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"Sorcery"
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Dust and light : a sanctuary novel
\"How much must one pay for an hour of youthful folly? The Pureblood Registry accused Lucian de Remeni-Masson of \"unseemly involvement with ordinaries,\" which meant only that he spoke with a young woman not of his own kind, allowed her to see his face unmasked, worked a bit of magic for her.... After that one mistake, Lucian's grandsire excised half his magic and savage Harrowers massacred his family. Now the Registry has contracted his art to a common coroner. His extraordinary gift for portraiture is restricted to dead ordinaries-- beggars or starvelings hauled from the streets. But sketching the truth of dead men's souls brings unforeseen consequences. Sensations not his own. Truths he cannot possibly know and dares not believe. The coroner calls him a cheat and says he is trying to weasel out of a humiliating contract. The Registry will call him mad-- and mad sorcerers are very dangerous...\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Understanding Social Resistance to the Ebola Response in the Forest Region of the Republic of Guinea: An Anthropological Perspective
Why did Ebola response initiatives in the Upper Guinea Forest Region regularly encounter resistance, occasionally violent? Extending existing explanations concerning local and humanitarian “culture” and “structural violence,” and drawing on previous anthropological fieldwork and historical and documentary research, this article argues that Ebola disrupted four intersecting but precarious social accommodations that had hitherto enabled radically different and massively unequal worlds to coexist. The disease and the humanitarian response unsettled social accommodations that had become established between existing burial practices and hospital medicine, local political structures and external political subjection, mining interests and communities, and those suspected of “sorcery” and those suspicious of them. Pourquoi les initiatives de réponse contre l’Ebola dans la région supérieure de la forêt de Guinée ont rencontré des résistances régulières parfois violentes? Élaborant sur des explications existantes en matière de “culture” et de “violence structurelle” locale et humanitaire et en s’appuyant de même sur des recherches précédentes anthropologique sur le terrain ainsi que sur de la recherche historique et documentaire, cet article soutient que l’Ebola a perturbé quatre accommodations sociales précaires qui avaient permis jusqu’ici à des mondes radicalement différents et fortement inégalitaires de coexister. La maladie et la réponse humanitaire ont déstabilisé les accommodations sociales qui s’étaient établies entre les pratiques funéraires existante et la médecine hospitalière, les structures politiques locales et l’assujettissement politique externe, les intérêts miniers et les communautés et enfin entre ceux suspectés de “sorcellerie” et ceux qui les suspecte.
Journal Article
Masters of Dark Arts—Ibn ʿArabī’s Records on African Sorcery, Qaḍīb al-Bān and the Power Known as Himma
In 1195 AD, a celebrated Sufi scholar, poet and philosopher Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī quit Muslim Spain for Africa. There, he first became acquainted with ʿuzābīyyah, which he described as the dark arts rooted in the soul’s power over mind and matter. Ibn ʿArabī referred to this power as himma. The Sufi shaykh Qaḍīb al-Bān, as well as the North African sorcerers Ibn ʿArabī encountered, could use this power to maim and kill humans. They were also said to be capable of creating new life forms with himma. The present study examines the specific types of himma they used and determines the supposed loci of this power in the body and soul. It also describes the standard methods used in Akbarian circles and North Africa to make oneself worthy of himma and identifies advantages and disadvantages of using this power to turn dreams into reality.
Journal Article
Hackers of the heart: digital sorcery and virtual intimacy in Côte d'Ivoire
This is an ethnography of internet scams in Abidjan through which I attempt to develop a theory of digital sorcery. The brouteurs of Côte d'Ivoire impersonate Europeans in social media profiles and seduce others into falling in love with them. After months of flirtatious messaging and photo exchanges, disaster strikes their avatar and they ask for an emergency wire transfer from their digital lover. While millions of euros of income are sent to Abidjan every year, the brouteurs say they can no longer succeed without the use of occult forces, and they turn to marabouts for assistance. During my fieldwork in 2015, rumours circulated that brouteur wealth depended on the blood sacrifice of children for its success. As Ivoirians increasingly employ smartphones and social media in their daily life, the anxieties concerning the illusions and manipulations of the virtual world become enmeshed with those of the occult second world. I suggest that the overlap between hacker technology, con artistry and occult power outlined in Ivoirian urban rumour suggests a model for rethinking the space of virtuality in the global economy as a form of magical semiosis, one that can be every bit as vitality draining as witchcraft itself.
