How the British Army Spread Rumors of Black Magic and Witchcraft in 1970s Northern Ireland | VICE | United States

The Information Policy group may not have started the rumors, but they fed them in order to smear paramilitary organizations. It was only one aspect of a broader black propaganda strategy, which also relied on more "classic" defamatory rumors involving misappropriated money, communism, and drug trafficking. Their aim was to establish a link in the public opinion between the rise of paramilitary groups' violence and things that both the protestant and catholic communities would find objectionable. Ireland's strong religious culture and supernatural folklore gave the military the idea of this new kind of threat which could also encourage people—especially children and teenagers—to stay home at night. 

I called Richard Jenkins up for a chat about this weird phenomenon.

How the British Army Spread Rumors of Black Magic and Witchcraft in 1970s Northern Ireland | VICE | United States

Whitechapel murder: Faith 'healer' stabbed to death at black magic treatment centre | Crime | News | London Evening Standard

Whether this man's "profession" had any impetus on the crime remains to be determined.  But what is at issue, an unlicensed practitioner who was treating people who believe themselves possessed by ‘jinns’.  Just as with "christianized"  so-called demonologists or scam artists like Bob Larson and their deliverance ministries, one of the primary problems is that there is a serious chance that those "possessed" they are suffering from some mental instability.

A faith “healer” was stabbed to death at a spiritual centre for treating black magic and demonic possession in East London.

Father-of-three Zakariyya Islam was killed at the Ruqya Therapy Centre’s base in Whitechapel.
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Mr Islam was a co-founder of the Ruqya centre, based in a complex of small business offices in Greatorex Street, and had been treating people who believe themselves possessed by ‘jinns’, or spirit, and black magic for more than a decade.

The centre, which was sealed off by police who were carrying out forensic searches, also offers advice on sorcery, witchcraft and “evil eye”.
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Last year he hosted a conference on “The World of Jinns” at the East London Mosque which he visited regularly.

Whitechapel murder: Faith 'healer' stabbed to death at black magic treatment centre | Crime | News | London Evening Standard

Busted: Gang that used voodoo to exploit women - The Local

As with a previous article out of the UK, concerning Lizzy Idahosa and her use of a Juju ceremony associated with Voodoo, it seems that Nigerian women in Spain have also fallen victim to the cruel technique of controlling women and children through fear.

Officers rescued four victims and arrested six members of the organization that used juju voodoo rituals to sexually exploit women, according to a police report.

Traffickers reportedly promised the women from Nigerian jobs in Spain, only to force them into prostitution once they brought them to places such as Lanzarote in the Canary Islands and Palma de Mallorca in the Balearics.

The traffickers had put the women through a juju voodoo ritual that used the victims' finger nails or public hair and involved animal sacrifice in front of idols in a temple in order to "guarantee that the women complied with everything they demanded, under threat of death to them and their families".

What is disconcerting, this practice is also occurring in places like Italy as well as the UK Man ‘used witchcraft to traffic children’ for prostitution.

Busted: Gang that used voodoo to exploit women - The Local

Black magic on Red Square | New Humanist

A fascinating read,,,

The sorceress’s name was Valeriya Karat, and her slick, professional-looking website claimed she possessed hereditary magical powers. Among the rites she offered to carry out were spells to bring back wayward husbands, remove curses and attract money for her customers. “I can also heal illnesses,” she told me. “But I can’t use my magic to benefit myself.” I’d interviewed many of Russia’s self-proclaimed sorcerers, wizards and psychics as part of my ongoing research into the country’s enthusiasm for the occult and the paranormal, but this was the first time I’d met someone who appeared to practise voodoo. “There is no such thing as black magic,” Karat told me, perhaps sensing my discomfort. “Magic is colourless.” A scrabbling sound came from behind me. In a murky corner of the room, a black rabbit sat in a small cage. “This is part of a magical rite to get a husband to return to his wife,” Karat said, matter-of-factly. “The husband was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit. When he returns, I’ll free the rabbit.”

Karat is far from Russia’s only internet-savvy sorceress. From St Petersburg to Vladivostok, there are thousands of online advertisements for “magical services.” Not all of Russia’s occultists are to be found online, however. In 2010, a psychologist with the Russian Academy of Sciences cited World Health Organisation data that indicated there were more occult/faith healers (800,000) in Russia than professional doctors (640,000). And Russians are putting their money where their faith is. In 2013, the country’s leading cardiologist complained that his fellow citizens spend almost £20 billion every year on magical and paranormal services. This, the astonished surgeon pointed out, is almost twice the amount Russians spend on foreign medical care. Another statistic is perhaps even more revealing: Russia’s Academy of Sciences estimates that 67 per cent of all Russian women have at some time sought help from a “psychic or sorcerer”. The figure for Russian men is one in four.

