THE SECRET BIBLE OF AFRICA ACCORDING TO BWITI

There are not many books about the Bwiti Tradition available in English. Most of them are in French, and are generally not easy to find. It’s even more challenging to find books that are written not by anthropologists, but by the bearers of the Tradition, people who have been initiated into the high mysteries of this Primordial Wisdom.

Parts of this wisdom, hidden in Central Africa and transmitted orally from masters to their disciples, were finally put on paper in 1952 in Paris, when one of the high initiates of the Bwiti Tradition, Prince Birinda de Boudéugui des Echiras, wrote and published a book “Le Bible Secréte des Noirs selon le Bouiti (Doctrine Initiatique de L’Afrique Equatoriale)” — The Sacred Bible of the Blacks according to Bwiti (The Initiatic Doctrine of Equatorial Africa). This book, originally published by Omnium Litteraire, was published again in 1995 by Les Éditions du Prieuré by name “L’Initiation Africane”, The African Initiation. The latter, unfortunately didn’t have all the original images that help to understand better the Bwiti doctrine described in this book. This translation is of the earlier edition and includes the original images.

This translation was made by the initiates and students of the Bwiti masters for those who wants study the Tradition. People involved in it are not professional translaters and French is not their mother tongue. For highest accuracy, it’s good to compare it with the original French version. To improve understanding and to make this book more accessible to the contemporary reader, we made some adjustments to modernise the language, included original footnotes in the body text, and added extra notes from the translator.

The name of the book was translated as “The Secret Bible of Africa according to Bwiti”.

This translation is for educational purposes only and is not for distribution, sale, or print. It will remain as a digital copy and will be freely shared with everyone who wish to study the Bwiti Tradition.