The Economics of Witchcraft in Africa
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Summary
In this episode, Simone and I discuss how belief in witches may be holding Africa back economic development. We cover a number of articles on this topic, including a piece by the Atlantic and a great piece by The New York Times.
Transcript
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Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about a spicy topic, which is how belief in
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witches economically holds back Africa. And we will be going over a number of articles on this.
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One is a great aporia piece, which is how belief in witches holds Africa back or something like
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that. We'll get to it in a second. Actually, I'll start with a quote from it because people might
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be hearing this and I think the way their brain is translating it is poor, uneducated people in
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Africa believe in witches. And these people are arguing somehow this affects everyone. That is
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not what we are arguing here. So to quote from the article, one might assume that formal education
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would provide a safeguard against magical thinking. However, research suggests that schooling alone is
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not sufficient. In a 2014 study, Henry Reidman and colleagues compared cognitive ability and
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epistemic rationality in Nigeria and Germany. They found belief in supernatural forces was prevalent
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even among the educated Nigerians. Surveys of African university students have reached similar
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findings. In a sample of Nigerian students, many argued that Western countries were more
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technologically advanced because they possessed magical powers that they refused to share with
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Africans. Now, I should note here, this came from a study called Witchcraft in African Development,
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Eric Leischer, and it was published in 2014. So this is an academic study that goes and asks Nigerian
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college students, why are Western countries wealthier? And their answer is, they have magic they haven't
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shared with us. That this is college students in Nigeria. That's pretty wild. I want to clarify that.
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The Afrobarometer survey shows that in some countries, educated people are more likely to believe in
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witchcraft, not less. These results underline that the education system, so this comes from a study
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called Power, Politics, and the Supernatural, exploring the role of witchcraft beliefs for
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government's development by Joanna Selfie-Eldson, Dan Bakke, and Bob Face Delai, and specifically in
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Malawi populations, they found 74% of the population believed that witchcraft is an integral part of
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daily life, and educated residents were more likely to be inclined towards this belief than less
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educated residents. More educated is more like, that's so interesting. And actually it's the same
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with social status. More social status, but more belief in witches. Less social status, but less belief
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in witches. That is completely the opposite of what I would think. How is this happening?
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Well, what you are misperceiving is what is associated with social status and what is associated
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with education. And that's what the West fundamentally doesn't understand. They think
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if you go and you learn what they tell you in education, you know more of what's true,
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not just more of the mindset of the dominant culture within that region.
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And what's actually happening is when they are educated and they are not the country bumpkin,
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you haven't even heard of witches? Let me explain to you the complicated nature of witchcraft.
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Well, yeah, I mean, to your point, the universities of the United States are broadly speaking
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where the urban monoculture reaches anyone who thus far had only gone to Catholic school or a
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religious school or homeschool or whatever. Yeah. And I want to be clear that I don't think
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that this is true of all African cultures and communities, but that it is true of any African
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cultures and communities is telling and could mean a lot in terms of the development of economic
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systems within these regions. And we'll get to how it ends up. And what I mean by this,
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by brainwashing, there's actually a great Atlantic piece we have to do a piece on that's titled,
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get this, the liberal misinformation bubble about use gender medicine, how the left ended up
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disbelieving the science. Interesting. Okay. Atlantic. Wow. And specifically what the piece is on is
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the belief that, you know, it increases a kid's risk of taking their life if they don't go through
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gender transition. And they point out here that actually the Supreme Court case on this unveiled
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that that is just completely without any evidence at all. All of the evidence for this is apparently
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fabricated when, or not fabricated, but it just doesn't hold up to the counter evidence that this
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isn't the case. And this is what's admitted in court. But what I mean there is that is a religious
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belief, which is spouted by people who have been indoctrinated within the university system or
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centers of power within our own society. So, you know, who are we to laugh at, you know,
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Africans who are believing in witchcraft when we believe that, you know, the kids are less,
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if you, if you, if you surgically mutilate a child and put them on puberty blockers,
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that they will be less likely to take their life. That's something that anyone should be like,
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that doesn't sound true to me at all. But apparently, and I would put this in the context
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of, you know, gendered, non-contented use, the 2023 study that showed that of 13 year olds who
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are not content with their birth gender, more than nine of 10 of them by the age of 23 are
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completely content with it. So, you know, we know that, you know, at this stage, this is a phase
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from the evidence. But to keep going with the witch thing, because let's talk about witches here,
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arrests and evidence here. Now, this I found really fascinating to learn about. In mid 2024,
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Zambian police, so this is mid 2024, December 20th, actually 2024, so I guess late, in mid
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December 2024, Zambian police arrested Justin Matablis Kanabe, 42, and Leonard Fariv, 43,
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Zambian village chief, at a Luska hotel room. Authorities seized ritual items, a live chameleon
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sealed in a bottle, white powder, red cloths, animal tail, along with multiple containers of
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traditional medicines. They were charged with practicing witchcraft. They were hired by Nelson
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Banda, the brother of fugitive former MP Emmanuel J.J. Banda, who escaped custody. They were trying to
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hex the president, okay? They agreed, sorry, the payment varied in reports, but they were paid at
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$7,400, around 43 million Zambian Kawa. Although other testimonies suggested they could have been
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paid over a million dollars to cast these hexes. So, you know, high, high, wealthy people, you know,
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brothers of mainstream politicians are hiring expert witches to cast things on other politicians.
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Well, and also, it's illegal, whereas I don't think witchcraft is illegal in the U.S., because,
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or at least in most U.S. states, because I think most U.S. states don't think witchcraft is a thing.