Journal Article
Barriers to the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: a qualitative study
Background
Tuberculosis (TB) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in West Africa. An understanding of the barriers to prompt diagnosis and treatment of TB is critical in order to develop strategies to improve TB outcomes.
Methods
We conducted a qualitative sub-study within the TB-Sentinel Research Network of IeDEA at the CePReF clinic in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Individuals
18 years of age who had received treatment for pulmonary TB within the preceding 12 months were interviewed. Qualitative data collection and analysis were guided by the Grounded Theory approach.
Results
Interviews were conducted with 40 participants (median age 35 [IQR 25–46] years), including 19 (47.5%) women and 9 (22.5%) people living with HIV (PLHIV). Participants experienced a substantial delay between symptom onset and TB diagnosis despite the presence of active TB symptoms and persistent care seeking. They sought care a median of 3 [IQR 2–5] times before TB testing and experienced a median diagnostic delay of 4 [IQR 3–6] months between symptom onset and TB diagnosis. The patient care pathway consisted of three distinct phases: the care-seeking phase, the diagnosis phase, and the treatment phase. Seven categories emerged across the three phases, each representing a potential barrier to the diagnosis and treatment of TB: (1) delayed TB diagnosis (sub-categories: prolonged care-seeking, repeated expenditures, and turning to sorcery), (2) fear of TB, (3) TB-associated stigma (sub-category: equating TB with HIV), (4) financial distress, (5) food insecurity, (6) enduring isolation (sub-categories: psychological distress and social setbacks), and (7) adherence anxiety.
Conclusions
To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore barriers to the diagnosis and treatment of TB in Côte d’Ivoire. Throughout each phase of the care pathway, individuals suffering from TB disease must continuously persevere in order to overcome enormous barriers. There is a need for strategies to alleviate their burden, to improve the early recognition and diagnosis of TB, and to address TB-associated stigma. Research to enhance community-based diagnostic testing, and the development and implementation of psychological support and social protection strategies, should be prioritized.
Journal Article
Responding to the burden of dementia in Africa: Does cultural myth and perception of dementia impact clinical professionals' attitude, knowledge and experiences of dementia? Finding from qualitative interviews of newly migrated Nigerian clinical professionals in the UK
Background The burden of dementia in Africa is increasing due to a rapidly growing ageing population, a broken social welfare system, and a lack of awareness about the condition, which is often influenced by cultural and religious beliefs. In many African languages and cultures, there is no specific word for dementia. Instead of benefiting from early interventions and clinical management, older individuals are expected to experience a decline in cognitive functions as a normal part of ageing, frequently associating this decline with witchcraft or sorcery. As a result, many people deny that dementia is a medical condition, and those displaying symptoms are often isolated and left in traditional (unorthodox) treatment centres. Clinical professionals play a crucial role in raising awareness about dementia and its risk factors in order to dispel misconceptions surrounding the condition. Method Fifteen clinical professionals, including nurses and physicians who recently migrated to the UK, were interviewed using semi‐structured interview guidelines. The interviews lasted 45‐60 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim via Microsoft Teams. Data analysis was completed on NVivo 12 Pro software following Braun and Clark's Thematic Analytical guidelines Result The study found that dementia is “more of a textbook knowledge” for clinical practitioners in Nigeria, with practice often influenced by cultural perceptions and beliefs of dementia as a normal part of ageing process. Four main themes were categorised from the interview transcripts, including i) cultural influence and awareness, ii) clinical training and case experiences, iii) limited expertise and resources and iv) government priorities in mental health conditions. Conclusion Raising awareness of dementia in Africa is the first significant step in tackling the burden of the condition on the continent, including the involvement of institutions, organisations and policies. Without requisite training and experiences of clinical professionals in dementia care and available resources to diagnose dementia, the attitude and knowledge of dementia among the lay populace would always be influenced by cultural stigma and misconception.
