Early life Alice Auma was born in 1956, the daughter of Severino Lukoya, a self-proclaimed prophet and the founder of the Jerusalem Melter Church in
Gulu, Uganda. The leader of the
Lord's Resistance Army,
Joseph Kony, previously claimed that he and Auma were cousins, though this seems to have been a ploy to garner support from her constituents. Auma herself always distanced herself from Kony and his views.
Mediumship Remaining childless after two marriages, Auma moved away from her hometown. She eventually converted to Christianity, but, on 25 May 1985, she reportedly went insane, unable to either hear or speak, later claiming to have been possessed by the spirit Lakwena. Her father took her to eleven different
witches, but none alleviated her condition. Auma claimed Lakwena then guided her to
Murchison Falls National Park, where she disappeared for 40 days and returned a
spirit medium, a traditional ethnic religious role. Before the defeat of
Tito Okello in the
Ugandan Bush War, Auma was one of many spirit mediums working near the town of Gulu as a minor
oracle and spiritual healer. She worked in the midst of the chaos of the anti-
National Resistance Army (NRA)
insurgency of the
Uganda People's Democratic Army and the increasingly brutal counter-insurgency operations and tactics of the NRA. Later legend holds that on 6 August 1986, Lakwena ordered Auma to stop her work as a diviner and healer, which was pointless in the midst of war, and create the
Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) to fight evil and end the bloodshed. This divine mission required the retaking of the capital of
Kampala. Thus, the
Acholi would redeem themselves from the violence they had collectively imposed on the civilians of the
Luwero triangle and initiate a paradise on earth. A letter to local missionaries explained the transition: The good Lord who had sent the Lakwena decided to change his work from that of a doctor to that of a military commander for one simple reason: it is useless to cure a man today only that he be killed the next. So it became an obligation on his part to stop the bloodshed before continuing his work as a doctor. Auma claimed that Lakwena required that she be possessed by numerous other spirits to achieve its goals. This was unusual in Acholi spirit behavior. At this time, there was a perceived spiritual crisis in the area, coinciding with the threat posed by soldiers from the NRA-led government. The increased level of societal tension and number of deaths were attributed to witchcraft. After a series of victories, Auma led the HSM south out of the Acholi heartland of
northern Uganda towards
Kampala. There, she garnered much support from other ethnic groups who had grievances with
Yoweri Museveni's government. However, subsequent military setbacks suffered by the HSM prompted some followers to accuse Auma of being a witch and of using spirits for destructive ends. As the HSM suffered its final defeat under
artillery fire in the forests near Kampala, Auma fled and claimed that Lakwena had left her.
Later life and death Auma lived in the Ifo refugee camp near
Dadaab in northern Kenya for the remainder of her life. She claimed to have discovered a cure for
HIV/AIDS and to have the ability to cure blindness and deafness. In 2004, the government of Uganda offered to repatriate her, which she refused. ==In media==