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I mean, the very fact that they were arrested for it means that there is some understanding that,
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one, it's real, and two, it's dangerous. Well, if you're looking at Zambians, 79% of Zambians
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reportedly believe in this. Oh, wow. But it's interesting that it's also illegal, so they believe
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in it, but you can get arrested for it. Well, because they don't like it. They think witches
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are evil, you know. Is it, though? I mean, when you and I were in Johannesburg and we went to that
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traditional market, it was full of witchcraft stuff. They think that there's, like, a type of
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dark witch that's evil, but then there's, like, regular witchcraft. Oh, so, like, the dark magic is
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probably illegal, and then the, like, sympathetic magic and, like, healing magic is fine. And I will note
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that I talk about all of this with a lot of consternation, because this is their culture and their
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religion, and, you know, they have a right to this. But we will talk about how these cultural
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beliefs, as we go further into this, prevent effective entrepreneurship within these countries,
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and that this is very damaging to them. And it's also, you know, if you're talking about 79%,
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79% of Americans don't believe in God, I would guess. You know, like, this is, this shows how
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permeated these societies are. Yeah, it's a lot of faith in a world that is becoming increasingly
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faithless. Then we'll talk about that, and I have outlined an episode on rising new secular
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religions. But, yeah, it's a lot, though. Like, that's, there's something powerful here. If that
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many people believe in something that is not backed up by science or physics. And the Zambian
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traditional healer, Dr. Vogo, based in a wealthy suburb of Luska, admitted to serving mostly middle and
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upper-class clients, especially women seeking protection from spiritual harm.
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Wow. So what's interesting here is, who is buying this? It is the African version of the American
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crystal lady. Yeah, well, crystal lady or person who pays for psychics or zodiac stuff or-
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Which are often upper-middle-class women. Yeah.
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No, it's white women buying from goop, but go on.
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Well, is that not goop? Is this not the goop? But the point I'm making here is, again,
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you see heavily upper-middle-class saying, and if you're like, again, how could this hurt an
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economy? Even think about what I've said so far, that Nigerian students, and, you know,
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would believe that the West was wealthier because they had magic they weren't sharing.
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Well, yeah, and that's an external locus of control, and there are fewer-
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It makes it incredibly hard to economic, to think about how you can economically develop your own
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country if you misattribute why your country is in an economically challenging position.
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Yeah, well, and especially if it's someone else's fault and out of your control, what are you going
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to do? Well, it's not just what are you going to do, it's what you would do. Okay, I want my
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country to be stronger. I need to find out the magic that they have that we don't have.
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Oh, right. So even if you decide to take action, it's really not going to work out for you.
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It's not going to work out for you. Right, yes. Before we get to the core piece,
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let's keep going through some other examples here. In April 2025, CBS and AFP and MSG reported on
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hundreds of mostly older or disabled Ghanaian women who have been physically attacked,
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sometimes burned or stoned, after being accused of witchcraft. Keep in mind, this was in 2025.
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Many ended up banished to witch camps as the only means of survival.
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Yes, and this is even though Ghana's parliament passed a bill in 2023, making witchcraft accusations
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illegal, it hasn't been enacted yet, so daily abuse continues.
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Okay, hold on. Do you know anything, like, is a witch camp a safe space for witches, or is this
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like a concentration camp for people who've been accused of witchcraft?
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Let's talk about one. Gambaga, located in Ghana's northeast region, now houses around 100 banished
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women, and about 25 huts. So keep in mind how many women that is per hut. A lot.
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Many are widows, long-time residents of towns and cities often known in urban areas. They include
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educated women suffering Alzheimer's or dementia, whose medical symptoms are misinterpreted by
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families and neighbors as witchcraft. So this is almost like...
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That's so sad, right? Like, old ladies who get Alzheimer's and then are sent to, like,
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concentrate. But it's their culture's version of, like, an asylum, almost, combined with, like,
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actual, you know, dangerous individuals or whatever, right? You know, this is a really sad
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situation that we're seeing here. In 2024, The Guardian highlighted that many people with dementia
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across Nigeria, so keep in mind this isn't just there, are branded as witches. Across Nigeria,
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people living with dementia are often accused of witchcraft. Symptoms such as forgetting basic
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details and changes in behavior are seen as evidence of evil. People have been set on fire,
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stone, beaten to death, or buried alive. Often they target the elderly, urban, or educated individuals
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who erratic behavior or memory loss was blamed on evil curses. That is really sad. Although the most
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documented cases occur in rural areas, witch hunts in Mali often involve educated villagers.
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A notable case described a married couple accused of causing illness via witchcraft, promoting
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villagers to call in a witch finder. Although they lived in a mixed community, modern education and
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income did little to shield them from the collective in subsequent panic. So now we're going to go into
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a Forbes article titled, we're just going to do a short excerpt from it, Magic Spells and Money.
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A local television station in Kenya recently ran a series on witch doctors. At a witch doctor shrine
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on the outskirts of Nairobi, expensive cars drove in and out. Politicians were looking to bewitch their
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electorate and contractors were looking for charms to win huge tenders. All over Africa, people battle
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remotely by using charms. The affluent worried about losing their wealth or seeking to suppress rivals
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will pay a fortune for protection from their enemies to improve their luck. This witch doctor was clearly
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not the kind found in villages who played in animals and food. So it's little wonder that he owns a huge
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compound in an area that the middle class would need some magic to afford. Politicians are some of the biggest
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consumers of black magic. Some pay $10,000 per visit. With elections on the horizon in a good number of
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African countries, magicians and witch doctors are looking forward to even bigger boom in their
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business. At Kenya's latest polls, presidential contenders were rumored to fly out to visit the most
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potent witch doctors south of the country. A Pew Research survey conducted in 2010 showed that a quarter of
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Kenyans believe in witchcraft despite being deeply religious. Kenya was ranked as the 11 most religious
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nation in Africa and 16th in the world. 78% of Kenyans are Christian and 10% are Muslim. Close to 9 out of
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10 people stated that religion played an important role in their lives. But most of them forget the
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Bible or the Quran soon after worship and seek solace in shrines and witch doctor dens. According to the
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report, a quarter of Kenyans, both Christian and Muslim, confess that they believe in the protective
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power of juju charms and amulets and that they consult traditional healers.
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This reminds me, I mean, it doesn't surprise me that you can both be Christian or Muslim and then
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also believe in these things because it was such a thing that I saw in Japan. Like you could have
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these two belief systems like Shinto and Buddhism live right next to each other. And it's like, well,
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okay, of course, like if you have a baby or it's this holiday of the year, you go to your Shinto shrine.
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If someone dies, you go to the Buddhist temple. Like there were just, there was a time and a place.
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It was very context-based and people, I mean, they're very familiar with switching their,
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everything about their identities based on their context, whether they're at work or home or with a
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friend versus their kids. And I think that what we're seeing here, and we'll get into this more,
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but it's this ability to externalize failures to supernatural forces or externalize wins to
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supernatural forces that makes it harder for a region to economically develop. And the more normalized
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this is, the more difficulty you're going to have. And now I'm not saying this is the only reason.
