Ifaism is usually referred to as Yoruba. The name Yourba in Africa encompasses a group of people that speak the same language and live within certain boundaries in West Africa, which stretched from Senegal to Sudan. Before there was any sort of writing there was Ifa. Ifa at this time, of course, was oral. In Africa, specific individuals spent their entire life, from childhood, learning Ifa verses.

These verses number in the thousands and express every single facet and possibility in life. Ifa verses cover the creation of this earth, the creation of every animal species, man and even this computer. Ifa is the totality of our earthly and heavenly realms and gives us a direct and individual phone number to God.

The Babalawo's are priests of Orunmila that are specially trained, via years of instruction from elders on the secrets of divination. Babalawo literally means, Father of Secrets. Within the same verses that detail your fate you have the appropriate sacrifice prescribed by the Babalawo to assure a favourable outcome. This is similar to visiting a MD in the western world. You visit the doctor; he reads you with his instruments and prescribes some medicine. Your body will sacrifice something for the betterment of the targeted problem if the prescription is followed. Babalawo's are spiritual doctors that use the instruments of Ifa through divination to heal and guide our spiritual being (prescription). Divination can also be referred to as Managed Care.

In the Beginning, Olodumare (God) gave the Orisa Orunmila a flawless method of communication between himself and the Orisa called Ifa. Ifa is linked to destiny through the symbolism of the number sixteen. Sixteen is the number of cosmos; it represents the primal order that issued from the unity of Olodumare. (Sixteen is also a significant number in the world of computers.) When the world was first created, it spread out from an original palm tree that stood at the centre of the world at Ile-Ife. The palm tree had sixteen branches, which formed the four cardinal points and the sixteen original quarters of Ile-Ife. In political terms, Odudua, the first oni of Ife, fathered sixteen sons who founded the sixteen original kingdoms of the Yoruba. On a deeper level still, Orunmila taught the art of divination to his sixteen sons; they, in turn, passed it down to the Babalawos who practice it today.

Through the linked concepts of order, creation, and destiny, the number sixteen represents the variables of the human condition, the sixteen possible situations of human life. For the Yoruba, the sixteen principle signs are called Odu or Olodu, from each of which are drawn sixteen subordinate signs (omo-Odu, "children of the odu" or Odus). These represent the sixteen essential life situations with sixteen possible variations each. This means 256 possible combinations (Odu's) or two to the eighth power. Each Odu is a recital of a set of poems called ESE that provide clues for the resolution of the problem during a divination session. There are at least, and by far not the most, 16 different ESE's for each of the 256 Odu. This adds up to at least 4096 different scenarios. The goal of the Babalawo is to arrive at the appropriate Odu for the situation of his "quitrent".

Orunmila! Witness of fate Second to Oludumare (GOD)
Thou are far more efficacious than medicine, Thou are the Immense Orbit that averts the day of Death. My Lord, Almighty that saved mysterious Spirit that fought death. To Thee salutation is first due in the morning. Thou are the Equilibrium that adjusts World Forces. Thou art the One whose exertion it is to reconstruct the creature of bad lot. Repairer of bad-luck, He who knows thee becomes immortal Lord, the undisputable king, Perfect in the House of Wisdom! My Lord! Infinite in knowledge! For not knowing thee in full, we are futile, Oh, if we could but know thee in full, all would be well with us. Ase o, Amen, Amun or Amen-Re.