Spell Failure

These days I don't put up many articles about African witchcraft. For a while I did, but the same basic themes kept coming up - some poor outsider in the community who was accused of witchcraft for no clear reason, and then run out of town or killed by an angry mob. I also put up a few posts about lawmakers trying to rectify the ongoing situation, and how fundamentalist Christians were usually the ones egging the mobs on. It got old, and it got sad, and it was hard to say how much things were really changing and how quickly.

But here's a story out of Kenya that's more embarassing than tragic. A woman accused of stealing money from her employer went to a professional magician for a spell to keep her from getting arrested. Unfortunately for her, the spell was a bust. Police showed up in the middle of the ritual and hauled her off to jail. When police arrived, the magician kept up his chanting so that they would be unable to see the suspect (who was right there in the room) but this likewise proved ineffective.

Detectives have arrested a woman suspected to have stolen Sh4 million from her employer three weeks ago. The suspect, according to the Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti, was nabbed at a witch doctor's house in Gachie, Kiambu County, during a ritual to help her evade arrest. She was accompanied by her husband as she sought protection from police arrest. "The detectives arrived in time as the suspect was being immersed in a basin containing a concoction of blood drawn from a dead fowl, whose features resembled those of a cockerel," Kinoti said.

"Upon noticing the detectives, the elderly witch doctor pronounced endless incantations in an attempt to keep them at bay, but that did not deter the sleuths from executing their mission much to the bemusement of Mwelu, who had closed her eyes expecting the sleuths to vanish. She couldn’t come to terms with reality after the in-charge of the operation told her ‘mama bado tuko hapa vaa nguo twende (We're still here, put on your clothes and let's leave)."

This is a good point to segue into a word about how invisibility spells work. They are sometimes misunderstood as magick that bends light around a person and makes them impossible to physically see. The truth is that they work by directing the attention of others away from you or your target. With an effective invisibility spell you really can walk through a crowded public space without anyone taking notice of you. They physically see you, but the spell prevents them from paying attention to or remembering you.

On the other hand, these spells won't fool a security camera because they don't affect the light around you or how it refracts. They also won't generally work in a situation where the people you are trying to disappear from know where you are and specifically come looking for you. A really good invisibility spell might have worked if the suspect had actively tried to hide, since these spells can influence others to overlook particular hiding places, but otherwise the suspect was pretty much guaranteed to be caught.

Kenyan Body Lotion Spell

Usually stories about witchcraft in Africa are depressing enough that I don't want to report on them. All too often they involve "witchcraft panics" and the like that result in the deaths of innocent people. But this story is mostly just funny. Apparently there are witches in Kenya casting spells that make people - or at least one criminal defendent - steal body lotion from local markets. Needless to say, the explanation was not taken seriously by the courts. He had previously been convicted of stealing the same brand of body lotion from the same store.

The 70-year-old suspect was caught with two bottles of lotion valued at Ksh1,720 which he had stolen from a local supermarket. Macharia, who is serving a three-year probation sentence, said the offence he committed on September 20, could only be blamed on witchcraft. He explained to the court, with certainty, that he had been bewitched by someone from his village.

The accused had been sentenced earlier in August for stealing the same brand of lotion from the same supermarket, pleading guilty to the charges. "I am very sorry for the offence and I cannot tell why I keep stealing the same lotion from the same supermarket," Macharia disclosed.

Magistrate Merisia Opondo, who sentenced him in August, was shocked to see him back in court having committed the same crime he was accused of. "At your age, it is shameful to be committing such offences," Magistrate Opondo said. Macharia promised to go back to the village if the court forgave him but Opondo forwarded his case to another magistrate.

So I guess in Kenya, "a witch made me do it" is actually a thing. Fortunately, though, the court doesn't take it seriously. That's good, and hopefully we won't see this incident escalate any further. Casting spells at people to make them steal body lotion seems like a pretty ineffective use of magick, despite the humor value. It seems to me that any spellcaster who can do this successfully should be able to do things that actually benefit them as opposed to doing little more than getting a neighbor in trouble.

This is especially true in Africa, where casting spells carries significant risk - you would think that if you were going to take that risk, you wouldn't just do it for a few laughs.

Magick Competition Banned

I had no idea anything like this went on in the world today, and it sounds like a great idea to me. But unfortunately the government of eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, decided otherwise. It recently banned a proposed event that would involve practitioners of witchcraft and magick competing against each other in a test of paranormal powers.

Organizers had planned to hold the competition in Manzini, the second city of eSwatini, a land-locked country in southern Africa ruled by King Mswati III, one of the world's last absolute monarchs. "The proposed competition of witchcraft and magic spells was unheard of in the country and it was regarded as an anomaly in the lives of the people of eSwatini," government spokesman Percy Simelane said in a statement.

"Government will not sanction any competition of that nature. Anyone who will persist with any activity related to witchcraft will face the full might of the law." The statement, released Tuesday, said the Witchcraft Act of 1889 defines witchcraft, sorcery or the practice of voodoo as a punishable offense."Government cannot sit back and watch while the lives of the citizens of this country are exposed to illegal and weird practices that have the potential to poison the minds of [Swazi people], especially children," Simelane added.