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Africa has a lot of reasons having trouble with economic development, but I'm saying this is a
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contributory reason that people just don't talk about because it's offensive to mention.
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Well, yeah. I mean, I think the important thing too, yeah, we're not critiquing them for believing
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in witchcraft. We're critiquing them for having an external locus of control. I don't care if you
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believe in it. If like, for some reason it helps you take personal responsibility for things in a way
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that's connected with reality, meaning you can actually solve problems, but this is not that.
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But I'd argue we even see this in the West. If you look at, you know, Catholic countries,
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which are more likely to have, you know, healing shrines, they're more likely to have saint worship,
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they're more likely to have a lot of the sort of Christian magic, I guess I'd call it,
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they are dramatically less economically developed than the Protestant countries that strictly banned
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a lot of this stuff a long time ago. Even in environments where they probably should be much
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more economically developed. And I think that this is probably the core, or one of the core reasons
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why Catholicism leads to such slow economic development, is because of the tendency
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and the, of the Catholic Church to incorporate local mystical traditions and shrines and stuff
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And I note here that this is actually way more of a problem for Catholic communities
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in Catholic majority countries than it is in historically Catholic countries, than it is for
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Catholic communities in the United States. Like, if I engage as Catholics in the United States,
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I don't see them going to like healing shrines or, you know.
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Yeah, they're, they're not praying to statues of saints.
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But if I go to Catholic communities in say Mexico or Latin America, this is something you'll see
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very frequently. Oh, this, this is where you go to put this on you to heal.
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No, yeah. You can't walk down the street without passing a Catholic saint statue that people are actively
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praying in front of. If you're riding in an Uber or a taxi, you know, half the time,
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you're going to see the driver cross themselves at every stoplight. Like, yeah, it's, it's, it's deep
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there. And so I'm saying this isn't me picking on Africa. It's just that in Africa, these beliefs
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are more developed. And it leads to the negative externalities that are associated with these
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beliefs. But more on that in a second. I'm going to go to another piece here. And this is by an aid
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worker who was very surprised what he found when he went to Africa in a piece, he titled Malice in
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Mali, a case study in modern witchcraft accusations. But I'm just jumping around this piece. So we're
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only going to get a short segment from him. I asked how common the attacks were here in Karanga,
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witchcraft accusation cases are rampant. Magari told me, maybe every day you see these conflicts
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where someone is accused of witchcraft. He said it is very common, especially in the Karanga and
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Sheptag districts in Mali's northern region. I was shocked. I'd expected maybe a case every month
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or two, though outright violence against police officers is rarer than witchcraft accusations. There
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is both a latent and explicit hostility towards police. Many accused witch cases remain unreported.
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And when police are summoned, often the villagers don't trust or don't understand why. They see it as
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an internal dispute that should be handled within the village. And they often will attack police
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believing that they're sided with witches. The social dynamics of witchcraft accusations are
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complex, and much more so in the context of rural Malin society and tribal alliances.
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When I asked why the village chief had been unable to protect the accused witches, Wonderful explained
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another nuance. Chiefs do have some power and authority in rural villages, but their position
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is tenuous and fraught. They risk losing status if they are perceived as protected witches too much.
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Like police officers, they much walk a fine line. A village chief who consistently and strongly
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condemns mob justice against acute witches runs the real risk of being replaced by another chief
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who has no such qualms about summary justice. In this case and in many others, the chief navigates
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this by appealing to the law, insisting it's a criminal matter, and seeking police intervention.
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There is an office that is supposed to handle these sorts of issues, the District Peace Committee,
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but Wonderful was not optimistic. Like the police, they are often understaffed and underfunded.
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The situation is complicated by the fluid and sometimes interchangeable roles of healers and
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witch finders in Africa. After all, the afflicted or neighbors believe that a given injury or illness
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is magical instead of biological in origin, they will seek remedy. In Imagining Evil Witchcraft Beliefs
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and Accusations in Contemporary Africa, Catholic priest Hugo Hinfar notes that neighboring Zambia
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in the northern provinces, most districts are regularly visited by shinagas, healers, and herbalists.
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Through professional organizations, they have certificates that indicates the cures in which
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they are known and specialized. A good number of them are inclined to go beyond the well-defined
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limits of their profession. It appeared that 60% of the herbalists were prepared to exceed the limits
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of their professional competence due to pressures from their client, who not only asked them to
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diagnose and heal, but also to indicate through divination who had caused the particular disease,
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ailment, or missing. This led to the witch hunting. So this is 60% when they go in, the herbalists are
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like, okay, and this is who you should hurt for this illness you have.
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This is so similar. I've, I've been listening to some podcasts that I've been listening to the
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Textry podcast, which goes over some old texts. And she, she does a couple of podcast episodes on
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like witch trial texts, like court, court records. And it's so similar to like the Guernsey witch trials
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Um, you know, it's like, well, this person got me sick. This person caused me to miscarry,
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miscarry. This person caused my horse to die. And it's so interesting how this appears to be
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the very instinctual human reaction. It's something bad happening to you. Whose fault is it? Yeah. Who
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did it? Yeah. Like, well, clearly my neighbor, like there were, there were instances in these records
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where like this woman, you know, like had, had a conflict with this neighbor a long time ago. And then
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the neighbor's horse died and the neighbor's like, I knew it was her.
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So Simone, I'm going to, I'm going to do you a favor here. You can take out your headphones for
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a second and I'll let you know when you can put them back in.
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Thank you. You just wave your hand at me. Okay.
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So now we're going to talk about a spirit children in Ghana and traditional beliefs in Northern Ghana
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see the disabled or chronically ill infants as spirit children, chicken or can you can you who are born
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to bring misfortune villagers sometimes kill or attempt to exercise these babies ritual seen as
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necessary to protect the family. And you might be like, how rare is this? Well, despite Ghana
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criminalizing the practice in 2013, such practices have been linked to infant deaths at the rate of
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22 to 27%. And this is from Wikipedia. Whatever you shielded me from, I'm assuming it was young
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people getting hurt. I am. Yep. We're not going to talk about that. Nope. Shocking rates there though.
