Do "left" and "right" in politics or economics mean anything?

For a long time now I have found it difficult to understand what people are talking about when they use terms like "left" or "right" to describe people's political positions. It seems that they can be used to mean opposite things, and none more so than in the following article, which I came across on the web yesterday -- The concerted, cowardly #MeToo attack on Harvard professor John Comaroff - World Socialist Web Site:

John Comaroff, professor of African and African American studies and of anthropology at Harvard University, has become the target of what has all the earmarks of another filthy #MeToo witch-hunt. In August 2020 Comaroff was placed on paid administrative leave in the midst of an investigation into several allegations of "unwanted touching", "verbal sexual harassment" and "professional retaliation."

Please read the whole article, and tell me which of the parties in the dispute described there are, in your opinion, the "left" and which are the "right".

From my reading of it, the source of the article is "left", Prof John Comaroff is "centre left", and his attackers are "far right" and exponents of the "cancel culture". But what do you think?

I've blogged about the left/right confusion before (see this article on the "theological left", for example), but the Comaroff one takes the cake.

The way I discovered this article, and the many other issues it raised, is quite complicated, and shows that the world is a lot weirder than I thought it was.

It began when a friend sent me an article claiming that the QAnon conspiracy theory in the US was started by a South African cartoonist and was based on African witchcraft. That sounded like a metaconspiracy theory on its own. It was a topic my friend knew I was interested in, and I've written a couple of children's novels and an academic journal article in which witchcraft is one of the themes. One of the things that interested me was the fact that there was almost no overlap between the bibliography in my article -- Christian Responses to Witchcraft and Sorcery -- and the QAnon one.

I therefore did a web search for articles by the anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff, using the search terms "Comaroff witch devil", and the list produced on my desktop computer, which uses the DuckDuckGo search engine, contained not a single academic journal article, but only news items about some allegations against Prof John Comaroff. 

Later, working on my laptop, which uses Google as the default search engine, I wanted to read more about the controversy, and, using exactly the same search terms, not a single news article turned up, but only a list of academic journal articles. 

Intrigued by this, I tried other search terms to find some articles on the controversy, but with no result. As far as Google was concerned, the controversy did not exist. 

That is enough to make one suspect a conspiracy. 

It's a conspiracy-theory generator par excellence.

Why was Google apparently suppressing the story of that controversy? Did they think it was fake news? But reading the article, it doesn't look like fake news. And there are apparently several other articles on the same topic which I haven't read yet. And if it were fake news, surely a web search would turn up something from Harvard University denying that such a controversy had ever taken place?

And then to add to it all, someone I've known online for several years, a fellow blogger who, like me, often blogs about the Inklings literary group and their writings, announced that she has a written a paper on Christian Nationalism and the occult -- another overlapping topic -- which appears in my children's books, and is of interest to me, since Christian Nationalism was the ideology behind the apartheid policy of the South African government between 1948 and 1994, which we thought was thoroughly discredited 30 years ago, but now seems to be making a comeback in some circles in the USA and Russia (try a web search on "Dugin"). 

It looks as though I have a lot more reading to do to catch up, but sifting out the fake news and the conspiracy theories and the metaconspiracy theories is not going to make it easier, especially in a world that, like Nineveh in Jonah's time, contains millions of people who don't know their left from their right.

Supernatural fiction

I recently finished reading The Supernatural Omnibus Vol 2, edited by Montague Summers, and wrote the review that follows for GoodReads, but there are also some observations and responses that go beyond a review, and it led me to compare the approach of Montague Summers and Charles Williams.

The Supernatural Omnibus Being A Collection Of Stories Of Apparitions, Witchcraft, Werewolves, Diabolism, Necromancy, Satanism, Divination, Sorcery, Goety, Voodoo, Possession, Occult, Doom And Destiny by Montague Summers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thirteen stories of supernatural fiction edited by Montague Summers. It is the second volume of a two-volume set first published in 1931. Volume 2 is described as stories dealing with diabolism, witchcraft and evil lore.

The introduction is a long rambling catalogue of literature of the "ghost story" genre, which sometimes overlaps with horror and sometimes doesn't. Many parts of it are little more than lists of authors, titles or publications.

The stories themselves are a mixed bag. The one I liked best was the werewolf story, "The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains" by Frederick Marryat, told in Joseph Conrad style, of a tale within a tale, though that format is often found in ghost stories by other authors too.

Another one I liked was the novella Carmilla by J. Sheridan le Fanu, one of the few vampire stories I've enjoyed after reading Dracula, perhaps because it was written before Dracula and therefore not influenced by it.

Most of these stories are from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and it seems to be almost a convention of the genre in that period to write in an obscure and complex style, rather as a lawyer would. This fooled me in one of the stories by Richard Harris Dalton Barham, from the Ingoldsby Legends. The convolutions of style caused me to lose track of the plot altogether. There was a second story by him, with a far simpler plot, and so I was able to appreciate his literary allusions.