Welcome, then, to the strange and unsettling world that lies behind the façade of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. A country where faith healers and psychics enjoy as much, if not more, respect and trust as doctors and psychoanalysts. A country where a high-profile, Kremlin-linked ideologue is as well-versed in the writings of early 20th century British occultists as he is in modern political theory. A country where belief in magic is still very much alive.

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Russia’s obsession with the occult has deeper historical roots, too. In his seminal study of Russian folk culture, Ivan the Fool, Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sinyavsky detailed a pervasive Tsarist-era belief in superstition, magic and pagan gods, as well as the widespread popularity of sorcerers and faith healers. “In Old Russia, almost everyone resorted to elementary magic help,” wrote Sinyavsky. “Magic was used on a daily basis.”

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But it wasn’t only the Kremlin’s enemies who attempted to use occult powers in the early years of Soviet rule. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Bolsheviks skilfully adapted the rural occult practices and symbols familiar to newly urbanised peasants. Propaganda posters and slogans referred to “unclean forces” and “purging” ceremonies. Lenin was even more direct, denouncing his adversaries as “vampires”. As author Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal has noted in her pioneering book The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, the Bolsheviks may not have believed in the world of magic – indeed, they frequently denounced it – but they “incorporated occult and quasi-occult ideas” into the mythologies they constructed around Lenin and Stalin. Superhuman powers of wisdom were attributed to both men, often taking on – particularly in Stalin’s case – a near-mystical quality. Although there is no concrete evidence that Stalin himself believed in the occult, there have been rumours for years that the Soviet dictator employed the services of one Natalya Lvova, “a third-generation witch”. Shake-ups in the Communist Party, which usually meant a trip to the Gulag for the unfortunate official, were whispered to be the result of Stalin and Lvova’s black magic Kremlin sessions.

Black magic on Red Square | New Humanist

Put the genie back in the bottle, doctors say ahead of forum on supernatural healing | Malaysia | Malay Mail Online

“They can just wash their hands and call the witch doctors in to take over. It is the ‘god of the gaps’ equivalent of medical diagnoses. It can explain everything and thus, explain nothing,” Dr Kok Sen Wai
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A supernatural approach involving djinns and black magic has no place in the modern healthcare system, local doctors have said ahead of a regional forum that aims to reconcile paranormal beliefs with medicine this month.

The doctors explained that modern healthcare bases itself on evidence-based medicine, and there must be a way to measure whether the supernatural approach actually works before it can even be considered.

“I understand and appreciate the efforts to introduce the concept of djinn, which is part of religious belief. However, I do not think that it is possible to have an evidence-based approach to djinn and black magic,” Dr Helmy Haja Mydin, an associate professor with University of Malaya Medical Centre, told Malay Mail Online.

“By definition, these are things that cannot be seen and cannot be measured. Without measurements, you cannot have data. How to measure belief?” he asked.

As with Dr Helmy’s views, Dr Krishna Kumar, the president of the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA), said evidence-based medicine required demonstrable causality in order to be effective.

“There must be something to show what causes the diseases or something that can cure it. Based on that, we treat them,” Dr Krishna said.

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Dr Kok Sen Wai, a psychiatric medical officer based in Sarawak, said he has witnessed various illnesses — from seizures to schizophrenia — being treated as “djinn possession” or black magic by faith healers of different denominations, from Muslim imams, Taoist priests to Christian pastors.

“There are no codified and consistent signs and symptoms for possession or curses. The diagnosis seems to be made if the cleric ‘feels’ it is supernatural. Can you imagine if medicine is practised in the same way?” asked Dr Kok.

“Can an oncologist drop chemotherapy on you just because he has a ‘gut feeling’ it’s leukaemia? Or can a surgeon lop off half of your colon and have you defecate out of a colostomy bag for the rest of your life just because he ‘really, really thinks’ that you have colorectal carcinoma?”

Dr Kok insisted that should the rigorous standards that apply to conventional medicine be applied to the supernatural, the faith healings need to have documented, testable, and reproducible evidence that they do work.

Put the genie back in the bottle, doctors say ahead of forum on supernatural healing | Malaysia | Malay Mail Online

UPDATE::BBC News - 'Juju' sex trafficker Lizzy Idahosa jailed for eight years

As he sentenced Idahosa, Judge Tom Crowther QC told her: "You were the prime mover in this scheme.

