I locked myself within the workplace restroom to flee my colleagues’ chatter. I wanted a quiet place to hearken to Oluwo Olawole Olakunle, a priest of Ifá—a revered Yoruba system of divination—ship a digital studying. In an interview days earlier than, Olakunle, who holds levels in data know-how and electrical engineering, described Ifá as a “question system” akin to a pc algorithm. “Ifá has no emotion,” he defined. “It’s rubbish in, rubbish out. You ask the suitable query, you get the reality.”

His analogy echoed the rise of technopaganism, a time period for the various methods religious follow is merging with digital know-how. At present, digital actuality, synthetic intelligence, and social media enable spiritualists to conduct immersive rituals, be a part of far-flung religious communities, and even seek the advice of AI-powered oracles. The traditional and the digital are fusing in ways in which would have appeared not possible a era in the past.

Prior to now, discovering spiritualists meant counting on word-of-mouth suggestions and endeavor a journey to a shrine, like Olakunle’s in Epe. Now, diviners are gaining prominence on social media platforms and conducting consultations and rituals nearly. Olakunle, who rose to fame in 2021 after his podcast and social media posts earned him a documentary, is one such practitioner.

He claims he has hundreds of unattended divination requests courting way back to three years in the past.

Fascinated, I requested him for a studying, posing the query within the minds of tens of millions of younger Africans: Why am I not making monetary progress? His voice, regular and punctuated by smooth Yoruba chants, shared solutions that felt extra like predictions: “Ifá says you’re destined for authority, however individuals who ought to be topics slander and plot in opposition to you.” He talked about threats to my household’s ancestral lands, a blackmail case, and the glimmer of sudden wealth on the horizon. He continued for half an hour

On the session’s finish, he prescribed actions: follow better hospitality, discard my previous cover, and pay ₦63,000 for him to obtain gadgets wanted to “feed” Orisa at his shrine in Epe, hours away, and a further ₦270,000 to fund the design of a private digital portal for every day divine steering.

The overall value, nearly 5 instances Nigeria’s minimal wage, gave me pause. As I stared at my scribbled notes, half-sceptical and half-mesmerised, I puzzled if the predictions had been a candid effort or educated guesses based mostly on benchmarks typical of an assertive Nigerian lady navigating a tradition the place sexism, harassment, and patriarchy prevail. Nonetheless, worldwide, a number of seekers are doling out money to on-line babalawos they meet on TikTok, Twitter, Fb, or customized e-commerce websites the place they record their companies.

Olakunle is constructing one such platform: Clergymen.Africa. Nevertheless, his objective goes past facilitating digital divination.

Know-how has lowered the barrier of entry for seekers who would usually not seek the advice of spiritualists for assist as a result of stigma of paganism in a world the place Christianity and Islam demonise different religions. It has additionally fostered fraudsters—people posing as spiritualists with out correct initiation or coaching and extorting unsuspecting seekers. A few of them are encouraging legal practices like human sacrifice, which a number of practitioners have said don’t align with the doctrines of the Yoruba gods.

Olakunle hopes that Clergymen.Africa will curtail this downside. It’s an internet platform that aggregates vetted spiritualists via background checks, mentor verification, and check divinations. The applying additionally capabilities as a messaging platform, enabling customers to ebook appointments and chat with diviners via textual content or voice notes. He says the platform ensures seekers discover genuine steering in a scam-ridden digital panorama.

This has been Olakunle’s focus: guiding folks to true faith, and it dates again to his private spiritual journey.

Abandoning staunch Christianity for Ifá’s name

Olakunle wasn’t born into Ifá. Raised in a Deeper Life Christian household in Lagos, his childhood brimmed with evangelical fervour. Bible recitations and warnings in opposition to “demonic” conventional practices outlined his early years. However as a youngster, curiosity led him to a shrine close to his secondary college in Abeokuta. There, he studied Ifá, not aspiring to follow however drawn to its logic, he defined throughout our interview.

Olakunle strongly believes that his consultations with Ifá are analogous to reasoning with a super-intelligent system, regardless of prevailing concepts that faith and know-how are at odds.

