Case 3: Lucy, an Exotic Dancer

The names have been changed to respect the privacy of the individuals.

It was early afternoon of a hot Chicago summer that my phone rang. The caller, a young lady, was asking to make an appointment for a reading. "Who referred you?," I asked. "Well, no one," she replied, "but I have read your book, and I read the article in Psychology Today about you." Even though I had been doing an enormous amount of readings, and preferred to limit them to current clients or friends of clients, I guess I am as easily flattered as the next one. "Well, I could see you early Wednesday morning if you would like," I offered. " Well, how early is early?," the caller asked. " well, I could read you at 9 AM." " Oh, I work nights and I don't get up that early, could I see you at 11?" The divination was scheduled.

At 11 AM that Wednesday, I waited with some curiosity about the new client. When the bell rang promptly at 11 AM, I buzzed her in. She was, indeed, a young woman, and she looked like she had just rolled out of bed. She was wearing shorts, a baggy sweatshirt, and her hair was, to say the least, not brushed. Her eyes still had the puffiness of sleep. Yet, despite all this, it was instantly apparent that this was a stunning young lady.

" Well, " I see you made it," I said, " and it looks like you just got out of bed." She gave me a small smile, and admitted that she had just gotten up, that she worked quite late the previous night. "What exactly is it that you do?" "Well, I'm a dancer," she replied. "And, if you don't mind, exactly what kind of dancing do you do?" A pause followed, but the young lady we shall call Lucy, confessed that she was a topless dancer in one of Chicago's more fashionable "Gentleman's Clubs." I figured it was time to get on with the divination.

In what proved to be the first of many divination's I performed for Lucy, there was a recurrent theme. It called for a powerful shedding, or cleansing ceremony to remove the negative energy that was impacting her life. It stemmed from early childhood sexual abuse, and could only be dealt with by a sophisticated ceremony performed by a female priest. Early in my career I would have been shocked to hear that a woman had been sexually abused as a child, but the reality of being a Babalawo is that you delve into the genuine truths of peoples lives, and, tragically, the truth of sexual abuse against children was almost epidemic.

As a powerful example of the differences between our culture and the Yoruba culture, when the sexual abuse issue first arose I asked my friend, mentor and Foundation member Afolabi Epega ( a 5th generation African Babalawo ) if he could tell me what ceremony the Yoruba used to remove this negative energy. He knew of none, and the reason was that with the Yoruba view that children were the most precious possession of our lives, sexual abuse was simply unthinkable, and virtually unheard of, in his culture.

Nevertheless, we worked together, as well as with his wife, a powerful Ogun priest for 30 years, to explore the issue and find solutions within Ifa. The result was a powerful shedding ceremony that Lucy needed in order to remove the negative energy the abuse had caused and to resume her path for her destiny.

At the time she was living with ( and supporting) a young man whose character was the only thing emptier than his wallet. She had dropped out of school 18 months previously to "earn some money" in order to go back to her education, but the reality was that she couldn't discipline herself to stop making $2,000 a week and go back to school.

Knowing all this, she still resisted the Cleansing that would have to be performed by my wife. She looked for small, stop gap, offerings rather than dealing with the real issue.

Finally, I had had enough. " Lucy, you are wasting my time, my talent, my ase, and your money. Reading after reading says you must have the cleansing ceremony we spoke of, yet you simply don't want to do it. Well, that's your privilege. But, my privilege is to save my time and energy for people who genuinely want to be helped. So, while I am quite sure there are a host of Babalawo out there who will be happy to take your money each week, I'm not one of them. I wish you nothing but the best, but I won't read you any more."

For the first time since we had met, a saw a puzzled look on her face. This was a sexy young woman who made a living manipulating men, and here was one that didn't fit into her normal frame of reference. I could almost see her thinking " what can I say, what could I do to make him change his mind?".but energy is a powerful thing. My energy was quite clear. I was finished.

Almost five minutes of silence followed, as Lucy sat there with her head in her hands trying to find an angle that didn't exist. Finally she looked up, " OK., I'll do the ceremony."

Within two weeks following the ceremony several events happened for Lucy. First, she threw out the bum she had been living with. Second, she met a man at the club who fell in love with her. Oh, I know, in the perfect world, Lucy would have seen the error of her ways, would have realized that parading naked, and dong lap dances for a group of men with too many dollars and too little self esteem, just didn't make sense...but, this is the real world a Babalawo deals with, and you do the best you can. And besides, from Lucy's point of view being the wife of one of the countries foremost infomercial producers wasn't bad.

So, Lucy's readings revolved around making sure the love grew...and the marriage occurred. Both did. The little tussled haired girl that had come into my office on that hot summer day, now lives in a multi million dollar Condominium on Lake Shore Drive and has a house in California as well.

Sometimes they have VERY happy endings

Blessings!...
Philip Neimark
Oluwo