And this right here is one more reason that magical research is centuries behind the physical sciences. Imagine if the World Fairs of the last two centuries were banned by their respective host countries because they believed that science and technology should be prohibited! It sounds like a bizarre proposition to any modern person, but this is in fact precisely what is going on here.

Magick is a technology, and when people are prevented from doing legitimate research involving practices and techniques the whole discipline suffers. Likewise, a competition can be a great way to spur such research, along the lines of what the X Prize Foundation has done for space travel and other breakthrough research areas.

We need to work to get rid of the stigmas surrounding our work so that solid research can move at a faster pace. That's the only way that the paranormal arts are ever going to catch up with the state of mainstream science.

Not So Bullet-Proof

A couple of people over the years have e-mailed me about making "bullet-proof charms" like those sold by traditional African healers. Since I'm not a spellcaster-for-hire or anything like that, I've corresponded with them and speculated a bit on the kind of magick that would have to be involved. I am of the opinion that it would be very difficult if not impossible to create a spell that would physically flat-out stop a bullet. The probability gradient there is ridiculous. On the other hand, a general protective talisman, bound to a spirit charged with keeping its owner from being shot by whatever means, could be effective in combat situations.

But even if your talisman works, the absolute worst case to defend against is a bullet fired at close range in a non-combat situation - as a traditional healer in Nigeria recently found out.

A self-styled traditional healer in Nigeria has died after one of his clients tested his "bullet-proof" charms on him.

Chinaka Adoezuwe, 26, was killed after instructing the man to shoot him as he was wearing the charms around his neck. Police in the country's south-eastern Imo state say the client has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Charms are popular in Nigeria, where traditional healers are consulted for cures for various ailments. But there have been several reports of people being killed after testing "bullet-proof" charms and medicines.

"A young man had gone to [the healer] to prepare bullet-proof charms for him, which the native doctor did," a villager told the Punch newspaper. "To prove the efficacy of the new charms, [he] positioned and handed over a gun to his customer. Tragedy struck."

My reasoning regarding combat situations is this: not only are most people terrible shots, combat is one of the worst places to be a shooter. It's chaotic, people are running all over the place, it's loud, and there are not a lot of opportunities to really set and line up a shot. Also, weapons are exposed to dirt and grime, and depending on the type of gun may become prone to jamming or misfiring. Finally, there are a fair number of people who just won't fire their weapons for various psychological reasons. All of those things are subject to magical influences at probability levels within a reasonable range.

Now I have no idea how this demonstration was supposed to work. It seems to me that if the healer was a fraud, he would not have deliberately handed the client a loaded gun. Maybe it could have been some sort of magic trick, like the famous "bullet catch" which is always faked - but sometimes in pretty ingenious ways. There have been cases in the stage magic world where people were accidentally handed guns loaded with real bullets instead of blanks, or where people brought up from the audience reloaded the gun without the magician's knowledge to "beat the trick." Or maybe the talismans these healers make are good enough that most of the time they work even under these testing conditions.

Whatever the case, I will say that it's dangerous to rely on a talisman alone to keep you from getting shot. Your best bet would probably be to wear body armor AND carry the talisman. That way the talisman can influence shooters around you so that, for example, a bullet heading directly for you might hit the armor instead of an unprotected part of your body. That gives it one more way to protect you besides keeping the shooters from targeting you and keeping you out of the way of wild shots.

That's Really Too Bad

It sounds like the African nation of Zambia won't be conducting cutting-edge paranormal research any time soon. In response to rumors that the government was considering investigating witchcraft - that is, magick - as a science, its chief spokesperson issued a strong denial on the grounds that Zambia is officially defined as a "Christian nation" in its 1996 constitution. As I see it, this is one more case where having a state religion is just a terrible idea. Western academic institutions are highly biased against paranormal research on entirely different grounds, so little of it goes on here. But in Africa, it could be a more plausible area for study if not for all the religious prejudice.

The Zambian government on Tuesday denied media reports that it intends to consider research on witchcraft as a science. Witchcraft or witchery broadly means the practice of and belief in magical skills and abilities exercised by solitary practitioners and groups. Witchcraft often occupies a religious divinatory or medicinal role, and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view.

Chief Government Spokesperson, Kampamba Mulenga, said such reports were blatant falsehoods. Mulenga said: "We are aware that there is a group of people that is spreading malicious statements through various media platforms, bent on destroying government’s image." According to her, the government could not start advocating for witchcraft practices as the country was a declared Christian nation. She added: "Christianity and witchcraft are poles apart and cannot co-exist."

In other words, as long as Zambia is a "Christian Nation," no paranormal research will ever be conducted. That's too bad, because paranormal research touches on all sorts of areas that I remain convinced will become important areas for study in the future. At the very least, consciousness studies has taken off as a discipline over the last decade or so, and one wonders if that would fall under "witchcraft" as well according to the Zambian government. After all, consciousness is the key to working with every magical system I've ever come across, and I highly doubt that the African form of witchcraft is any different.

