Jamaica’s sacred heartbeat

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30Kirt Henry:travel dollars work harder. Follow Smart Travel on your favorite podcast app.

1:01Kirt Henry:or wherever you listen.

1:12Jamaica has given the world a lot of cultural gifts, be it reggae music, be it Rastafari. And I say with pride that revivalism is the only religion that came from the people of Jamaica. And that is something to be proud of. Jamaican revivalism is a glorious mash-up, a blend of rhythms and beliefs that's part Christianity, part ancestral spirituality.

1:50Our bodies are used as instruments. You will have the deep guttural sound, A, A, right? And then you have the stamping of the feet. And groaning in the spirit is one of that complex ways that we use to communicate with the spirit.

2:16Their annual pilgrimage to Wattown is a journey to revivalism's most sacred of sights. What town serves as that spiritual centre that brings you back to the basics, that brings you back to the core. That's Kurt Henry. He's a revivalist who believes that the spirits guide him through life. There are spirits dwelling amongst. The temporal and the spiritual worlds are one. My own spiritual journey started when I started having particular dreams and experiences. My mother would tell me stories of communicating with spiritual beings at a tender age at about six or seven thereabout. A revival leader looked at me and said to her that he's one of us.

3:11Those childhood experiences, they set Kurt on his life mission to preserve the past and to secure the future of Jamaican revivalism. I began to shed the stereotypes that I've always been hearing about revivalism, that it is uncivilized, you know, it is demonic worship, it's devil worship and so on. and at the end I decided fully that I am going to be a revivalist and here I am today. I'm Nick Davis and this is the documentary on BBC World Service. For heart and soul we're in Jamaica to meet Kurt Henry and explore his unique religion with its roots buried deep in the island's ancestral history.

4:00What marks you out as a revivalist? When you ask the average revivalist, you know, how did you come into this religious practice? They will tell you that either my grandmother or my great-grandmother was a revivalist. I learned from my grand-aunt, right? I grew with her partially, So I was exposed to her everyday interactions with the spirit, you know, her wearing particular colors and uniforms and the deep belief that she had in the use of clothing as a way of healing. So, for example, whenever she had a headache, she would wrap her head in the red turban and then you'd hear her saying that the headache is gone and so on.

4:48her communication with angels. So at certain time of the day, she would wear a particular uniform or you could know when a particular angel is present in the house, you know, based on the color that she would wear at that particular time. So I grew up around that sort of liberty, you know, where revivalism is concerned. As a child, my own grandmother performed the revivalist rituals passed down to her through the generations. I think one of the key tenets of this religious practice is ancestral lineage or connection to the movement. There's that sort of bloodline connection, right? That's one aspect.

5:36Like Rastafari, I consider revivalism to be a liberty. It is a way of life. It is not simply just going to church, you know. It's not the light switch. It's not. It's not at all. It's what you live every day. So you may have revivalists having altars in their homes. That spiritual identity, that spiritual connectivity that you have within your daily life. Today, Kurt Henry teaches university students about Jamaican cultural history. I refer to myself as a scholar practitioner of revivalism. I am also the director of the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica, Jamaica Memory Bank, that is responsible for documenting and researching African cultural heritage.

6:29Which came first, your research or your faith? My faith. Okay. In fact, I was never baptized in a revival church. I was baptized in a seventh-day church. But upon leaving that church, I would always immediately go to a revival church for that sort of spiritual fulfillment that I was not getting in a seventh-day church. Later on in my life, I attended the University of the West Indies, and the opportunity came for me to pursue doctoral studies. Kurt is almost the exact opposite of me. He's tall and slim and in his early 30s, with his manicured beard and round glasses and dark jacket, he looks every inch the academic.

7:15I knew that I wanted to pursue an era in revivalism. So my thesis looks specifically on clothing, the religious and the cultural significance of clothing, but not only clothing, but also how clothing is deployed on the body in ritual spaces and how meanings are generated from that. And my doctoral studies, it was also a journey of self-discovery. That journey of self-discovery leads Kurt to what he believes was his destiny, to gain recognition for the cultural and global significance of revivalism from UNESCO. I was a part of a team that was able to have revivalism being inscribed on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage lists of humanity.

8:11There's also a sense of humility, you know, in knowing that I was strategically positioned by my ancestors to be able to do this sort of work in allowing the movement that has been marginalized for many years to finally get that sense of recognition and validity among the nation. I would say it was predetermined because looking back at my life now, There are other paths that I would have taken, but as destiny would allow it, I was taken on the path that I'm supposed to be, you see? And that is where the humility comes, by submitting yourself to that will of a higher power, you see, that serves as a kind of guide.

9:03Kurt's now dedicated to rebranding revivalism not as something occultish from the past but as a living breathing faith from ancestral Africa practiced by tens of thousands of Jamaicans today. I lecture a course in African religious retentions and I always begin my class by asking this what do you think of revivalism and much of what they say to me are stories that they have heard. Once I take them on a field trip to visit a revival church, the responses are very different. So I did, you know, what I've been hearing, I didn't experience that in the movement, right?

