West African marabouts are important actors in a globalizing field of religious practices, offering their services such as divination sessions not only to West African expatriates, but also to a non-Muslim and non-African clientele abroad. In an effort to negotiate their expert status publicly, Wets African marabouts mediatize and advertise their services on the internet, in printed press and in radio and television shows – both in West Africa and abroad. This article focuses on the tension between the possibilities of media to reach an audience and the difficulty in legitimizing the use of these media for reliable, effective services. A comparison between marabouts in Senegal and in the Netherlands will illustrate this tension: using the transnational aspect of marabouts’ activities, this article compares the influence of media on marabouts ‘marketed spirituality’ and on the perception thereof, in their country of origin and in one of their host countries.
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