"You targeted vulnerable young women and kept them in a kind of hell.

"You forced them to pay an arbitrary debt with their bodies day in day out. And you made significant sums from them."

He added: "They lived under mortal terror of breaking these promises."

In total, Idahosa was given sentences of eight years, five years, seven years and two and a half years for her crimes - all to run concurrently.

Omoruyi was sentenced to two years and 18 months, also to run concurrently.

Judge Crowther said both defendants will serve half their jail sentences.

BBC News - 'Juju' sex trafficker Lizzy Idahosa jailed for eight years

Muslim women's centre reports rise in number of patients claiming to be possessed | Herald Scotland

Staff at Amina Muslim Women's Resource Centre (Amina MWRC) in Glasgow and Dundee say they are experiencing a rise in clients attributing mental health difficulties to supernatural spirits.

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"We would like the NHS to work with mainstream Islamic scholars and Muslim groups in helping such individuals. Faith-based support should be offered as long as it does not contradict or oppose conventional medicine or treatment."

Earlier this month, Amina MWRC, in conjunction with the Rationalist Society of Pakistan, held an event titled Jinn, Black Magic and the Evil Eye: Fact or Fiction?

The organisation is also working with the University of West of Scotland social work department, which is undertaking research regarding health inequalities, with particular focus on the phenomenon of Jinn possession.

Akhtar fears that vulnerable individuals will turn to alternative options if their concerns are ignored by health officials.

She added: "More and more people are turning to 'faith healers' who promise to remove Jinn from themselves or their loved ones. They advertise their services on foreign TV channels that are beaming into many Asian households. They give assurances but their help comes at a price.

"They don't work for free. But who regulates them? My concern is that those who are desperate, especially females, will turn to unscrupulous individuals putting them and their families in danger."

Attempts to cure those who are possessed can lead to fatal consequences. Two years ago a husband and three members of his family were jailed in Birmingham after he killed his pregnant wife in a bid to remove an evil spirit from her body.

Abdul Aziz, a Scottish-based Islamic scholar, also spoke at the event organised by AMINA MWRC. He believes that despite the issue of Jinn being widely accepted among Muslims, possession is "possible but extremely rare".

He added: "Unfortunately, the Muslim community are no longer pioneers in treatment of emotional ill health and have resorted to un-Islamic notions of spirit possession as an explanation for everything from bad luck and marital infidelity to schizophrenia.

"Many use religion to exploit the vulnerable. The stigma associated with mental illness and the reliance on poorly qualified so-called Imams are major barriers to Muslims accessing the right kind of social, emotional and psychological help."

Muslim women's centre reports rise in number of patients claiming to be possessed | Herald Scotland

Two suspected ‘witches’ hacked to death in Tanzania

Two Tanzanian women were hacked to death by men who accused them of casting spells that made them sexually impotent, police said Friday, in the latest killings of alleged “witches.”

The women, one aged in her 80s and her 45-year old daughter, were killed in the village of Ihugi in Tanzania’s northern Shinyanga province late on Tuesday.

Three men slit their throats and then chopped their bodies up, local police chief Justus Kamugisha said, adding that their neighbour was suspected of carrying out the attack after he believed they had made him unable to have sex.

A 40-year-old man, who also accused the women of poisoning his mother last year, has been arrested.

“The victims were attacked as they were about to take their evening meal,” Kamugisha said.

The attack follows the killing last week of seven people in a separate attack in western Tanzania, burned alive in their huts, who were also accused of witchcraft.

Two suspected ‘witches’ hacked to death in Tanzania

ADDENDUM::Tackling Witch Hunts in Tanzania: A Proactive Approach - JREF

Researcher and activist Leo Igwe reports to the JREF on the governmental response to such atrocities.

The killing of a witch is the end of a murderous process that starts in the mind. Witchcraft has to do with people’s cosmological notions and a people’s mentality. Changing attitudes and mentality takes great time and effort. Legislation is not enough, enforcement has to go in hand with mental and cultural reorientation.
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We need to understand why the imaginary evil of witchcraft is so real to some people to the extent that they can kill and maim suspected witches as well as poisoning family and community relations.

The government should encourage skepticism, rationality and critical thinking in all areas of human endeavor. Be they students or teachers, taxi drivers or market men and women, technocrats or artisans - the value of critical examination of issues and questioning of magical narratives that fuel suspicions and accusations of witchcraft should be encouraged in society.
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The misconception that witchcraft is African “science” has to be corrected. Scientists, skeptics and rationalists in the country should adopt a more proactive approach.

