Who writes this
A site about an oral tradition should say who is speaking and from where. This page answers both — and also what we do not do.
Lineage
Ifá Wisdom is written by a couple initiated in Ifá. We received the Hand of Orunmila — Awofakan and Ikofá — in the Cuban lineage (Regla de Ocha / Ifá), with a Cuban godfather who knows this site and has approved the book of itans we are preparing.
We are practitioners who study and write. We offer no priestly services, perform no ritual consultations and prescribe no ẹbọ. That is what the babalawo of your house is for — and nothing here replaces him.
Why we sought initiation
We always felt different. And even knowing myself well, I wanted a confirmation — of my path, of my guardian angel — and the protection of the warriors in our home.
I arrived at Ifá years before I arrived at a house: researching, studying, and almost always finding too little — shallow content, scattered, hard to trust. What held me was realizing that Ifá is more than religion: it is a philosophy, a lifelong learning in which every day teaches something new — and where, for every problem, there is a path.
I trained in computer science and work in technology, and perhaps that is why the enchantment was inevitable: an oracle built on a binary system, centuries before any computer existed, that crossed the Atlantic and remains alive. This site was born from those two ends — the student who could not find content worthy of the tradition, and the professional who knew how to build the place where it should exist.
— Pablo and Thaiana de Lima
How the content is made
- We work from published works, graded by the weight they carry as sources — field research, academic study, priestly work or compilation. The full list is in Sources and Bibliography.
- Liturgical names, verses and attributions always come from published work, with edition and page. We never infer them by analogy: where there is no source, the gap is acknowledged and stated to the reader.
- Where the Nigerian, Cuban and Brazilian traditions diverge, we show both forms and say which is which — rather than choosing one and erasing the other.
What is made by AI and what is not
The oracle reading is generated by artificial intelligence from the Odu that was cast and the context you write. The casting itself follows the traditional method; the reading is algorithmic.
The blog articles and the Odu pages are written by us, researched in the sources we cite. We say this plainly because we think being clear about the limits is what makes the rest trustworthy.
What this site is not
It is not a substitute for consulting a babalawo, it does not determine your birth Odu, it prescribes no ẹbọ and performs no initiation. It is a place of study and contemplation — the doorway into a tradition that is learned from people, not from websites.