Years before I took up the practice of divination, I became a regular attender at one of Christendom’s churches and later went to a religious mission school. Why? Well, in my early teens my uncle took me to a church in Monrovia. He explained that those who did not go to church would go to hellfire, where first the fingertips would burn, then one arm, then the other arm, the other limbs, and finally the whole body. When finished, God would so fix it that the burning would start all over again, to be repeated to time indefinite, he said.

I was afraid of burning. So, along with so many others, I went to church. But church attendance did not change me very much. My real religion was still the worship of the “spirits” of my ancestors.

The efforts of my church to get me to stop worshiping the “spirits” failed. Why? The church did not teach that the dead were not alive to receive such worship. No, the church said otherwise. I was taught that each person possessed an immortal soul that survived the death of the body. This only strengthened my belief that my ancestors were alive and needed to be appeased. My non-Christian relatives, I reasoned, were not far from the truth after all.

Uncertainty and Confusion

When I was twenty-four years old, I decided that I wanted to return to school. My parents mocked the idea, but I was not to be put off. I enrolled at a religious mission school, and although the students, mere children, laughed at me, the teacher gave me encouragement: “Try your best. I was big like you and went to school. Now I am teaching you.”

During Bible class I was told: “It is wrong to punish anyone for his wrongdoing to you, or to harm him with country medicine.” Defending my conviction that the “country doctor” was actually God’s means for returning evil for evil, I countered: “Since God punishes people when they wrong him, then we are only following his example and punishing people when they wrong us.” But the teacher maintained: “We are not to do it. That is for God to do.” Nevertheless, I reasoned to myself that if that were true, then why did God make the “medicine” work? This was not explained.

But my uncertainty turned to confusion when I tried to reason out the Trinity teaching. In reply to my query as to how three gods could exist in one, I was told that I could not understand this mystery. Unsatisfied, I asked how it was possible for the “Father” to understand it but not the rest of us. “You will get your answer tomorrow,” was the reply. But on the next day I was simply punished and threatened with dismissal if I asked any more such questions.

I was taught in the mission school that war was not wrong, for Christians had defended themselves in the past and must continue to do so. From what I learned at this school God takes sides in fights and contests, and for that reason we were urged to pray to win in a football match. And when we did win we rejoiced, convinced that God had been on our side.

During those years I continued to sacrifice to my “medicines” by rubbing them with the blood of a victim, usually a chicken. I attended church services, yet I trusted in “medicines” and magic. Despite years of church instruction, I still thought that there was nothing like “African science” practiced by the “country doctor” for dealing with the problems of life.

As for the church systems, I was furious that I had been deceived into superstition and demonism by their false doctrine that man possessed an immortal soul. This false doctrine was the basis of my foolish fears of departed spirits. (Ezek. 18:4) And how glad I was to learn that the Bible does not teach the mysterious Trinity!