#  Divining for the Doctor 

 





December 17, 2024

 

 

 [ Eugenia Rainey ](/people/eugenia-rainey) 

*Edited by* [*Aaron Michael Ullrey*](https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/people/aaron-michael-ullrey)*.*

*This Research Reflection by Eugenia Rainey, Postdoctoral Fellow, Africa and African Diaspora Religions is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions.*

Many of us know—some of us know all too well—that getting a correct diagnosis is one of the most difficult challenges at the doctor’s office. Even with clear and open communication between doctor and patient, effective medical treatment can prove elusive, especially for people with chronic illnesses, multiple conditions, or unusual symptoms. For devotees of Lucumí, an Afro-Cuban religion popularly known as Santería, a priest’s spiritual reading or divination can help doctors diagnose patients.

It may seem odd to put Western medicine and divination in conversation, but in Lucumí cosmology, some physical illnesses are caused by spirits. In colonial Cuba, Yoruba people from West Africa were known as Lucumí or Lukumí. The transatlantic slave trade brought them to the Americas, where they adapted their religious practices to the circumstances of colonial Cuba and institutional slavery. I have been a scholar and devotee in the Lucumí community for over 30 years, and I have observed how religious practice, specifically divination, often relates to physical health.

Most reliable Lucumí priest-diviners encourage people to see a doctor. If an ill person sees a doctor and receives a simple and effective solution, they won’t seek out a diviner. But when the doctor’s diagnosis and treatments are ineffective, a diviner can illuminate tricky health conditions. The two divination systems commonly used are Ifá and Dilogún. Ifá is performed by a babalawo (father of the mystery) and uses kola nuts or an opele chain to reveal divinatory signs called odu. Dilogún is performed by an olorisha (a person who has orisha), using cowry shells to reveal an odu. In both instances, the odu sign is systematically interpreted by a diviner to reveal immaterial influences on the material world, including the nature and cause of illnesses.

One Lucumí devotee, I’ll call her Laila, suffered multiple and chronic illnesses. Laila had a good long-term relationship with her doctor. Yet, at one point, she suffered acute symptoms, and the blood work her doctor ordered revealed nothing, frustrating them both. She decided to consult a diviner and shared the diviner’s commentary at her next doctor visit. The doctor considered the diviner’s commentary, then re-evaluated her blood work to focus on a single test result initially thought to be within the normal range. Subsequent tests revealed a small tumor. The tumor was removed, and Laila’s symptoms were gone. Since then, when seeking clarity in diagnosis, her doctor sometimes asks Laila if she’s been to see a diviner.

Lucumí does not see medicine as a threat. When I speak to people, their initial assumption is that Lucumí rejects medicine in favor of religion and that only one can be valid. Santeria, a popular name for Lucumí, was initially coined to replace the derogatory term burjaria (witchcraft) that had been applied to Lucumí practices. While the name became popular, meaning “The Way of the Saints,” it reinforces the notion that Lucumí is a combination of Catholicism and generic “African Religions,” that it is a syncretic religion. For some in the community, religion is another way of being Catholic. For others, Lucumí practices are independent of Catholicism. Other terms for Lucumí are La Regla de Ocha, Ocha, Yoruba Traditional Religion, Ifa, or Orisha Religion, none of which suggest a Catholic framework. Historically, labeling Lucumí syncretic was a way for Catholicism and secular powers to degrade it as an ‘impure’ religion, and its being impure makes its divination technologies invalid.

There are, in reality, no pure religions without influences from other religions. Otherwise, decorating chicken eggs would not be associated with the Easter holiday, and the Christian calendar would be completely different. Syncretism is an empty descriptor, and a better term for Lucumi is inclusive. Other religions’ divinities and beliefs are not a challenge to Lucumí, for these are often meaningfully incorporated into religious practice. Many Lucumí community members are, in fact, multireligious, practicing one religion alongside another and maintaining complex and diverse positions on this reality.

Lucumí emphasizes practice rather than dogma; it is about taking action. If you go to a diviner and are told, “The orisha Yemoya loves you, go to the ocean and tell her about your illness. She will help you find the right words to explain your symptoms to the doctor,” and as a result, you do as directed then you are taking action, whether you believe in the orisha named Yemoya or not. The material world, which is visible, exists alongside the immaterial, which is invisible. The immaterial world is crowded with many beings. The numerous orisha—associated with forces of nature, features of the landscape, and human endeavors like child rearing or technology—were created by Olodumare—the source that animates everything in the universe—to look after humanity and help people solve problems, like how to get your doctor to actually see that tumor.



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Researcher Reflections ](/topic-tags/researcher-reflection)