Page 215 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

200 Marleen de Witte

with traditional formats of mediating between people and spirits. First,
Afrikania insists on the possibility of “conversion to traditional religion” as
a personal decision based on inner conviction. Most Afrikania leaders are
“converted” from Catholicism. This understanding of individual religious
transformation is founded on a Protestant Christian heritage. In African
traditional religious practice religious bonding is generated by very differ-
ent models, most notably that of “initiation,” which suggests a ritual trans-
formation not only of the spirit, but of the body. Moreover, this
transformation is not initiated from within, by personal choice, but from
outside, by being called by a deity, usually through an illness or other cri-
sis. Initiation as a bodily process of going through affliction and healing
and the fusion of human body and deity forms the basis of a person’s bond
with a particular deity. This is remarkably similar to charismatic-Pentecostal
conversion, which, although presented as an individual choice out of inner
conviction, also implies a ritual and sensual transformation of the body
into the locus of and medium of interaction with the Holy Spirit.
Second, Afrikania’s church service, performed according to the rules
and conventions of a prescribed and rehearsed liturgy, conflicts with the
“uncanny wildness” of spirit possession (Rosenthal 1998, 58). While
Afrikania stresses the importance of coming together every Sunday to
form a community and worship god in an orderly manner, in traditional
religious practice communication with the spirit world requires formats
that are very different from the formats of “church service.” These formats
are instead characterized by a loss of control over the body, which mediates
directly in the experience of the presence of gods. Third, Afrikania’s beau-
tification of traditional religion and the elimination of anything consid-
ered ugly or dirty conflicts with the spiritual power attributed to, for
example, animal blood or fermented herbs. Many shrine practices thus do
not fit the “civilized” form of religion Afrikania has created. Shrine priests,
even those among the membership, therefore perceive the movement as
offering at most ideological leadership and organizational protection, but
not spiritual leadership.
A fundamental tension thus exists between Afrikania’s very project of
public representation and the embodied and often secretive character

of African religious traditions, that is, between Afrikania’s public register
of representing gods and traditional religious practitioners’ more private
registers of dealing with the presence of gods. Afrikania engages primar-
ily in public discourse of talking about spirituality and has developed a
strong public voice for the defense of traditional religious practices, but
remains very limited in more private registers of engaging with the spiri-
tual. The spiritual consultation it offers now is still a marginal side-activity.
Afrikania’s symbolization of traditional religion through formats and