POLL | Do you believe fake sangomas exist?

Do you believe fake sangomas exist?

This question tends to pop up from time to time as people who practise African spirituality tell of their different consultation experiences with traditional healers.

The question, however, also comes into the spotlight when initiates who go through the traditional training process of becoming a healer are left in doubt.

The sangoma debate is in the spotlight this week after former Generations actress Letoya Makhene was accused of being a fake gobela (traditional healer) by one of her initiates who roped in Moja Love's show to confront her on TV. 

On the show, Letoya claimed the initiate was being used by her ex-partner Lebo Keswa to humiliate her on TV. 

Keswa and Latoya have been going through a messy divorce. Keswa accused Latoya of being a fake healer. 

TshisaLIVE asked Keswa why she said Letoya was a fake sangoma, what proof she had and when she noticed that she was a hoax.

Keswa said: “I’m saying she’s a fake sangoma or gobela because when I married her my family was told to pay lobola for her dlozis, among other lobola that was paid. When I was married to her she was told she needs to finish her process before she takes in her own initiates and in our marriage she went to three different gobelas and always had fallouts with them.

“By the time we separated she had taken in three initiates and had decided to open her own school, or mpande, and she kept on getting advised that she could not do that because she herself was not yet qualified.” 

The question, however, is not isolated to African spirituality but also comes to the fore in Christianity when congregants fall prey to “prophets” who become rapists or extort money from them.

So they ask, do fake prophets exist?