SANGOMA CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM

Wim van Binsbergen / Johannes Sibanda+

version October 2012

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background

For extensive descriptions of the divinatory method used, and its cultural and historical background, you may consult my various articles as included in this website, or referred to from this website.

intake form

You may initiate a consultation with Wim van Binsbergen / Johannes Sibanda+ by filling out and electronically sending (push the 'Send' button) the SANGOMA CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM below. Your confidential information will be entirely safe, protected by professional oath.

procedure

Real-life sangoma consultations constitute intensive face-to-face sessions between the sangoma and the client, easily lasting a few hours. The consultation is essentially a therapeutic conversation that gradually brings out a detailed coherent story about the client's life and predicament -- a story which the client is brought to recognise as true and revelatory, and which points to specific subsequent action needed in order to solve the predicament and to redress the client's relationship with the supernatural. The client's sponsors and next of kin, and the sangoma's assistants and apprentices, may also attend the session and contribute additional points. Visual and auditive cues play a considerable role in the divining process. Payment is direct and often in kind, and deferred payment -- if at all tolerated -- would be part of an extensive social circle of financial and other obligations involving very limited risk. All these features are absent in worldwide electronic communication. But just like the computer is somehow capable, with the proper software, of replacing the time-honoured divination tablets and produce valuable, inspired divinatory information, so also the electronic consultation can more or less substitute face-to-face consultation, provided some additional clues are offered by the client. These additional clues may compensate for the absence of so much that is taken for granted in face-to-face consultation. This adaptation of the consultation format to global conditions of electronic communication has been the subject of a long and penetrating discussion in my book Intercultural encounters (LIT Verlag, Hamburg, 2003), chapter 7; click here for a page where that chapter can be accessed as PDF.

Over the years I have found that no first consultation ever remains under two and a half hours (including ancestral prayer at the shrine on the client's behalf), and remote electronic consultation involving the writing out of the reading takes at least one hour extra. In the African tradition, as in that of North Atlantic psychotherapy, neither training nor consultation are to be obtained free of charge. In Southern Africa, the standard fee for a consultation is roughly equivalent to one day's wages of a general worker. Taking this as my guide, I have set my fee to US$70, which, in the part of the world where I am currently residing, and after deduction of PayPal's handling fee, means an hourly rate below that of a cleaner in the informal sector.

Current procedure is that, after the a prospective client's SANGOMA CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM reaches me,

  1. I mail back to the client to ask for specific confirmation of the consultation request (the Internet remains an unsafe place where anyone may illegally adopt the client's identity and play tricks)
  2. The client then explicitly confirms the consultation request by payment of US$70 into my PayPal account, in response to the invoice sent to the client:
  3. After receiving payment, I ritually prepare myself, the shrine, the oracle, and the necessary offerings and sacrifices
  4. I conduct the consultation,
  5. I write out the results (i.e. the report on my reading, usually a document of 10 to 14 or more pages), and
  6. I send the protocol to the client by e-mail;
  7. the client is expected to acknowledge receipt of the protocol by returning (e-)mail, and is entitled to ask, within two weeks after receiving the consultqation report, a few additional questions to clarify the report.

The fees are partly used to buy sacrifices (in the form of animal sacrifices and alcoholic libations) for the shrine, and partly forwarded to the sangoma cult's headquarters in Southern Africa; and partly for maintaining this worldwide sangoma consultation service. What little remains may be retained by the sangoma for personal use.

client is requested to acknowledge receipt of the protocol by return mail

The electronic format has the advantage of world-wide availability, thus mediating sangomahood -- as a great achievement of Southern African culture -- to the whole of humankind. But the electronic format also has many disadvantages. For the diviner the electronic consultation has become far more lonely and uncertain than when there is the abundance of sensory cues and communicative reassurance, as in ordinary face-to-face sessions. The diviner in the course of the session braves and mobilises formidable, invisible powers on behalf of the client. In the process, the diviner allows himself to be exposed to the client's predicaments and misery as if they were his own. The diviner comes back with personal information and insights concerning the client, which may be true and relevant, but which may also be wrong and irrelevant in ways which only the distant, largely unknown client can judge. All this creates considerable tension and insecurity in the diviner. From these, only the client can release him, notably by immediate response after receipt of the consultation report. Please acknowledge receipt of the consultation report by returning mail.