If I ever find Volume 1, I'll buy it and read it, so perhaps that is my overall evaluation.

View all my reviews

So  much for the book itself, but the selection of stories seemed to say something about the selector, and his approach to what is commonly called "the occult". Many of the stories featured Roman Catholic priests as either the narrator or the protagonist, and a few featured clergy of other denominations.  I recalled that Montague Summers was a Roman Catholic writer who had written some books on the history of witchcraft and related phenomena. 

I also recalled that when I was writing a journal article on Christian responses to witchcraft and sorcery I had listed several books and articles as possible sources of background information, including some by Montague Summers, but rejected them in favour of ones written by Charles Williams. In following this up someone reminded me of the preface to Williams's book Witchcraft:

There are two authors who have laid the most casual student of the subject under heavy debt--Dr. Montague Summers and the late Dr. Henry Charles Lea; the first chiefly by his various translations, especially of the Malleus Maleficarum, ... Both Dr. Summers and Dr. Lea express fixed views; those views, it is true, are in absolute opposition. I am not myself convinced either by Dr. Summers's belief or by Dr. Lea's contempt. But they express the views of two sincere and learned men, neither of whom would willingly alter a single fact in order to support his own view.

For me the important difference was that Montague Summers appeared to endorse the view of witchcraft and witch hunting taken by the Malleus Maleficarum (the "Hammer of Witches"), while Williams did not.

My article was written 25 years ago at a time when several people were being killed in witch hunts then current in South Africa. It was apparent then that the burning of suspected witches by lynch mobs was a pagan response to witchcraft, and not a Christian one, as my article points out. Yet in Early Modern Europe thousands of people were similarly treated in what was alleged to have been a Christian response, and one which Montague Summers apparently endorsed, while Charles Williams showed that it was an anomalous departure from Christian tradition, based on a conspiracy theory.

The idea of a satanic conspiracy to destroy the Christian Church was not entirely misplaced, however. It appears that there was such a conspiracy, and it was remarkably successful. It just didn't work in the way that the conspiracy theorists thought. They thought it was a conspiracy of witches who made a pact with the devil to destroy the church. In fact it was a conspiracy of conspiracy theorists to make accusations of witchcraft against people, and to encourage others to do so. It was this that was most truly satanic, because the satan is above all the Great Accuser, and making accusations, and especially false accusations, is the most characteristically satanic activity. Satan must have had a good laugh when he got Christians making accusations against each other left right and centre, and casting suspicion on people who failed to make accusations against their neighbours, or did so with less enthusiasm than was expected of them.

It was witch hunting, and the accusations that incited it, and not witchcraft, that was the truly satanic activity.

This doesn't mean that every story chosen by Montague Summers for his anthology made this ideological point, but rather that he would be unlikely to have chosen a story that contradicted it. 

Charles Williams pointed out that the attitude of earlier generations of Christians was very different. They should not fear the power of witches to harm, but should rather fear the malice that actuated the desire to harm, and should first of all combat such malice within themselves. 

And Charles Williams himself wrote supernatural fiction which conformed to this premiss: those who suffered spiritual destruction were conquered by their own servile fear or malice, rather than by that of other people.

Where child sacrifice is a business

A few years ago there was quite a lot of publicity in the media about allegations of "ritual abuse", especially of children, and the general conclusion seemed to be that this was an urban legend cooked up by religious crazies, and that had been completely debunked. Nevertheless there have continued to be reports of ritual murder in various parts of the world.

Now (hat tip to The Pittsford Perennialist: In Defense of Witch Trials) it seems that they are focusing on Uganda: BBC News - Where child sacrifice is a business:

The villages and farming communities that surround Uganda's capital, Kampala, are gripped by fear.

Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice.

The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country's economy.

The report, however, is slightly misleading, with its mention of "witchdoctors".

Witchdoctors are those whose job is to counter witchcraft, not to practise it.

Witchdoctors who engage in such activities are like policemen who take part in bank robberies and vehicle hijackings -- they find it more lucrative to practise crime than to catch criminals. We should be careful not to give the impression that those are part of the job description.

I would also take issue with The Pittsford Perrennialist on the question of witch trials. The witch trials of the Great European Witchhunt were largely based on false accusations, made for the same reasons as those engagecd in child sacrifice in Uganda and other places today -- greed and covetousness. The accused were accused of Satanism, but the accusers were actually far more satanic, because the main characteristic of the satan in Christian theology is the making of false accusations.

For more on witch trials, witch hunts and witchcraft accusations, see my article on Christian Responses to Witchcraft and Sorcery.

In addition to revelations about child sacrifice in Uganda, there is also the news that the US is now sending troops to Uganda. Perhaps it has something to do with allAfrica.com: Uganda: Scramble for Minerals Begins:

The revelations come shortly after an aerial survey report confirmed that Uganda is endowed with copper, iron ore, cobalt, tin, gold as well as platinum.

