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Witchcraft, Sorcery and Spirit Possession - Pastoral Responses in Africa

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Witchcraft, Sorcery and Spirit Possession - Pastoral Responses in Africa LENY LAGERWERF WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY AND SPIRIT POSSESSION - PASTORAL RESPONSES IN AFRICA A symposium participant cited the case of a Protestant pastor whose son was seriously ill. On the quiet his wife consulted a diviner. The latter prescribed that a sacrifice be offered on the tomb of the child's grandfather. She then . urged her husband that they act on the diviner's advice. But he angrily refused, and left the healing of their child to God's will. The boy died. The relatives of the wife then accused the pastor of being the sorcerer of his own son. Heroic as the pastor may have been, the pathos of this case consists in having defined his dilemma from the fundamentalist viewpoint: either yield back to paganism, or remain unswerving in the faith. But Fr. Hermann Hochegger_expressed his conviction . that, guided by the sound principles of "Incultura- tion Theology", Christianity in the Bandundu region still needs to equal the ritual creativity of the native religion (P. Estepa, When Medicine Man Met Missionary, in : Verbum SVD, 1982/3, 319). In spite of all the endeavours of the Missions sorcery and witchcraft are a reality in the lives of many Christians in sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately the churches did not always seem to take their members' fears seriously. In - fact they often made it impossible to speak about these matters at all. During the 1960's, however, the first signs of a new attitude among pastors became visible. Rev. H. Edjengu6l6, Principal of the Theological College at Ndoungue Cameroon, in his thesis "La puissance de 1'Evangile face au paganisme Minieh des Mbo" (1966) reports on a regional Pastors' conference of the Evan- gelical Church of Cameroon in 1962, during which some young pastors, includ- ing himself, protested against the other pastors' assertion that witchcraft does not exist or is dying out, and in this wise unknowingly inviting wizards to hide in the Christian congregations. According to Edjenguele, the 'prophe- tic' task of the church should instead be publicly to expose and accuse the wizards (90-94; quoted from : H. Ba.lz, Where the faith has to live, 1984, 386, footnote 74). Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:54:50PM via free access Then, since the early 1970's, a number of meetings and publications have focused attention on sorcery, witchcraft, and spirit possession and their pastoral implications. To mention some : - From 10-13 September 1972 a colloquium was held in Yaounde on 'Faith and Healing', organized by the research group of the Society of Jesus in Cameroon. The lectures read by some of the participants were published . under the title Croyance et guerison in 1973. - On 2nd June 1972 the Zairian pastor Masamba ma Mpolo took his doctor's - degree in theology at the School of Theology in Claremont, California, USA. His thesis was entitled Psychotherapeutic dynamics in African be- witches patients - Toward a muZtidimensionaZ therapy zn sociaZ psychiatry. The French edition La Ziberation des envoutes was published by the Editions CLE in Yaounde (Cameroon) in 1976. - The 4th plenary assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) held in Rome in 1975, drew the attention of all bishops to the need for conducting surveys and research into the phenomenon of sorcery (Acts, p. 296). (Who's who in African Witchcraft ?, PMV Africa Doss. 12, 1980, 5). - A colloquium organized by the World Council of Churches in Cameroon (1978) on the Religious Experience of Man in his Relations with Nature recommended that the churches study with objectivity and seriousness the beliefs and practices of sorcery (p. 32).. - At the international colloquium "Religions Africaines et Christianisme" held in Kinshasa (Zaire) in January of the same year (1978), Masamba ma Mpolo read a paper on L'impact de La religion africaine sur La psychologie et Za pastoraZe des EgZises chrdtiennes d'Afrique (The impact of the African religion on the psychology and the pastoral care of the Christian churches of Africa). (In : Cahiers des Religious Africaines, no. 21-22, 1979). - During a session in Bobo Dioulasso (Burkina Fasso, then Upper Volta) in November 1979, organised by the Episcopal Committee of traditional and syncretist religions, the greater part of the three days was devoted to Father Hebga's book Sorcellerie chimere dangereuse...7, published in that same year. (L. Sanon, Compte-Rendu in : Lie CaZao 1980/1, 34-44). - Witchcraft, Traditional heaZing methods, and their impact on the Christzan was 1980's theme for research by the National Committee for research on African Culture and the expression of the Christian Message I Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:54:50PM via free access (Tanzania). Its Director, Fr. Pambe, delivered a paper on this theme at an international seminar held in St. Paul's University, Ottawa, Canada, in 1980 (I.M. Pambe, in : Service 1980/5�6, 19). - In 