Search Results (46)

Two studies looked at the prevalence and predictors of black cat bias—negative behaviors and attitudes toward black cats—using explicit and implicit measures. The first study looked at an internet sample of 114 people to see if people who self-identified as liking cats (cat people) showed less bias against black cats than those who self-identified as dog people or those who liked both dogs and cats (dog-and-cat people). Participants completed a questionnaire that measured superstitious beliefs, belief in witchcraft, and religiosity before rating pictures and, for about half of the participants, descriptions of black and non-black cats. They rated each cat for how good they thought it was and whether they wanted to live with the cat. Participants also completed a brief implicit association task in which they categorized pictures of black and non-black cats and good and bad words. Results suggest that bias against black cats exists when measured implicitly for dog people and dog-and-cat people but not for cat people. These results suggest that liking cats does not protect one from black cat bias and that liking dogs may lead to black cat bias. Belief in witchcraft was positively correlated with the explicit measure of black cat bias for dog people (medium effect size). In study two, a sample of 37 college students, mostly self-identified as dog people, completed this study twice—once at least six weeks before and once no more than three weeks before Halloween. The implicit measure of black cat bias was about 40% larger when measured closer to Halloween. These results suggest that black cat bias might be modified by environmental factors. Full article

Incense is essential in religious ceremonies, even in relatively new religious and spiritual movements such as New Age and Neopaganism. These garner little attention from ethnobotanists, although they trigger an international trade in wild-harvested plants. In this paper, we studied the botanical ingredients of smudge sticks (dried plant bundles burned for purification) in the Netherlands, and people’s motivations to use them posing the following questions: what plant species are included in smudge sticks? what are they used for? and are exotic plants preferred over native Dutch plant species? We visited online and physical shops in Dutch cities, acquiring a total of 29 different smudge sticks containing at least 15 species. We held semi-structured interviews with 11 users, vendors, and herbal experts, and collected data from 33 questionnaires. Salvia apiana L. was most frequently found, along with North American species of the genus Artemisia. The rise of the New Age movement resulted in North American ritual plant species being easily available in (online) shops in the Netherlands and smudge sticks being used for personal protection and cleansing. Despite the smudge sticks’ commercial demand, there is no data regarding the pressure on wild populations of species used in these bundles. For the preservation of these species it is crucial that scientific monitoring of their harvest is undertaken in the future. Full article

Local ecological knowledge has been shown to convey key information about elusive mammal species. Many of Africa’s nocturnal mammals are not yet considered globally threatened, yet behavioural ecology and population trends across their diverse ranges remain effectively unknown. We conducted semi-structured oral and visual interviews with eight groups of Ba’Aka in three villages (n = 53 males; n = 17 females) using trigger cards, to gain insights into beliefs about nocturnal mammals in the Central African Republic (CAR). We aimed to (1) explore the presence and local knowledge of nocturnal mammals; (2) determine cultural attitudes regarding nocturnal species; and (3) report on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in the CAR. Using trigger cards, interviewees identified nine nocturnal mammals. Frequency of key words was measured and presented in word clouds, depicting that angwantibos (Arctocebus aureus) (n = 14), genets (Genetta spp.) (n = 11) and tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis) (n = 6) were strongly associated with the supernatural (witchcraft; spiritual protection). The traditional uses of cryptic nocturnal mammals in Ba’Aka culture, including as meat and medicine, may affect the conservation of these species. We suggest a need to protect and include nocturnal mammals with unknown or decreasing populations in wildlife management strategies and community conservation programmes. Full article

This contribution reconstructs the reflection on witches of Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516), a German Benedictine who took up the pen on several occasions to declare against the spread of witchcraft and the need to solve this problem. The method adopted is to understand Trithemius’ thought from the analysis of his own works, specifically the Antipalus maleficiorum (1505–1508), the Liber octo quaestionum (1515) and what can be known of the De daemonibus (1507–1514). What will emerge will be an articulate reflection, which re-proposes the doctrine of the Malleus maleficarum (1486) enriched with original elements often drawn from popular superstitions. Thus, Trithemius proposes artifices to be immune from witches (e.g., apotropaic amulets) and provides specific indications on how to cure evil spells (exorcism), extending the dissertation to broader issues, such as the gender question, the relationship between witches and children (e.g., sacrifices, proselytes, victims) and developments in exorcism practice. Full article