There is anticipation for Foreign Direct Investment in the mineral exploration sector in the Great Lakes region as China looks for raw materials to oil its growing economy.

China's entry into Africa is seen as catalyst for renewed interest in Africa by the European Union and US to undermine China's emerging influence due its non-political interference policy on investments in Africa and the potential for monopoly access to energy and mineral resources.

Another hat-tip to The Pittsford Perennialist: Another War?.

Google bewitched?

A few weeks ago a book I contributed to was published. It is on African Initiatives in Healing Ministry, and it was published by Unisa Press.

The marketing department of the publishers are supposed to place a web page for the book on their site, to say what the book is about, explain how to order it and so on. I wanted to see if they had done so, so that I could refer to that page when I wrote to people who might be interested in buying it.

The quickest way to see if the page was up, I thought, was to Google for the title of the book. So I did that. And what did Google come up with?

This.

Powerful witchcraft Spell
www.profzamba.co.za
Extremely Powerful Spells, Love Money, Revenge, 082 257 2395

Extreme Spiritual Healing
www.extremespiritualhealing.co.za
+27 73 476 3119 Love, Good Luck spells and more
Voted #1 Spell Caster

www.3witches.co.za
Call the most powerful spell caster today ..Dr Kubo +2776 53 74611

I suspect that someone must have cast a very powerful spell on Google to get it to return that as the top three results on a search for "African initiatives in healing ministry".

People who are looking for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) need look no further. Don't call an "SEO consultant", call a witch.

Nollywood Effect: Witchcraft goes mainstream in Uganda

Last night as I was going to fetch my son from work I heard on the 10 o'clock news that some witchdoctors had been arrested in Uganda for killing Albinos and exporting their body parts to Tanzania for use as muti.

Though the source was given as the BBC, a search of Google news this morning found nothing of that, but I did find this: The East African�- Nollywood Effect: Witchcraft goes mainstream in Uganda:

One of the more dramatic stories that closed the month of March was the arrest of a witchdoctor in Entebbe.

Witchdoctors have been much in the news in Uganda recently over ritual murders of infants.

They claim to use the bodies of “pure” people, in this case children, to channel wealth to their clients.

They are thus as bad as the fellows in Tanzania who are driving the hunting of albino people by claiming that their body parts can help you grow rich if treated in certain ways.

This Entebbe witchdoctor was not as violent as the above types.

But he was as big as shame to the nation as the Australian lecher who fathered many kids with his confined daughter.

The last bit shows that some Kenyans confuse Austria with Australia as easily as some Brits confuse Tanzania and Tasmania, but that is not the point of my repeating this story.

These events in East Africa seem to be similar to the use of zvikwambo in Zimbabwe. Zvikwambo (singular chikwambo) are magical objects one can buy from a n'anga (traditional healer), which are supposed to make one rich. They are often made of human body parts. The purchaser of a chikwambo is usually urged to keep it secret, even from other members of the family, and it demands sacrifices for its continued efficacy. The demands become more and more onerous, and sometimes include human sacrifice.

An important aspect of Christian healing ministry in Zimbabwe is releasing people from the power and demands of zvikwambo. I recently co-authored a book on African initiatives in healing ministry, which is soon to be published by Unisa Press. One of the co-authors, Lilian Dube, of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, did research on Agnes Majecha, a healer of the Zvikomborero Apostolic Faith Church, who specialises in neutralising zvikwambo. It is mainly African Independent Churches (AICs) that undertake this kind of ministry, and people have visited Majecha at her healing centre in Marondera from as far afield as Botswana and South Africa.

Muti murders also take place in South Africa, usually for similar motives -- the desire to get rich quick. These are sometimes reported by the media, but often the reporting is confined to sensationalised stories about complaints, and possibly arrests, but very little is reported on subsequent trials, if any. One exception was a case in Tshwane a few years ago, when a four-year-old child went missing. The story of her disappearance and the subsequent search made headlines, as did the discovery of her mutilated body. A police sniffer dog detected her remains in the wall of a hairdressing salon -- they had been incorporated to make the business prosper. In that case there was some reporting of the trial, but generally there isn't. There were some sensational arrests in the Eastern Cape last year, but so far there have been no reports of a trial.

Sometimes people in the West look down on African culture, and point to such things as indications that African culture is inferior to Western culture. However the recent bailouts of Western companies with "toxic assets" resemble nothing so much as the sacrifices offered to appease zvikwambo, only on a far bigger scale. But where is the Agnes Majecha in Europe or the USA to deliver them from this mess?

And at the root of it all is one human passion -- greed.

Roman Pope speaks on African witchcraft and witch hunts

The Roman Pope, Benedict XVI, recently visited Angola, and expressed concern about the witch hunts that are taking place in some African countries.

