George Brandon: Ethical Dimensions of West African Orisha Devotion

African religions continue to be little known, widely misunderstood and much maligned in the West despite having millions of adherents and extensive histories in both Africa and the African diaspora of the United States, the Caribbean and South America. This talk George Brandon looks at one particular religious tradition, Orisha devotion, a tradition that originated in West Africa and now also has millions of adherents throughout the Caribbean, South America, the United
States and Europe. After a description of the basic beliefs and principles of Orisha devotion, Dr. Brandon will focus on its ethical dimensions and the dilemmas facing Orisha devotees living in religiously plural societies where Africans and African religious have been marginalized and subjected to persecution.

George Brandon is professor emeritus of the City University of New York’s Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at the City College of New York where he taught medical anthropology and behavioral medicine for twenty-four years. He has had past appointments at the University of Maryland (UMBC), Grinnell College, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Rutgers University and remains on the faculty of the Omega Institute for Wholistic Studies. Throughout his career as an anthropologist his research has concentrated upon African and
African Diasporic religions as worldviews and as healing systems. He has published articles on African religion in Cuba and the United States, Black American spiritual healers, the folk medicine of the Jamaican Maroons and has lectured internationally. As a consultant he has worked closely with interfaith organizations such as the Interfaith Center of New York where he taught for several years in the IFNY’s religious competency program for social workers, as well as the Tannenbaum Foundation where he assisted in the preparation of their Manual of Religious Diversity for Health Care Workers.