The Spiritual Marketplace in Contemporary Ghana

This chapter introduces and examines the role of spiritual consultants—religious agents who operate in the market as experts of spiritual matters and offer their services to consumers for a fee—in the marketization of religion in Ghana. Spiritual consultants in Ghana and many other African countries include church pastors, traditional priests and Islamic spiritualists (mallams), among others. We pursue answers to the question: what specific services and value do spiritual consultants offer to their consumers in order to authenticate their role as agents of the gods and spirits? Our data, including news media coverage and roadside (outdoor) advertising by these agents, allows for historical anchoring to suggest that unlike the Western religious institution whose adoption of market logics defines its success, spiritual consultants in Ghana succeed because they engage local historical motifs and cultural heritage to their advantage. We seek to extend Robin Horton’s thesis on the shared teleological function between traditional African religion and modern science—to explain, predict and control—to situate these functions as value outcomes in the commercial practice of spiritual consultancy in Ghana. In so doing, we note how the historicized marketization of religion has supported and been supported by the practices of contemporary spiritual consultants and the market in which they operate.