Pope Calls for Conversion From Witchcraft in Africa - washingtonpost.com:

The pope began his day addressing Catholic clergymen and nuns, telling them to be missionaries to those Angolans 'living in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers. In their bewilderment they end up even condemning street children and the elderly as alleged sorcerers.'

In Africa, some churchgoing Catholics also follow traditional animist religions and consult medicine men and diviners who are denounced by the church.

People accused of sorcery or of being possessed by evil powers sometimes are killed by fearful mobs.

The article is somewhad skimpy, and doesn't report on what means, if any, Pope Benedict suggested should be used to deal with the problem, but it is good to know that there is concern about it at the highest levels in the Roman Catholic Church, which is probably the biggest single Christian body in Africa.

That's not to say that others have not been concerned about it in the past, but many past responses have been ineffectual. The modernist response has been quite common among Christian churches -- to assert, in the face of witchcraft beliefs and fear of evil spirits, that such things don't exist at all, and that modern and enlightened people don't believe in such primitive nonsense. Faced with that kind of response from the church leaders, people who fear witches and evil spirits conclude that the church is not equipped to cope with such problems, and so they resort to those who do claim to be competent to deal with them -- diviners and medicine men, the so-called "witchdoctors".

If Pope Benedict is urging church leaders to take the fears of such people seriously, and to help them to overcome them rather than despising them as primitive superstitions from the vantage point of a superior Enlightenment worldview, then that is to be welcomed.

But there is also the problem of some neopentecostal groups who, according to some reports, are actually fanning those fears into a flame, and thereby encouraging witch hunts and pointing the finger of suspicion even at children. That should be a matter of concern to all Christians in the continent.

Update

I've just found a link to the full text of Pope Benedict's address here.

I believe this is a very important document for the Christian Church in Africa.

Muti murders and ritual killing

The Daily Dispatch has a good article on the growing number of muti and ritual murders.

Daily Dispatch Online:

THE use of human body parts for medicinal purposes – “muti”, derived from the word meaning tree – is based in the belief that it is possible to appropriate the life force of one person through its literal consumption of another. Medicine, or muti, murder appears in several countries across Africa, with ethnographic evidence going back to the early nineteenth century in South Africa. Research indicates that an estimated 80 percent of South Africans regularly use traditional herbs and medicines for muti.

Not all traditional healers make use of human body parts as an ingredient in their medicines, but those who do place an “order” with a person hired for this specialist purpose. The orders include private parts, tongues, hands, heads, eyes and lips which are used to ensure economic prosperity, sexual potency and to promote romantic matters amongst others.

These are the type of self-centred motives that leads to murder.

The use of human body matter does, however, not always involve killing. F or example, a living person’s nail clippings or hair cuttings may secretly be collected by a jealous neighbour or friend and used in potions targeted against that person. Body parts can also be harvested from corpses, with mortuary workers and hospital staff implicated in this aspect of the trade.

Lest this be thought to be a problem related only to African culture and African traditional medicine, the following report indicates that Western medicine also suffers from this kind of abuse:

News - Crime & Courts: Spotlight on organ transplant scandal:

A decision is to be made this week on who is to be prosecuted in the alleged international kidney transplant trafficking scandal which allegedly involved St Augustine s Hospital and eight KwaZulu-Natal doctors specialists and staff.

And a decision will also be made on what the proposed charges 'the participants' should respond to said Advocate Robin Palmer a law professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who has been called in to prosecute the case.

Charges were provisionally withdrawn two years ago against the doctors and Netcare transplant unit staff to allow the State time for further investigations.

Harvesting organs in this manner, whether for African traditional medicine or Western scientific medicine, turns healing into a zero-sum game, in which the health of one person can only be improved at the cost of the health of another.

More on child witches in Africa

The UK Channel 4 programme on child "witches" in Africa broadcast last week has reignited debate on the topic. I keep a database of African independent churches and church leaders, to try to build up a coherent picture of African Christianity, but the media reports on this phenomenon, which has been reported mainly from Nigeria, the DRC and Angola, usually raise more questions than they answer.

According to Tracy McVeigh of "The Guardian" (9-Dec-2007) "it is American and Scottish Pentecostal and evangelical missionaries of the past 50 years who have shaped these fanatical beliefs".

What I would like to know is which American and Scottish missionaries these were. What are their names, their background? Who sent them to Nigeria, and when? Which denominaations and mission agencies sponsored them? What was the source of their teaching, and how did they influence those who are propagating these beliefs in Nigeria today?

These seem to me to be very important questions for missiologists and church historians to be asking. We have international academic discussion forums for researchers on African Independent Churches and New Religious Movements, but if anyone is doing research into those topics they aren't saying. Possibly some sociologists have been doing research into it, but if they have, I haven't heard of it. An interdisciplinary study would be useful.