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So now we're going to go into the main piece, which I found so interesting and brought me to
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this, which is the Aporia piece. How belief in witchcraft holds Africa back. But I wanted to
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start you as a framing. So you understand this isn't some crazy racist or something like that.
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This is pervasive. And I mean, especially because it's even something that you and I saw
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When I was in Africa, I remember flyers for like, which, which doctors you could hire and stuff like
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that, like on the streets. Yeah. Cause otherwise would, I really wouldn't have believed it. So
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we've also seen it in person, but yeah, these, these ample examples also demonstrate that this
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is hardly isolated, which is what you're revealing to me, which is really surprising is how pervasive
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this is at least in some countries among educated groups, which totally shocks me.
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Well, and, and our guide, I remember he was telling us a story that had happened not long ago in the
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region. So it was like really vivid for him of some people who got in a shootout with police and were
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like very aggressive with stealing from the local area. And it was because a witch had told them he had
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made them invulnerable to bullets. Yes. And then he had not, of course, and this did not turn out
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well for them. And again, with this, I'm always reminded of the traditionalist Christians where
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I'm like, your kids are at serious risk of the urban monoculture, deconverting them and turning them
00:23:26.960
against you. And they're like, no, no, no, don't worry. I have practiced Christianity in the way my
00:23:32.980
ancestors did. And I taught my kids the way my grandparents did. And so they're safe. And I'm like,
00:23:39.200
they are not safe. Nope. You are dealing with guns and you are using witchcraft.
00:23:45.240
You need to build stronger methods because your kids will be castrated and let off in triumphs.
00:23:52.540
I guarantee it. If you, if you send them with this magical armor on. So then I think that's
00:23:58.160
always important for all of us to be aware of is to not coat our own children in the magical armor
00:24:02.980
of our ancestors, or they will get in a shootout with police believing they're invulnerable to
00:24:08.260
bullets. But anyway, to continue here. One of the most significant ways belief in witchcraft hinders
00:24:13.220
development is by discouraging entrepreneurship and wealth creation. In many African societies,
00:24:17.760
individuals fear that economic success will bring trouble as those who accumulate wealth are often
00:24:22.460
accused of using witchcraft to prosper at the expense of their peers. Unsurprisingly, this fosters
00:24:28.000
an environment where capable individuals deliberately eschew success as to evade accusations of sorcery.
00:24:36.300
And here they are citing a study relationship between social status and witchcraft in Africa
00:24:42.300
by Christopher R. Maguasha or something. Oh my. Indeed, a study of rural TIV communities in Niger by
00:24:49.820
Nugtur Samba and Dajo Ugba confirmed the fear of the supernatural retribution discourages individuals
00:24:56.600
from engaging in business. It also found that wealthy individuals sometimes go to great lengths to conceal
00:25:01.820
their financial status, the better to avoid being labeled as witches. This has serious consequences.
00:25:08.400
When people refrain from entrepreneurship out of fear, societies are deprived of opportunity for
00:25:13.200
development. So again, you see this isn't just me saying, oh, they have these backwards beliefs and
00:25:16.700
this is hurting them. This is documented by African peer-reviewed publications. William Darley and Charles
00:25:25.640
Blankson also found evidence that superstitious beliefs suppress productivity, productive behavior
00:25:31.960
in Africa. Many aspiring business owners actually worry that envious individuals would use witchcraft
00:25:37.160
to destroy their ventures. Such worries act as a psychological barrier, discouraging risk-taking
00:25:43.320
and innovation. The entrepreneurial spirit is replaced by fatalism, leaving economic potential untapped.
00:25:49.580
Um, and so this is a piece titled Sub-Saharan African cultural belief systems and entrepreneurial
00:25:55.320
activities, again, and perspective that came out in 2020. Again, this is not somebody's perspective.
00:26:00.880
These are a bunch of African researchers who are writing this. What's more, people are less likely to be
00:26:07.620
held accountable under these conditions because failures can be blamed on external vices. The fear of
00:26:13.400
witchcraft can be so powerful that entrepreneurs choose not to expand their business, hoping to sort the
00:26:19.200
plans of suspected witches. A study in Cameroon documented that entrepreneurs not only reject
00:26:24.240
managerial solutions to business challenges, but frequently attribute those challenges to
00:26:28.440
supernatural forces, including ancestral spirits and witchcraft. And this study was another determinant
00:26:34.440
of entrepreneurship, the belief in witchcraft and entrepreneurship. To continue, even the financial
00:26:40.540
sector is not immune to the influence of superstition. Essene Essen has documented that some Nigerians
00:26:46.240
engage in ritual defacement of currency notes, believing it will ward off evil powers.
00:26:51.280
The problem is so egregious that it accounts for practically all of the defacement of NARA.
00:26:56.560
Others avoid using bank services altogether because they suspect that their money will be manipulated
00:27:02.020
through supernatural means. It is not only costly for the central bank to replace disfigured notes,
00:27:07.900
irrational behavior undermines the functioning of a modern financial institution,
00:27:11.980
and stymines integration with the global economy. Witchcraft beliefs also distort governance by
00:27:17.880
reinforcing authoritarian leadership. In many African countries, political figures exploit these
00:27:23.300
beliefs to consolidate power, silence opposition, and maintain social control. In a recent study,
00:27:28.120
Johanna Addison and colleagues examined how leaders use narratives surrounding witchcraft to justify
00:27:33.140
their rule. Leaders often claim supernatural protection or accuse rivals of engaging in sorcery.
00:27:39.040
Instead of evidence-based policymaking, they rely on mysticism to legitimize their authority.
00:27:45.180
South Africa's former president, Jacob Zuma, was known for exploiting the deep-seated revelance
00:27:51.480
for ancestor worship to manipulate voters into supporting his policies. And this was cited a piece here,
00:27:58.460
Zuma, vote ANC, are faced ancestral wrath. And then the study that was talked about here was power,
00:28:05.440
politics and the supernatural, exploring the world of witchcraft, believed in governments for development.