It should also be pointed out that this is exactly the kind of nation that the Poor Oppressed Christians are fighting for here in the United States. As they are "oppressed" by the mere existence of people who don't share their beliefs, any paranormal research in a "Christian America" would be right out. I might not even be allowed to discuss it publicly in a forum like this blog. And as I see it, that simply is unacceptable.

Witchcraft Accusations Prompt Zimbabwe Coup

Emmerson Mnangagwa, who probably is not a witch

While the situation in the African nation of Zimbabwe appears to be up in the air for now, news outlets are reporting today on what appears to be a military coup in progress against Robert Mugabe, who has been president of the country since 1987 after serving as prime minister from 1980-1987. Many years ago Mugabe played an instrumental role in Zimbabwe's struggle against colonial rule, but he has also been criticized as an authoritarian dictator who has become wealthy while taking advantage of his people.

Where this story falls into Augoeides territory is that the coup appears to have been precipitated by Mugabe's dismissal of Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who Mugabe accused of witchcraft last week.

Addressing supporters at the headquarters of his Zanu-PF party in Harare, 93-year-old Mugabe accused Emmerson Mnangagwa of consulting witchdoctors and prophets as part of a campaign to secure the presidency. Mnangagwa, who was sacked by Mugabe on Monday and expelled from the ruling Zanu-PF party on Wednesday, said he had fled Zimbabwe because of death threats and was safe.

"My sudden departure was caused by incessant threats on my person, life and family by those who have attempted before through various forms of elimination including poisoning," he said in a statement on Wednesday. The head of the influential war veterans association, Chris Mutsvangwa, said that Mnangagwa, 75, would travel to Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa "very soon".

Mugabe's critics claim that the charges against Mnangagwa are trumped up, and that Mugabe dismissed him so that he could install his wife, Grace Mugabe, as his successor. This created divisions within Zimbabwe's ruling party, and those divisions appear to be fueling the coup.

Mugabe told supporters he had dismissed Mnangagwa for disloyalty and disrespect, as well as using witchcraft to take power. The move exacerbated divisions in the ZANU-PF party, where the youth faction is firmly on Grace Mugabe’s side, while the older veterans of the struggle against white rule look to Mnangagwa. At one point last month, Grace Mugabe even warned that supporters of Mnangagwa were planning their own coup.

Mnangagwa, who fled to neighboring South Africa, has strong support with the military, and Chiwenga, the army chief, threatened Monday to “step in” to stop the purge of Mnangagwa’s supporters. The military was once a key pillar of Mugabe’s rule. The party’s website later reported that Mnangagwa was back in the country and would be taking over leadership of the party. Political commentator Maxwell Saungweme said by phone that the military will probably try to pressure Mugabe to step down in favor of Mnangagwa as acting president.

Mugabe is known for leveling witchcraft charges against his political opponents, and Mnangagwa is not the first high-ranking member of the government to be dismissed because of them. So it's likely that the charges are made up. But if they're not, this is a good place to point out that magick sometimes works in mysterious or unexpected ways.

Let's say that Mnangagwa did a spell to make him president, without any particular limitations. One way for the spell to work would be for this exact situation to unfold, provided that when the dust clears Mnangagwa really does come out on top. A success is always a success, regardless of how it manifests.

It's a Miracle!

When I complain about faith healers here at Augoeides, it usually has to do with people who insist that faith healing cannot be done in conjunction with conventional medical treatment. Faith healing - that is, magical healing - can and does work, but just like with any other spell, the mundane steps that you take towards your goal such as conventional medical care help to bring the likelihood of a successful cure within the probability range that the spell can create. So with anything life-threatening, arguing that conventional care somehow undermines magical care is especially dangerous.

But this article is not one of those cases. Pastor Mboro of South Africa, a popular celebrity preacher who does faith healing, used his powers to cure a man's erectile dysfunction on his television program. The man and his wife immediately had sex, which prompted the television station to refuse to show the episode - even though the sex was blurred out. Mboro is planning a march on the station to protest the decision.

He told Sunday World: ‘Thabisile came to church a while ago and complained that although she was blessed with three children and recently got a promotion at work, she was sex-starved because her husband suffered from erectile dysfunction. I went there and entered their bedroom and asked them to put their hands on their private parts. After that I prayed for them and the husband immediately regained his erection.’

Grateful wife Thabisile said: ‘My husband got his erection back and when he came back from outside to call the crew to film our testimony, we were already busy having sex. We just couldn’t wait as it had been long since we had sex. I apologised to the pastor for doing that because that was embarrassing.’

Pastor Mboro has blurred out the sex for his TV show and claims the testimony of the couple is no more pornographic than other programs on the station. ‘Every weekend we watch movies which have episodes where people are shown having sex. Here there is no sex but they can’t show it. They have not shown two of my shows as a result of this dispute.’

