Comments | methodius: Witches, witchcraft, Hallowe'en and things

methodius

Witches, witchcraft, Hallowe'en and things

Oct 29, 2003 06:53

This is the time when Americans all start talking about Hallowe'en, and several of my LJ friends seem to have entries on that and related topics, including an interesting discussion in seraphimsigrist's journal on Charles Williams's book All Hallows EveFor Orthodox Christians Hallowe'en is the Saturday after Pentecost (and All Souls Day is the week before), ( Read more... )

theology, customs, culture, books

Comments 10

link seraphimsigrist October 28 2003, 21:08:43 UTC

umm "seraphim" as linked is not me...
it ought be "seraphimsigrist" to link my
journal. +S.

Re: link methodius October 29 2003, 19:56:02 UTC

Oops, I'll have to read up on how to correct that. I made a similar mistake recently, and got lost in the new menus trying to find how to corrected, and then the majic hour of 7:0 am arrived, when my modem turns into a pumpkin, and I have to leave the ball, or face an enormous phone bill at the end of the month.

Sorcerers jmoor October 29 2003, 07:35:05 UTC

Steve,

I love your article.

My Nigerian friend, Tunde, told a yarn about a husband who was cheating on his wife. The wife suspected it and went to the local witchdoctor who cast a spell on the husband. The next time he cheated, the couple could not disconnect until they were carried to the witchdoctor and he undid the spell. There private sin was made public.

Was the witchdoctor a sorcerer? Doesn't the story promote fidelity in marriage rather than harm? I know that Tunde believed the story to be true. My western mind could deal with it better like an African Grimm’s Fairy Tale. Would most African Christians laugh it off, and invite the little witchdoctor over for tea? Is it that type of witchdoctor that the Africans were killing?

(Reply to this)

Re: Sorcerers methodius October 29 2003, 19:55:55 UTC

The cheating husband might well fell like killing that kind of witchdoctor, but that sort sounds like the kind of thing that Christian saints were famous for, and you can read any amount of that kind of stuff in hagiographies.

For that matter, you can even read about them in the Bible - Aaron's rod, and Elijah and the prophets of Baal, And you can probably find similar stories about contemporary spiritual elders (startsi) in the Orthodox Church.

There is quite an important distinction between a witchdoctor and a witch. Witchdoctors are supposed to cure or neutralise the ills caused by witches, and they are frequently the ones who make the witchcraft accusations. It is part of the job description of some witchdoctors that they should be able to "smell out" witches ( ... )

The Killer jmoor November 1 2003, 06:00:49 UTC

Another one of Tunde's stories was of a crazed killer that was hired by unscrupulous government officials. He went around torturing and killing people. He was hated and many people tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him. He was stabbed, shot, and poisoned but noone could kill him. Every Nigerian in the village believed he was totally possessed of devils. The local witch doctor walked to the crazed killer and threw water on him. The killer was instantly consumed in flames ( ... )

Witchdoctors methodius November 2 2003, 18:59:49 UTC

For what it's worth, regulations are about to be changed to allow witchdoctors (traditional healers) to sign sick leave certificates for people to be absent from work because of illness.

Re: Witchdoctors jmoor November 3 2003, 14:39:51 UTC

I wonder if Tunde was an average African. He was into drawing circles thinking it would keep evil spirits out. The bosses secretly taped our conversation and told me that they were all engrossed in the conversations and found Tunde absolutely fascinating.

Not too late methodius November 3 2003, 17:16:03 UTC

The bosses? Sounds ominous!

Circles are very interesting things - perhaps the kind of thing that seraphimsigrist might write about, or come up with some good pictures of. I don't have a site where I could put linked pictures, but I refer to the book Demons and the devil by Charles Stewart, who points out that circles are very significant in Orthodoxy. Processions are anti-clockwise, and circles mark space - in here, and out there. And out there are the evil spirits, the exotika.

And circles are a very African thing too. Zionists dance in circles, though they often seem to change direction. Come to think of it, so do the Orthodox -- the censing of ikons is done clockwise, but processions are done anti-clockwise.

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