On a recent Sunday afternoon, Philip John Neimark-a babalawo in the Ifa religion of western Nigeria-conducted a reading for an aspiring priest.
Neimark and the aspirant sat facing each other across Neimark`s desk, the surface of which was strewn with relics and mysterious paraphernalia. The babalawo-a diviner, an interpreter of signs-led the man through a ceremony first practiced in Nigeria`s Yoruba civilization centuries ago.
This, however, was 1990 in the combination den/workout room of Neimark`s opulent townhouse. The aspiring priest-a 32-year-old downtown wholesaler-wore Gentlemen`s Quarterly Casual and an expensive haircut.
The man prefers anonymity, but he belongs to a growing coterie of youthful entrepreneurs and professionals involving themselves in Ifa and going to Philip J. Neimark for readings.
Neimark has been an Ifa (pronounced eef-ah) babalawo (the w is virtually silent) for slightly more than a year. He is a prosperous, 50-year-old financial and stockmarket analyst, investment counselor and writer of popular newsletters on business trends.
That Sunday afternoon, Neimark dressed entirely in white-nothing ecclesiastically imposing, just the sporty look that any other Lincoln Parker might have worn. Gray-rimmed glasses and an equally gray short beard framed Neimark`s knowing grin, which seemed just a tic more smug than beatific.
Slouching in his chair, Neimark conducted an elaborate ceremony employing Yoruban divining chains, kola and palm nuts, alligator-pepper seeds, seashells, herbs, chants and ancient writings.
Small sacrifices
Other kinds of Ifa rites become even more intense. Some call for an animal sacrifice-typically a rooster or other fowl, but now and then a goat. Those gory rituals alone may hold down the number of yuppie initiates, although Neimark compares the bloodletting to Roman Catholic communion or the procedures that lead to kosher meat.
”I think some people are offended by it because they`re afraid of their own feelings, as opposed to the act of killing the animal,” he says. ”My basic feeling is that if an animal is killed for a purpose, to help a human being, and it`s done with respect and reverence and dignity, that`s it`s done with respect and reverence and dignity, that`s acceptable.”
No blood would be shed that Sunday, however. Instead, the well-groomed merchant earnestly took the final steps toward priesthood. Thenceforth, according to the procedure, he would bear the name of the orisha-or warrior-Yemaja, and share the powers of that special emissary to the all-powerful Ifa god, Oldumare.
Heeding Neimark`s instructions, the initiate chewed and swallowed exactly nine seeds from the alligator pepper. (”They`re hot!”) He held the kola and palm nuts in his fists and breathed upon them. He watched closely as Neimark tossed the nuts, read their patterns and interpreted messages from the divining chain, which he arranged upon the desk.
Prosperous, pragmatic
In several other well-off sectors of Chicago-from Oak Street boutiques to Merchandise Mart showrooms to Gold Coast apartments and campus dormitories-generally prosperous, generally white, generally pragmatic people have become dedicated Ifa followers.
By Neimark`s count, his circle numbers a bit more than 100, but the belief continues to spread that ancient Ifa ”magic” solves the problems of today.
Ifa originally traveled to the New World via the broken spirits and sad memories of African slaves. In various parts of this country, Asia and South America, babalawos gradually mixed the original Nigerian myths and rituals with the saints, icons and liturgy of western religions, which had been imposed on them by their owners.
In certain Chicago neighborhoods, babalawos practicing Cuban and South American versions of Ifa attract loyal followings, as do practitioners of Voudun in Haiti and Candomble in Brazil. Most such religious subcultures were derived from Ifa, some experts believe, and a few scholars even argue that Ifa today exists only in such vestiges and permutations.
For the past 16 years, Neimark has been trying to track Ifa back to its source, practice it in its pure form and recapture the thunderous power of that dimly remembered time when Ifa may well have been the fount of all monotheistic religions. The very name is said to be a Yoruban pun on the word for ”goodness.” Neimark has not yet found time to visit Nigeria, but he plans to go there soon. Meanwhile, he has solicited help from several authorities in the United States.
`Because it worked`
”Many of the profound things that could be accomplished through Ifa have either been lost or not practiced in this hemisphere,” he says. ”But I believe they are quite practicable and quite efficacious. The Yoruba city-state culture was on a par with the best days of the Grecian Empire. The people weren`t ignorant. They practiced this religion because it worked, not because it explained why the sun rises.”
