{"id":614,"date":"2024-01-07T02:21:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T02:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=614"},"modified":"2025-02-06T02:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T02:30:07","slug":"the-supreme-hogon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2024\/01\/07\/the-supreme-hogon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Hogon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By J. Darnell Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a storyteller, J. Darnell Johnson is gifted, from children\u2019s books to sci-fi\/fantasy to Afrofuturism. For those who are in the Twin Cities metro area, Johnson will be one of the participating authors at the We Are Wordsmiths event to be held at St. Peter\u2019s AME Church on February 24, so you can see his works and hear him share his stories. That being said, I bring to you my full review of his sci-fi\/fantasy story, The Supreme Hogon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Smart, a renowned astrophysicist with the credentials of a Ph.D., is cynical and skeptical of his nephew Tee\u2019s accounts of the Dogon people in Mali and the existence of a Supreme Hogon. According to Tee, a Hogon is \u201ca shaman, high priest, diviner, spiritualist, and wise man,\u201d who possesses ancient supernatural powers of seeing into the universe. After Tee leaves for an evening with his friends, Tony\u2019s curiosity impels him to research the Dogon people and make a trip to Mali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the Mystery of the Dogon tour, he finally meets Ambaro, the Supreme Hogon. The price? A basket of kola nuts. Tony\u2019s Western mindset challenges Ambaro when it comes to proving things we cannot see, and touting his own scientific knowledge and Ph.D. Ambaro, however, checks him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ambaro\u2019s knowledge of Smart\u2019s terminal cancer throws Tony for a loop. How in the world could he have known that? When doctors confirm that his cancer has returned and he has only six weeks to live, Tony agrees to undertake the Dogon initiation. As a result, his cancer is eliminated from his body, and Tony becomes a believer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He convinces Ambaro to come to the U.S. to test his stargazing power against the scientific marvel of the Hubble telescope. In the interest of national security, Ambaro\u2019s visit is kept secret. Despite the dismissive attitudes of the NASA administrator, the deputy administrator, and the few engineers selected for the test, Ambaro\u2019s ancient power surpasses the technology of the Hubble telescope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah, but there is a twist. Tony and Tee have secret identities, ones that will mean the difference between life and death for Ambaro when he suddenly disappears\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson gives us an awesome interpretation of Eastern vs. Western culture, ancient vs. modern, patience vs. impatience, wisdom vs. arrogance. There is so much phenomena happening in the world that cannot be explained; Tony\u2019s bafflement over how the seemingly primitive Dogon people possessed power and knowledge that far predated anything in modern times is one example. Thanks for the hat tip to the legend of John Henry vs. the steam locomotive; not everything is what it seems. And thank you for another illustration of how people can fear what they do not understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Hogon is available through the Minnesota Black Authors Expo website (www.mnblackauthorexpo.com<\/a>), Strive Publishing, and his author website, (jdarnelljohnson.com).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, James, for giving us the gift of Ambaro and the way you interweave the past with the future. If we don\u2019t share our stories, who will?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By J. Darnell Johnson As a storyteller, J. Darnell Johnson is gifted, from children\u2019s books to sci-fi\/fantasy to Afrofuturism. For those who are in the Twin Cities metro area, Johnson will be one of the participating authors at the We Are Wordsmiths event to be held at St. Peter\u2019s AME Church on February 24, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[200,118,301],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-afrofuturism","tag-childrens-book","tag-sci-fi-fantasy","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/The-Supreme-Hogon-e1738808953555.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}