00:28:10.980
Superstition is particularly visible in electoral politics, where supernatural interventions are
00:28:16.260
frequently invoked for political outcomes. When a politician loses an election, it is not uncommon
00:28:22.420
for their supporters to blame the loss on witchcraft rather than ineffective campaigning or voter
00:28:27.220
disrespect. This erodes trust in the democratic process and elevates conspiracy theories over rational
00:28:33.260
judgment. And talk about the level of externalizing you get from this when political losses are blamed
00:28:39.040
on witches. A belief in witchcraft also fosters corruption in government. Public officials who
00:28:44.420
believe in supernatural forces may prioritize rituals and magic over accountability and transparency.
00:28:49.480
Some even divert state resources to traditional healers or spiritualists rather than investing in
00:28:54.900
infrastructure or social programs. At the local level, accusations of witchcraft are a major source of
00:29:00.460
violence. And here it is linking to a study by Suffolk University law, the problem of witchcraft and
00:29:07.520
violence in Africa. And the victims are usually women, young children, or marginalized members of the
00:29:12.760
community. An individual accused of witchcraft may be ostracized, attacked, or even brutally killed.
00:29:18.020
Such acts obviously erode trust and weaken social bonds, making it difficult for people to cooperate and
00:29:23.060
build a civil society. And again, if nothing's ever anyone's fault, if a politician could lose and it's
00:29:28.900
witches or a politician can win and it's witches, it's hard to attempt to learn from things. It's the
00:29:34.320
same with like entrepreneurship. If who's successful, it's not like I need to look at who's successful so
00:29:40.800
that I can study what they did that made them successful. It's, oh, I look at who's successful,
00:29:44.780
but they got there because of witches. Therefore, nothing that they did is particularly useful to learn
00:29:49.580
to copy. Yeah. Or their lesson was I just didn't spend enough money at the, like with the magician
00:29:55.420
or witch doctor or whatever it is that I, you know, like my, my, my opponent spent more. So his spells
00:30:02.200
were better. Like, I mean, I think even if you use magic, um, I guess the assumption is that the other
00:30:08.940
side had better magic and then you just don't, again, you don't learn anything. I don't know
00:30:14.860
if our own elections are, I mean, I guess you can, but I mean, I think often our own elections
00:30:22.000
are pretty poorly analyzed as well because they're like, well, the other side just raised more money
00:30:27.700
and did more ad spend, but I don't know how effective. No, look at Democrats right now, like
00:30:32.180
even as corrupt and bad as the party is and as dumb as they are, they realize they need to learn to
00:30:37.900
win the mail vote, right? Like they're like, I mean, to vote Democrat. Yeah. They've admit that
00:30:43.220
they've lost the mail vote. Yeah. Unfortunately, they give it to their version of witches, which
00:30:47.940
is like statisticians and analysts, they give them $20 million and then they come back and say,
00:30:52.700
we need more boots on the ball kicking machine. I love that freedom tomb skit on this particular topic.
00:30:59.060
All right. So let me go through some of our positions and you stop me where you feel uncomfortable,
00:31:04.880
a higher minimum wage, healthcare reform, the ball kicking machine, social safety nets.
00:31:19.780
Wait, could you repeat that last one? Sure. Uh, social safety nets. Before that. Hmm. Oh,
00:31:26.780
the ball kicking machine. I don't like the ball kicking machine. Not a fan. Yeah. I don't like that at all.
00:31:33.600
Oh, the machine we want in your house to kick your balls all the time. Yes. No, that can't be it.
00:31:40.280
Okay. So what does our $20 million study show? The machine needs more boots.
00:31:46.660
That is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I can't believe that they built a commission to try to find
00:31:53.780
out why young men aren't voting for them. And they put a woman in charge of it. And it's like,
00:31:57.860
could that be why, could that be why, could that have anything to do with it? Is your systemic
00:32:03.940
discrimination against men? But anyway, the harmful impact of witchcraft belief extends beyond business
00:32:10.940
and government to the domain of public health misconceptions about the causes of different
00:32:14.960
diseases and how to treat them are widespread in Africa. This is particularly true when it comes
00:32:19.480
to HIV slash AIDS. Amar L. Kassari and Amir Bemnava studied Sanghali's people's beliefs about HIV,
00:32:27.560
revealing that many women believe the infection is caused by witchcraft as opposed to sexual
00:32:32.080
intercourse with an infected person. As a consequence, such women do not take protective measures like
00:32:36.640
using condoms or getting tested and the disease continues to spread. And this can be very damaging
00:32:41.300
economically to have these sorts of diseases spread within a region. In a similar study,
00:32:45.600
Eric Tekanaranga and colleagues examined how superstition impedes HIV prevention efforts in
00:32:53.140
Ghana, owing to entrenched beliefs that infectious diseases are caused by witches. Many people refuse
00:32:59.620
to- I wonder how much we would need PEPFAR if instead we invested in anti-witch. But that can't come
00:33:06.440
from outsiders. It has to come from within. I was referring to the, like, for people- Oh,
00:33:12.340
we're not talking about the other thing that we were talking about. Yeah. USAID used to provide
00:33:16.700
a lot of aid. This is where everyone is like, USAID is no longer providing to Africa. Well,
00:33:20.640
maybe convince them that it's not witches that are causing AIDS. Yeah. Like, I'm wondering how,
00:33:25.080
how many cases of HIV could have been prevented if instead this belief was targeted. But I also am well
00:33:31.840
aware of the fact that you can't have an external party, especially a bunch of white people.
00:33:38.020
If a bunch of American, like, progressives came in, they'd be like, you're 100% spreading.
00:33:44.600
They'd be like, okay, so it's definitely the witchcraft. It's 100% the witchcraft. Yeah.
00:33:49.220
Yeah. Refused- so- so- to entrench the beliefs that infectious diseases are caused by witches,
00:33:54.440
many people refuse to believe that behavior makes a difference and as such do not take preventative
00:33:58.840
measures. Some turn to spiritual healers for cues rather than seeking medical treatment. And this is
00:34:04.980
citing an article that is titled, I visited a traditional healer because I felt I wasn't
00:34:09.900
getting any better using active antivirals, understanding the cultural imperative in the
00:34:14.360
context of adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy. This is the public health journal.
00:34:22.160
And such healers claim to possess supernatural abilities that can cure AIDS, convincing patients
00:34:27.020
to abandon retroviral therapy. Aside from reinforcing irrational beliefs, this puts additional
00:34:32.200
strange on the public healthcare system. Perhaps the most horrifying consequence of the superstition
00:34:36.660
is, and you probably want to take off your headphones again. Thank you.
