Revelation as Divinatory Practice

Abstract

The purpose of Aladura possession, unlike traditional Pentecostalism, is to transmit messages from God about members’ lives in order that appropriate prayer and remedial ritual action may be undertaken. An analysis of the subject matter of these revelations reflects the common circumstances of worker-students’ lives. In essence, the purpose is to discover the play of unseen forces that lie behind these daily preoccupations, to divine the unseen causes that contribute to difficulties and dis-ease, or which might frustrate future plans. “Divination,” Devisch says (1991: 12), “concerns the diagnosis and meaning of existential problems with a view to their management”—an apt description both of Ifa divining, and of Aladura visioning with which the C&S has replaced this indigenous oracle. Just as the analysis of falling in Spirit can be illuminated by the ethnography of possession, so I want to situate C&S practice in the context of African divinatory systems in order to contribute to an understanding of both.