EKPOMA REVIEW

This paper examines the concept, role, and importance of divination in African Traditional Religion (ATR), with particular attention to its cultural expression among the Isoko and Urhobo peoples of Delta State, Nigeria. Moving beyond descriptive analysis, the study situates divination within lived religious experience as a structured means of interpreting reality, addressing misfortune, and maintaining cosmic balance. The paper further engages the relationship between divination and Catholic Christian ministry, identifying both points of convergence such as mediation and the search for divine guidance and fundamental divergences, especially concerning revelation, prayer, and doctrinal boundaries. It argues that while divination as a practice cannot be adopted within Catholicism, certain anthropological and spiritual insights embedded in it can enrich pastoral theology when critically appropriated.

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