00:34:40.240
The abuse of children. In some African cultures, those born with disabilities are considered spirit
00:34:44.560
children, as we talked about before, and are thought to bring misfortune on their families.
00:34:48.680
Emmanuel Aswale has documented how children suspected of being possessed are sometimes poisoned,
00:34:53.980
drowned, or simply abandoned. Despite its effort to curb these practices, they persist due to
00:34:58.440
deeply ingrained beliefs. Maswari Adaki studied the phenomenon of child witch hunts in Ghana,
00:35:04.060
where children are accused of witchcraft and tortured or exiled from their communities.
00:35:08.000
Tragically, it is orphans and those from impoverished backgrounds who are the most likely to be accused.
00:35:13.340
Thanks, by the way. You're so sweet. I know we don't believe in trigger warnings, but like,
00:35:17.760
also on- That is your trigger warning. She gets very sad when she hears about children being hurt.
00:35:21.900
Destroyed by it. Yeah, I just need to pretend that it never happens.
00:35:25.240
It never happens. But I found this really fascinating because I had assumed that, you know,
00:35:33.160
even having, you know, been to Africa, been, you know, to the townships, saw the witchcraft
00:35:39.840
being practiced at the townships, I never really put together. And I mean, we saw it. We went to-
00:35:45.320
Yeah, but we also, it wasn't in a wealthy area. So I think we were like, well, I guess this is
00:35:50.360
common among people who don't have high levels of education or who aren't.
00:35:54.980
But when I think about myself growing up, so I lived in Costa Rica on a reservation for a period
00:36:02.860
where there was like a wildlife reservation, right? And this is when I was in high school.
00:36:08.440
You know, I didn't live with my family in high school. So many people know I lived in a lot of
00:36:11.500
weird places. And one of them, oh, you know, I reached out to a scientist and I was like,
00:36:15.020
hey, can I help you with your work? It looks pretty interesting. They're like, yeah,
00:36:17.220
come on, come out here. So I went and I helped do science in Costa Rica. And so, you know, I got to
00:36:23.160
meet a lot of other people who did science in the region and many of them had been stationed in
00:36:28.420
other places. And I remember one of them who had been stationed in Africa talked to me about how one
00:36:37.140
of the, you know, people he worked with in some capacity, I can't remember the capacity exactly,
00:36:41.940
but it was clear that this was an educated high status individual, wasn't just like a believer in
00:36:47.840
witchcraft, but considered himself a dark witch from a family of dark witches. And they did really,
00:36:57.060
in Africa, this happens, you have murders associated with witches, not infrequently,
00:37:02.220
you have grapes associated with witchcraft, not infrequently. This, this is something that,
00:37:07.460
you know, I remember the stories he told me and I thought he was embellishing to sound cool or
00:37:12.720
something. And now I look back and I'm like, oh, he might've really known a guy who had people
00:37:18.760
murdered for, you know, witchcraft reasons. That's pretty crazy to think about.
00:37:25.240
That is pretty crazy to think about. And then you have the weird witchcraft that's practiced
00:37:30.020
in the United States where people buy spells on Etsy. So I don't know.
00:37:35.940
I can only imagine them going to one of these African witches. That's when you're getting in
00:37:39.120
the real stuff. And it's crazy how Christian these countries are as well. And yet they still engage
00:37:43.740
with this stuff. Yeah, I don't, I mean, it's, it's really clear to me that adhering to one
00:37:52.700
religion, unless that religion is really explicit about other religions, although Christianity is this
00:37:59.300
whole thing of like false idols and stuff. I, what do you do as a religion to stop people from
00:38:04.720
Christianity is spare, not a witch to live. You know, it's, it's very clear, like do not,
00:38:09.940
do not engage. How do you square that? It's just. Well, they say, well, I'm a good witch,
00:38:16.720
you know, I'm aligned with Jesus or something. Right. You know, a lot of people, they don't know
00:38:20.440
their Bibles that much. And it is local tradition. It is their local culture. I mean, what you are
00:38:24.800
asking is the eradication of a local cultural practice, which is a form of cultural imperialism.
00:38:31.720
Right. But what I'm trying to point out here is if they do not address this cultural practice,
00:38:38.660
economic development, even if all other things have been fixed, becomes incredibly difficult.
00:38:43.320
Yeah. Yeah. And this, this makes me a little bit nervous about the secular religions that are rising
00:38:50.420
in the United States and not just the secular religions.
00:38:54.340
Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, cause you would argue that, you know, charismatic Christianity
00:39:01.900
We have a long episode where she argues that, that we may do for our Patreon subscribers. Cause
00:39:06.080
I don't want to piss off too many people. In Substack. Yeah. Any, any paid subscriber. Yeah.
00:39:09.700
You're just, I mean, I guess that's fair because charismatic Christianity is the fastest growing
00:39:14.380
type of Christianity in the United States. So we're going to get in trouble for me calling
00:39:19.240
them all witches, but. But you know, evidence. But they're witches. So. I mean, it is what we
00:39:26.660
would call witchcraft was in most other contexts. Dude. Yes. Hello. They're just like, but I'm doing
00:39:31.300
it for Jesus. So it doesn't count. And it's like, well, I don't know if that's how it works. No.
00:39:36.460
If you're doing things that we historically considered witchcraft and that were within the case of
00:39:41.220
charismatic Christianity, some case directly borrowed from the spiritualist and Wiccan movement and not
00:39:47.020
traditionally Christian. And they don't realize that they took these practices from the Wiccan and
00:39:51.080
spiritualist movement. They think that they're unique. And I'm like, no, no, no. This came from
00:39:54.520
the spiritualist boom in the 1920s. It feels like such a classic biblical, like it's the biblical
00:40:00.660
version of my cabbages. Like it just, it just is this theme that constantly comes up of like God to
00:40:08.400
humans. Hey, like stay focused. Just me. Okay. No, no false gods. Stick to the, stick to the plan.
00:40:16.240
And then humans are like, no, but can I have a golden cow? Can't I pray to some dead humans?
00:40:24.020
Just one. As a way to pray to you. As a way to pray to you. Yeah. It's really all about you.