Based on long-term ethnographic research in Tanzania, this article contributes to existing scholarship on adaptations and modifications of the so-called gospel in African contexts. I show how the Prosperity Gospel has taken shape in an environment of intense religious/spiritual/medical competition and, not least, of widespread cultural concerns with the moral legitimacy of wealth generated through alliances with spiritual forces. However, I also argue that a deeper understanding of the ways in which the Prosperity Gospel has become contextualized can be reached by moving beyond a focus on cultural concerns with wealth and paying close attention to the exuberance of meanings attributed to money in its most concrete and tangible form, coins and banknotes, as well as to the religious/ritual practices involving money that such meanings inspire. I pursue my analysis by zooming in on two areas where cultural understandings of money as exceeding its materiality and its use value are prevalent: the use of powers of witchcraft to extract money from others and the practice of bride wealth. Whereas the first has to do with understandings of material money as imbued with spiritual powers, the second can be seen as an example of a gift economy, since money given by a groom to his parents-in-law by virtue of containing parts of his soul or his essence becomes the foundation of a relationship of mutual respect between them. In the last part of the article, I show how both understandings are entangled with Prosperity teachings and inform ritual practices involving material money. Full article

This study aims to analyse two trials involving magic, superstition, exorcism, and witchcraft, which were held in 1713 in the Diocese of Vieste (present-day Apulia), Kingdom of Naples. It aims to illuminate the dynamics between the Church, magical practices, and the territorial context, providing insights into this less-explored period in inquisition history when the Catholic Church’s fight against superstition was beginning to wane. The first trial against Rita di Ruggiero is very rich in detail, giving us a clear vision of which magical practices were used during the Modern Age. Additionally, it touches, albeit only marginally, on a theme that will be crucial for the duration of these practices in the Kingdom of Naples: the complex interactions between state and ecclesiastical authorities. The second 1713 trial involving Elisabetta Del Vecchio explores accusations of bewitchment, contributing to our understanding of witchcraft paradigms. Full article

This article investigates the factors that provoked the trial and death sentence of four witches in Bologna in 1559. That is, it aims to elucidate how a witch hunt (albeit a small one) was triggered in a context where demonology was present, but the persecution of witchcraft had been kept at a relatively moderate level (and continued to be so after that). Scholarly contributions on witchcraft and witch hunts are now innumerable, but in general, scholars have focused on the social relations between the alleged witches and the community in which they lived, on the theological culture of the judges, or even on the deep roots of the sabbath. An analysis of a series of trials for magical and superstitious practices held in Bologna shortly before the 1559 convictions reveals how it was possible to move from simple sorcery to actual witchcraft. This transition was accomplished both because of the malefic nature of some of the spells practiced by the defendants and because of the intervention of diocesan judges who, for various reasons, were more determined than their predecessors to prosecute witchcraft harshly. Although the link between simple superstition and witchcraft has already been explored to some extent, it emerges with particular clarity in these events. Full article

Between the 16th and 17th centuries, the conservative characteristic of rural environments and mountain communities represented one of the main worries of the Larian Church, which, despite the work of reform of religious customs undertaken by the order of preachers in the late Middle Ages (not unrelated to the genesis of the accusation of diabolic witchcraft), it found itself confronted with the shortcomings (from the interference of the laity in religious life to suspicious devotions via the mixture of the sacred and magical animistic legacies) originating from decades of neglect in the management of valley parishes and the laxity of the secular clergy. This concern had to be reconciled, from the first decades of the sixteenth century onward, with the need to counter the Protestant presence. The “singular” way in which diocesan ordinaries sought in the aftermath of the Tridentine Council to re-establish orthopraxy in the only diocese in the peninsula subject to secular authorities of the Reformed faith, and in which an Italophone Protestant community was permanently present for several decades, represents an important case study for understanding the anomaly of the local bishop’s courts (and the inquisition) transformed during this time from bitter enemies of the secta strigiarum into “witch lawyers”, and for illuminating the deeper reasons for the limits of the fight against superstitions in the entire peninsula. Full article

