All tagged traditional religions

Materials in Motion in South African Healing Spaces

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in South Africa since 2021, this essay highlights the circulations of materials such as plants, stones, shells, powders, divining tools, and ritual substances between healing spaces generally considered as separate. These include spaces where specialists identify as holistic practitioners or spiritual seekers (reiki masters, energy or light workers, Tarot readers, psychic mediums, etc.) and those where officiants present themselves as indigenous diviners and healers, or sangomas: a Zulu term widely used. The circulation of material elements, as well as, to a lesser extent, of spirits and ritual subjects – whether human or more-than-human – between such spaces suggest their intrinsic, profound, and undoubtedly long-standing intertwining. It shows that the practices performed in them are intrinsically hybrid, creative and complex, which raises the question of the relevance of categories applied to them, such as African Traditional Religions, indigenous healing traditions, esotericism, or even alternative spiritualities, categories that emphasize the separateness rather than interconnectedness of the phenomena that they label.