will happen as a result of the (re)adoption of Mdw Ntr (Biomimicry) as a scientific and cultural value system, paradigm and practice. The objective of teaching Mdw Ntr is to attract more African-Americans into the "hard" sciences by appealing to their heritage. This is an open textured and open-ended project of recovery, reconstruction and effective application.

Method: 
This paper will utilize the comparative method used in historical comparative linguistics to get to the heart of the meaning of mdw ntr. A philological approach will be employed to verify the historical usage of mdw ntr as a scientific system in the ancient Egyptian and Greek records. This will be followed by living examples of how this methodology is employed in modern times with Fortune 500 businesses with suggestions of how African-Americans can utilize these techniques in all spheres life. 

Our Lineage: Egypt, Ifa, the Bible and the African-American
Linguistic and Cultural Links that Bind Us All

Abstract: This lecture will demonstrate—using evidence from the fields of anthropology, archeology, comparative religion and linguistics—that the people who created the spiritual systems of ancient Egypt, Judaism/Christianity and the Yoruba system of Ifa, in ancient times, belonged to the same cultural and linguistic community. These cultures shared the same religious iconography, deities, rituals and spiritual concepts. We will argue that due to differences in economic modes of production, and political and religious ideology, that the respective communities splintered to create their own autonomous groups which gave rise to the traditions under discussion. We will also demonstrate how African-American's (and many others in the Diaspora) share a genealogical relationship with all of the above mentioned groups by tracing the migration and trade routes of some of these ethnic groups and priests throughout Africa which lead them to the exact areas African-Americans were extracted from during the Trans-Atlantic enslavement period. A large part of our focus will also be on teaching the lay community some of the basic tools of analysis to enhance their personal studies so they can begin make connections for themselves.

Objective: To construct a singular cohesive narrative of the events that began at the start of the drying of the Sahara which initiated Pharaonic civilization, to the splintering of various ethnic and linguistic groups, to the religious and political motives which created the conditions for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Clues to the piecing together of this fragmented story is codified in the rituals and mythologies of the cultures under examination.

Method: Our primary methods for analysis will be historical comparative linguistics, archeology, cultural anthropology and comparative religion. The field of linguistics helps us to penetrate into the depths of ancient mythology to discover what aspects of the myths are historical, and what aspects are created to provide simple explanations for world phenomena. Archeology provides the physical evidence to demonstrate the cultural continuum and migrations of African communities in ancient and modern times. Cultural anthropology and comparative religion will provide us the tools in which to interpret the cultural expressions, rituals and motifs that will allow us to get a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the various systems under examination.

Primary Sources: Ancient Roman, Biblical, Greek and Egyptian records; archeological findings by the likes of Dr. Felix Chami and others; Odu Ifa corpus; language dictionaries; literature written by African priests concerning their spiritual systems and oral traditions.

Khepera in Nigeria: The Presence of Egyptian Scientific and Religious Continuities in Odu Ifá

Abstract: Using primarily linguistic evidence, comparative religious data, as well as symbolic meanings of various signs and symbols, this paper seeks to highlight the conceptual, ritual and symbolic continuities between the Ancient Egyptian deity ḫpr/ ḫprw   (Tshiluba kapepu, kapepwela, ci-pepe-la) and the modern Yoruba spiritual system and deity known as Ifá/òpẹ̀lẹ̀ (Arabic ‘aaf, Minafa).  A detailed linguistic analysis reveals that Ifá is cognate with Egyptian ḫpr (with loss of ḫ- prefix and final r). Ḫpr (Kheper, Khepri, Khepera) is the ancient Egyptian personification of transformation, change, coming into being and existence. It is this aspect of coming into being that will be explored and compared in the Yoruba system of Ifá: a divinatory art which includes a literary corpus known as the Odú Ifá (Egyptian mdw ḫpr/ntr). Ifá is an oracle system that informs the client of what is to come (Egyptian ḫpr, Tshiluba ciVwa/ciVwaVwa “become/future ahead”) and what steps are needed to ensure favorable outcomes. 

Ifá (f-#) is a frame of thought that is practiced all over Africa (Dogon po pilu, Amazulu umThetho weMvwelo, Bakongo mFinda, mVunde) which I argue was personified in ancient Egypt as ḫprr (kh-p-r-r) and even in ancient Greece as the god Apollo (#-p-l-l) “the god of prophecy.” What we find is a consistency in thought and practice among many ancient African traditions and it is the modern forms that add symmetry and understanding to the Ancient Egyptian spiritual system I argue should be known as simply as ḫpr (Ifá). 

This paper also argues that ḫpr/ifá is the first human articulation of the theory of evolution in recorded history before Charles Darwin (1859). It is this scientific notion of evolution, transformation and change that is fully articulated in the Bakongo notion of the “Bantu V” as noted by Dr. Kimbwandende Bunseki Fu-Kiau in his seminal work African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo (2001). With this conceptual grounding we can no longer discuss Ancient Egyptian gods solely in terms of religious phenomena, but in terms of empirical scientific observation and taxonomy: ḫpr’s focus on astrophysical and biological evolutionary theory.

It is possible from this overview of the data to conclude that Khepera is the oldest and most wide-spread religion in Africa and in the Diaspora as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Holocaust. Linguistic evidence suggests that the urheimat of this ancient practice and world-view is in the Sahara in Pre-Dynastic times. It is the result of the desertification of the once lush North Africa that caused a massive displacement of Africans to all corners of the continent (including the “Middle East” and Mediterranean)—carrying in the trunks of their minds and traditions the elements known today simply as Ifá. Studying the modern system of Ifá among the Yoruba may provide valuable insight into how to properly interpret Ancient Egyptian phenomena; especially ideas related to ḫpr.