By year-end, we realized that the class would require more than one video lecture per “odu” so we decided to create a second term to deepen our perspective. It was at this time that Baba Solomon helped us to expand our knowledge by adding video lessons called "special classes" to address a wide variety of topics that arose inside Odu. We have special topics on Obi, Ori, Egbe, Egungun, Iyami, Olokun, and so on.
These special topics were lectures that spoke to specific questions people in the diaspora had about contemporary Nigerian Orisa practice. These lectures (now webinars) along with the Erindilogun classes, were designed to enrich understandings of worship that had survived, and not, in the Americas.
Our second cohort of Erindilogun class formed in the Spring of 2020 took place on Facebook, in a private group. In 2020-21, we expanded our student body to include individuals beyond the initial group and made our “special classes” on Iyami, Ori, Olokun, and other topics available to a wider audience. Both Erindilogun cohorts have taught us a lot about how we want to move forward and we realized we needed to create a more formal program. Therefore, in 2021 we transformed video lectures into webinars and moved operations onto an international online learning platform called Hotmart. Online chats and news groups continue on WhatsApp with Baba Solomon keeping us informed of his activities in Nigeria.
We are currently (2021-2023) in our third Erindilogun cohort and have over 150 people studying with us. We continue to grow, consider and propose new material to our teacher, Baba Solomon. This growth is born from our needs as spiritual people in the 21st century to see healing and the restoration of balance happen in our communities. We do this study so that we may transform the knowledge that Baba Solomon brings us, into wisdom, hence the meaning of our name, Egbe Imodoye Orisa which means "Orisa community that turns knowledge to wisdom."
Our focus is on centering the practices of Olorisas and the oracle of Merindinlogun divination as well as prayers, songs, oriki, and so on as the primary sources of knowledge and understanding in the Orisa tradition of the Olorisas. Classes explore deeply the core doctrines, practices, and beliefs of Olorisas. This is sometimes in contrast to or different from, the other major parallel and overlapping, and interwoven traditions in Nigeria, Ifa, and the priesthood of Orunmila.
We develop classes and create community out of our own love and enthusiasm for Orisa. We also study in the interest of ethically and skillfully serving the people that we care for spiritually as diviners, healers, iyalorisas and babalorisas, egbons, and Olorisas. Taken as a basic precept to Orisa worship: we receive to give and so on. We recognize there has long been a lack of access to knowledge and even basic information coming from Olorisas in Nigeria to Olorisas and other kinds of adepts in the Diaspora. We seek to create bridges, build community and elevate the skill sets and understandings in Olorisa practice.
About Our Community
We are a group of traditional Orisa practitioners, Iyas and Babas, Olorisas, ordained priests, elders, and juniors who study together with Baba Solomon Omojie. The traditions and lineages we come from are diverse: Lukumi, Candomble, Isese or Esin Ibile, but we are joined together by our love of Orisa and the desire to grow, deepen our knowledge and elevate our practice.
We respect the sacrifice, wisdom, tenacity, and beauty of our individual traditions and at the same time understand that our Olorisa brothers and sisters located in Nigeria have a unique ability to expand our understanding as they are at the source of our traditions.
What we do in this Egbe, is study together to enhance our relationship to our root traditions, not supplant them, or seek to change them. Our first cohort (group) came together in the Spring of 2019 to study “odu” weekly with a simple video lecture on WhatsApp and an interactive chat with a question-and-answer period. This group had committed to learning together for over a year.