The Secrets of Spiritual Power: God’s Middlemen or Fake Men of God?

Story By Staff Reporter

Who do you go through to reach God? Do you need a prophet, a sangoma or a spiritual “backup” to succeed in business, politics or marriage? Or does the whole arrangement simply turn faith into a fee? Those questions drove a long, tense conversation with Commander Ibrahim, a Zimbabwean spiritual practitioner.

He calls himself a Christian, a medium and an advocate of African spirituality, all at once. That mix made the conversation provocative. Below, you will find what he claimed, how he defended it, and where the sharpest objections came from. These are his views, so readers can weigh them for themselves.

A Gift That Started in Childhood

Commander Ibrahim says his birth year is 1988, and his father’s work as a soldier kept the family on the move. He says he saw spiritual things from about age five or six. At first, he assumed everyone did. Among the sights he describes are people with open wounds, people on fire, and a light around every person. According to him, the light differs by faith: Christians give off a bright, almost fluorescent glow, while Muslims have a blue one.

The experience frightened him. As a child, he clung to his parents, and they often flogged him for refusing to sleep alone. His mother even thought he had low self-esteem. Around Form Two, however, he began testing what he saw. When small events he foresaw, such as a falling bottle, actually happened, he decided it was not imagination. He says he can change some of what he sees coming, but not everything.

He traces the gift to his lineage. The name Ibrahim comes from his great-grandfather, and he says every generation has a chosen person. His father should have carried the torch, but he declined.

Sangoma, Prophet or Imam: One Power, Different Paths

He claims there is no such thing as “black” or “white” magic. Power, he argues, stays neutral. For example, a prophet can chase away a demon or call one, and so can a sangoma. Therefore, the character and intent of the person carrying the power make the work good or bad. In his telling, sangomas, prophets and imams share the same ability and simply choose different paths.

Chivanhu and Christianity

The heart of the discussion was whether African spirituality and Christianity can coexist. His answer was a firm yes. He built his case on several points:

• Chivanhu is a practice, not a religion. It is “who you are” as an African, whereas Christianity is a religion a person chooses.
• God did not create any religion. Instead, he said, all religions are human attempts to connect with the divine.
• Spirit mediums are channels, not objects of worship. Africans worship God but go through ancestral and clan spirits, much as Christians go through Jesus. He also separated vadzimu (ancestors who have died) from the clan-level spirit that manifests on a medium from the start of a lineage.
• Colonisation disrupted a working system. To disempower people, he argued, you remove what gives them spiritual power and hand them something unfamiliar. He said whites killed many of those who understood traditional spirituality, so Africans are now “trying to find it” again. Meanwhile, they use Christianity as the available framework.
• Christ outranks the clan spirit. Since Christ is God, he said, going straight to the boss makes more sense than going through a lesser entity. That is why he chose Christianity.

The Bible Question

Critics pushed back immediately. They said this view does not align with the Bible, which warns against consulting mediums. In response, he described the Bible as a library of 66 books that holds history, geography, poetry, magic and necromancy. Not everything it records is an instruction, he said. Some passages simply tell stories of what happened.

Religion as a Governing System

Commander Ibrahim called religion a “controlling system” that organises and governs people. He argued that human beings are the only creatures who need structure to behave. In his analogy, Christianity is a gun and spirituality is the bullets. Quoting scripture without manifesting spiritual power, then, means holding a gun without bullets. As a result, you cannot be a Christian without being spiritual, but you can be spiritual without being Christian.

He was equally critical of many Pentecostal preachers. He described them as theologians and motivational speakers who have studied scripture but lack practical spiritual power. Furthermore, he suggested that “disturbing spirits” cause the screaming and falling in some church services, because they hijack the room’s energy. True demon possession, he said, is rare.

Rethinking Hell

His most unsettling claim for many Christians concerned hell. He argued that:

• The Bible speaks of Sheol, Hades and the lake of fire, but not the burning realm ruled by the devil that popular preaching describes.
• After death, people wait in places such as paradise or “Abraham’s bosom” until judgment.
• God made humans for earth, not heaven, which is why Revelation describes a new heaven and a new earth.
• Anyone thrown into the lake of fire ceases to exist and feels nothing.

He called the traditional picture of eternal torment fear-mongering. In his view, preachers use it to pull people into church and impose moral order. Moreover, he said sin does not harm God. Instead, it harms the sinner, who faces the consequences in this life. Above all, he insisted, Christianity rests on love and choice, not fear.

Do We Really Pray to God?

This is where the conversation grew most heated. Commander Ibrahim said most people get no answers because they do not understand how prayer works. God already knows what you want, he said, and you can only give him an offering and a sacrifice. Everything you want already exists on earth. You simply need to apply the right spiritual principle.

His formula for a breakthrough was blunt. First, you need something God can “put his hand on,” such as a business or a project. Second, you need favour. And favour, he said, comes through someone who can declare, pour oil and anoint. Praying alone, he argued, is like fixing a blocked drain without calling a plumber.

A co-guest objected strongly. She said her own prayer life is real communion with God, and that Jesus himself taught believers to ask. He replied that God expects nothing from people except offerings, and that prayer at its heart means giving thanks and applying principle.

