Thursday, October 27, 2011

More on Modern Witchcraft

Some musings on an on-going tragedy by the Pittsford Perennialist:
 Ugandan Christians find themselves combating "members of the country's new elite [who] are paying witch doctors vast sums of money... in a bid to increase their wealth" — Where child sacrifice is a business.

...Returning to contemporary Africa, the article says, "The ritual... 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." If it was almost unheard of but re-emerged, it must at some point have been heard of.

Likewise, Witchcraft was almost unheard of during the Age of Faith, when our Europe was firmly in the care of Holy Mother Church. It had been known in the pre-Christian times that Wicca wants to reanimate, and only re-emerged with the upheavals resulting from the Protestant Reformation. (Read entire post.)
Share

3 comments:

Julygirl said...

Ah, money and evil co-exist in usurping the potential of many African Countries.....and as always, the ordinary people suffer...

Brantigny said...

Elena, Due to budget cuts the NCDOC has deleted Chaplains from the staff except for really large units. There are 74 units in NC, only 6 have chaplains. I have been placed in the position of being the de facto Chaplain.

We have Wiccans, Rastafarian, Moorish Science, Islamics, Native American, Baptists, Evangelicals, Methodists, Jewish, Messianic Jewish, Buddists, Hindus, Aquarians, and Catholics. The Aquarians are the most dangerous because they follow a fellow called M******a. (he is the Anti-Christ)

Coming up we have the Wiccan holiday of Halloween, where they will call out their dead to eat with them. The Rastafarian will celebrate the holiday of the Crowning of Haile Sallasie.

I wish it were better for the Catholics, currently I have 4-5, most of the Hspanics have become Native American, because they can smoke tobacco, and because they can meet as a gang (MS-13) using the ceremonie as a cover. The local parishes do care. The priest comes once a month for a short Mass, he is usually late, and the only volunteer is a convert who does not know the faith. He has been sick.

The wiccan community are by and large former Catholics, who left the church to follow Wicca because it was "freer". The wicca has no real rules. It is very syncronistic, and it has no leader.

Wicca is dangerous because it is a religion which teaches it's adherants "to do before it is done to you".

The NC state legislature is deciding if it will recognize Satanism next. Some one else will have to take care of that one.

Nancy Reyes said...

Witchcraft in Africa is the negative side of their religion, which sees illness and problems as being punishment for one's sins.

So a person who is sick might ask a shaman to "punish" a person who did him wrong (and the "witch doctor" will diagnose who is doing the curse, a dead spirit or a person, and tell the patient what they need to do to "cure" the disease).

Being accused of a witch usually ended up with you being killed, so the western colonial powers made such accusations illegal. Now, with the chaos of the area, it is having a resurgence, partly due to the HIV crisis (where people go to quacks to get healed) but also there is a resurgence of killing animals or humans so that the spirits will make your business successful.

Many modern educated Africans lost their traditional religion in school, but did not really convert to Christianity: so there are many who are are nominally christian and practially agnostic, neither having traditional belief nor Christian beliefs.

Pagan religion is not evil per se, but too often it is separated from ethics. That is the real problem.