Although ethnically he is a Jewish white man, as well as a University of Chicago dropout, a former atheist and an admitted dilettante, Neimark believes he has overcome cultural barriers by working with experienced babalawos, priests and leading professors specializing in Yoruban culture and the Ifa religion.
”It`s a philosophy for thoughtful people,” Neimark said on a recent afternoon during his regular office hours. ”It`s a philosophy based upon personal growth.” The Western religions have abandoned their own early mysticism, according to Neimark. ”They have become nothing but a Great Books course,” he contends.
Facilities for his readings, his business enterprises and wife Vassa`s interior-design showroom occupy most of a small building on East Ontario Street. Like his den at home, Neimark`s office contains uncountable representations of Ifa orishas-plus small shrines to honor them, complete with flickering candles, shells, beads, feathers, divining chains, carved trays and decorated boxes. All, of course, have meaning.
Changing history
”Ifa believes that between the day you are born and the day you are supposed to die, there`s nothing in between those two events which cannot be forecast and, when necessary, changed,” he said.
Neimark supposes that his group of materially successful followers have been attracted primarily by Ifa`s here-and-now aspect. Slave-introduced offshoots in the New World, although highly popular in African and Hispanic communities, often shroud themselves in mystery and close their doors to outsiders. ”The word cult is an honest appraisal of what (those offshoots)
do,” he said.
Most people drawn to Ifa have noticed that it functions for them without exacting stern punishments, making them wait for bliss in the hereafter or imposing places and hours of worship.
”Ifa doesn`t separate religion from life,” Neimark said. ”It believes you have the right to be successful, happy, rich, talented, famous-whatever your particular thing might be.”
In a few businesses around town, customers may notice little African-looking artifacts near the entranceway. The objects, known as ouido osain, supposedly transmit irresistible magic that will soften up customers and generate profits.
Osain do not come easily. The babalawo must make them after doing his readings and divining which warriors, tools and weapons are appropriate to the situation. (Ifa tradition forbids females from becoming babalawos.)
Neimark charges $28 for each reading, a sum determined by Ifa numerology. Obviously, he doesn`t need the money. It`s just that Ifa followers have always paid. If it didn`t work, he argues, why would they keep coming back?
All in a day`s divining
Ifa believers tend to discuss their epiphanies matter-of-factly, without the glassy-eyed fervency of some religious converts.
Although most of the stockbrokers, politicians, fashion leaders and entrepreneurs on Neimark`s mailing list prefer to remain anonymous, a few talk freely and enthusiastically.
Stevie Ball, a carpet wholesaler with a Merchandise Mart showroom, said she heard about Neimark while she was getting a manicure.
”I said I used to go to a wonderful psychic, and now they`ve put her in a home, and I did need a new person to chat with,” Ball recalled. ”One of the gals in the shop said she heard about a man who`s a babalawo and that he does readings.
”I said, `Hon, take me with you. I want to get the scoop on this.` So I went over, and here`s this guy living by the lake shore. It`s winter and he`s all in white clothes and smoking the biggest cigar I`ve seen in my life. I`m used to psychics that look like gypsies and are kind of odd. I was spellbound! I loved it!
”About a month later, I found out that my major supplier wasn`t very happy with me after seven years. I thought life as I knew it was about to end. I was panic-stricken. I went back to the babalawo and said, `What am I going to do?”`
Neimark told Ball he would divine her orishas. ”I think you need your warriors,” is the way he put it. Ball readily agreed.
A great deal of chanting and nut-tossing ensued, after which Ball walked out with her orishas and detailed instructions for their care and feeding. They would need shrines, regular offerings, specific adornments.
A sassy spirit
”The one that we always talk to first is called Eshu,” Ball explained.
”He`s a very peculiar orisha. He`s into rum, crazy about cigars, likes candy, fresh fruit, cookies. I make little plates of these things and put them out on Monday morning.”
The surface appearance of Ball`s Eshu-also determined by the babalawo`s readings-is a big conch shell with a carved face, filled with meaningful little symbols.
”In Christianity, people have all those statues of saints around,” Ball noted. ”Well, orishas are like that. You light candles to them-they love that. And you can sprinkle a little water on Eshu if you`re asking for something.”
Ball, naturally, asked Eshu and the other warriors to help her endangered business. ”Within two weeks of the reading, my partner and I had picked up a major carpet line,” she marveled. ”And all of a sudden we had all these manufacturers calling and saying they`d really like to have us represent them. This is unbelievable!”