Now you can point out that a lot of erectile dysfunction can be psychological, which makes it a prime target for faith healing, and I won't disagree with you. Just from this incident, it's hard to say (pun intended) whether Pastor Mboro really has highly effective paranormal healing powers. Mboro has come up on Augoeides before, and his previous statements make him sound like a complete fake, or at the very least highly prone to exaggeration.

But at the same time, my first rule of magick is that if it works it works, and that's apparently what happened here - to the chagrin of the television station in question. I also think that it's good to see a Christian pastor doing something that is basically sex-positive, as opposed to the anti-sex fire-and-brimstone stuff that usually makes the news, even if it is an over-the-top self-promoter like Mboro.

As far the television station goes, I don't know how explicit South African television is, and I'm sure that there probably are various standards that they try to adhere to with obscenity laws and so forth. I can see American authorities being squeamish about this sort of thing as well, even though it seems to me with the actual sex blurred out, there really isn't much to see compared with what is shown on a lot of other programs.

So I think the television station should go ahead and air the episode with the offending portion blurred out, as Mboro is demanding - that is, unless there's a compelling reason under South African law that prohibits them from doing it.

Vampires in Malawi

Vampires are on the loose in the African nation of Malawi. At least, that's what vigilantes who are running around killing these suspected blood-suckers believe. The government of Malawi is attempting to crack down on the vigilantes, since obviously they're just running around killing regular people rather than protecting their nation from the undead.

Vigilante killings started on 16 September when three people suspected of being blood suckers were killed by a mob. Traditional leaders in southern Malawi believe the vampire rumours started across the border in Mozambique where rumours of blood sucking have led to violence this week.

In Mozambique, protesters have targeted police because they believe they are protecting the supposed vampires, leading a northern town's administrator to flee the city. The villagers in these areas believe human blood sucking is a ritual practised by some to become rich. They also believe they are failing to catch the blood suckers because they use magical powers.

If these communities believe in "mysterious magical explanations for things, then people will tend to attribute their difficulty on what they call blood suckers," Dr Chioza Bandawe, a clinical psychologist at the University of Malawi, said. For some that represents "the life of the hope being sucked out of them," he said. But this has been "expressed on innocent people or on people who are different".

So basically, this is the same old witch-hunting hysteria that pops up in way too many parts of the world. The police are protecting these vampires because they are not really vampires, but simply innocent people who are disliked by their neighbors. And this whole thing is way too familiar - a fanciful rumor gets started, and anybody who's different pays the price.

Here's hoping that the government crackdown succeeds, and that this violence can be stopped in its tracks. One thing the world doesn't need is a whole crop of delusional vampire hunters.

United Nations to Address Witch Hunting

Witchcraft persecution is still alive and well in many parts of the world today. As I've mentioned many times, I'm quite happy that I live here in the United States where I can have a blog talking about magical rituals and not have to worry about angry mobs showing up at my front door. According to this article from The Wild Hunt, the United Nations is creating a new human rights office to focus on “accusations of witchcraft and ritualistic killings.” While the UN is not always as effective as one might hope, this is a good first step towards addressing the problem at an international level.

While horrifying in their number and in their presented detail, the readily-available articles only share the stories making news. Experts agree that many witchcraft-related incidents go completely unnoticed and unreported. As a result, the statistics on witchcraft-related violence are unreliable. Nobody knows just has bad it is.

Although the published reports do regularly populate the international news media, this human rights crisis has gotten very little attention on the international political scene. To date, most of the work has been done by private organizations, such as the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network (WHRIN) and Under the Same Sun.

Or it is being handled by local governments, such as in the creation and enforcement of anti-witchcraft accusation laws. Over the past ten years, an increasing number of countries have, in fact, instituted such laws, including Papua New Guinea, India, South Africa, Tanzania, and others. In 2018, Liberia will play host to a new U.N. human rights office that will reportedly help the country’s government better address, in part, the “accusations of witchcraft and ritualistic killings.”

While these organizations, individuals, and governments appear to making some headway in an effort to stem the tide of abuse, the crisis has yet to be touched on the collective international level. Until now. The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold, for the very first time, a special two day workshop on witchcraft-related human rights violations.

To be clear, there are unscrupulous magical practitioners in the world who commit crimes. Despite government efforts, for example, albinos are still being killed in countries like Kenya and Tanzania because it is believed that their body parts have magical powers. But my point is that the perpetrators should be punished for the crimes they commit, not simply for practicing magick. If you kill an albino for their body parts, that's murder and it shouldn't make any difference whether you did it in connection with a ritual or were just upset with them. You should be sentenced according to the crime in either case.

So here's hoping that this new office will get results and reduce some of the senseless violence meted out against suspected "witches." People should have the right to practice their spirituality as they see fit, magical or otherwise.

Killing the Devil

That's totally not Pastor Mboro up there.

A pastor in South Africa is claiming that he went to Hell and killed the Devil. No, seriously! Pastor Paseke Motsoeneng naturally made the claim on Facebook, because obviously anybody capable of such a feat is going to want to post it in their feed next to photos of what they just had for dinner. The post went like this:

“When I got to hell, there was a queue of millions of people waiting to be braaied by Satan. I even saw some prominent South African politicians.