In the Netherlands, there was always a clear distinction between Protestant and Catholic folklore. That is visible in witchcraft accusations, but it is also visible in ghost lore. This lore is here reconstructed applying a not always used source, to wit newspaper articles. Here, I will discuss how accounts of hoaxing on the one hand and misinterpreted experiences on the other, help to understand how, in this case people in the Netherlands of roughly a century to a century and a half ago, realized their imagination of the dead. Not in a paradisical kind of afterlife, or as rotten corpses in the ground, but as specific entities which permeated the boundaries between the living and the dead. These newspaper reports are confronted with the stories (or jokes) collected by folklorists. I will also discuss content, with a special focus on the phenomenon of the hoax. Hoaxsters, however, allow the researcher to engage with an extra dimension in the encounter, between the ghost and the observer there is now a third party interacting with both. (How this involves the researcher, is always a problem in historical research.) Was there an overall ghost picture? What was the reaction of bystanders? Moreover, this essay will move between story and history, between the past as it was experienced and as it was related to contemporaries, between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ to give it another name. As it will appear, the boundary between the two seems blurred but in the end turns out rather precise. Full article

Conflicts between human populations and Nile crocodiles are widespread with crocodiles posing significant threats to fisherfolk and riverine communities across r-Saharan Africa. Hundreds of deadly attacks take place annually, and mortality rates may range from 50% to 100%. Attitudes and perceptions towards crocodiles were studied using structured questionnaires among fisherfolk along the River Nile and the Sudd wetlands in South Sudan. Local communities used crocodiles for their meat and skin/leather trades. The meat is regarded to enhance longevity, sexual potency, and protection against witchcraft. Crocodiles are perceived as a main threat to lives and livelihoods as they restrict people’s freedom of movement along water bodies, attack livestock and humans, and devastate fishing equipment. To assess whether responses were influenced by the intensity of crocodile threats, published data on fatal crocodile attacks on humans and livestock were analysed using Generalised Linear Models (GLMs). This analysis indicated a direct link between the number of crocodile attacks and human attitudes. Crocodiles were generally feared and hated, and there was the agreement of the need to destroy breeding habitats. However, some attitudes were complex and nuanced as highlighted by the agreement of local communities on the need to destroy Nile Crocodile breeding habitats on the one hand and the need to establish crocodile sanctuaries as the the preferred strategy to mitigate risks and conflict on the other hand. There is a need for the creation of a crocodile sanctuary in the Sudd wetlands to minimise the risks of illegal hunting and to buffer the increasing pressure on crocodiles due to human population growth and economic upturn after the civil war. Full article

The social media app TikTok was launched in the US in 2017 with a very specific purpose: sharing 15-s clips of singing and dancing to popular songs. Seven years and several billion downloads later, it is now the go-to app for Gen Z Internet users and much better known for its ultra-personalized algorithm, AI-driven filters, and network of thriving subcultures. Among them, a growing community of magical and spiritual practitioners, frequently collectivized as Witchtok, who use the app not only share their craft and create community but consider the technology itself a powerful partner with which to conduct readings, channel deities, connect to a collective conscious, and transcend the communicative boundaries between the human and spirit realms—a practice that can be understood as algorithmic divination. In analyzing contemporary witchcraft on TikTok and contextualizing it within the larger history of technospirituality, this paper aims to explore algorithmic divination as an increasingly popular and powerful practice of technomancy open to practitioners of diverse creed and belief. Full article