00:40:31.120
But I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm buying this spell for you. For you. Of course. To cast on these
00:40:39.200
other people, you know, but I understand how it can become corrupted. It's just sad. And I
00:40:45.940
wonder, I have seen actually some people, one of my friends of African descent has actually
00:40:51.120
found a way to take these concepts and make them psychologically useful to him.
00:40:56.440
No, I don't think a lot of people have, have taken folk practices. So tarot, for example,
00:41:02.280
has become super popular. Yeah. This is one of my friends. He's not a direct African descent. He
00:41:07.820
picked up the religious traditions of, I want to say one of the Caribbean cultural groups,
00:41:13.260
I think Puerto Rican. And, you know, they have, you know, iterations of these practices within
00:41:17.780
those cultures often. And one of them that he, he picked up was when he is struggling to make a
00:41:25.040
decision about something, he rolls a like 10 sided dice that has spiritual significance for him.
00:41:31.820
And based on the number, he makes a decision. And he finds that because of this, he's much more likely
00:41:37.320
to go out to gatherings than he otherwise would be. Cause he's often like, I don't really know if I want
00:41:41.960
to go out. And then the roll of the dice leads him to going out much more than he would otherwise,
00:41:46.660
which I find to be really powerful because he knows he still has like an out. He's leaning on
00:41:52.080
a traditional cultural practice, but he's not using it to, you know, blame his failures on
00:41:57.700
successes or externalities. He's using it as a tool to get himself to do the types of things that he
00:42:02.760
would prefer not to do more frequently while still giving himself an out and still being able to play.
00:42:06.680
Yeah. Again, yeah. We're not hating on witchcraft. We're hating on practices that lead people to be
00:42:11.380
less productive, but you can absolutely leverage these things in a way that do make you more
00:42:17.060
productive. I think it's just the average person, just like we are with mysticism, right? Like there
00:42:23.860
are some people who can absolutely handle more mystical things. Like some people can handle the
00:42:29.540
Kabbalah. Most people can't like you, you know, I, in general would advise against it, but I would say,
00:42:39.920
especially if it gives you an internal locus of control that leads to your problem solving
00:42:44.080
process that tracks with science and physics, it's, I guess that's the problem is like some forms of
00:42:51.360
witchcraft can lead to an internal locus of control, but it's like, well, my internal locus of control
00:42:55.620
is to cast a spell. And like, that doesn't track with good outcomes. So, but that is, that is crazy.
00:43:04.760
I mean, well, what, what do you think is going to happen to Africa then? Are they going to get over
00:43:09.400
it? Demographic collapse is going to come to Western countries and it's going to collapse aid
00:43:14.040
networks. And as I've said, you can watch our video where we do a deep dive on what I think
00:43:17.740
I'll have in Africa. Africa might be one of the places that actually does quite well coming out of
00:43:21.400
demographic collapse, but it is, it is going to look like specific cultures and ethnic groups and
00:43:26.580
tribes doing really well and not all of Africa doing well. It is going to come downstream of the
00:43:31.400
atomization of Africa and the admission of what the colonialists should have admitted long ago,
00:43:37.240
which is Africa is about tribal networks and it's not about, you know, sort of collectivism.
00:43:42.440
These attempts to collectivize Africa seem to always lead to genocide and tragedy because Africa is not
00:43:48.620
a collective place. It is a network of, of, of tribal associations and, and cultural and ethnic groups
00:43:54.920
that are much more distinct from each other than we are. As I often point out, if you take any two
00:44:01.080
ethnic groups within Africa and you contrast them genetically speaking, they are almost always
00:44:08.280
dramatically more. And I mean like three or four times more distant from each other than, you know,
00:44:13.440
your average European is from your average Asian or native American. They're, they're just the amount
00:44:19.860
of genetic and, and as a result, cultural diversity in Africa is just hugely understated within the existing
00:44:25.420
narrative. As I say, if you, if you divided humanity into eight ethnic groups, seven of them would be groups of
00:44:33.300
Africans. And one of them would include white people, Asians, native Americans, medic people,
00:44:40.540
Middle Easterners, everyone else based on genetic distance.
00:44:45.980
That's yeah. That's so interesting. It blew my mind when you first pointed that to me. It's like, that can't possibly,
00:44:53.340
but of course it makes sense. When you actually look at like the, the, the time done.
00:44:57.820
One of them might be Australian aboriginals as well, but that also, that doesn't really break from
00:45:02.140
the wider narrative here. Yeah. They're, they're quite genetically distinct and, and make up a really
00:45:07.340
unique immigrant wave. And there's a few other groups like that in the islands around that. It's not
00:45:11.540
really the larger point still stands. Yeah. That is interesting. Huh? Well, I love you, Simone. Did anything
00:45:19.340
change about your, your world perspective? Yeah. I didn't know that educated populations in many
00:45:26.520
African countries also held to these traditional witchcraft beliefs that really blows my mind. So
00:45:34.020
yikes. But also, yeah, I, I have hope for many African groups because yeah, there's a lot of different
00:45:41.740
ones and a lot of different approaches and surely this witchcraft isn't completely pervasive and therefore
00:45:49.580
the ones that either figure out how to use it in a productive fashion or who don't use it will be
00:45:56.380
fine over the long run. And I'm, I worry more for where we're going because I feel like we're adopting
00:46:04.060
witchcraft and external locus of control associated religious affiliation, secular and otherwise
00:46:10.540
at a faster pace than we have since the very inception of the United States. Yeah. We,
00:46:16.380
the United States since the inception of our, oh yeah, not our family, but since, since it's beginning,
00:46:21.660
I disagree. I think the spiritualist boom of the 1920s was probably bigger, but okay.
00:46:26.300
No, no, because that also, you know, was taking place, you know, at a time of huge economic growth
00:46:35.340
at a time of, I mean, there was a surge of it. I mean, relatively speaking, but where we are now is,
00:46:40.940
is, is wild. Yeah. Relatively. And you include charismatic Christianity among the witch cults,
00:46:47.020
which you do. Oh yeah. But also secularization. No, like, so Pentecostalism only just was starting to get
00:46:56.940
like in very isolated churches. It began, I think in the 1920s in California. It was only just warming
00:47:04.060
up and, and yes, there was spiritualism, but that was mostly among, you know, like the weird elite,
00:47:11.660
like it's kind of how rationalism is, is big today among certain circles, but most people have never
00:47:17.660
heard of it before. I don't think it was as big as you think it was. And I, I think in the end
00:47:25.020
we are, we are at a huge all-time peak in mysticism, witchcraft, um, and in, in general,
00:47:33.660
external locus of control associated worldviews. And I will get into that. I have, I have an outline.
