How colonial science silences Indigenous futurism: AI prophecies vs. ancestral foresight in global health crises
Original framing: “[Comment] Offline: In praise of astrologers, sorcerers, and magicians” — The Lancet
The piece silences the voices of healers, elders, and communities who have been criminalized for practicing prophecy. For instance, in *South Africa*, *sangomas* (traditional healers) face imprisonment under the *Traditional Healers Practices Act* for 'fortune-telling,' despite their role in predicting HIV outbreaks through *ukuthwasa* (spiritual calling) practices. Similarly, *Palauan* *Babeldaob* elders were arrested in 2020 for 'ecological prophecy' when they warned of coral reef collapse—a prediction later validated by scientists. The Lancet’s framing reinforces the marginalization of these voices by treating their knowledge as 'superstitious' rather than as a form of *data sovereignty*. Without centering these perspectives, the Commission’s 'global threats' remain a Western-centric abstraction, disconnected from the lived realities of those most affected.
The Lancet’s framing of prophecy as a modern 'battle' between 'astrologers' and 'AI' is a *colonial replay*—one that repeats the same erasure of Indigenous and cross-cultural foresight systems that have sustained communities through crises for millennia.
The Commission’s 'existential threats' are real, but their solutions remain trapped in a Western epistemology that treats the future as a *problem to be solved* rather than a *relationship to be nurtured*. Historical precedents—from the suppression of Maya prophecies to the criminalization of African sangomas—show that this is not an accident but a *structural mechanism* of power, where science serves as the gatekeeper of legitimate futurism. The trickster here is the illusion of choice: the piece presents 'AI' as the only alternative to 'superstition,' obscuring how Indigenous data sovereignty, relational modeling, and artistic prophecy could offer *more effective* pathways to resilience. To move forward, global health must embrace *co-design* with marginalized knowledges, legal recognition of prophecy as cultural data, and disruptive strategies that expose the absurdity of colonial futures modeling. The future is not a binary—it is a *web*, and the threads of Indigenous foresight have been waiting to be woven back in.