In the absence of such studies, all one can do is try to read between the lines of the newspaper reports and try to guess what is going on.

According to some reports this phenomenon -- accusing children of being witches -- did not exist in Congo (DRC) in 1994, but it was common in 1999.

One of the denominations reported to be most active in witch hunting is the Liberty Gospel Church, founded in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria in 1992 by Helen Ukpabio, a former nurse.

She has apparently said that if children cry a lot and are fretful it is a sign that they are witches. Now I'm not a fundi on Nigerian witchcraft beliefs, but I do know that in most parts of Africa if a child is ill and feverish and cries a lot people may suspect that the child has been bewitched. Witchcraft has often been seen as a cause of illness. But it seems that Ukpabio has reversed this, and instead of seeing these as symptoms that a child is a victim, she teaches that it a sign that the child is a perpetator of witchcraft.

Maybe there is some precedent for this kind of thing in Nigerian culture -- if there is, I hope someone will enlighten me. But it seems to me like a new twist on the "blame the victim" game.

And if Helen Ukpabio and others like her really got their theology from American and Scottish pentecostal and evangelical missionaries, it might be quite important to know which ones. I think it may, however, be a bit more complex than this.

In Central and West Africa there seems to be a growing interest in exorcism; though such beliefs may have been around for a long time they seem to be growing stronger. Many clergy seem to have specialised in it. I met a student at the Orthodox seminary in Nairobi who had been a Roman Catholic and gathered a congregation of about 500 people in Douala, Cameroun, who had mainly been attracted by his ministry of exorcism. He became Orthodox when the Roman Catholic bishop sought to inhibit his ministry of exorcism, which he continued with the blessing of the local Orthodox bishop.

Another student at the seminary, who was from the English-speaking northern part of Cameroun, had become a Rosicrucian at the age of 16, and had tried an amazing number of religions, including Wicca and Ekankar, before settling on Hinduism, which he studied for some time under a guru in India. On returning to Cameroun he was told by his spirit guides to worship the Triune God, and walked into town and the first Christian Church he came across was the Orthodox Cathedral, so he decided to join the Orthodox Church. But at the seminary he believed that the teaching staff were withholding important information from the students, such as which variety of incense was best for driving out which kinds of demons.

But there is also the possibility that the excesses of people like Helen Ukpabio could actually kill off African witchcraft beliefs altogether.

Something similar happened in the great European witch craze in the 16th and 17th centuries. In early modern Europe there was, in some places, a great increase in witchhunting and witchcraft accusations. As time passed, however, the accusations and the beliefs about witchcraft became more and more bizarre and over-the-top, until people could simply no longer believe them, and eventually the entire belief system crumbled under its own weight. Perhaps Ukpabio's teachings are a sign that this is beginning to happen in Africa.

Saving Africa's Witch Children

The disturbing new trend of witch-hunting, apparently sponsored by Neopentecostal Churches, continues to get publicity, but unfortunately the media reports are not very informative.

Channel 4 - News - Dispatches - Saving Africa's Witch Children:

In some of the poorest parts of Nigeria, where evangelical religious fervour is combined with a belief in sorcery and black magic, many thousands of children are being blamed for catastrophes, death and famine - and branded witches by powerful pastors. These children are then abandoned, tortured, starved and murdered - all in the name of Jesus Christ.

This Dispatches Special follows the work of one Englishman, 29-year-old Gary Foxcroft, who has devoted his life to helping these desperate and vulnerable children. Gary's charity, Stepping Stones Nigeria, raises funds to help Sam Itauma, who five years ago, rescued four children accused of witchcraft. He now struggles to care for over 150 in a makeshift shelter and school in the Niger Delta region called CRARN (Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network).

Is anyone doing any research into this phenomenon, on the origins and spread of these beliefs, and who is holding and propagating them?

Book review: The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World - Scotsman.com

With such a broad subject as witch-hunting in the Western world, it is a pity that this book was not broadened still further to include the whole world.

Book review: The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World - Scotsman.com:

Book review: The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World

Published Date: 08 November 2008
By Germaine Greer
THE ENEMY WITHIN: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World

By John Demos

Viking, 336pp, �17.99
JOHN DEMOS HAS BUILT A formidable reputation with his five scholarly books on early American history. His new book, The Enemy Within, is very different. Not only is it intended for a broad readership, but its putative subject, as indicated by the sub title, is no less than '2,000 years of witch-hunting in the western world.' Demos tells us in his introduction that the plan for the book came from his publisher, but he does not really explain why he accepted the challenge. To paint so vast a picture requires a broader brush and rather more intellectual arrogance than Demos has at his disposal.

The review itself has come in for criticism. Letters - Witch Hunts - NYTimes.com:

I have not yet read John Demos’s new book on witch hunting (“The Enemy Within,” Oct. 12), but your reviewer, Germaine Greer, reveals an astonishing lack of up-to-date knowledge concerning a topic that has undergone a revolution among historical researchers over the last 40 years.