On that ceremonial Sunday afternoon at Neimark`s house, the newly initiated priest described similar experiences. After he did what the readings dictated, his business improved. Meanwhile, the entire process began to intrigue him. ”It starts off with curiosity,” he said, ”and then it turns into feelings of wanting to explore something that you feel is very concrete. It works.”
Neimark`s own search for the true Ifa began 16 years ago, when, on a lark, he consulted a babalawo in Miami. Shortly after that, his life took several bad turns, exactly as the babalawo had predicted. In an effort to turn the magic to his advantage, Neimark gave Ifa more and more of his time.
Eventually, he began corresponding and meeting with native Nigerian Afolabi Epega, an author, Yoruban expert and Ifa priest now based in New York. Neimark also communed regularly with Chicago babalawo Hector Rodriguez, who guided his progress into the Ifa hierarcy. Meanwhile, Neimark read voraciously and cultivated scholars.
”I took him up to Northwestern, because I taught there and was involved in the African Studies program,” said anthropologist Justine Cordwell. ”He got a library card and he`s been going through the Africana collection and pulling out stuff on Yoruba.”
Cordwell reported that Neimark`s ceremonies surprised her. ”There were all the yuppies sitting there with their mouths open, looking for God,” she said. ”They are the kind of people who need something anyway, and he offers this to them. They`re looking for peace and love and power. They`re all nice people, and they really believe.”
The anthropologist said she remains uncertain as to what those neo-Ifa followers are learning, or should be learning, from Neimark.
”Phil`s a revisionist,” she said. ”He wants to go back to the original religion, take the saints out. Santeria (versions of Ifa practiced in many countries and cultures) is a slave religion. The slaves used it to hide their African gods from the Spanish and Cubans by substituting Catholic saints. It spread from there.
”Phil has been trying to learn about Yoruba religion, but what I`ve been trying to tell him is that the Yoruba have seven major subgroups and several marginal ones. They all place a different emphasis on different gods. So the babalawos are doing different things in different places. And there are no old babalawos left. Therefore, the Ifa divination being done in Nigeria today is not the way it used to be done.”
Quest for purity
”My personal quest is to practice the religion in its original form,”
Neimark wrote in the monthly newsletter he sends to his ”children.” Rather than become entangled in questions of authenticity, he advised his readers simply to seek out a babalawo who demonstrates integrity, concern and a willingness to teach. ”It`s a matter of character, not dogma,” he concluded. While anthropologists argue the fine points of Ifa meaning-the validity or nonvalidity of slave-originated versions, the value or lack thereof in revisionism, the questions of ”we-ness and they-ness” that crop up when outsiders draw from a culture not their own-Neimark followers tend to dwell more on feelings and results.
Neimark`s wife, Vassa, resisted Ifa entirely during the first eight years of their marriage. Three years ago, she asked her husband to take her for a reading. ”I noticed that I was really defocused for the first time,” she explained. ”I was very confused. What should I do with my career? Should we have a baby? Should we stay married?”
At the time she related this story, Vassa was pregnant with a child due in April. Neimark has two offspring by a previous marriage, and the 30-year-old, Tanya, is an enthusiastic Ifa follower. ”My 16-year-old son`s mother won`t let him go near it,” Neimark says ruefully.
During Vassa`s reading, the babalawo (Neimark declines to divine for members of his own family) revealed that Vassa had become so emotionally tied to her late grandmother that her own powers were restricted.
A poultry poultice
”So we did a ceremony,” she said. ”God, I was crying from that. I didn`t like having a chicken rubbed over my body (to absorb the grandmother`s spirit). But I knew it was the right thing to do.”
Armed with her warriors, with her osain stationed at the door of her shop, Vassa saw business improve. ”Within 48 hours of the ceremony, everything started lining up for me,” she said. Vassa attended more ceremonies, until she reached a level at which she could ”crown” her orishas (they actually are given tiny crowns to wear) and become a priestess.
Meanwhile, Phil had gone to work on becoming a babalawo. He cut back on other activities and did more readings, more ceremonies. Life in the Neimark household became vastly more . . . African. One can almost hear Eshu chuckling and see him puffing contentedly on his cigar as Vassa now declares, ”I love being the wife of a babalawo. I`m very happy.” –
