The first story in my book, “The Horror Wedding Series”, revolves around the resurrection of an obsessive witch, Mfeti. Through the years, my feelings about witches have become a mixed bag of horror and sympathy. To me, they are a scary yet enigmatic bunch of human beings.

There is truth to the saying that people fear the unknown. The magic of witches has long rested in their ability to achieve what was supposed impossible. As society has advanced, as trust in scientific knowledge has spread and modern medical practice become normalized, practitioners of magic have shifted from being considered pariahs to a far more accepted role within modern society.

Today, witchcraft is a flourishing industry. Where witches have, in the past, represented the feared and unknown, now they have come to embody a far less mysterious subset of their communities. Magic holds a singular appeal in a world that has solved or “figured out” most of its formerly mysterious ailments and phenomena.

These days, you can follow popular witches on their TikTok, Instagram, and other social media channels, to get daily insights or readings. Occult products are available for purchase through hundreds of online and brick-and-mortar stores dedicated to witchcraft and the practice of magic. Popular streaming services air episodic dramas and movies about the lives of witches.


Source: www.ebay.com

Witches, across most traditions, tend to embrace differences. After all, witches derive much of their power from being seen as different. Modern-day witches provide a wide range of services, everything from simple palm and astrological readings foretelling the future to a form of osteopathic medical practice.

Specific practices vary widely between and even within cultures. In Southeast Asia, in particular, where magical practitioners like witches and sorcerers are embedded even more deeply in shared culture than many places, politicians and presidents still employ witches for help with their careers. They purchase talismans and have spells cast over them. Anything to get an edge over the competition. In 1992, the then Ivory Coast’s sports minister hired a witch doctor to support the team; that year they won the African Nations Cup.

Whether revered or dismissed as superstition, modern witches hold an accepted place within most sociocultural systems.

Sadly, this respect is not evident everywhere, nor is witchcraft as lucrative or protected. The flip side of the acceptance of witchcraft in many societies is its increasingly aggressive rejection in others. Fear of witchcraft can still overwhelm a basic respect for human life. When people speak of witch-hunts, you expect them to be speaking of the Middle Ages. What you don’t expect is the reality: witches are still hunted today. Actively pursued and hunted.

                                                    Source : (L) - India Times; (R) - India Today

In India annually, thousands of witch-hunts occur and dakan (usually women of low caste) are mobbed and assaulted.

In Nigeria, half of all homeless children (approximately 25,000 each year) are abandoned because of accusations of demonic possession or witchcraft. The president of Gambia routinely has people accused of witchcraft arrested and tortured. Women and men who spread AIDS/HIV to others in many African nations are accused of witchcraft and beaten or killed for it.

In Tanzania, people born with albino skin depigmentation are killed for use of their body parts, which are thought to hold magical properties. Within the past five years, more than 50 people with albinism have been killed for this purpose.

           Source: http://www.thetruthvoice.net/2020/05/60-year-old-woman-publicly-beheaded-in.html

As recently as 2017 in Cambodia, the justice system ordered people beheaded for witchcraft. In Zambia and Congo, accused witches are regularly burned, poisoned, and physically abused. In Indonesia and Africa, within the past decade, hundreds of people have been burned alive, stoned to death, or beheaded for witchcraft.

Decapitation, a far too common punishment for modern witches, can trace its origins back to the folklore surrounding witches. In many cultures, Western, African, and Asian, the power wielded by witches was thought to give them the power over death. Unless a witch was beheaded or their body burned, many believed their corpse would return from the grave to enact terrible vengeance.

This horrific list goes on. Worldwide, accusations of witchcraft are still used to incite mob violence and an excuse to victimize, brutalize, and marginalize. Such behavior is unacceptable and I, for one, am ready to join the witches in fighting back.

Whatever the current public opinion or judgement of witches, it’s clear that witchcraft is merely a tool. It is a practice, used and applied by humans in pursuit of their own purposes, whether those purposes are spiritual insight, political power, or even physical wellbeing. Like all tools, in human hands, witchcraft can be used for good or evil. It is intent that determines the outcome.

The apparent power of witches is still enough reason to blame and attack witchcraft within certain societies. Witches, by nature of their unseen sources of power, make convenient scapegoats for everything from unfavorable natural weather phenomenon to bad luck to illness.

Witchcraft is merely a channel through which human nature flows, as a riverbed directs a stream. Without the flood of human intent, the river is empty. True horror, it seems, originates not in witchcraft itself, but in human desire.

 

 

References

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Bosker, B. (2020, February 14). Why Is Witchcraft on the Rise? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/witchcraft-juliet-diaz/605518/

Connor, L. (2019, January 14). Sorcery and black magic are alive and well in Cambodia, and they’re worth killing over. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2181970/sorcery-and-black-magic-are-alive-and-well-cambodia-and

Frater, J. (2021, January 7). 10 Modern Witch Hunts You Won’t Believe Happened Recently. Listverse. https://listverse.com/2018/11/04/10-modern-witch-hunts-you-wont-believe-happened-recently/

Herstik, G. (2019, October 31). What Does It Mean To Be A Modern Witch? 3 Witches Share Their Experience Of The Craft. British Vogue. https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/modern-witches-experience

Hicks, D. (1995). Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1(2), 459+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17140097/AONE?u=anon~bf2c9c1a&sid=googleScholar&xid=6001600a

Horowitz, M. (2014, July 4). Opinion | The Persecution of Witches, 21st-Century Style. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/opinion/the-persecution-of-witches-21st-century-style.html

Kapferer, B. (1998). Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia. American Ethnologist, 25(3), 521–522. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1998.25.3.521

O’Sullivan, C. (2021, February 11). “Something Wicked”: The Rise of Modern Witchcraft. Cherwell. https://cherwell.org/2021/02/11/something-wicked-the-rise-of-modern-witchcraft/

Rebolini, A. (2021, October 6). Powerful Portraits Of Modern Witches In The US. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ariannarebolini/powerful-portraits-modern-american-witches

Schons, M. (2011, January 21). Witch Trials in the 21st Century. National Geographic Society. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/witch-trials-21st-century/

Yasmin, S. (2018, January 11). Witch Hunts Today: Abuse of Women, Superstition and Murder Collide in India. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/witch-hunts-today-abuse-of-women-superstition-and-murder-collide-in-india/