Why Self-Initiation Can’t Replace Actual Initiation in African Spirituality
There is a worrying trend of people reading textbooks or Google-searching rituals in African spirituality and claiming to be legitimate practitioners or, in the worst-case, priests. This article will expand on why self-initiation after reading books is unlikely to be effective and sometimes even dangerous. While books and theoretical research can offer valuable insights on African spiritual traditions, they can never substitute a physical initiation by an experienced elder or practitioner.
Unlike prevalent religions such as Christianity and Islam, African spiritual and herbal traditions such as Vodu, Fa (Ifa), Isese, Santeria, Palo, etc., are not religious practices where practitioners need “to believe” alone to be effective. These traditions require extensive study of herbal formulas, the transfer of energy from teacher to student, and apprenticeship under elders who possess esoteric spiritual wisdom. At their core, these traditions are problem-solving tools developed by indigenous Africans to assist society, not purely faith-based practices.
Unfortunately, many new practitioners, especially from a religious background, assume that African spirituality is similar to Christianity or Islam, where faith in African deities or one’s ancestors is the essential factor in becoming effective practitioners. This assumption cannot be further from the truth. In reality, it is initiation and mentorship from elders that will determine how effective one’s practice is in the long run.
These are three reasons why I believe textbook self-initiation cannot replace physical initiation from elders in African spirituality:
1. Initiation by a practitioner legitimizes your relationship with a deity in ways Google or books cannot.
In the spirit world, authority matters. Even spirits among themselves have strict hierarchies depending on age, power, elements, and more. In the Fa (Ifa) tradition, the 256 Odus are ranked from the eldest to the youngest. This kind of authority or hierarchy also affects human-spirit relationships. Spirits are more likely to listen to instructions from a practitioner with spiritual authority and experience than a layperson they have no connection to. Even for human relationships, a person is likely to listen to a person they trust or has authority over strangers or everyday people.
Why do experienced priests have authority over spirits? Priests have authority over spirits because they know the secrets of spirits. They know what herbs to put in their mouth to make the deity listen to their command(spirits also can lie, so sometimes they must be forced through herbal means to tell the truth). They know what incantations or secret names to use to get a positive response.
Moreover, they have built a long-standing, trusting relationship with many powerful spirits, making other spirits recognize their authority. My father, with over 40 years of experience, always says, “Powerful spirits do not voluntarily surrender themselves; unless you are powerful yourself, they have no obligation to listen to you.” If you don’t know the secrets of a spirit or have equally powerful energies around you, in reality, you have no real authority over spirits. Why should a powerful entity surrender itself to a person with no real power?
Therefore, a crucial part of initiation is for the priest or practitioner to ask a spirit to follow the initiate by transferring that divine authority to the new initiate. It is like introducing a trusted friend to a new person. In self-initiation, however, you do not get any formal introduction from an authority, which can be futile or dangerous. At our shrine, we’ve had to save many people who, because of their extra-sensory perceptive abilities (“the third eye”), started communicating with spirits only to start being harassed by the spirit later on with no way to avert it. Being able to communicate with spirits is not the same as having authority over them to work with them safely and effectively.
2. In initiation, you receive the tools to communicate with a particular spirit.
Apart from being given the authority and a formal introduction, initiation usually involves going through specific rituals to enhance a deity’s connection with an initiate. In many Vodu initiations, the priest or practitioner empowers atakui (alligator seeds in English) with mystical incantations (gbesa) for new initiates to swallow. Think of it like a sim card and a phone. A phone (you) is useless unless it has a valid sim card (the seeds or tools) that will allow you to make a call. Without the proper tools and rituals to engage a spirit, your prayers will be futile. In textbook initiation, you do not get the “sim card.”
Apart from receiving the “SIM card” to connect with the deity, initiation usually involves receiving ritually-empowered talismans, herbal baths, bottles, and other spiritual items that support the spirit-human relationship. While these items are not the spirits themselves, they are vessels that spirits use to work on the physical plain. The phone analogy is again useful here. While Vodafone or MTN have invisible waves all around us, we still need a physical phone specially prepared to receive those waves to connect to make a call. You will have minimal knowledge about the herbal formulas required to make spiritual vessels, “the phone”, in Google-searched tutorials. Even if you can obtain all the items needed to make the spirit, you will still be missing the incantations and spiritual authority required to make the deity listen to your command.
3. In initiation, you learn about how to handle spirits in their positive and negative manifestation from elders.
How do you invoke the deity? What animals does the spirit eat or not eat? What are its taboos? What are its secret names? What do you do when the spirit gets angry? These are all things that one learns during a physical initiation from an expert. This knowledge is one that has orally been passed on for centuries from practitioner to initiate. Without this wisdom, you might hear spirits, but you will be unlikely to work with them, especially when things go wrong effectively.
Unlike some religions where one needs to just “repent” to be absolved of all wrongdoing, African deities like those I have encountered in Vodu get angry when an initiate goes against their rules (taboos) or goes against society (harming people for selfish gain). They can create prosperity when happy and destroy when angered. If a person repeatedly refuses to listen to their advice, they will punish the person. When a person starts experiencing a spirit’s wrath, only experienced practitioners with in-depth knowledge can neutralize it. Sometimes, for example, special herbal baths that can repel spirits are used to save them (such measures have saved me at times). Without such actions, a person can become ill, mentally unstable, or in the worst case, even die.
Certain spirits (I.e., Egu (Ogun)-the deity or Iron) are harsher than others when they get angry, so it is essential to be aware of the spirit’s attributes before getting involved with it. A good teacher will not initiate you into any energy you cannot handle, but you have no guidance in self-initiation, which can be quite dangerous. I mention this not to frighten potential practitioners but highlight African spiritual practice’s real dangers without adequate supervision.
While it is possible to get the basic knowledge about African deities in books, in-depth details are always kept secret. Why? If one knew in-depth information about a spirit, one could easily either harm the priest or society. For this reason, many priests only initiate those they trust to their most powerful spirits. I know many priests that don’t even initiate their children because they do not trust them enough. Indeed, many of African spirituality’s deepest secrets will never be found in books due to their real dangers in the wrong hands.
What about ancestors?
But what about connecting with one’s ancestors? Unlike getting initiated into nature-based spirits such as Vodu or Orishas, you don’t need to be initiated to revere one’s ancestors. Libations to ancestors are possible without any special rituals or herbs. However, even though even laypeople can do simple rituals with ancestors, more advanced rituals are often done by priests in African spirituality. For example, when ancestors want to protect a person against an illness or bring them out of a big predicament, they often request animals through divination to be sacrificed to empower them to fight for their “child.” A layperson cannot do such sacrifices effectively without training. In short, even for certain kind of ancestral work, mentorship or assistance from experienced practitioners is necessary.
To conclude, self-initiation will never replace physical initiation by experienced practitioners in African spirituality for all the reasons noted above. Some people might do this, but their practice, in my view, cannot be equated to centuries-old African traditions in terms of potency and depth. One does not become a practitioner of African spirituality by merely “believing” in African deities or ancestors and reading books about them. Without supervision from experienced mentors and the appropriate tools, many of these people are likely to be practicing placebo African spirituality, which is less like African spirituality (what our ancestors practiced) and more like religions like Christianity and Islam, which are more faith-dependent. In the worst-case scenario, they can even hurt themselves by connecting with spirits they can’t control.
In your view, is it possible to self-initiate into African spirituality? Why or why not?
Learn more about the types of initations we offer here.
