Look Around

Ifá is a Yorùbá system for reaching a decision by casting a signature, retrieving the memorised verses filed under it, and reasoning from the precedents they contain.

The decade or more of memorisation before initiation, the stages of entry, how knowledge is checked between practitioners, and the real disagreement about women in Ifá.

Orunmila as orisa rather than as a divination system: who he is, why he alone witnessed the choosing of destinies, his relationship to Esu and to Olodumare, and his cult. The Ifa corpus itself is covered in 05-ifa.

The orisa of leaves and of the knowledge of what plants do, the one-limbed body, the iron staff of birds, and the relationship between Osanyin and the practising herbalist.

The history and structure of Yoruba-derived religion in Cuba, from the cabildos de nación to the modern casa-templo, including initiation, Ifá, diloggún, the saint correspondences and the traditions it is wrongly conflated with.

The knowledge system of the onisegun, the categories of oogun, what pharmacological research has and has not confirmed about Yoruba herbal medicine, and the specialist practitioners.

What Ifá is, how the divination actually works step by step, how the binary structure produces 256 addresses into a memorised corpus, and what is true and false in the claim that it is an ancient computer.

The òrìṣà priesthoods of Brazil, Cuba and the United States, the Ọ̀yọ́túnjí experiment, and the Yoruba-descended public figures of Britain and America from Kemi Badenoch to David Oyelowo.

How Yoruba traditionalists organized themselves institutionally under the banner of Ìṣẹ̀ṣe, won civic recognition including a public holiday, and how the priesthood, urban space, and the ritual economy have adapted to city life and global demand.

Who actually practises Yoruba medicine, how the specialisms divide, how a practitioner is trained and how long it takes, and how expertise is checked among practitioners themselves rather than by any outside body.

Twenty-one Yorùbá proverbs about the Ifá oracle, its priests, and divination, showing how the profession, its discipline, and its authority are talked about in everyday speech.

The cosmology, mythological narratives, priesthood structure, sacred geography, and Atlantic diaspora trajectories of Ọ̀rúnmìlà, the Yoruba divinity of wisdom and witness of destiny.

The annual Yorùbá festival of Ifá divination, renewal of cosmological covenants, communal prognostication, and royal patronage.

The third principal sign of the Ifá divination corpus, its geomantic structure, regional ranking variations, textual themes, and published oral literature.

A tortoise tale in which Ìjàpá tastes a fertility medicine prepared for his wife three times and dies of it, with the Yorùbá text of the Alugbinrin pleading song from a named informant.

A cautionary tale in which a beautiful woman who refuses every suitor marries a stranger assembled from borrowed limbs, and escapes his house by stuffing the watchman's alarm horn with oiled bean cakes.

The distinct Yoruba ritual, medical and priestly occupations, what each is trained to do, what each may not do, and where they are commonly confused with one another.

Five claims routinely made about Yoruba practice, stated plainly and answered with evidence: divination as fortune-telling, ebo as bribery, babalawo as priest, traditional medicine as superstition, and orisa worship as polytheism.

An analysis of the pedagogical structures, initiation rites, duration, and esoteric boundaries governing Ifá diviners, herbalists, and deity priests in Yoruba tradition.

The ethical frameworks, disciplinary codes, fee structures, confidentiality requirements, and guild regulations governing Yoruba diviners and herbal healers.

The historical development, functional boundaries, and colonial transformations of the babaláwo, oníṣègùn, adáhunṣe, and related Yoruba healing specialists.

A systematic delineation of distinct Yorùbá intellectual, liturgical, and therapeutic offices, separating Ifá diviners, herbal pharmacologists, deity-specific priests, spirit mediums, and female ritual titles often conflated in colonial and contemporary discourse.

A comparative analysis of the four primary Yorùbá divination methods, distinguishing their instruments, mathematical structures, priesthoods, and ritual scopes.