And I have a minor quibble of my own, when later in the review Greer says: Book review: The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World - Scotsman.com:

This reader would have been intrigued to find out what Demos, with his in-depth understanding of the events in Salem, would have made of the judicial murder of Joan of Arc, whom the British would have tried as a witch if only Anne of Burgundy, Duchess of Bedford, deputed to examine her, had not testified that she was a virgin. Joan was tried as a heretic instead, found guilty and burnt alive at the age of 19. Like the teenagers in Salem, Joan could cite spectral evidence. Whether her voices would be classed as saints from heaven or goblins damned depended on her judges. The British burned her; 25 years later the French retried her and declared her saint and martyr.

Many of the female saints of the early church behaved in ways that in a different setting would have brought an accusation of witchcraft. Many had relationships with birds and beasts identical to those that witches were thought to have. The seventh-century saint Melangell, for example, sheltered a hare beneath her skirts as she knelt praying in a wood and when the following hounds caught up they fell back whining; later, witches would be thought to inhabit the bodies of hares.

Interesting stories, but rather spoilt by the anachronistic references to "the British" -- it was the English, surely? The story of St Melangell is interesting, though rather tangential to the main topic. I've blogged about that elsewhere at SAFCEI: Saints and animals.

But to return to witch-hunting, I'd like to see more comparative studies between the Western world and elsewhere. Perhaps they will prove or disprove my hypothesis that witch-hunting seems to increase in societies where premodernity meets modernity, as in early modern Europe, and much of Africa at the present day. Maybe it's just that I've been over influenced by the title of the collection of essays by Comaroff & Comaroff: Modernity and its malcontents: ritual and power in post-colonial Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), ISBN: 0-226-11440-6, Dewey: 303.4, but the comparison is long overdue.

The Times - Military believe judge was ‘bewitched’

The case of a military judge who has claimed that she was bewitched has really set the cat among the pigeons.

The Times - Military believe judge was ‘bewitched’:

A Senior military judge has escaped prosecution for attempting suicide because some of the SA National Defence Force’s top brass allegedly believed her claim that she had been bewitched.

The defence force’s first black female judge, Colonel Phildah Nomoyi, 41, doused herself with petrol and set herself alight in her garage in June.

Now Thaba Tshwane — the military complex in Pretoria that is home to thousands of personnel from privates to generals — is buzzing with gossip about how Nomoyi escaped being booted from the force.

Not only is the unfortunate judge in danger of being sacked for "shooting herself in the foot" (as the saying goes), but the South African Pagan Rights Alliance (SAPRA) have said they will lodge a formal complaint with the Minister of Defence, SANDF Legal services, SANDF Chief and the Defence Secretariat, against "the spurious religious prejudice and defamation demonstrated against Witchcraft by Colonel Phildah Nomoyi" and (according to reports) "supported by the SANDF in their refusal to remove Nomoyi from her Judicial position or charge her with conduct unbecoming."

Which quite frankly seems utterly ridiculous. Or do SAPRA have evidence that Philidah Nomoyi has accused them, or any of their members, of bewitching her?

I believe that, however the case turns out, the SA Pagan Rights Alliance owe Colonel Phildah Nomoyi an apology for accusing her of "spurious religious prejudice", unless they have evidence to show that she specifically accused them, or any of their members, of bewitching her.

It appears that they are confusing two very different things -- the modern religion of pagan witchcraft, and premodern African witchcraft beliefs. As the historian Ronald Hutton has pointed out in his book The pagan religions of the ancient British IOsles,

By assuming that witchcraft and paganism were formerly the same phenomenon, they (Wiccans) are mixing two utterly different archaic concepts and placing themselves in a certain amount of difficulty. The advantage of the label 'witch' is that it has all the exciting connotations of a figure who flouts the conventions of normal society and is possessed of powers unavailable to it, at once feared and persecuted. It is a marvellous rallying-point for a counter-culture, and also one of the few images of independent female power in early modern European civilization. The disadvantage is that by identifying themselves with a very old stereotype of menace,
derived from the pre-Christian world itself, modern pagans have drawn upon themselves a great deal of unnecessary suspicion, vituperation and victimization which they are perpetually struggling to assuage.

Now I am sympathetic towards neopagans who have been maligned in this way, and have suffered vi8ctimisation as a result. But it is disingenuous to claim that Colonel Phildah Nomoyi had the slightest intention of doing this. It is confusing two very different concepts, and has the effect of victimising Colonel Phildah Nomoyi in the same way that neopagans have themselves have been victimised. She clearly has problems, and deserves sympathy rather than persecution.

Did the devil make him do it?

The parents of a schoolby charged with killing a fellow pupil said that he was "into satanism", as did some newspaper headlines.