This stems from a long-running perception amongst a sect of adherents that the follow is scientifically backed. Ifá, often known as Fá, is a geomantic system, which in early Greek etymology means “the science of the sand.” It’s a pseudo-scientific follow the place spiritualists interpret geographic options, markings on the bottom, or the patterns fashioned by soil, rocks, or sand. These patterns are translated via binary indicators, which may tackle about 256 configurations believed to reference all conditions, circumstances, actions, and penalties in life. These kind the premise of conventional Yoruba religious data and are the muse of all Yoruba divination methods, so an Ifá priest is supposed to know them, usually via oral traditions handed down from one babalawo to a different.

“Ifá is sort of a database,” he stated. “You ask, it solutions—pure, unfiltered reality.”

Regardless of his fascination, he needed to stay a worshipper and pupil of the faith whereas finding out digital engineering at Yaba School of Know-how.

However just a few years after commencement, Olakunle turned to Ifá as his function and full-time job.

Destiny had dealt him an financial setback. He was between jobs, having labored for seven months at Forte Oil, the petroleum firm based by Nigerian billionaire Femi Otedola. He later moved to Abuja the place he turned a nationwide youth chief on the KOWA get together. The KOWA get together, fashioned by technocrats and youths in search of an inclusive get together, was the primary Nigerian political get together to undertake on-line voting and written exams for candidates in its presidential primaries. Regardless of his political involvement, which saved him amongst influential folks, Olakunle was broke.

In 2016, Olakunle was jobless and sleeping on a good friend’s ground in Abuja, he instructed me. “I used to be so broke that when my buddies had a marriage in Lagos, they didn’t even give me an invite as a result of they knew I couldn’t afford the garments or transportation.” Flights to Abuja had been about ₦22,000 to ₦25,000 again then.

Feeling as if supernatural forces had been hindering his route, he sought divination from a good friend skilled in Ifá. The message was clear: his financial scenario would solely enhance if he turned a priest. Olakunle hesitated as a result of he was uncertain learn how to cope with the stigma and societal stereotypes of conventional spiritualists as uneducated or “demonic” and publicly surrender his mother and father’ faith.

But, in 2017, he started practising beneath a mentor, and by 2019, he was licensed as a babalawo.

As an alternative of being embarrassed by the stereotypical picture of a babalawo as “soiled, rugged, probably not educated, not aware of society,” he determined he was going to vary it. “By advantage of my venturing to review data know-how, I started to see Ifá from a technological viewpoint.” As an alternative, he determined to be a contemporary, tech-savvy priest, describing himself as an Afrofuturist on one in every of his social media platforms. He began a podcast to share his perspective, framing Ifá as a follow aligned with science.

He additionally had the Founders’ Ifá Program, providing divinations for tech founders and recommending enterprise insurance policies based mostly on Ifá’s insights. He declined to call a few of the corporations he had serviced to guard their privateness, however shared that these insights might be exact and impactful, corresponding to advising on management. “If Ifá is saying that this firm shall be higher headed by a girl, not a person, that data itself goes to avoid wasting the corporate from collapse,” he stated, citing an instance.

His work earned him a major following and press consideration that propelled him to fame. It has additionally made him extra clear-eyed in regards to the vulnerability that the lowered barrier has created for weak seekers who shall be deceived by scammers, he stated throughout our interview.

His resolution: Clergymen.Africa is about to launch in June 2025. Vetting is the platform’s spine; Olakunle says he just lately travelled to Ghana and Togo to do background checks, mentor verification, and check divination of spiritualists who’ve expressed curiosity in itemizing on the platform. This fashion, customers can entry diviners from totally different cultures. Once I requested him how he would confirm spiritualists from different cultures, Olakunle stated, “An actual babalawo is aware of one other.”

Nonetheless in improvement, the app will provide consultations through textual content or voice notes inside scheduled periods. It can additionally make sure that the required rituals or sacrifices are correctly carried out and guarantee refunds when spiritualists don’t end companies. Then again, the platform will cost diviners a fee on shopper charges, which shall be used to keep up the platform and assist workers that Olakunle is already constructing.

That is his second try at a divination app. His first, an AI-powered tarot system, failed because of inadequate funding. “By the point I had potential funding, it now not resonated with me. It was tedious to develop the functionalities and join the religious power to make sure correct readings,” he stated.

Regardless of this, Olakunle is resolute that Clergymen.Africa shall be a game-changer. Nevertheless, fraudulent spiritualists have lengthy plagued sacred traditions, predating the digital period. Whether or not know-how can curb this deception or dangers amplifying it’s a solution that solely time will reveal.

Editor’s word: This text was edited to replicate that the platform is called Clergymen. Africa, not Clergymen for Africa.