Healing Spirit Talk and More

My Lucumi experience is what many people seem to ask me about most.  It was an experience or process that helped to form the me that I am.  On June 24, 1999 I was crowned Obatala (Oba Moro) in Havana, Cuba.  I was basically living for all practical purposes a  "Cuban Life" at that point and for some years up until that point.  What is so ironic is that the saint that chose my head is syncretized with Jesus of Nazareth and my ita (life reading) was very clear that my life purpose was to do spiritual readings (not shell readings) for my livilihood. 

I was asked to add more info into this page and I will.  There are so many aspects to the Yoruba rooted Afro Cuban religion, Lucumi or Regla de Ocha that I could not possible scratch the surface.  It is a religion that was brought with the African slaves from the west coast of Africa from countries including Nigeria, Benin and Togo.

The is the belief system which the main belief is in God whose name is Oludumare.  There is the core divination system whose core is Ifa, with other divinations under it, Meridiloggun and Obi (coconut shell casting).  The Ifa corpus is made up of 256 odus and is practice by initiated priests of Ifa called babalawos.  These priests are male in Cuban Lucumi.  But many women have gone to Nigera to become initiated as Iyanifa and they practice divination through Ifa.  This is not done it Cuba and it is a somewhat controversial subject.  Initiated priests and priestess (babaloshas, iyaloshas or santeros and santeras) can learn the meridiloggun (16 cowries shells) method of the system.  All are expected to learn and practice Obi casting for yes and no questions.

There is a place for the spirista or espiritualista  (spiritist or spiritualist) in this religion.  Before a person gets iniated in the Lucumi system, spiritist or spiritualist (who may also be a santero/a) determine the person's spirit guides.  There are also some that have a practice of doing just spiritual readings without the utilization of the cowry system. This depends on the person's life path. 

It is my experience with readings for different people from different walks of life is how they word their readings.  If they are a prophet that believes in God in the biblical sense that may say the Spirit of the Lord, or " thus saith the Lord" or something similar to it.  A babalawo is getting his info from Ifa and will say Ifa says.  A spiritualist may say "Spirit is saying"  or "they if they feel they are getting things from guides.  I see a lot and I will tell the client that "I see, you opening that business, the building looks like...." 

I hope this helps for a light beginning.  I wanted to touch on this aspect as this is a site on spiritual readings.