“I was so shocked because they lived like angels here on earth. I thought they went to heaven.

“When Satan saw me, he panicked and directed his army to kill me. Like Samson in the Bible, I defeated them. Satan was my last victim.”

I don't know what "braaied" means, but since it's Satan I'm sure it must something pretty sick, maybe involving a pitchfork and a whole bottle of baby oil. Before you start celebrating, though, there are a few more things you should know about Motsoeneng, who also goes by the name Pastor Mboro. This isn't his first completely outlandish claim.

Last Easter, the pastor claimed that he “was so overcome by the spirit” that he went to heaven and took pictures on his cellphone. What did he do with those pictures? He sold them for R5000 each.

Sticking with the topic of money, Mboro told his congregants that he could get them into heaven, the cost this time? R10 000 for “guaranteed access” of course.

This pastor is so blessed that “God” once sent him a BMW i8 with a value of R2 million, all because Mboro helps the poor with his good deeds.

So yeah, this guy appears to be a total scammer. It also is kind of telling that his description of Heaven and Hell and Satan line up perfectly with oversimplified Christian metaphysics. The real spirit world doesn't work that way.

When I first read about this claim, I thought that perhaps Pastor Mboro had engaged a powerful chthonic spirit and defeated it in some fashion, and mistook that spirit for "the Devil." In Christianity, there's only one "Devil" and every evil spirit gets traced back to that single archetype. But there are many, many chthonic spirits and they can't easily be classed as "evil."

But no, it's probably not even that. Pastor Mboro is more likely just a scammer angling for donations, who knows full well that he's totally bullshitting everybody because it makes him sound impressive to his followers.

More Bees!

No, it probably didn't look anything like this. But it's funny to imagine that it did.

I just can't get enough of this African spell that sends swarms of bees after your enemies. As I've mentioned previously, bees aren't just regular vengeance, they're also amusing vengeance. On Monday, a car thief was apprehended in Kenya with the help of the spell.

A suspected car thief on Monday ran into a police station and surrendered himself after he was attacked by a swarm of bees, which only left him after a witchdoctor performed a ritual.

Mr Francis Sikadigu had allegedly drugged the car owner before driving off to an unknown destination. When the Nation caught up with him at the police station, Mr. Sikadigu, a middle-aged Ugandan, was groaning in pain and moving in circles as the bees stung him.

He had abandoned the car at the gate to the Bungoma County Assembly. Bungoma OCPD David Kirui said the suspect was in custody and would be charged in court once investigations are complete.

The bees continued to accost the thief until he could be taken to another witchdoctor who lifted the spell. I totally need to learn this one, because there are a few people out there that I think deserve some bees. As I think I also have mentioned previously, summoning bees probably falls under Leo, "The Power of Taming Wild Beasts," in Liber 777.

I haven't had a chance to experiment with it yet, but rest assured that it's on my list.

"Man-Sheep" Born in South Africa

Here's one more case showing that the paranormal should never be regarded as the default explanation. A "man-sheep" - a lamb that looks like it could be part human - was recently stillborn in South Africa. As usually happens with weird events like these, many fear that bestiality and witchcraft played a role in the conception of the bizarre-looking creature. But veterinarians who examined the body have a different, more prosaic explanation.

The panic got so great that the Eastern Cape Department of Rural Development sent out experts to carry out tests after pictures of it spread through the community. Chief Director of Veterinary Services Dr Lubabalo Mrwebi admitted that at first glance the lamb which was born dead did resemble a human being but was not part human.

Dr Mrwebi said: “We can confirm this not a hoax photo but that the severely deformed lamb was born by a sheep in Lady Frere this week which at a glance resembles a human form. “It is not however human but a deformed stillborn lamb sired by a sheep and was subsequently infected by a Rift Valley Fever at an early stage of its pregnancy.

“It is worth noting that a sheep has 28 pairs of chromosomes while humans have 23 pairs which is important in dispelling the myth that a union of a sheep ovum and a human sperm can lead to a development of a viable life form. “The deformed lamb exhibits signs that are consistent with an early foetal development that went wrong as a result of a viral infection and nothing more” he said.

So it's not the result of a spell or animal husbandry gone wrong. It's the result of a viral infection. I suppose somebody could cast a spell that made it more likely for a particular sheep or flock of sheep to catch an infection, but that's about all you could do along these lines with magick. Biological explanations are a lot more compelling.

This isn't the first case of a "man-sheep," so apparently sheep fetuses do go through a stage where they look more human than you might expect. Mostly it's the lack of wool, which is unsurprising for a fetus, and the flattened face, which is a mutation that is bred for and viable in some breeds of dog like pugs.

That raises the possibility of breeding a viable flat-faced sheep. Maybe the result would be too disturbing, but maybe that would be the whole reason to do it in the first place.

He Picked the Wrong Water

Even though it sounds like something out of The Onion, this story from back in March is from Zimbabwe Today, which as far as I know is a legitimate African newspaper. According to the story, a pastor trying to demonstrate "walking on water" was instead eaten by crocodiles.