The trouble is, these allegations are tossed about, but never followed up. There were similar reports a few months ago in the Eastern Cape, but we have heard no more.

clipped from www.thetimes.co.za The parents of Morne Harmse, accused of stabbing a fellow pupil to death with a sword, in their first public statement since the incident, said their son was a victim of bullying. The Harmses said "to our regret, it seems like he had started experimenting with Satanism". The mask he wore is said to be similar to masks worn by heavy metal band Slipknot which has been accused of producing Satanic music.

TheoFantastique: Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Academic Study of Zombies

One of the problems with the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill was that it used terms like "zombies", but failed to define them. Perhaps the legislators could benefit by sending someone to this conference: TheoFantastique: Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Academic Study of Zombies:

The Religion and Popular Culture group on Yahoo! recently issued the following call for papers:

Call for Papers: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays on the Zombie

We are seeking proposals for an interdisciplinary edited volume discussing the zombie from a wide variety of perspectives and within a wide range of contexts. We encourage submissions from any discipline, including but not limited to English literature, film studies, media studies, cultural studies, gender studies, queer studies, philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, history, psychology, economics, and political science. We especially welcome new approaches to the study of zombies. In addition to theoretical essays on zombies, we also welcome critical discussions of specific zombie films, novels, and graphic novels, including those both pre- and post-Romero.

I blogged about the Witchcraft Suppression Bill soon after it was published (Notes from underground: MPUMALANGA WITCHCRAFT SUPPRESSION BILL 2007), and was glad to note that it was subsequently withdrawn (Notes from underground: Witchcraft Suppression Bill put on hold) a year later. Perhaps politicians need to realise that not every problem can be solved by legislation, and especially not by hasty legislation in which terms are not defined.

While there is indeed a problem of "witchcraft-related violence", such violence is already illegal -- there are laws against murder, arson, assault and malicious damage to property, and those who perform such acts can be prosecuted under existing laws.

In the mean time the conference may, or may not, turn up some useful information. Perhaps someone could propose a paper on the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill itself.

Witchcraft Suppression Bill put on hold

Well that's a relief.

It was a horribly badly-drafted piece of legislation, which failed to define terms and would have created endless confusion had it become law.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za Mpumalanga healers and pagans have been given a new lease of life after the Witchcraft Suppression Bill was put on hold. The proposed bill by the department of local government, which came under fire last year from various stakeholders, was put on hold yesterday. The department of local government said it had put the drafting of the bill of 2007 on hold “until further notice”. The department was mandated by the provincial executive council to prepare a bill which seeks to address high levels of violence in Mpumalanga linked to allegations of witchcraft.

While witchcraft allegations have certainly led to a lot of violence, hasty legislation and imprecise definitions will not help to solve the problem.

Kenya mob burns 15 women to death over witchcraft

In South Africa it's foreigners, in Kenya it's suspected witches, though of course there have been witch hunts in South Africa too.

Kenya mob burns 15 women to death over witchcraft: "to death, a local official and villagers told AFP Wednesday.

'This is unacceptable. People must not take the law into their own hands simply because they suspected someone,' said Mwangi Ngunyi, the head of Nyamaiya district. 'We will hunt the suspects down,' he added.

The gang of about 100 people moved from house to house late Tuesday, tied up their victims and set them ablaze, the official said.

Ngunyi added that the mob also torched 50 houses in Nyakeo village, located some 300 kilometres (180 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi."

Parents left son accused of witchcraft to die

clipped from www.myjoyonline.com The Takoradi Police have arrested a couple for negligently causing the death of their nine-year-old son. The couple, Kwaku Badu, 35, a fisherman, and Elizabeth Coomson, also 35, were said to have kept their son indoors on the orders of a spiritualist who said the boy was possessed by witchcraft. The spiritualist, Madam Theresa Arthur, popularly known as Maame Osofo of the 12 Apostles Church at Inchaban, was alleged to have declared that the boy was possessed by witchcraft and ordered that he should be kept in a room until he died. She said they did not take the boy to the hospital because he had confessed to being a wizard and that he wanted to die because he did not have anyone to present to his cult members for a party. Madam Coomson said they, therefore, kept him in the room until he died last Wednesday.

No more child witches in Congo?

clipped from www.bbc.co.uk The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to vote shortly for new legislation that will make it a criminal offence to accuse a child of being a witch. Many of the hundreds of children who are sleeping rough on the streets of the capital city Kinshasa have been accused of being witches. But is it possible to legislate against such deeply held beliefs and can such a law be enforced in a country that has been so fractured by war?

Whether the law can be enforced in such a fractured country is indeed a moot point, but so is the idea of these "deeply-held" beliefs.

These beliefs, to all accounts, appeared quite suddenly in recent history. Perhaps they could disappear just as suddenly. What we need to find is what it takes to make them disappear, and perhaps it could help to find what caused them to appear in the first place.