9:52How would it play out normally? Is there a structure? There is an order for revival services, but the reliance, the direction of the service has to do with the Spirit. You do have praying, reading of the Scriptures, importantly chanting, or what we call drilling, right? which is a communal way of communing with each other and also the spirit. You do have exhortations, testimony sessions and so on. But the difference is that it's a fundamental reliance on the spirit during our services and the spirit as see fit can intervene at any point.

10:47How does your faith, how does that liberty present itself in your everyday life? You know, certain rituals, fasting and prayer and so on. Chanting is an everyday ritual. And it's a way of maintaining that sort of spiritual grounding as we continue on our journey. Kurtz our guide to revivalism, to the Wattown pilgrimage, and to the extraordinary ceremonies that happen high in the mountain parish of St Anne on the first Thursday of March every year. Why Wattown? Many years ago, in the 1800s, there was a revival leader who would have gotten a vision from the spirit to use that site as the spiritual centre for revivalists.

11:41There were testimonies of revivalists across the island getting similar visions to go to that specific site. And over time, Watone got, what I would say, prominence as one of the spiritual sites in Jamaica for revivalism. Revivalism is centered on community. It's centered on the idea of healing and togetherness. The Jamaican revival emerged in the early 1860s, a few years after emancipation. And this was a period within which you had missionaries coming to the island to Christianize slaves. And of course, African Jamaicans at that time used that as an opportunity to not only incorporate Christian elements, but also used that as an opportunity to revisit their African cultural practices.

12:43Those practices that they were not allowed by law to practice on the plantations. What was it which came from West Africa to inform this practice? The Africans that came to Jamaica, there were several spiritual traditions and practices that came with them. So there wasn't a unified religious or spiritual tradition, per se. What I can say is that the Africans that came, came here predominantly with the Yoruba traditions, the Yoruba practices. They believe in the ancestral realm. They believe in the divine being. They believe in the pantheon of spirits. They're all coming from a Yoruba tradition.

13:31The revivalism that you experience today is as a result of the formal influence of Christianity and the incorporation of the spiritualities from the indentured laborers that would have come after slavery. So we're looking at the East Indians, we're looking at the Chinese, and also the Africans that came from the Congo region.

14:01But at that time, if slaves were caught practicing African spiritualism, they risked brutal punishment. There were nocturnal gatherings happening right throughout slavery. Enslaved people found hills and valleys, generally marginal spaces, to continue transferring knowledges of their religion and so on. They, in that time, used the opportunity, in secret of course, to as best as they can preserve these religious practices. Kurt's faith was driven deep underground. Even after emancipation, the revival movement was feared as taboo. It's a miracle that anything's left today. There is this sort of ignorance around revivalism.

14:48But there is also the factor of fear. I've seen a bill in 1931 that was proposed to the colonial government at the time, prohibiting the practice of revivalism on the grounds that it contributed to mental insanity. At that time in Jamaica's history, there was a rise in the numbers of persons being committed to the mental asylum. a significant amount of that were black people. You just really touched on a nerve for a second because my grandma was institutionalised at Bellevue. But if I may say, though, that revivalism actually contributed to the reverse because Jamaicans have been using spirituality to cope with the harsh realities of plantation systems.

15:46that would have caused inherent trauma that we are still recovering from today. While our bodies were shackled, but our spirits were not. And it is a spirit that has kept Africans and African Jamaicans alive even to this very day. It created such a problem for Africans and faith for the colonial powers. This is a group of people that have gone through verbal abuse, physical abuse. They have gone through instances of mutilation. They have faced ridicule. They have been beaten. They have been raped. They have been torn from families. Spirit within revivalism gives us that sort of energy, you know, to push through difficult situations.

16:36And that is one of the main factors that has allowed the movement to survive until today. We all can agree that housing is expensive. Rent, mortgage, it doesn't matter which one you're paying, it stings every month. But BUILT can make you feel a little better. Let me explain. BUILT started out rewarding members on their rent. Now, as of 2026, BUILT members can also earn points on mortgage payments wherever they live. Every housing payment earns you points you can use toward flights with top travel partners like United & Hyatt, Lyft Rides, Amazon.com purchases, and so much more. And here's what you might not expect.

17:17Build members can also get access to a neighborhood concierge. It can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots, all while being rewarded at more than 45 ,000 merchant partners. It's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home is better with Bilt. Join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com slash podcasts. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash podcasts. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Ripbox has the best of British TV, period. Let's get started. The best mystery, period.

17:55I like a good detective story. The best romance, period. This is the book that will open the heart, Miss Mary Bennett. The best drama, period. Welcome to the grown-up world. Stream the best British period dramas, including The Lady, inspired by a true story of murder and scandal. And from the world of Jane Austen, The Other Bennett Sister, only on BritBox. Start your free trial at BritBox.com. You're listening to the documentary on the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Davis, and for Heart and Soul, we're on a journey to the sacred heart of Jamaican revivalism.

