This document revisit the concept of the Kongo cosmogram and show it as apply to more than a cosmological perception of Kongo culture. The Kôngo cross is proven to be an ethical, epistemological, theological, etc., symbol to be confined ot he cosmological explanation. More on this subject can be foundn in our book titled BUKONGO and available at www.amazon.com

1. THE KONGO COSMOGRAM REVISITED
By
Kiatezua Lubanzadio Luyaluka, Ph.D.(hon.)
We must credit Fukiau for the merit of having advanced the knowledge of the Kôngo
initiatory culture and having pointed to the scientific community the vast possibilities offered
by the study of this African culture. The chart of the visits of our internet blog enables us to
affirm with certainty that his mentions of the Kôngo cosmogram brought a lot of interest in
the study of the spiritual culture of our ancestors, especially in the diaspora.
Figure 1: Kôngo cosmogram according to Fukiau
Adapted from Fukiau (1994).
However, Fukiau’s description of the Kôngo cosmogram is too much restrictive. This is seen
in the very name “cosmogram”, which clearly limits the Kôngo cross to a description of the
cosmos. Thus, it behooves to succeeding scholars to expend the knowledge of the Kôngo
cross by starting from the bases set by the various publications of Fukiau and all related
contributions mutatis mutandis.
As we said above, the expression “cosmogram” alludes to a description of the cosmos.
However, we know that in solar culture religion underpins and inform all the aspects of life.
Thus, as a symbol summarizing the teachings of Bukôngo, the cross is essentially theological
and alludes to the whole spectrum of the knowledge underpinned by the Kôngo version of
solar religion.
Figure 2: the ascensive cross of divine mystery teachings

2. In his descriptions of the Kôngo cosmogram, Fukiau has set the stress just on one kind of
Kôngo cross: the ascensive Kôngo cross, hence his cosmogram describes only a
counterclockwise motion. We have seen above that there are three kinds of crosses in
Bukôngo: the descensive Cross of the fall of humanity, the descensive cross of human
mystery (which entails the descent of the order of heavens on earth), and the ascensive cross
of divine mystery (which was basic to any system of human mystery).
Figure 3: the descensive cross of the fall and of human mystery teachings
Moreover, we have seen that the doctrines of divine mystery were central to any school of
initiatory teachings among Besikôngo. This centrality of the divine mystery is seen in the
inclusion of divine teachings in the curriculum of the Lêmba (the academy of civil mysteries)
and the Kinkîmba (the academy of martial mysteries). The theological result of this is that the
notion of the Word is the basis of the teachings of any school of mysteries among Besikôngo.
Therefore, the ascensive cross of the divine mystery was basic to the human mystery initiation
as it was to the divine.
By limiting the interpretation of the Kôngo cross to the cosmological and life-unfoldment
line, Fukiau failed to point its close connection with the theology of Bukôngo. We have seen
that the Kôngo cross is only the ultimate simplified form of the spiral. This last element being
the summary of the teachings of Bukôngo, the symbolical representation of all the knowledge
acquired by an initiate in the [initiatory] forest. This explains its use in the oath of silence and
by the Kôngo initiates as a reminder of initiatory secrets to each other.
We said above that, like in ancient Egypt, religion underpinned all the aspects of Kôngo
culture. Therefore, instead of being limited to the cosmological and life-unfoldment line, the
Kôngo cross, the ultimate simplication of the spiral, of the teachings of the religion of the
Besikôngo, should be grasped in the theological, epistemological, ethical, cosmogonical,
cosmological, life-unfoldment lines, and even more.

