GARRICK BRAIDE AND THE METAPHYSICS OF AFRICAN SYMBOLISM
Keywords:
African Indigenous Churches,, African metaphysics,, African Symbolism,, Garrick Sokari Braide,, Prophetism.Abstract
This study undertakes a philosophical exploration of Garrick Sokari Braide’s
prophetic ministry through the lens of African metaphysics and symbolic
representation. As a charismatic prophet and spiritual leader in early 20th-century
Nigeria, Braide’s movement emerged as both a religious revival and a metaphysical
protest against colonial and ecclesiastical dominations. Central to his ministry were
symbols—ritual objects, healing acts, spiritual visions—that mediated divine
presence and invoked African cosmological structures. This study interrogates how
such symbols, grounded in indigenous metaphysical concepts like vital force,
ancestral agency, and spiritual causality, served not only as instruments of
communication but as ontological realities within African thought. By bridging
Christian prophetic narratives with African semiotic systems, Braide reframed
spiritual authority and revelation in ways that affirmed local epistemologies.
Drawing from African philosophy, religious studies, and historical theology, this
paper argues that Braide’s prophetic symbolism was not merely expressive but
metaphysically constitutive redefining being, power, and divine presence in an
African Christian worldview. In doing so, the work contributes to contemporary
debates on religious hybridity, symbolic ontology, and the enduring resonance of
African metaphysical imagination in shaping prophetic identity.