It is said that Pastor Mthethwa walked into the water and when he was 30 meters inside the river, he attempted to ascend above the water so he can start walking, but the 3 crocodiles appeared out of no where and started feasting on him.

"They finished him in a couple of minutes. All that was left of him when they finished eating him is a pair of sandals and his underwear floating above the water." said Deacon Nkosi.

ER24 responded to the scene 30 minutes after, but upon arrival there was not much they could do as the man of god was already dead, digested by the crocodiles.

Above and beyond the irony factor, what I find interesting about this story is how the pastor's actions are described. Instead of just walking across the water from the shore, he walked 30 meters in and then attempted to "ascend?" I can do that trick. I just have to be in the right place, and I only know of one that fits the bill - the Gulf of Mexico coast off Sanibel Island in Florida. But I'm sure there are many others around the world.

The deal is that off Sanibel island, there's a shallow sand bar about that far out from shore. So I could walk out into the ocean and then appear to rise until I was only knee-deep or ankle-deep in the water and walk for a ways. Obviously, anybody who followed me would discover they could do the same thing - but if, say, the body of water happened to be infested by crocodiles so nobody ever went in? That would keep the secret pretty well.

I don't know whether the pastor really believed he could do it, or if he was pulling a trick that meant he had to do at that precise location. Either way, luck was not with him. Even in waters with a lot of crocodiles or alligators, they usually are willing to leave people alone for a short period of time unless they are especially hungry - time enough to wade out, walk around on a sand bar or, I suppose, on the water itself, and then wade back. But not this time.

Maybe if he really was trying to pull a trick on his congregation, the crocodiles were just God's way of saying "no."

Not the Bees!

Now this sounds like a fun spell that I totally have to learn. According to Kenyan news outlet Tuko, a man hired a witchdoctor to summon a swarm of bees to hunt down a stolen motorcycle. This reminds me of the "mystical snakes and bees" unleashed against Boko Haram back in 2014, so it sounds to me like there are a number of folks in Kenya and Nigeria who know how to cast it.

Residents of Mbooni, Makueni County were left in shock after a man sent a swarm of bees to recover his stolen motorbike.

The unidentified man is said to have been robbed of his motorbike and went to consult a witchdoctor in order to recover his property.

In an incident that has shocked many, the man is said to have sent a large swarm of bees that invaded the local market and landed on the stolen motorbike.

The bees sent the thief running for dear life as they settled on the motorbike.

This spell has all sorts of potential applications. Somebody messes with your family? Bees! Something gets stolen? Bees! Somebody is making your life miserable at work? Bees! It's not just regular vengeance, it's amusing vengeance - though I expect for anybody with an allergy to bee stings, facing it would likely be pretty terrifying. African bees are more aggressive than their European counterparts, and they can sting multiple times without injuring themselves - so that can't be good.

Liber 777 associates bees with Binah, the sephira of Saturn. So that would probably be one approach. Nema also associates bees with the goddess Ma'at, so that might mean the path of Libra is a possibility. Another might be the path of Leo, the "Power of Training Wild Beasts." Clearly, some experimentation is required. But if I can really manage to figure it out, just deploying it once would make all the work totally worth it. You know, as long as I could watch the whole thing unfold. Because awful though it is, summoning a swarm of bees is also pretty darn funny.

The Power of Prayer...

...isn't quite enough to stop a charging lion, as a Prophet of the Zion Christian Church in Ghana recently discovered.

Alec Ndiwane was praying at Kruger National Park when he seemed to be overcome by the spirit and began speaking in tongues. He then suddenly ran toward a pride of lions eating the remains of an antelope. As soon as they noticed him the lions charged at Ndiwane, who came to his senses as they approached and finally ran away. Unfortunately, he did not escape the encounter unscathed.

The Zion Christian Church Prophet was at the park with his fellow church members when, according to GhanaWeb, he went into a trance and began speaking in tongues. The group approached the pride of lions while they munched happily on an antelope, but that’s when Ndiwane ran toward the lions.

Out To Africa lists humans as the major predator to lions, so it’s no surprise that the lions took on the challenge. Once he realized what was happening, Ndiwane made an about-face and immediately ran away. Unfortunately, lions are fast and fierce animals and when one of the lions snapped her paws on him, Ndiwane sustained injuries to his buttocks.

The ranger fired his gun into the air to scare the lions off and rushed the prophet to the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery to ensure he didn’t lose most of his buttocks.

The moral of this story? You can pray and pray and be filled with the light of the spirit. The Lord can favor you in all your deeds, and fill your heart with love. You can be the best, most pious Christian ever, and your faith can be a beacon to your followers.

But even then, you should always be smart enough to cover your ass.

Helping "Witch Children"

As I mentioned in yesterday's article, I used to post a lot of African witchcraft stories and have backed off on those, mostly because they tend to be so depressing. But one of my readers asked me to write more about the problem of "witch children" and highlight the African Children's Aid Education and Development Foundation (DINNødhjælp - deres overlevelse), a Danish organization that is helping African children cast out by their families for being witches.