Journal Article
What kinship is (part one)
A modest proposal for solving the 150-year-old problem of what kinship is, its specific quality, viz. mutuality of being: persons who are members of one another, who participate intrinsically in each other's existence. `Mutuality of being' applies as well to the constitution of kinship by social construction as by procreation, even as it accounts for `the mysterious effectiveness of relationality' (Viveiros de Castro), how it is that relatives live each other's lives and die each other's deaths. Involving such transpersonal relations of being and experience, kinship takes its place in the same ontological regime as magic, gift exchange, sorcery, and witchcraft. Une modeste proposition pour résoudre l'équation, vieille de 150 ans, de ce qu'est la parenté, sa spécificité, à savoir la mutualité d'existence: des personnes qui sont membres les unes des autres, qui participent à l'existence les unes des autres. La « mutualité d'existence » vaut aussi pour la constitution de lien de parenté par la construction sociale et la procréation, bien qu'elle tienne compte de « la mystérieuse efficacité de la relationalité » (Viveiros de Castro), de la manière dont les parents vivent les vies et meurent les morts des uns et des autres. La parenté, en mettant en jeu ces relations transpersonnelles d'existence et d'expérience, s'inscrit dans le même ordre ontologique que la magie, l'échange de cadeaux, la sorcellerie et la magie noire.
Journal Article
Johann Wier
This book deals with a fascinating and original claim in 16th-century Europe. Witches should be cured, not executed. It was the physician and scholar Johann Wier (1515-1588) who challenged the dominant idea. For his defense of witches, more than three centuries later, Sigmund Freud chose to put Wier's work among the ten books to be read. According to Wier, Satan seduced witches, thus they did not deserve to be executed, but they must be cured for their melancholy. When the witch hunt was rising, Wier was the first to use some of the arguments adopted in the emerging debate on religious tolerance in defence of witches. This is the first overall study of Wier which offers an innovative view of his thought, by highlighting Wier's sources and his attempts to involve theologians, physicians, and philosophers in his fight against cruel witch hunts. Johann Wier: Debating the Devil and Witches situates and explains his claim as a result of a moral and religious path as well as the outcome of his medical experience. The book aims to provide an insightful examination of Wier's works to read his pleas emphasizing the duty of every good Christian to not abandon anyone who strays from the flock of Christ. For these reasons, Wier was overwhelmed by bitter confutations, such as those of Jean Bodin, but he was also celebrated for his outstanding and prolific heritage for debating religious tolerance.
eBook
Art and Witchcraft in Early Modern Italy
The figure of the witch is familiar from the work of early modern German, Dutch, and Flemish artists, but much less so in the work of their Italian counterparts. Art and Witchcraft in Early Modern Italy seeks to explore the ways in which representations of witchcraft emerged from and coincided with the main cultural currents and artistic climate of an epoch chiefly celebrated for its humanistic and rational approaches. Through an in-depth examination of a panoply of arresting paintings, engravings, and drawings-variously portraying a hag-ridden colossal phallus, a horror-stricken necromancer dodging the devil's scrabbling claws, and a nocturnal procession presided over by an infanticidal crone - Guy Tal offers new ways of reading witchcraft images through and beyond conventional iconography. Artists such as Parmigianino, Alessandro Allori, Leonello Spada, and Angelo Caroselli effected visual commentaries on demonological notions that engaged their audience in a tantalizing experience of interpretation.
eBook
Masters of Dark Arts - Ibn 'Arabi's Records on African Sorcery, Qadib al-Ban and the Power Known as Himma
In 1195 AD, a celebrated Sufi scholar, poet and philosopher Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī quit Muslim Spain for Africa. There, he first became acquainted with ʿuzābīyyah , which he described as the dark arts rooted in the soul’s power over mind and matter. Ibn ʿArabī referred to this power as himma . The Sufi shaykh Qaḍīb al-Bān, as well as the North African sorcerers Ibn ʿArabī encountered, could use this power to maim and kill humans. They were also said to be capable of creating new life forms with himma . The present study examines the specific types of himma they used and determines the supposed loci of this power in the body and soul. It also describes the standard methods used in Akbarian circles and North Africa to make oneself worthy of himma and identifies advantages and disadvantages of using this power to turn dreams into reality.
Journal Article