The government should address traditional healing practices and the sanctioning of healers who mix magic and medicine including faith healers of all types - traditional, Christian and Islamic.

Tackling Witch Hunts in Tanzania: A Proactive Approach - JREF

BBC News - Lizzy Idahosa guilty of 'juju' sex trafficking at Cardiff Crown Court

This is what happens when religious beliefs are exploited, when fear is used as a means of manipulation and control.

Lizzy Idahosa, 24, arranged for the women to be put through a ritualistic "juju" ceremony in Nigeria to make them afraid of disobeying her.

Her partner Jackson Omoruyi was found guilty of money laundering offences.

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During the trial, the jury heard the women worked in brothels to repay Idahosa £50,000 for travel from Nigeria and false documents.

The victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the juju ritual - sometimes known as voodoo or magic - left them fearing illness, madness, infertility and death.

They had sex with up to seven or eight men a day and were moved around a number of brothels in Croydon, Stevenage, Brighton, Swansea and Cardiff.

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Investigators said it was the first time they had been involved in a case where juju had been used to control victims - although they had previously heard about it happening.
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"These poor unfortunate women were vulnerable and were led to believe through juju their lives were controlled and they were frightened because something could happen to them," said Mr Chapman.

"People may see them out in public but they're being controlled. But using witchcraft is a very powerful means of controlling a person."
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"These two defendants were involved in an elaborate deception, taking advantage of cultural and financial issues in order to gain a devastating hold over their vulnerable victims. Once the victims had entered the UK, they were exploited and abused in the most brutal manner," she added.

BBC News - Lizzy Idahosa guilty of 'juju' sex trafficking at Cardiff Crown Court

See also:

Juju's 'control is powerful' - expert Siddharth Kara

The trial at cardiff Crown Court heard the "juju" ritual - sometimes known as voodoo or magic - left them fearing illness, madness, infertility and death.

Trafficking expert Siddharth Kara teaches human trafficking and modern slavery at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the USA.

He travelled to Nigeria to trace the roots of juju in trafficking and has met priests who conduct juju ceremony. He says [juju] exerts a kind of control that is much more potent than chains or locking someone up.

"It's control of the spirit which is far more powerful and insidious," he says.

Seven accused of witchcraft burned alive in Tanzania | News | Africa | Mail & Guardian

Attackers in Tanzania burned alive seven people they accused of witchcraft, police said Friday, who have arrested 23 people for murder in the latest killings of suspected “witches”.

“They were attacked and burnt to death by a mob of villagers who accused them of engaging in witchcraft,” the police chief for the western Kigoma region, which borders Burundi, Jafari Mohamed, told Agence France-Presse.

“Five of those killed were aged over 60, while the other two were aged over 40,” he added.

Among those arrested on suspicion of carrying out the killings was the local traditional healer, or witchdoctor. Relatives of those killed described horrific scenes, with the bodies of family members hacked with machetes or burned almost beyond recognition. “When I returned home in the evening, I found the body of my mother lying 10 metres away from our house, while the body of my father was burnt inside the house,” said Josephat John, according to Tanzania’s Mwananchi newspaper.

The attack in the village of Murufiti took place on Monday, but reports only emerged after police announced the arrest of the suspects. “We are holding 23 people, including local leaders, in connection with the attack,” Mohamed said. “They will appear in court to face murder charges.”

Belief in witches and black magic remains strong in many parts of Tanzania.

Seven accused of witchcraft burned alive in Tanzania | News | Africa | Mail & Guardian

Kerala: 18 year old girl dies during exorcism

In the recurring exorcism killings in Kerala, a college student, Aathira, 18, lost her life in Pathanamthitta district on Friday night.

The police has registered a case for unnatural death and detained her relatives for questioning. Aathira, daughter of Prasannakumar of Kalashakuzhy in Vadasserikara, died on her way to the hospital after falling unconscious following an epileptic seizure, her relatives said. However, police is not taking their statements at face value.

The body of the girl had burn marks caused by camphor creating suspicion that she was killed in the course of exorcism and black magic.

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“We have questioned her close relatives, including her parents,” he said. He, however, denied that a paternal uncle of the girl had been arrested. “Nobody has been arrested so far.”
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The family members of the girl are believed to be followers of a Shubhananda Swami, a local spiritual leader, and they used go for retreat in his ashram, said a local police official.

Kerala: 18 year old girl dies during exorcism