18:35What Town is a twisting couple of hours drive from my home in Kingston. And on this day each year, this is where revivalists gather to climb a winding hill path. It starts at the foot of the hill, where you see a sign with Psalm 24 on it. And what happens is that revivalists would line up in a single file and they would repeat that psalm. After repeating that psalm, they would then progress up the hill with a hymn.

19:17A long line snakes up the winding narrow path to the sacred site at the top. Bands start arriving at Wat Town from as early as 6am. There are bands who come and sleep over the night before for Watown the following morning. Each church group or band wears their own colours and it's an incredible sight. The colours are important because the colours represent the particular messengers or message that you have taken to Watown. So you wear the uniform as a sort of tribal mark, per se, or an identity of the community that you are a part of. The uniform serves as a form of spiritual protection. You know, the uniforms are usually consecrated before they are worn.

20:11Joy to the world! The Lord is gone! Men and women wear brightly coloured turbans, tunics, trousers and dresses. It's a sea of yellows and reds, blues and greens, and the band nearest to me now, they're in purple. This is Burgundy that's being worn, right? Burgundian revivalism is referred to as the Maroon Order, which, of course, those enslaved Africans would have escaped slavery and formed free villages within the mountains, right? So they're what we refer to as nations in revivalism. And oftentimes these colours are worn to represent those nations.

21:00Some of the revivalists at Watone were wearing madras, the madras flag. That is from the East Indians who would have come to the island. And of course, during that era, the early 1840s, they incorporated the madras. Because remember now that before colonialism, Indians were trading with Africans long before. So the Africans who came were already familiar with the madras fabric. So it was easy for them to incorporate it within their everyday practices.

21:42Each band stops before the final push to circle a small flagpole. They will go in a circle, in an anti-clockwise motion, symbolising that African philosophy around the continuity of life, symbolising the belief in community.

22:09within that circle you have what we call the band's leader that person within the center of the bands is the one that at that point communicating with the spirit and what happens is that those on the periphery would then look at the one in the centre and mimic the movement. So there's that call and response in bodily movements as well as sounds that are being made. And it is through that sort of musical chant that you then begin to, as we say, journey in the spiritual realm. There are chalk symbols marked in the ground. These markings are referred to as seals, which are a sort of point of departure to communicate with the other side, with the spiritual world, spirit world and so on.

23:01And within these seals, there are codes, there are messages. So once you begin to drill and to chant on these markings, they are then unlocked to reveal certain messages coming from the spirit world. And it's also a part of the coding system of revivalism. There's always been that perception that what the colonisers don't know, they can't destroy.

23:33The air's filled with a joyous sound clash as the pilgrims drill to open themselves to receive the spirits.

23:46And then there is a crescendo or a build-up and there are times when they would rest singing for a while and begin to chant, so you'll hear the guttural sound, movement of the feet, and so on. It is believed that emphasis is placed on the groaning, because it is actually the groaning that will then take you through the spiritual realms. The groaning serves as a sort of guide or compass that allows you to move through the spirit world.

24:28Inside the chapel is hot. The atmosphere is electric. You can almost feel it in the air.

24:46There's an intensity as it relates to the spiritual connection that you feel. The energies that are coming out from the colours that are being worn, from the various spirits that are present or messengers that are present in the place. leaders are preaching from the front as a constant revolving congregation responds to their calls in the chapel there's a there's actually a service going and that service is punctuated by the receiving of bands so whenever a band is done registering they would then proceed in the church to let, let me say, the messengers or the spirits that reside in the church to also let those spirits be aware that they are present on the site.

25:43So there's a sort of spirit work happening in the church and that sort of spiritual anticipation for the bans that are then being received in the church.

26:04Calls and shouts go up as the spirits speak. Spontaneous dancing in circles breaks out as people chant and praise God. Turning the anticlockwise turning is symbolic in terms of removing whatever malevolent forces that may be around you or unwelcome spirits that may be travelling with you. so that anticlockwise turning of the body is to get rid of that sort of negative aura or energy around you. Because of the work done by Kurt and the team, it got UNESCO recognition. The significance of the Wat Town pilgrimage will never be forgotten. There is a way in which African cultural practices are seen as mere entertainment.

26:56and it is okay to take it on stage. It is okay to sit, you know, and what a performance. But once one gets too close to experiencing it, to acknowledging the philosophy and really the spirituality of it, then there is some sort of withdrawal where that is concerned. It's coming out of the era of colonization where Africans were taught to stay away from those practices. They were stripped of their identity. They were stripped of their language and cultural practices. Revivalism itself as this religious movement has also evolved. So revivalism started out with everyday working class people. And today you have people within very high spaces in society, influential spaces, who are no revivalists.

27:59You have revivalists who are doctors, lawyers, and so on, who are working to also push the movement forward in terms of a national recognition and in terms of its legitimacy. Revivalism cannot simply be regarded as a Christian denomination. It is too complex than that. So there are elements of Christianity, there are elements of African spirituality, there are elements of Hinduism, elements of Chinese spirituality. So revivalism for me is not a Christian denomination. It has elements of Christianity. With great pride, I say that revivalism is a folk religion that came from the people of Jamaica.