“Practical Christianity”: Revelation and the Power of Prayer

In a Nigerian church community, visioners offer both public revelations during services and private consultations for individuals seeking guidance. When a sister receives a message in a Sunday service, she may seek further direction through her own dreams or by meeting privately with a visioner, who prays and provides revelatory guidance. Visioners encourage clients to engage with the church while also addressing personal needs. In private sessions, visioners reveal God's messages and recommend prayer and ritual actions, deploying spiritual power similar to a babalawo. This chapter focuses on the private divinatory practice of visioners and their use of spiritual power.

Study at a glance

Abstract

If the sister who received this message in a Sunday service was an experienced spiritualist, she might well seek this direction through her own dreams and visions. But she might also make a personal appointment with a visioner, who would put the problem before God in prayer, and offer revelatory guidance. Public revelation and private consultation are two aspects of the same process: visioners encourage their clients to involve themselves in the collective life of the church, but also, when they reveal messages in public, they may see that a member needs the personal attention of an experienced visioner. Often, clients refer themselves or introduce friends in trouble to a visioner. In these sessions, the visioner—like the babalawo —will not only reveal what God has to say about their problems, but also recommend prayer and ritual action. It is this deployment of spiritual power in private divinatory practice that forms the subject of this chapter.