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Bori: Healers of the Soul
This book of exquisite duotone photographs looks at the Bori, a West African shamanist cult centered on possession by the spirits of ancestors. Its followers, priests (also known as Bori), and assistants are clairvoyants or faith healers. They perform ecstatic ritual dances to conjure up djinns--spirits--to protect society and its individual members from evil. Faith healers (Boka) employ traditional plants to heal the sick. Caroline Alida's black-and-white portraits of the Bori and the objects used in their ritual practices were taken in dim natural light, imbuing the photos with a contemplative atmosphere.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2011
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November 16, 2015
"This book of exquisite duotone photographs looks at the Bori, a West African shamanist cult centered on possession by the spirits of ancestors."
The Bori of this book are not unfamiliar to me. Voodou is very similar indeed but perhaps developed with greater depth or more likely the book just skims the surface and really exists only as an interesting and atmospheric photographic record of a cult. The photographs really did live up to the blurb, they are exquisite. The text is another matter. All-adoring, non-critical and giving it the perfect credence that anyone with a Western frame of reference would not feel but that is considered the proper way to show respect these days.
It is not hard, when you think about it, to dismiss cults and religions based on superstition and spirits that have nothing better to do in their eternity than meddle for ill in the mortal sphere. Why then is it so hard to dismiss men that walk on water, six-armed women that go in for murder and all the other gods that are still worshipped very widely in the modern world. Are our beliefs not based just as much on superstition and spirits, holy ghosts, angels, djinns or whatever else you want to call them? Are we all not true atheists for all the gods in the world that have ever existed except the one we personally believe in? Is this not because everyone is brainwashed from birth into the cult(ure) of their family?
Me - I'm an apatheist, which is neither an atheist who doesn't believe or an agnostic who isn't sure, but one who doesn't think it matters as it isn't going to affect their life one way or the other anyway. I might have left the religion of my forefathers a long time ago (but not the tribe, I like being part of the tribe) but did not the brainwashing, the constant input and reinforcing of what I was suppose to believe and how I was supposed to act because of that belief not stay with me? Maybe I just can't put it aside enough to actually commit my heart to the intellectual atheism that my mind subscribes to?
It is an indulgence buying these art books. I can't resist them though. I tell myself that someone will buy them, will be just as interested as me. A justification, not reality.
The Bori of this book are not unfamiliar to me. Voodou is very similar indeed but perhaps developed with greater depth or more likely the book just skims the surface and really exists only as an interesting and atmospheric photographic record of a cult. The photographs really did live up to the blurb, they are exquisite. The text is another matter. All-adoring, non-critical and giving it the perfect credence that anyone with a Western frame of reference would not feel but that is considered the proper way to show respect these days.
It is not hard, when you think about it, to dismiss cults and religions based on superstition and spirits that have nothing better to do in their eternity than meddle for ill in the mortal sphere. Why then is it so hard to dismiss men that walk on water, six-armed women that go in for murder and all the other gods that are still worshipped very widely in the modern world. Are our beliefs not based just as much on superstition and spirits, holy ghosts, angels, djinns or whatever else you want to call them? Are we all not true atheists for all the gods in the world that have ever existed except the one we personally believe in? Is this not because everyone is brainwashed from birth into the cult(ure) of their family?
Me - I'm an apatheist, which is neither an atheist who doesn't believe or an agnostic who isn't sure, but one who doesn't think it matters as it isn't going to affect their life one way or the other anyway. I might have left the religion of my forefathers a long time ago (but not the tribe, I like being part of the tribe) but did not the brainwashing, the constant input and reinforcing of what I was suppose to believe and how I was supposed to act because of that belief not stay with me? Maybe I just can't put it aside enough to actually commit my heart to the intellectual atheism that my mind subscribes to?
It is an indulgence buying these art books. I can't resist them though. I tell myself that someone will buy them, will be just as interested as me. A justification, not reality.
Displaying 1 of 1 review