3.  In the theological line, the Kôngo cross is the summary of the religious teachings
bequeathed by our ancestors. The rite of the oath of silence in the Kinkîmba shows
that the Kôngo cross is what it takes the candidate to become a Tafu-Maluânga, a
manifest Child of God, a manifest expression of the Word, the Kitafu-Maluângu,
called the Kimalungila in the Kimpasi [and Kimahûngu in the Lêmba]. The Kôngo
cross is the summary of the divine mystery of Bukôngo.
 In the epistemological line, the Kôngo cross indicates the freedom of the soul from the
body. This freedom allows the soul to peregrinate to higher planes and acquire new
knowledge [from illuminated ancestors]. The requirement for these epistemological
“trips” is the “death” of the sinning personality. Thus, the epistemological Kôngo
cross is clockwise. It points firstly to the sunset as the abandonment of, or silencing,
the limiting material senses. Through the sunset (the point 4, see figure 3), the West, it
leads the initiate from the side 1 as nseke, this plane of existence, to the side 2 as
mpêmba, the world of holy ancestors as the true origin of our higher solar scientific
knowledge, and leads back the initiate to nseke through the sunrise, the East (the point
3), with new light.
 On the ethical line, the Bantu culture teaches the notion of the ubûntu. The ethic of
ubûntu links the love of oneself to the love of the community. The solar scientific
basis of this perception is demonstrated by the systematic natural theology to be the
fact that the Word, the true nature of the mûntu, is in a double manifestation as the
fullness of the divinity that abides in him and that surrounds him. Thus, the cross, as
the summary of the spiral, points to the impetus of the Word as leading to the moral
elevation of the mûntu and his community (Luyaluka, 2017a).
 In the line of cosmogony, solar religion teaches that creation requires the descent of
the creator to a temporal consciousness. This implies going from point 1, from the
eternal infinite light, to the sunset, the point 4, in order to help fallen Children of God
stuck in the darkness at point 2. From point 2, creation leads them to point 3, to the
dim light of the temporal realm. Thus, this cross is clockwise.
 In the line of cosmology, the systematic natural theology of Bukôngo teaches that the
motions and dynamics of the temporal universe are the result of the isotropic
acceleration of the creator back to the celestial realm. We have seen in chapter 3 that
this perception lead to the simplest and deterministic explanation of the dynamics of
the temporal universe at the astronomic and subatomic levels, a solar “theory of
everything.” Therefore, it is counterproductive to try to explain the Kôngo cosmogram
in the line of modern big-bang physics, as Fukiau, and ourselves sometimes, did.
 In the life unfoldment line, the Kôngo cross alludes to the immortality of life. It shows
that the fall of humanity down to the earth and the ascension of the mûntu back to his
original divinity happens in a succession of lives, bizingu, that form a spiral.
From all these arguments, it follows that the notion of the Kôngo cross must grasped, beyond
the restrictive cosmological perception, as the summary of all the religious teachings of the
Kôngo culture. It is in this vein that the Kôngo initiates used this symbol: it was for them a
reminder of all the teachings their received in the initiatory forest. The Kôngo cross is an
epistemological, theological, cosmogonical, cosmological, ethical symbol, and even more.

4. This is an extract of the book titled BUKÔNGO (400 pages) published on Amazon by
Kiatezua L. Luyaluka, Ph.D. (hon.).
Please click here to access the book.
Abstract of the book BUKÔNGO
This work studied the Kôngo religion, Bukôngo, by avoiding Western hampering theological
and philosophical presuppositions. It reveals the deep perception the Kôngo people had of
religion, before their encounter with the West, as the n’kisi nsi, the use of spirits to divinely
empower the human being.
Bukôngo has been studied comparatively with the religions of ancient Egypt, Sumer and
primitive Christianity thanks to a natural systematic theology to uncover their convergence as
renditions of the same solar and scientific religion. This led to a unified perception of African
traditional religions and stressed the need of solar renaissance as a recourse to the traditional
epistemological and theological paradigm for the elevation of Africa.
This study offers a deeper perception of Kôngo initiatory schools as academies of divine, civil
and martial mysteries; it revisited the notion of the Kôngo cross as the summary of the
doctrines of Bukôngo, a theological, cosmogonical, cosmological, epistemological, and
ethical symbol indigenous to the Kôngo people.
Extracted from the book BUKÔNGO