1982 Inades in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) published Meinrad P. Hebga's Sorcellerze et prigre de deliverance while - the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Yaounde held an interdisciplinary week on "Theologie et Sorcellerie" (Theology and Sorcery/witchcraft) in March 1984 (papers not published). Finally, - also in 1984, Emmanuel Milingo's writings were published under the title The World in between, Christian hearing and the struggle for Spiritual survival. Although these activities indicate a new openness to the problem of sorcery, witchcraft and evil spirits on the part of the churches and church-related institutions, there may still be a long way to go. The case of E. Milingo, former Archbishop of Lusaka (Zambia), is still fresh in our minds. In 1982, after he had devoted much time in his ministry to develop contextual pastor- al care for members of his diocese who considered themselves struck by sor- cery, witchcraft and spirit possession, he was summoned by the Vatican autho- rities to undergo interrogation and psychiatric investigations to determine whether he is still a Christian and does not himself suffer from delusions or any oth'er mental illness. Also Masamba ma Mpolo, dean of the Faculty of Protestant Theology and vice-president of the Church of Christ in Zaire, had to take pains to overcome suspicion : My first involvement, in 1966, with bewitched members of my congregation, along with the publication of my preliminary study in pastoral counseling concerns with the bewitched in 1971 and proposals made for using traditional symbols and models of therapy such as the reconciliation ceremonies with ancestral spirits, aroused the suspicion of the missionary and church hierarchies. Patient explanations and carefully planned workshops with pastors and theological students have been necessary in attempting to clarify the theology behind such a pastoral approach. The oublication in French of my doctoral thesis in 1976 and other short studies focus- sing on mental health, family life, and pastoral care in- tended primarily for catechists, pastors, and theological colleges... and studies being made by many other African theologians and Christian social scientists ... have contri- buted to the clarification of the issue and have pointed the way toward what can be called African Theology and African Pastoral Care (Masamba ma Mpolo, Symbols and Stories in Pastoral Care and Counseling, in : Bull. of African Theology no. 11, 1984, 40). · Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:54:50PM via free access In this issue on an African pastoral approach to witchcraft, sorcery, and spirit possession I will try to give an overview of reflections and actions sofar. Ch. II deals with the necessary conditions for an African approach, Ch. Ill highlights some basic aspects, while Ch. IV more specifically deals with healing and exorcism. Ch. I gives an introduction to the phenomena of witchcraft, sorcery and spirit possession. It is not meant as a treatise in itself, but only serves as a basis for what follows. (From: Gwinyai H. Muzorewa, The Origins and Development of African TheoZogy, Maryknoll, Orbis Books,1985, front cover) Downloaded from Brill.com10/07/2021 11:54:50PM via free access I. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Terminology Beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery are still wide-spread in black Africa, especially in the villages. This means that in many cases death, illness and misfortune are considered the outcome of evil intent of mostly close relatives, rather than of natural causes. To appreciate the distinction between witchcraft and sorcery, it is first necessary to define magic. This is a morally neutral term in the sense that magic may be used with or without social approval. It refers to the activities or craft of the magician, a person who, suitably prepared, performs rituals aimed at controlling impersonal supernatural forces held responsible for the succession of events. In these rituals, material substances, often with characteristics or origins symbolically related to the objectivities desired, are used to the accompaniment of verbal formulae. Although a non-literate .... society . usually has its expert magicians, many forms of magic are available to its ordinary members, and the equivalent of do-it-yourself kits may be inherited, bought or borrowed ■ (M. Marwick, Introduction, in: Witchcraft � Sorcery, 1970, 12). The main difference between a sorcerer and a witch is that the former achieves his evil end by magic, whereas the latter (often though not invariably conceived of as a woman) achieves hers by some mystical power inherent in her personality, a power that does not require the help of magic (12). In this contribution the two words will mostly be used indiscriminately. One of the reasons is that in the French language -- a remarkable number of articles and books under study �have been written in French -- only the words 'sorcellerie' is used. Another reason is that both witches and sorcerers incur social dis- approval and that generalizations about both are often made.
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