Shakespeare’s Macbeth has traveled a long way from its original milieu. This paper takes three major 21st-century Indian adaptions of Macbeth as its primary texts. The city of Mumbai in the west in Maqbool, an imaginary coastal Bengal village in the east in Mandaar, and the suburbs of Kerala in Joji in the south of the subcontinent become sites of “creative mistranslations” of the play. In this paper, we take the ambiguity that Shakespeare’s witches evoke in the early 17th-century Scottish world as a point of entry and consider how that ambiguity is translated in its 21st-century Indian on-screen adaptations. Cutting across spaciotemporal boundaries, the witches remain a source of utmost significance through their presence/absence in the adaptations discussed. In Maqbool, Shakespeare’s heath-hags become male upper-caste law-keepers, representing the tyrannies of state machinery. Mandaar’s witches become direct agents of Mandaar’s annihilation at the end after occupying a deceptively marginal position in the sleazy world of Gailpur. In an apparent departure, Joji’s world is shorn of witches, making him appear as the sole perpetrator of the destruction in a fiercely patriarchal family. A closer reading, however, reveals the ominous presence of some insidious power that defies the control of any individual. The compass that directs Macbeth and its adaptations, from the West to the East, from 1606 to date, is the fatalism that the witches weave, in their seeming absence as well as in their portentous presence. We cannot help but consider them as yardsticks in any tragedy that deals with the age-old dilemma of predestination and free will. Full article

In this paper, my objective is to delve into the history of women accused of practicing witchcraft in Sicily during the early modern period. This investigation draws upon documented evidence from the Spanish Inquisition spanning from 1516 to 1782, along with archival records and the ethnographic works of nineteenth-century scholars. The focal point of my research is the enigmatic figure known as donna de fora (the ladies from outside) in the Italian context. To illuminate this subject, I employ an analysis of seventeenth-century Inquisition trial records and oral traditions documented by anthropologist Giuseppe Pitrè in the late nineteenth century. The donne de fora represent a distinctive and intriguing group as this term appears exclusively within the Inquisitorial records of Sicily. They were perceived as supernatural entities, characterized as “part witches, part fairies”. According to beliefs of the time, these women’s spirits would depart from their bodies during sleep to convene with higher-ranking fairies. Notably, the trials and the Edict of the Diocese of Girgenti (Agrigento) in 1656 document that the most significant gatherings of these figures occurred during the night of Saint John, between the 23rd and 24th of June. Through an examination of trial records, we gain insights into how these women were perceived by their contemporaries, as well as an understanding of their societal roles and the ritual practices they engaged in. Moving forward to the late nineteenth century, ethnologist Giuseppe Pitrè conducted a comprehensive study of local rituals and popular folklore, and he collected various objects and documents related to supernatural beliefs, including those associated with the donne de fora in the regions around Palermo. My research is centered on archival records containing Pitrè’s notes, unpublished drafts, and correspondence with scholars in Italy and Europe discussing this phenomenon. Based on my findings, I aim to establish a connection between Pitrè’s material discoveries and contemporary beliefs regarding donne de fora and witchcraft in Sicily. Full article

Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation and community making. However, Nature Religions and alternate spiritualities are seldom included in surveys of religious musicking or soundscapes. This article considers musicality in earlier publications on modern Witchcraft, as well as the author’s fieldwork with magical-religious Witches in the UK, to show the valuable contribution they make to discussions on religious belonging and the sensorium through song, music, percussion, and soundscapes. Full article

The global rise in mental health disorders has significant social, economic, and physical impacts. Despite advancements in support, cultural beliefs attributing mental illnesses to spiritual causes persist, fostering discrimination and stigmatization. The study aims to explore the understanding and perceptions of mental health in Matsafeni Village, acknowledging the complexity of mental health issues. A qualitative method and a descriptive exploratory design were employed, enabling the researcher to describe, examine, and explore the knowledge and perceptions regarding mental health. Data collection was conducted through unstructured, open-ended interviews, with 15 participants selected through convenience sampling. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Measures of rigor were ensured through credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability. Participants demonstrated knowledge of mental health disorders, recognizing disruptions in thought patterns and diverse symptoms. They highlighted key signs and behaviors, emphasizing the need for spotting indicators such as untidiness. Perceptions of the causes of mental illness varied, including witchcraft and genetics. Participants unanimously advocated for seeking help from traditional healers, medical facilities, and therapies. Community members shared their views of mental health, covering their understanding, recognition of signs, personal interactions, and observations of behaviors in individuals with mental health conditions. Reported symptoms align with existing research, emphasizing the complexity of managing safety concerns in severe mental illnesses. The study highlights the need for community education to reduce stigma, considering cultural factors in mental health perceptions. Recommendations include early interventions, enhanced mental health services, and collaboration between western and traditional approaches for a holistic and culturally sensitive approach to mental health. Full article