feedback service

Usually the consultation report will clearly speak for itself. However, The client is entitled to raise (within two weeks after my dispatch of the consultation report) specific questions of clarification directly relating to the report, and to have these questions briefly but conscientiously answered by me in so far as this can be done without further consultation of the oracle. The client will be informed whenever certain questions exceed her or his entitlement, and such questions will not be answered unless the client specifically agrees to initiate a new consultation, for which again the standard fee of US$70 will be due.

 

What is your name?
This CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM requires the client to enter only a minimum of personal information, virtually all of which is common knowledge to anyone knowing the client personally anyway. Even so, all information you provide will be treated with the greatest confidentiality. This CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM makes use of the three sacred colours of sangoma: red, black and white.

CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM

confidential
This form is made out in the English language, and you must expect the response to be in that language. However, you are free to use your own mother tongue -- I will come back to you through e-mail for clarification (using English) if your mother tongue is unfamiliar to me

All questions below marked by an asterisk (*) are mandatory, i.e. must be answered so as to guarantee a valid and reliable consultation; questions not marked with * are optional

*your e-mail address:
*kindly state your surname:
*your other names or initials:
*today's date
FINANCIAL MATTERS

Please note that, after completing and electronically sending this CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM (press the 'Send' button!) , and before your consultation will be effected, you will receive an invoice for US$70, which you are expected to pay using PayPal; if you do not have a PayPal account yet, please open one, or visit the PayPal general website (specific to your country of residence, see Google) to find out how you can use PayPal with your current bank account, credit card etc.

payments not channeled via PayPal cannot be taken into account

no payment made in the context of this sangoma consultation can ever be refunded

however, in case of bona fide queries and complaints relating to financial matters, please contact wimvanbinsbergen@gmail.com

NOW FOLLOWS A SERIES OF PERSONAL QUESTIONS WHICH ARE TO HELP BRIDGE THE GAP CREATED BY WORLDWIDE ELECTRONIC CONSULTATION, INSTEAD OF THE USUAL FACE-TO-FACE SESSIONS IN SANGOMA PRACTICE

Please note that many of the questions are pre-coded and scrollable -- if the default answer already shown does not apply in your case, please apply your cursor to the grey rectangle with a small black triangle, to the right -- this will show all available options; make sure you select the one that does apply in your case. Carefully check your entries on the confirmation form that you will receive after pressing the 'Send' button, and correct them if necessary.

*your father:

note: in the spiritual world, the persons you choose to designate as 'father', 'mother', sister', 'brother', etc. need not be your closest biological kin; they may not even be biologically related to you at all

 *his name:
*is your father still alive?:

*your mother:

note: in the spiritual world, the persons you choose to designate as 'father', 'mother', sister', 'brother', etc. need not be your closest biological kin; they may not even be biologically related to you at all

 *her name:
*is your mother still alive?:

*where were you born? *continent:
country:
community (town, village):
*where is your home? *continent:
country:
community (town, village)
*what is the principal question you want to ask from this sangoma oracle?

(you will find that the available text area is automatically extended if required)
kindly provide such extensive background information as would help put your predicament in perspective

(you will find that the available text area is automatically extended if required)

You will receive, by returning mail, in invoice for payment of the consultation fee (US$70) via PayPal. Payment is the only means to confirm your consultation request, and to initiate the sangoma's consultation rite on your behalf. After receipt of your payment, your sangoma reading be undertaken, and within a few days you will receive an e-mail message containing the written out consultation report.



 

 

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page last modified: 21-10-12 14:08:17