I am an igqirha (healer): phenomenological and experiential spiritual journey towards healing identity construction

Abstract

Traditional healers are acknowledged within their communities as possessing special insight, intuition knowledge and skills to connect and converse with the universe better than an ordinary person. African religions are endowed with a wide variety of traditional healers and healing practices, using diverse healing practices, symbolisms and interpretations relevant to the contextual setting of their cultures. Rooted in that diversified rich ecological heritage of the indigenous religions, are unique personal spiritual journeys that depict individual phenomenological and existential ways of constructing meaningful special spiritual healing identities. Healing identities are created and manifested in different socio-cultural, physical and spiritual abundant sacred spaces travelled by an initiate. This is an inborn gift from ancestors. The spiritual journey is abundantly infested by crisis and requires resilience, passion and faith. I give my personal phenomenological spiritual life journey in the traditional and spiritual quest for a holistically construed healing identity and proper individuation. The journey encompasses various stages with differentiated growth, maturity and competences to be acquired. The objective for this narrative is many fold. It is a response to various individual respondent experiences, questions and inquiries that I always receive from the conference audiences and unique feedback narratives from others who are either in the confusion stage or denial stage, yet they are aware they have a calling to accept. Ukuthwasa journey is briefly discussed and the historical ontology of ukuthwasa is mapped up. The discussion addresses the responses expected as evidence based results to confirm the reality of ukuthwasa and its value to the self, family and community at large. In conclude by highlighting, my own revelations and reflections on what could be done and how I finally achieved my healing identity and its relation to the universe at large.
I am a fully-fledge trained igqirha, teacher, nurse and pastor. I practise as a Clinical psychologist and I have founded a prophesized church, a dream I had in 2001. I am also a founder of a community project for rural development at my village. All these achievements were shown to me by dreams and I followed my dreams under very challenging circumstances. I am from a family with a rich lineage of healers from both my paternal and maternal side, yet both became staunch Christian converts and ignored the cultural rites. To become a healer was not easy.