No, I don't know how to pronounce their name in Danish either. Still, they seem to be doing good work.

Here in America, we have the freedom to engage in our spiritual practices in large part because there is little widespread belief in magick. In parts of Africa, people are so scared of "witchcraft" they attribute all sorts of things to magick that have nothing to do with it. This is one reason I think that attempts to "prove magick" to skeptics are profoundly misguided.

I am strongly in favor of investigating magick scientifically, but it seems like so much of parapsychology is more wrapped around the idea of "proving it" rather than figuring out how it works. One we can verify the properties and limitations of magick, we can demystify it. Once that's done, it will be easy to say whether magick can accomplish a particular thing or not, which will help insulate those of us who practice from flat-out nonsense.

A couple weeks back I got into a discussion about this at lodge, with someone who thought it was a mistake to try and work out the limits of magick. But the thing is, when you say "it has no limits, I just get what I want" I think that you are setting yourself up for a world in which people start freaking out because of the profoundly flawed idea that "if you can do anything, you should be able to do everything." It leads to some pretty sad conclusions - like the idea of witch children.

Back in 2009, I posted an article about how children in the Democratic Republic of Congo were being persecuted as witches. And anybody who understands anything about magick knows that's just plain ridiculous. Magical powers take years of study and practice to develop, and working with them is one of the most difficult cognitive skills there is to develop.

At the time, it was reported that children as young as seven were being accused. Unfortunately, it's only gotten worse since then. Recently a story has been circulating on the Internet (including the new Watchers of the Dawn) of a two-year-old boy who was abandoned by his family for being a witch and was starving in the streets of Nigeria. Two years old! A two-year-old can't even spell, let alone cast spells. But apparently his family was frightened enough to banish him anyway.

Let's Test This Out!

Over the years I've posted numerous stories about African witches who are supposed to be able to transform into goats and other animals. Usually, though, it's in the context of accusations being leveled by superstitious townsfolk. Up until now, I haven't come across a story in which someone claims to be able to actually perform such operations.

But today I found this article from Manica, a province in Mozambique. In the article, a "satanist hooker" apparently confesses to being able to transform into a lion, a goat, or a hyena. Granted, the lurid title of the article doesn't really scream "journalistic integrity," but what if it's true? Not only could teenagers with these abilities make James Randi shit his pants, the applications are potentially endless.

"We are a team of Satanists. It started when I was at a boarding school when we used to meet at midnight at the basketball and tennis courts and change into different animals such as lions, hyenas as well as goats. “We pounced on anyone whom we considered a threat. I can’t tell you the name of the school because they threatened to kill me if I expose them.

“I can turn into a hyena when I am angered. Our leader is a bishop at that school. He changes into a lion. I told my parents all these things and they withdrew me from the school. They no longer want to see me because of this. They are afraid of me. I have been staying here because I have nowhere to go. I have been sleeping with several men who hire my services,” she said.

She could not entertain The Weekender anymore. “I can’t talk to you anymore,” said the teenager. A source privy to matter said the teenager’s brother later came and tried to take her home, but her parents who stay in Darlington medium-density suburb could have none of it. “Her parents are bitter and are actually scared of her. They don’t want to hear about her anymore,” said the woman who requested anonymity.

Church organisations and traditional healers have described the case as strange.

Do you think? To my way of thinking, "strange" doesn't even begin to cover it. And if it does work, I totally want to know how it's done. Not because I necessarily have much interest in turning into an animal, but rather because the forces involved would have to be able to produce incredible probability shifts to accomplish it. Those sorts of shifts could be applied to solving all sorts of practical problems.

Here's just one example. A hyena could be about the same mass as a teenage girl, and so could a goat. But a male lion weighs over 400 pounds. I'm guessing the man mentioned in the story is lighter than that. So all you have to do is put him on some sort of teeter-totter arrangement with a weight between his human and lion weight on the other side. Then, if he transforms back and forth rapidly, you can harness the difference in mass to drive a generator. Perpetual motion!

This must be a rare ability, because otherwise you would think all the African countries where this sort of magick is practiced would have witchcraft-driven power plants. Or, you know, maybe it just doesn't work.

Nigeria's "Satanic Foundation?"

It is no big secret that the country of Nigeria has had significant economic problems for much of its modern history. The country fought a civil war that ended in 1970 and was controlled by military juntas until 1999, when a democratic government was finally established. Given all that turmoil, it's unsurprising that the country's development has been hindered. But Femi Fani-Kayode, who has served as Minister of Aviation and Minister of Tourism, has another explanation. In a Facebook post, he explained that Nigeria has problems because it was founded by Satanists.

Fani-Kayode, who also served as the Minister of Tourism under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said the manner with which Nigeria was created in 1914 was the reason the country was still struggling.

He said both Lord Fredrick Lugard, who was the first Governor-General of Nigeria; and his wife, Flora Shaw (later Flora Lugard), who gave Nigeria its name, were worshippers of Satan.

