spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

they indicate there is a need for change. The meaning of suffering is found in (its pointing to) the
need for re-establishing broken relationships and for maintaining the balance of existing
relationships with other people, spiritual beings and the natural environment.
Vital force and prosperity
A prominent aspect of one’s well-being is one’s life-force or vital force (Janzen 1989:132;
Nkemnkia 1999:166; Ellis & Ter Haar 2004:94). Every living being is perceived to contain a
vital force which is the first principle of life. Without this vital force there cannot be life: “(t)here
is no idea among the Bantu of ‘being’ divorced from the idea of ‘force’. Without the element
‘force’, ‘being’ cannot be conceived” (Tempels 1969:50f) 14 . So, to live is to possess this life
force that has its origin in God the Supreme Being, who bestows the power of existence upon his
creation. The obvious link between being alive and having the power to live constitutes the
human being’s tendency towards enhancing his or her vital force continuously. To live, then,
means to be involved in an ongoing course of power increment. But the human being can also
lose some of his or her vital force: he or she becomes weak, looses quality of life, and
experiences suffering and misfortune. The decrease in vital force, and therefore the decline in
health and well-being, is often interpreted as the result of moral and spiritual deficiency.
Just as declining health and diminishing life-force imply conflict and deficiency, it is believed
that well-being and strength are related to prosperity. A well-balanced relationship with others,
especially with the spiritual realm, will bring wealth: “there is an undeniable relation between the
visible and invisible world in the sense that a person who is in a good state of spiritual health can
also expect to prosper materially” (Larbi 2001:313; cf. Kalu 2000). Prosperity has become an
expression of the condition of one’s vital force, and as such it reveals the state of one’s
relationships in both spiritual and material realms.
Medicine and the protection of vital force
Boosting one’s vital force occurs within one’s network of relationships: it is a power game in
which one person gains life power while the other loses some. Waning life power brings fear that
someone else is trying to attack and affect the very essence of one’s being. This creates a
14. The terminology of vital force is often linked with the work of the Belgian missionary Placide Tempels, who
published La philosophie bantoue in 1945. Even though the title of the publication was misleading (since his
research involved only two groups, namely the Bemba and the Luba, and since Bantu is not an ethnic or cultural
reference but a language), Tempels’ book provided the basis for some other ontologies of African cultural traditions.
Tempels’ articulation of the vital force has been recognized in many parts of Africa.
50