00:47:38.140
We need, we need to bring in the inquisitors to, to, to handle the witches.
00:47:42.940
To your point, I think they kind of handle themselves.
00:47:46.700
All right. So Simone dinner tonight, we are doing the pork things you made,
00:47:51.420
I guess in the air fryer or something, the pork bones. Okay.
00:47:54.940
Try to make them nice and crispy and hot. Yeah. If you want, I can, I can make,
00:47:58.780
I think there are two and I think we can make sliders with them.
00:48:02.620
If you want. Well, we got, you, you said we got noodles. No, those are, I wouldn't, I wouldn't,
00:48:09.340
they're like soggy and old now. Like vermicelli noodles don't last very long.
00:48:12.860
Okay. Well then reheat them and let's make sliders with them and chop up some,
00:48:17.420
what's the word I'm looking for here? Some, like a scallion.
00:48:21.500
To put it on top. And I think that'll be pretty good, right?
00:48:24.460
Yeah. Scallions, two Hawaiian bun sliders of bun ma sweet pork, tiny buns.
00:48:34.060
That'll, that'll go really well together. Yeah. Would you like, like a mapo dofu,
00:48:38.460
beef mapo dofu taku as well? Or, or we can also make a slider with that inside it.
00:48:48.220
then I'll just like give you an assortment of sliders and you like leftover sliders and you can
00:48:52.860
decide which leftovers. So we have two bun ma and one mapo dofu. I don't like want that much
00:48:57.660
mapo dofu, you know, but the mapo dofu slider sounds good. I mean, just try, because it's
00:49:02.700
leftovers. I'm not going to have four sliders. I don't want you to stuff me. You know what I mean?
00:49:06.140
Three sliders. Oh God forbid. Okay. Three sliders. I will do that. I love you so much.
00:49:21.340
What are we going to, what are we going to blow up?
00:49:27.100
We're going to the family, where are you? And then maybe when we get back,
00:49:32.540
we blow something up or in the afternoon, whatever. It's kind of up to you. Cause you have the kids in
00:49:37.260
the afternoon portion during the morning. Okay. You want to check out, I'll call you when you're
00:49:43.580
ready. Make sure your phone. There we go. You know, the really funny thing, actually, when I'm thinking
00:49:49.580
about that really luxurious safari vacation and the, like how much we learned actually on the
00:49:56.300
luxurious safari at Mambo Camp in Vumbar Plains versus how much we learned from that one afternoon
00:50:01.260
touring the townships and like experiencing that. We got so much more from that than like the entire,
00:50:10.780
I mean, in terms of like novelty and learning and like talking with our guide about like,
00:50:16.300
what is South African property ownership like? And you know, what's this, like, what's up with this
00:50:22.380
market that we're walking through with all this sympathetic magic going on? Like, this is
00:50:27.740
interesting. It was really like, that was quite interesting.
00:50:33.020
That wasn't, I mean, we got to see like, you know, we've been to Africa. We've been not,
00:50:37.420
not just to Africa, but to the slums in South Africa and gotten to townships that we, I think
00:50:44.060
your mom had gotten like some kind of social media influencer documentarian who like specialized in
00:50:51.260
the townships. And like, he had a lot of like, I'm going to not pronounce this correct, but like
00:50:56.380
glossy friends and he was just like super connected. And so we went to visit a school
00:51:03.340
in one of the townships. We visited a traditional market and medicine in the townships. Yeah.
00:51:10.460
These are just like people's houses that he was taking us to that were like these little like
00:51:14.140
shack type things. Yeah. Like no, no plumbing, no electricity. And I mean, it was so, as you know,
00:51:19.820
like it's really colored the way that we look at how demographic collapses played out because he really
00:51:24.540
gave us a look at what you have in a society where government has sort of lost its ability to
00:51:30.780
adequately provide for the social services it promises. You know, he's like, well, yeah, we
00:51:35.180
promise housing to everyone here. Like there's no property ownership. People are just promised a house,
00:51:40.620
but therefore people don't take care of their houses and there's not enough housing supply.
00:51:45.740
Also, we have lots of brownouts and there's security problems. And like, we saw what that looks like.
00:51:51.340
And that is what demographic collapse after a dependency ratio cascade looks like.
00:51:56.460
And had we not driven around Johannesburg and the townships, and had we not seen that,
00:52:02.620
we wouldn't have, at least for me, it wouldn't have hammered home what demographic collapse is
00:52:08.700
going to feel like. Because seeing the contrast between that and then the walled gardens of
00:52:13.020
Johannesburg and then other parts of Africa that are like incredibly wealthy and sheltered and like,
00:52:17.980
you know, on their own, you know, out on the reservation, like to go from that to
00:52:21.500
Mambo Camp with its canopies and the little hot water pillows they put in the beds at night.
00:52:27.260
The hot water pillows? I don't remember that it was cold at night. So then in the little
00:52:30.540
canopy bed in our bags, they put like warmed hot water. It's like, what is this is the,
00:52:37.340
but that's the future. You're going to have like the 0.001%, you know, on their little, you know,
00:52:43.340
in their walled gardens and their luxury things, you know, getting their hot water bottles in their
00:52:47.980
bed. And then you're going to have everyone else living with brownouts and blackouts in the townships
00:52:52.540
promised everything given nothing. That's a really good point. And this is, you know,
00:52:57.740
the way the Democrats do it. Promise, promise, promise, give nothing. Yeah. Well, because they
00:53:02.700
can't, I mean, after demographic collapse plays out, unless, like you say, there's some deus
00:53:07.340
ex-machina with AI. And that's a big if, it's a huge if. I think what will happen more is
00:53:13.420
independent communities that manage to leverage AI to help with permaculture, to help with all
00:53:17.900
sorts of things, manufacturing, et cetera. AI will help those communities, but it's not going to be
00:53:24.940
this benevolent overlord that steps in and takes care of everything and provides universal supply.
00:53:37.740
See, I put a tower on top of my team and I'm going to jump.