The DRC, like other African countries, has long had many people who believe that misfortunes are caused by witchcraft and sorcery. What appears to be new is the belief that these witches are young children, and that it is occurring on such a scale. Perhaps it is the very fractured nature of the society that is causing these beliefs to spread and be deeply held.

Hat-tip to What is witchcraft.

Neopentecostals and witch hunts

Attitudes to witch hunting seem to be changing in African independent churches.

The old Zionists generally had a more humane attitude to people suspected of witchcraft and sorcery (see my article on Christian responses to witchcraft and sorcery) but the Neopentecostals seem to be displaying similar behaviour to that seen during the Great Witch Hunt in early modern Europe.

Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt | World news | The Observer

Pastor Joe Ita is the preacher at Liberty Gospel Church in nearby Eket. 'We base our faith on the Bible, we are led by the holy spirit and we have a programme of exposing false religion and sorcery.' Soft of voice and in his smart suit and tie, his church is being painted and he apologises for having to sit outside near his shiny new Audi to talk. There are nearly 60 branches of Liberty Gospel across the Niger Delta. It was started by a local woman, mother-of-two Helen Ukpabio, whose luxurious house and expensive white Humvee are much admired in the city of Calabar where she now lives. Many people in this area credit the popular evangelical DVDs she produces and stars in with helping to spread the child witch belief.

I've blogged about this before, but my initial impression is being confirmed by reports like these. Zionists are basically premodern. They worship wearing robes, and in their worship they beat cowhide drums. The Neopentecostals come with expensive sound systems, wearing suits and ties (the males, anyway). In Africa they seem to represent modernity, and so tend to reinforce (in my mind) the link between witch hunts and modernity.

A couple of days ago I was talking to Greg Cuthbertson, a South African historian, and Inus Daneel (a missiologist and AIC researcher) and they confirmed this impression from their own research and observations. I've been asked to take part in a couple of TV programmes recently, and in both of them concern was been expressed that people are leaving the traditional AICs and moving to the Neopentecostals. I'm not sure that that is correct, as I believe the Neopentecostals and Zionists (in South Africa) appeal to different constituencies, though as modernity takes root in Africa I believe the constituency of the Neopentecostals will grow, while that of the Zionists will shrink.

Greg Cuthbertson referred to a report from the Centre for Development and Enterprise, Under the radar: Pentecostalism in South Africa and its potential social and economic role, which referred to the role of the Pentecostal churches in promoting modernity.

This project has revealed a world of activity, energy, and entrepreneurship previously unknown to this otherwise well-informed South African think-tank. Flying under the radar screens of politicians, intellectuals, academics, and journalists are a large number of institutions and individuals that are actively concerned about and working on questions of values and personal behaviour. These concerns include family life, personal responsibility, unemployment, skills creation, and a range of other national concerns.

The last sentence could apply to many non-Pentecostal Christian groups as well. Greg Cuthbertson was somewhat sceptical about the report, saying that they tended to lump all kinds of things together under the general label of "Pentecostalism", and did not understand hoe Christian denominations worked. But I believe the general link between Neopentecostalism and modernity is there.

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If you are interested, you can see my other blog posts on this and related topics here and here.

Witchcraft accusations and exorcisms in DRC

BBC News | AFRICA | Congo witch-hunt's child victims:

Congolese children are being accused of witchcraft and made scapegoats for the country's many ills. Jeremy Vine reports from Kinshasa on the gruesome business of exorcism.

The sect - run by a free-thinking Congolese Bible teacher called Prophet Onokoko - has 230 children on its books. All are accused of witchcraft. Many have been thrown out of their family homes. All will have to undergo some kind of ritual exorcism to expunge the evil spirits.

I have a database of African Independent Churches (AICs) and would be interested in more information on this one, and on Prophet Onokoko. Does anyone have any more information on the history of this church, and its theology?

The Times - Muti-killing arrests imminent

The Times - Muti-killing arrests imminent:

Police are on the verge of arresting two traditional healers who bought the body parts of seven of the 17 women murdered in the Eastern Cape.

Police spokesman Superintendent Mike Fatyela said yesterday that the police would arrest two suspects before the end of the week and charge them with conspiracy to murder and with dealing in human flesh.

The two traditional healers’ “order” for women’s genitals is thought to have prompted a killing spree in Mzamba village, Bizana, that resulted in 18 people being murdered in the past five months.

A 24-year-old man appeared yesterday in the Bizana Magistrate’s Court to answer to three charges of murder, one of rape and one of attempted murder.

In a case like this, "traditional healers" seems to be a misnomer. It would be more accurate to call them sorcerers, or even witches, because the muti is probably used to make someone's business prosper, or to harm a rival's business. Healing has nothing to do with it.

But 18 murders in five months in a single village is quite mind-boggling.