Fani-Kayode said, “It is generally agreed though not commonly admitted that both Lugard and Flora Shaw were Luciferians who practised the black arts and all manner of satanic rituals.

“He (Lugard) was a ‘High Priest of the Freemasons’ whilst they were both avid followers of Aleister Crowley, the leading satanist of his day and the self-styled ‘world’s most wicked man.’”

“This explains a lot. It also explains why Shaw gave us the name Nigeria – a name which has questionable roots. Anyone that doubts this should consider the literal translation of Nigeria into Latin: it means “the area of darkness” and there is a deep spiritual and mystical reason why she gave us that name.

I went ahead and looked up the biographies of Lugard and Shaw and found no evidence whatsoever of them being Satanists. Lugard may have been a Mason, as Freemasonry was common at that time among the British aristocracy. However, no matter how many tracts Jack Chick spits out, Masons are not Satanists and never were. Furthermore, I can't find any evidence that either of them ever corresponded with Crowley. It's possible that such evidence exists in Crowley's diaries, but I haven't seen it.

So unless someone with access to the Crowley archives corrects me, I think it's safe to say that this whole thing is basically made up. The name "Nigeria" has no occult roots and was simply derived from that of the Niger river which flows through the country. The origin of the river's name is uncertain, but it dates back to long before Aleister Crowley came on the scene. Ptolemy made reference to a "Ni-Gir" river in Africa.

The whole idea that anyone who is rich and powerful must be an occultist is completely laughable to practitioners like me, and these accusations sound like the same sort of thing. Occultist is a fringe subject and has always been a fringe subject, and I've seen no actual evidence suggesting that the percentage of practitioners is statistically higher among the wealthy and powerful than it is among the general population.

And just to be clear, I'm not trying to argue that only the poor and powerless use magick, as a commenter awhile back asserted when I made this point previously. My point is that only a small percentage of the population has ever been interested in seriously practicing magick. Even in Africa where belief in magick is widespread, people generally go to professional spellcasters rather than doing it themselves.

Maybe Fani-Kayode is right that it would be helpful to rename the country, but not for the reasons he states. It would constitute a break from the nation's colonial past, and it would help to counteract the fact that most people in the west these days just associate Nigeria with advance fee scams and the like rather than legitimate business opportunities. But Satanists and Aleister Crowley wouldn't have anything to do with it.

Ebola Zombies

Could the zombie apocalypse be underway in Africa? According to this story from Liberia, two victims of the ongoing Ebola outbreak died and then came back to life. There's nothing in the article about rotting flesh, infectious bites, or a mindless, all-consuming hunger for fresh brains, but the tale is creepy nonetheless.

Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county.

The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba. But to the amazement of residents and onlookers on Monday, the deceased reportedly regained life in total disbelief.

The New Dawn Nimba County correspondent said the late Dorris Quoi of Hope Village Community and the second victim only identified as Ma Kebeh, said to be in her late 60s, were about to be taken for burial when they resurrected.

The reality here is that Ebola is not always fatal, and people do sometimes recover after being near death for some time. Odds are that the two women's vital signs had declined to the point where they appeared to be dead before finally overcoming the disease and reviving.

Still, even without the zombie angle it's plenty creepy to consider that these two victims were almost buried alive. Clearly the doctors who declared these two dead need to do a better job of assessing their patients.

It's Vampires, Not Satan!

Witch hunters are still unfortunately common in much of Africa. Recently, Nigerian evangelical Helen Ukpabio has threatened to sue two British activist groups. Ukpabio was accused by the two groups of writing that young children why cry at night are possessed by Satan, but she claims these comments are inaccurate and inflammatory. In fact, she wrote that such children were possessed by "vampiric witchcraft spirits." Which, in the context of throwing around baseless witchcraft accusations, is clearly such an important distinction that it merits a massive lawsuit.

The evangelical Christian, who claims to be a former witch herself, has drawn criticism for exploiting superstitions and potentially harming children. Among other things, she believes children under two years old who cry in the middle of the night might be possessed with black, red and vampire witchcraft spirits.

But Ukpabio, whose ban from the UK was made on the grounds of child protection, is now threatening to sue the British Humanist Association (BHA) and the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network (WHRIN) over the wording of complaints against her, which confuse possession by Satan with vampire spirit possessions.

The associations accused Ukpabio of writing: "a child under two years of age that cries at night and deteriorates in health is an agent of Satan". However, the Christian preacher claims it is "vampire witchcraft spirits" the children would be possessed by, not Satan. She is considering a defamation claim as the public may now believe her to be an "evil woman".

In fact, the saddest thing about this story is not arguing about the distinction between vampires and Satan. Given the nature of African witch hysteria, the distinction could very well be highly significant to an angry mob. No, the saddest thing is how Ukpabio has apparently built an entire ministry around demonizing normal childhood behavior. I know from personal experience that children under two years old sometimes cry at night, often when they're sick - and it has nothing to do with possession by vampires or Satan or anything else. They just feel bad and have no other way to ask for help.