Global Pulpits, Traveling Words and the Circulation of Saints and Demons: Prophesy and the Mapping of 'Spiritual Geographies' in Kenya and Beyond

Migratory flows, geographic mobility and the globalization of religious organizations have in the recent past received significant academic attention. Increasingly, prophesy and other religious practices and ideas such as dreams, visions and demons are becoming important religious flows, linking networks and creating spiritual geographies that span national, regional and transnational borders. Just as people travel across cultural and geographic settings, so do religious ideas and practices. These important carriers of globalization not only reconfigure both the social and territorial geographies but they also introduce new and important forms of religious mobility, spiritual geographies, and new ways of engaging global issues. ‘Spiritual geographies’ are for example premised on the idea that one can stay local but think and engage globally through the circulation of religious ideas and images. This paper offers fresh insights and perspectives on the dynamics of global flows, with a special focus on ‘spiritual geographies’ and the circulation of religious ideas and practices as espoused by the National Healing and Repentance in Kenya. It is suggested here that while migratory, monetary, cultural and traditional elements of religious flows have received significant academic attention, the circulation of spiritual ideas and imaginaries have not been given the scholarly attention they deserve.