A Maryland-based attorney has revealed how an African DNA test led her to embrace traditional African spirituality and eventually become a fully initiated Ghanaian fetish priestess, a role she has combined with her legal career for nearly two decades.
Lawranda Owens, known at her shrine as Nana Ofua Serwaa or Okomfuor Serwaa, spoke about her unusual path during an exclusive interview with ZionFelix. She explained that what began as a search for her ancestry turned into a five-year spiritual initiation that took her from the United States to a village near Koforidua, where she completed her training before becoming an Okomfuor.
Owens said she was born and raised in the United States but decided to trace her family roots through an African DNA test. The results showed that her mother’s ancestry is linked to Nigeria’s Yoruba ethnic group, while her father’s lineage traces back to Ghana. Those findings, she explained, inspired her to reconnect with her African heritage.
According to Owens, her spiritual abilities were evident long before she understood their significance. She recalled experiencing unexplained encounters from childhood, saying she regularly saw spirits, communicated with ancestors and travelled in the spiritual realm. She added that she would often tell her mother about conversations with great-grandparents she had never met, only to discover that the descriptions matched relatives her mother knew.
Recognising those experiences as more than childhood imagination, Owens said she committed herself to formal spiritual training. The process lasted five years and included instruction in the United States as well as repeated trips to Ghana, where she returned to her ancestral village near Koforidua to complete the final stages of her initiation.
She explained that the training went far beyond spiritual rituals. It also involved learning local customs, language, cultural traditions, taboos and techniques for developing her spiritual gifts under the guidance of experienced practitioners.
During the interview, Okomfuor Serwaa also gave viewers a glimpse inside her shrine, displaying idols and other sacred objects that form part of her spiritual practice.
Owens acknowledged that balancing her responsibilities as an attorney with her life as a fetish priestess has not always been straightforward. She said the initiation demanded significant lifestyle changes that affected both her appearance and her professional image.
She explained that the process required her to shave off her hair, stop wearing makeup and dress exclusively in African clothing. As a practising lawyer, she admitted she initially worried about how clients and colleagues would react, especially during the colder months when she still maintained her traditional attire while adding blazers or scarves for warmth.
Owens also challenged the widely held belief in Ghana that traditional shrines and their spiritual powers cannot exist beyond Africa or cross large bodies of water.
She argued that many African spiritual traditions were carried to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, making it possible for those practices to continue outside the continent. She said some Ghanaians remain sceptical about her role as a genuine Okomfuor, while many Americans struggle to understand traditional African spirituality. Because of that, she spends much of her time educating people about her beliefs and practices.
Owens further explained that she continues to receive messages from ancestors through dreams, describing sleep as a period of spiritual travel rather than rest. She said she relays those messages to people who seek her guidance and believes the accuracy of those revelations has helped many accept the authenticity of her work.
Watch the exclusive interview below.
