African Spirituality and Energy: Why Science Proves Our Ancestors Were Right

I can still close my eyes and see it perfectly. There, in the backyard of our home in Ligingi village, stood a small structure—a traditional shrine.

To a stranger, it might have looked like a simple pile of materials. But to my dad, it was a portal.

My father was a man of two worlds. He was a former army officer who had attended Protestant schools in the 50s, and the son of a Chief. But he was also a traditional spiritual being.

He didn’t walk this path alone. In our village, many homes had these shrines. They were the medium through which we spoke to our ancestors who had passed on. I remember the rituals vividly and the names of my ancestors dad used to call. All he asked was that they should protect him and his family.

Dad would call upon clan elders to sacrifice an animal, usually chicken or goat, to invoke the spirits and the God we called Were Othim in Dhupadhola. Afterward, we would cook and eat the meat together.

It was a connection to the past. It was normal. Until it wasn’t.

The War in the Home: Christianity vs. Tradition

My mother, also daughter of a Protestant Chief who spent her junior in Kisoko Junior School, took a very different path.

For a significant time, my parents were separated. It was a traumatic period for my mother, and she carried that heavy emotional baggage for years. When they eventually reunited, something fundamental had changed. Dad remained rooted in his blend of Protestantism and tradition, but Mum had become a staunch “Born Again” Christian.

She became the fiercest critic of African spirituality and energy practices in our home.

She called the shrine spirits Jwogi—bad spirits. She refused to let us eat the sacrificial meat, claiming it was demonic. She also helped sponsor a small Born Again church in our village, a place where most people were Protestant or walked the 5km to Siwa for Catholic mass.

As a child, biology wires you to follow your mother. Her fear became my fear. I saw my dad’s quiet, controlled traditionalism as “bad” and my mother’s emotional, Westernized Christianity as “good.” Later on, I left home as a teenager believing my dad was a bad person.

The Great Colonial Lie About African Spirituality and Energy

Now, as an adult, I look back at Ligingi with fresh eyes. I realize that for years, I wasn’t living my own reality; I was living my mother’s trauma. But beyond my family, I see a much bigger tragedy.

When Western travelers and colonialists came to Africa, they didn’t understand what they were seeing. When they saw my ancestors worshipping trees, hills, water bodies or speaking to spirits, they labeled it “archaic” and “demonic.” They taught us to hate ourselves.

They didn’t just ignore our beliefs; they actively erased them. It is the reason most African Kings were at war with colonialists. Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda executed Christian converts who protested his rule.

Consider the words of Sir Samuel Baker, a British explorer who traveled through our region in the 1860s, including in Uganda. In his book The Albert N’yanza, he arrogantly wrote:

“Without any exception, they are without a belief in a Supreme Being… nor is the darkness of their minds enlightened by even a ray of superstition. The mind is as stagnant as the morass which forms its puny world.”

My mother, and millions of Africans like her, inherited this lie. They were told their minds were “dark” and “stagnant” and that their ancestors belonged to the Devil. This, they lied, necessitated that they must be ‘born again”.

But what if she was just fighting a misunderstanding?

Physics Proves My Father Was Right

It is ironic that the same Western world that told us our ways were backward is now proving us right.

If you look at modern metaphysics, neuroscience, and quantum physics, the narrative has shifted completely. Scientists and philosophers are no longer talking about a dead, mechanical universe. They are proving that reality is, at its core, energy, and this has been tested several times scientifically.

This is exactly what my ancestors were doing hundreds of years ago.

When my father invoked the spirits and the names of his ancestors, he wasn’t worshipping “demons.” He was talking to invisible energy those trained in modern religion cannot see. Our ancestors knew that nature was alive and that death was just a shift in frequency. The West just lacked the complexity to understand it, so they called it witchcraft. Now, they call it science.

The Confusion of a Generation

The saddest part is that while the West is waking up to these truths, many Africans are still asleep and stuck to indoctrination.

In December 2024 we posted a story about Voodoo on Twitter, trying to explain the depth of the system. The reaction from my fellow Ugandans was heartbreaking.

One young woman @achirodaisy responded and said:

Personally, I don’t blame them and I dont care who believes me. Neither do I blame my mother. She was doing her best to raise us the way she knew. But we cannot afford to stay lost.

Why We Built OurRoots.Africa

This confusion—this gap between who we are and who we were told to be—is exactly why I started OurRoots.Africa.

We realized that our history is being washed away, not just by time, but by a false narrative that calls our ancestors “stagnant” and demonic. OurRoots.Africa is not just a platform for family trees; it is a digital “backyard shrine.” It is a place where we can document our lineages, preserve our stories, and reclaim the dignity of our past.

We are building this platform for the “lost sheep” on Twitter and the confused teenagers leaving home. We want to show them that:

1. Our history is valid: You come from greatness, not from darkness. Your ancestors were Kings, Queens, High Priests and Priestesses.

2. Our spirituality is science: What the West now calls quantum physics, your grandfather practiced in the village.

3. Our identity matters: You cannot move forward if you don’t know where you come from.

My father wasn’t backward; he was just holding the line until science caught up to him. At OurRoots.Africa, we are picking up that line. We are here to tell you that it is okay to look back. It is okay to embrace your roots. The energy never died. It’s just waiting for you to reconnect.

Will you reclaim your past, present and future, or decide to wallow in confusion?

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