About us... read and shiver!
This website Ifa-Orisha, an introduction to Ifa divination is created and being maintained by myself, that is Jaap Verduijn... in The Religion also known under various other names like Odebunmi, "the Heretic", and "that idiot who reads Ifa without being a Babalawo". All names are genuine, and I'm very pleased to meet you too!
If you like to (which I can hardly imagine), you can read a bit more about me on other pages - but you must understand that doing so is not necessary, it might even turn out to be counter productive (wide and wicked grin)! Somewhat more helpful is the form below, which you can use to contact us in order to convey your questions, weather predictions, remarks, love poems, and tastefully worded insults.
However, Everybody wants to know:
I am NOT a Babalawo! Nor am I "one of the guys". I am an Ifa/Afa/Fa/Evwa/Ebba etcetera diviner and in the Orunmila system an Onifa, here and there also called Omolawo. Actually I don't give a shit what anybody calls me.
I was born in 1945. In 1994 I was initiated into Ifa-Orisha as a Priest of Oshoosi and an Omolawo of Ifa by Awo Fa'Lokun Fatunmbi from the lineage of Araba (leading Ifa priest) Adesanya Awoyade in Ode Remo, Nigeria. Until 2006 I was the chief priest of the late lamented (wide grin!) Dutch Church of Ifa and Orisha. Due to fundamental differences of opinion, early 1997 Baba Fa'Lokun and I split up. Since then an amendment to the Statutes of the Dutch Church of Ifa and Orisha (as mentioned above: now defunct) declared: "By its liberal/latitudinarian nature the Genootschap is not bound by what elsewhere may be understood under Ifa-Orisha. Although initiated within, and usually acting according to, the traditions of the Egbe Ifa in the Nigerian regio Ode Remo, the Chief Priest and with him the Church are always entitled to individual interpretation." Nevertheless the godchild still has a sneaking fondness for his former godfather, on whose request we post: "Jaap, you may tell people that I initiated you, but you must also tell them that I am no longer your teacher, because of your refusal to learn the sacred technology of Ifa as it is practiced in Africa". Well... never in his life has the man been so wrong! But if this is what Awo Fa'Lokun wants me to state, no sweat.
So... I'm an Ifa diviner. Nothing more. Nothing less either. Again, I'm an Ifa diviner - not an Ifa priest. So my "ministerial administerings" (does such a term even exist - wide grin?) are strictly limited to divination for clients and to what this divination may or may not instruct me to do for them. If anything crops up that I consider out of my competence, out of my client's competence, out of what's practically possible, out of what's acceptable part of the local culture... that sort of thing... I ask Ifa for "what can be done instead" and invariably a fine alternative is immediately produced.
Again... I am a practicing Ifa/Fa/Evwa/Ebba/Afa etcetera DIVINER... I am not, repeat NOT an Orunmila priest... neither initiated, nor practicing. There's lots of them around already - don't think the world needs another one because in the end it will be all Chiefs and no Indians. So I do diviner's things... which basically is doing what the oracle tells me to do. I'm a specialist - not a generalist. I don't do initiations (neither as an Omolawo because as such I can't, nor as an Oshoosi priest because as such I won't), I don't do drummings, I don't do feasts... I do divination. Ifa/Fa/Evwa/Ebba/Afa etcetera divination. That clear now? Fine!
Let's make google and the government happy
Backyard "The Katsburgh"
In order to comply with the increasing number of rules, instructions, strongly expressed wishes and firm orders from just about any organization that occupies itself with policing the internet, we provide you with our physical address and some other stuff that is all over the web anyway... like the picture of our fully out-of-control back yard:
Jaap Verduijn
Otterloseweg 6
6718 ZM, Ede
Netherlands
Phone +31318840657
Cellphone: +31654208123
