AI-Generated Skits as Modern Vessels for Indigenous African Spirituality
The Achievements of Odirachukwu Wilson and Victor Isibor
Still from The Journey to the Witches' Coven
Abstract
This essay explores the transformative power of imaginative creativity in spirituality, drawing parallels across global traditions—from Yoruba Ifá narratives and Quranic metaphors to Christian parables and Western fantasy epics.
It celebrates the pioneering AI-generated skits by WilsConcept (Odirachukwu Wilson) and Victor Isibor, who employ minimalist filmmaking to vividly resurrect indigenous African spiritual universes.
Through brevity and sensory concretization, their work bridges abstract metaphysics with accessible visuals, countering the underrepresentation of African cosmologies while enlightening global audiences on witchcraft, river goddesses, and ritual dynamics.
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
A Global Spiritual Quest
I study and practice diverse spiritualities and philosophies, covering various aspects of existence, from the human being to nature to ideas on the creator of the universe, from Africa, Asia and the West, and have thereby gained glorious intellectual and artistic exposure and mind blowing spiritual experiences on the wonder and complexity of the cosmos.
From Benin City sacred trees, groves and forests, to Tibetan Buddhist meditations, to Christian prayers, Western magical invocations, Yoruba Orisa ritual, to the mind expanding power of books, and more, its been a magnificent journey.
The Need for Great Visibility of Indigenous African Spiritualities and the Achievements of WilsConcept-Odirachukwu Wilson and Victor Isibor
I have therefore come to realize that, in spite of growing visibility, indigenous African spiritualities have a long way to go to catch up with others in terms of range and depth of representation and WilsConcept-Odirachukwu Wilson, and Victor Isibor, two Nigerian film makers, are doing a great job on this in their skits created using AI.
Employing the poetic force of minimalist film making, in which the the impact of brevity is everything, they both bring alive this universe in their unique ways, using fictional narratives in visualizing the grandeur of this imaginative and reality expanding body of ideas.
The Centrality of Imaginative Creativity to Spirituality
Imaginative creativity is core to spirituality beceause it concretizes the otherwise mentally inaccessible by depicting it in terms of sensory experience, making the abstract readily appreciated.
Using fictional depictions, galvanizing the associative values of fiction, it also vivifies a spiritual universe. What is being depicted in such a largely imaginative context is not specifically factual, but it may suggest ideas and generate impressions related to the spiritual world the fictional expression relates to.
Religious Scripture
The Koranic Sura al Nur-On Light- depicts Allah, the creator of the universe, as akin to a universal light, a light from a lamp, the lamp lit from an olive neither of the east nor of the west, a lamp hidden in the crevice of a rock.
Jesus used parables, fictional, moralistic stories, such as the story of the Good Samaritan, a man who tended to an unknown traveller attacked by bandits, in communicating his ideas about relationships between human and divine love.
Buddhism and Hinduism have developed rich theories about the relationship between visual images of divine abstractions and their rich sculptural tradition.
The Yoruba wing of Ifa is famous for its myriad stories and poems creating a rich, imaginative universe visualising a broad range of existence, from the creation of the world to such animal stories as that of the squirrel advised by the babalawo, the Ifa priest, to avoid talking too much, advice he did not follow, choosing instead to chatter to human passersby that his wife had just given birth to children, upon which they followed him home to see for themselves, after which the entire family ''sin obe lo''-Yoruba for ''they followed soup away'' suggesting a friendly accompaniment of a visitor returning home, but, in this instance, the squirrel family accompanied the soup as part of the ingredients of that soup.
Spiritually oriented arts may be employed to promote a spirituality, through delightful expressions, as those examples I have given or to simply entertain, but the more successful of those efforts at entertainment are among the most enlightening of spiritual ideas and that's where Wilson and Isibor fit in.
Secular-Spiritual Literature, Film and Music
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels and J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth cycle magnificently represent Western magical cultures; Cecil B. DeMill's The Ten Commandments matches its Biblical inspiration in its epic grandeur; music carries one away from the limitations of the physical world into the greater glory of the universe.
