Gender is central to the Ambuli phenomenon. Women often appear both as the primary seekers of help and the most vulnerable to exploitation that can arise from dependency on charismatic intercession. Rituals framed as healing can reinforce patriarchal norms under the guise of spiritual necessity. Conversely, women’s centrality in devotional life can also empower them — creating networks of mutual aid and spiritual agency that contest formal exclusion. Any honest appraisal must hold these paradoxes together.