Friday, April 13, 2012

Snake Transformations

So has anyone reading this blog ever transformed someone else into a snake? My guess is no, even though a South African pastor was recently accused of performing that very feat. While witchcraft accusations are common all across Africa, it seems that the current round of accusations against Stephen Zondo of River of Living Waters Ministries has struck a nerve - even here in the United States.

“People actually believe this is going on”, says Pastor Bob Houston of Charlotte, of Precious Blood Church group in Charlotte, N.C. that investigates cases of Satanism in the US. There have been violent protests outside that particular church, with community members vowing they will burn down the church”, he said.

Pastor Zondo blames local radio station, Thetha FM, for “spreading lies”. “Satan is a murderer and the father of lies”, according to the bible in John 8:44. “They have been doing it since last year when they came up with these allegations, in which they also claim that people have lost their lives", he said.

“If they strongly believe I’m guilty, why have they not gone and registered a criminal case against me at the police station, but instead they go to the radio station?” a defiant-sounding Zondo said.

But here's where the story gets really weird. Houston claims that in Saudi Arabia a woman really did transform into a snake - and he has a video provided by the dreaded anti-witchcraft squad to prove it. Of course, whatever is on the video doesn't move and looks more like the infamous Fiji Mermaid than any living thing, but I guess it's not like actual evidence is about to deter a true believer.

“We have investigated claim of people turning into snakes before and we attribute that to demons and witchcraft”, said Pastor Bob. “One case in Saudi Arabia there was multiple witnesses. As the story goes during theHajj a women on her way to Madina turned into a snake in front of a lot of people. The Video is taken by a Hajji after the women was taken to custody. Saudi government has kept it a secret”, he said.

I'll put the question out, though, just in case my natural skepticism has gotten the better of me. Does anybody out there happen to know this spell? If you'd like to share, I can think of a few people that I would be willing to try it out on. It's reversible, right?

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5 comments:

Morgan Drake Eckstein said...

Even if it is not reversible, I have a few people I would like to try it on.

Richard said...

"Orochimaru, is that you?" I thought about building a magic system around the Naruto anime series, but it seems someone beat me to it.

Scott Stenwick said...

Well, clearly if you did the Saudi anti-witchcraft squad would be having none of it. And they'd even shoot a phony video just to demonstrate their resolve.

nerinedorman said...

Oh dear, reminds me of the night me and my better half were sitting outside a nightclub in Cape Town, and some oddball approached us for money... And when we refused, he pulled a bundle of weeds out of his pocket and stated he was turning my husband into a snake. Almost 10 years have passed since that night and I'm still waiting for that epic metamorphosis to happen. ;-)

Scott Stenwick said...

Heh. So that means one of two things - either this person knew something about the spell and couldn't cast it correctly, or he was completely delusional. Granted, my money's on the latter, but on the off chance that the former is correct it would seem that the spell involves some sort of herb. You don't happen to remember what sort of plant it was, do you? ;-)

It's kind of like the "magical spam" that got sent out to a bunch of people years ago claiming to be from some African sorcerer. Supposedly, if the recipient didn't send money to the address in the message they would be cursed. It only took about a month before those messages mostly stopped appearing, so I think the scammers wised up and realized it wasn't about to work on the people to whom they were sending it.