Religious Visual Art
Michelangelo Buonarotti's painting of God's finger touching that of Adam to bring the first human being to life is one of the most famous visualizations of the Christian creation story, projecting the idea of God creating the human being in the divine image; the image of the Buddha in meditation is the best known picture worldwide from Asian spiritualities, suggesting the contemplative culture of those religions, in which the human being explores the cosmos through exploring themself.
These examples testify to the power of visual art to encapsulate profound and complex ideas, leading to such art being core to spiritualities.
Modern African Literature and Art
The contemporary, globally diffused image of indigenous African spiritualities is better represented in literature from earlier times to the present than in other arts.
Wole Soyinka, Ayi Kwei Armah, Mazisi Kunene, Ahmadou Hampate Ba, Nahguib Mahfouz, Nnedi Okorafor and Tomi Adeyemi represent writers of various generations, from various parts of Africa, who have drawn powerfully upon indigenous African spiritualities, while Bruce Onobrakpeya, Ibrahim el-Salahi and Yelimane Fall represent the intergenerational progression of visual artists dramatizing indigenous African spiritualities, as with Onobrakpeya, or Islam, as with the others.
Nollywood and Indigenous African Spiritualities
Nigeria's Nollywood has Yoruba films projecting indigenous Yoruba spirituality while the larger Nollywood culture has more often negativized them, in contrast to Christianity, although Kunle Afolayan's Anikulapo demonstrates a merging of the broader audience reach of contemporary Nollywood with the older cultural sensitivities of Yoruba language films.
Beyond such a form as Adinkra symbols, however, used for various purposes, particularly decorative, though they are profoundly philosophical, I am not aware of indigenous African spiritualities as yet gaining the level of visual and general artistic identity that will project whatever defining values they may collectively possess, particularly since they suffer so much demonization, as is evident in Nigeria, a situation making the example of Odinachkuwu and Isibor in presenting a rich universe of the positive and negative in indigenous African spiritualities particularly significant.
Still from ''Encounter with the Dark River Goddess''
Victor Isibor
The Journey to the Witches' Coven
The example of Isibor's work that inspires me in this regard is one I title "The Journey to the Witches' Coven", linked here, based on a regrettably unfair caricature of single mothers but which includes a powerful depiction of witchcraft belief in the Yoruba and Benin/Edo contexts, enriched by what I expect is masterly use of the Yoruba and Benin languages.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MHN8EBtmD/
Odirachukwu Wilson
Encounter with the Dark River Goddess
The other is the series by WilsConcept on the conflict between a river goddess and her daughter, on one side, and a human king and his daughter, on the other, over a human man.
This story is remarkable for its visual force and its striking lines, his creation of background images shaping settings and symbolic atmosphere being particularly compelling in a story that is not deep or complex but is delightful in its narrative suspense and imagistic power.
The episode I am linking here, which I name "Encounter with the Dark River Goddess", is one of my favourites.
On account of its content, my sharing it here risks contributing to the negativization of indigenous African spiritualities, rather than the highlighting of the more realistic image represented by a positive/negative dynamic, a negativization from which these spiritualities have often suffered.
YouTube
I'm sharing it for the rich characterisation of the dark river goddess from whom power is being sought, her sensitivity to creative and destructive possibilities accessible from what she represents and the powerfully poetic lines in which this sensitivity is expressed.
Her fearsome demeanour and the frightening landscape in which she emerges combine to evoke the idea of power shot through with dangerous possibilities.
The content and rhythm of the dialogue between the goddess and the human woman seeking empowerment from her is potent enough to be adaptable into a ritual, modifying the content as necessary.
I watch these creators' work on Facebook but they also have YouTube accounts.
Wilson Odirachukwu's and Victor Isibor's Social Media Accounts
Wilson Odirachukwu
Facebook (Complete episodes)
YouTube ( Incomplete episodes, with some content variation from the Facebook version)
Instagram ( Incomplete episodes)
Victor Isibor
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