He went further. According to him, no one becomes rich or powerful in business, politics or any other sector without spiritual backup, whether from a prophet or a sangoma. “They are not two ways,” he said.

The Question of Money

Unsurprisingly, money drew the toughest questions. If God gives the gift, why charge for it?

Commander Ibrahim’s answers:

• He charges for his time, not for the anointing or favour. Weekday consultations carry a fee.
• He gives no refunds. He compared himself to a doctor, who cannot refund you after a consultation.
• Payment makes people value the advice. If someone ignores the instructions, the process fails.
• Giving is a spiritual principle. When a spiritual person says “God bless you” after a gift, he explained, they ask God to take from their own blessings and give to the giver. The one who gives, receives.
• The gift is not for the practitioner. Asked why spiritual practitioners are not all rich, he said the grace in him belongs to the people he serves. Their thanksgiving should make him prosper. If he used it on himself, they would receive nothing.

Objections came quickly. Is the fee exorbitant? One voice in the room questioned how he values his time, and the idea of pricing by a client’s apparent wealth. His defenders, on the other hand, pointed to Hebrews 13:7, which speaks about remembering and supporting one’s leaders. In their view, the real issue is not whether to pay but how to value the work.

Prophecy: Why Predict What Cannot Change?

Asked about a prophecy that made headlines, Commander Ibrahim described a vision of a huge tree in Marondera, with people moving beneath it. Chaos, greed and division followed. He says the vision has now come to pass.

When critics asked why prophesy an event no one can stop, he answered that the prophecy concerned the aftermath, not the event itself. The event had to happen. However, people could avoid or soften the fallout. He added that he cannot reveal everything he sees, and that a direct, named warning would bring its own problems.

Still, a sceptic might note that vague, symbolic prophecies are hard to test when people interpret them after the fact. That is a fair question for any prophet.

Curses, Spiritual Attacks and Familiar Spirits

Next, the conversation moved into what he called the darker side of the spiritual world:

• Curses: One sign, he said, is repetition, meaning misfortune that follows a person around. He added that almost every action carries some spiritual influence.
• Pets and monitoring spirits: He claimed that many pets, particularly dogs, act as monitoring spirits that watch what people do. Therefore, he recommended praying over or anointing pets.
• Sacrifice and portals: A sacrifice does not show how serious you are. Instead, power in a human life fuels a portal that invites a chosen spirit. He confirmed that he can open such portals but does not.
• Demonic hierarchies: The kingdom of darkness has ranks, he said. Possession is rare and usually deliberate, and demons make contracts with people.
• Sex and covenants: He called sex the highest level of impartation, because people can transfer blessings or curses through it. Warning signs of an unhealthy bond include a strange compulsion toward one person. Likewise, he said, a person can marry someone who carries a curse.
• Spiritual attacks: They are constant, he said, and at their worst they can kill. He described physical symptoms in his own life, including time with doctors and physiotherapy. Cleansing can involve salt or water.

He also said a witch doctor can sometimes empower preachers. In addition, a spiritual person does not need to touch anyone to take something spiritual from them.

Altars and Generational Patterns

On generational curses, he agreed that parents can pass both blessings and curses to their children. He described an altar as a spiritual door. An open heaven sits above it, and a demonic altar demands recurring payment. In his telling, a family that recognises a negative pattern can close the old altar and build a new one, with help from someone qualified. As an example, he pointed to the biblical story of Terah, father of Abraham, as a family tied to an older altar.

One guest shared her own family story. After noticing a pattern, they gathered an offering, took it to a man of God and prayed. Things began to change, she said.

So: God’s Middlemen or Fake Men of God?

The conversation did not settle the question, and an article cannot settle it either. Still, the ideas it raised deserve some thought.

The Case for the Middleman

Many Africans have long understood the spiritual world as layered, with intermediaries such as ancestors, elders and clan spirits. From that perspective, a gifted person who bridges the visible and invisible worlds is not strange at all. Commander Ibrahim’s argument that colonisation severed people from this knowledge resonates with many. Likewise, his challenge to fear-based preaching lands with people tired of hollow religion.

The Case for Caution

Others will point out that nobody can test many of his claims. In addition, the Bible’s warnings about mediums and necromancy are explicit. A system where every success needs “spiritual backup” and a fee also creates an obvious incentive for the person selling it. Furthermore, claims of curses, familiar spirits and sacrificial portals can leave vulnerable people afraid and dependent. For critics, his teaching that prayer without a go-between rarely works is the biggest red flag, since it makes the middleman indispensable.

Questions Worth Asking Any Spiritual Leader

• Does the teaching agree with the scriptures I hold to?
• Is the fee clear, fair and justified, or does it grow with my fear?
• Can anyone check the claims, or does the leader always explain them after the fact?
• Am I growing closer to God and my family, or more dependent on one person?

As he said himself, there is no good or bad religion, only good and bad people in all of them. In the end, each listener must decide whether he is a true bridge to the divine or one more voice selling certainty. Whatever you decide, do it with discernment, and test everything.

This story is based on an episode of The Denny J Show, hosted by Denny J and Becky K.