ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES

Sophie Oluwole

Introduction, Polycarp Ikuenobe

THE AFRICAN PHILOSOPHER SOPHIE OLUWOLE examines Africans’ belief in witchcraft and
what it means to say witches exist. She argues that the skeptical attitude Westerners adopt
toward Africans’ belief in witchcraft should be subjected to critical examination in order to
clarify important points and show some mistakes in their reasoning. She also argues that
the African traditional beliefs regarding witchcraft should be critically examined and not be
defended or accepted blindly as unalterable truth. Oluwole starts by examining many of the
explanations that have been provided for African beliefs in witchcraft. Some views believe
that witchcraft is real while some believe it is unreal; but these two opposing views cannot
both be true. She examines some of the definitions and explanations of the nature of
witchcraft. Some see it as the possession of mystical powers, by which people are able to
perform actions without physical contact. Some think that it is a psychic phenomenon,
which means that it is not objectively verifiable. Some see the idea of witchcraft as a mere
illusion or fantasy. She argues that many of the explanations and accounts of witchcraft
usually acknowledge that people do in fact believe in the existence of witches, even though
those who provide these explanations do not themselves believe in the existence of witches.

Oluwole argues that the issue about witchcraft is not whether people believe in it but
whether witches are real. She explores the notion of reality in order to articulate what it
means to say that witches are real or unreal. One view understands reality in terms of the
concrete as opposed to the abstract. Witches will be real if they are concrete entities and
they will be unreal in this sense if they are abstract. In another sense, people will say that
something is real if they have concrete instantiations. So, some abstract entities are real in
this sense because they can be instantiated in concrete entities.

She points out that in dealing with the issue of the reality of witches, people sometimes
confuse metaphysical reality with empirical reality. As such, people think that every possible
idea or every conceivable entity can or does exist (empirically) in reality. Some people see
witchcraft in this sense as unreal and hence argue that it represents some socially accepted
and widespread beliefs that are fallaciously reified as if they are real (empirical) entities.

However, some people accept the existence of witches as a fact, in that they have practical
or causal efficacy that is manifested in reality and concrete objects. The issue of whether
witches are real or unreal raises the epistemic question of how to explain or know their
reality. Those who say witchcraft is unreal say that in order for you to say something is real,
it must be observable or at least capable of being observed or tested. We must understand
what can be done to observe and test it so that other people are capable of sharing in the
experience of its reality. There is no way of doing this regarding witchcraft and it does not
cohere with known facts about nature; hence it is considered unreal.

Given this view, Oluwole seeks to explore how Africans can justify their own beliefs in
witchcraft. She argues that there is no direct or indirect justification except that people
claim to have knowledge of practices regarding witchcraft. She suggests that it may not be
reasonable to ask for justification in the empirical scientific sense: perhaps we should find a
different mode of justification on the basis of which we usually accept religious beliefs. It is
also possible that witchcraft operates on a plane that is different from the empirical, such
that we cannot demand empirical justification for what is not empirical. To say that
witchcraft is mystical is to address its nature and not how we know or justify that such
mystical power is real. We may understand that these issues are related, and the main point
is that people experience such mystical powers every day; these experiences prove their
efficacy. Those who object to the reality of witches on scientific grounds provide a method
of evaluating beliefs. This method does not imply that we have absolute truth. It is possible
that this scientific method may not be applicable to witchcraft, which means that science
does not necessarily show that witchcraft is false or unreal. Oluwole cautions that we should
not simply accept the scientific method, because historically science has sometimes not
been open to new ideas and methods.

We must give some credence to many occurrences, stories, and testimonies that science
cannot explain; that is, we cannot dismiss these beliefs about witchcraft as involving
fallacious reasoning and ignorance simply because science has not been able to verify their
truth. Some mysterious occurrences seem to indicate that scientific explanations are
inadequate, but they also do not conclusively prove the existence of witchcraft. Oluwole
suggests plausible ways of refuting the skeptical view of witchcraft. Africans may provide an
explanation of the nature of the power of witchcraft and how it operates. If they cannot do
this, then they must try to show that there is a causal connection between the power of
witches and some events that cannot be explained otherwise. They may also show that they
do in fact have knowledge of the reality of such power by using it practically to bring about
an effect. Any of these, she argues, may justify a claim about witchcraft, insofar as they are
proofs that are scientifically acceptable. She argues that there is one explanation of how
witchcraft operates which is of interest to philosophers: it says that such power involves the
mind, which is capable of bringing about causal efficacy in other objects. This view shows
that witchcraft cannot be ruled out on logical grounds. Other views suggest that witchcraft
is paranormal, hence it cannot be explained scientifically. But this does imply that it cannot
be explained. The attempt to explain witchcraft may lead us to reexamine our views of
science and understanding of nature.

As you read Oluwole, consider and reflect on the following questions:

 What is usually considered to be the nature of witchcraft?

 What does it mean to say that witchcraft is real or unreal?
 What is the scientific basis for the view that witchcraft is unreal?
 Does the fact that science cannot prove that witchcraft is real imply that we cannot
justify it?
 What are the plausible ways for explaining the power of witchcraft?

*****

W
hen one considers the almost innumerable works on witchcraft and the
overwhelming condemnation of it as the result of fantasy or illusion, there
can be little wonder that a Nigerian psychologist recently asserted that
“even now, manuals on whether witches exist have become encyclopaedic
in bulk and lunatic in pedantry.”1 But when one comes across other works where the
authors categorically assert the objective reality of witchcraft, then the feeling of wonder is
increased. Both positions, since contradictory, cannot be true. It is of philosophical interest
to examine both claims in order to find out which is more likely to be true, and to try to find
a way of deciding which of the two positions is more logically justifiable.

My aim here is first to try to define what we mean by witchcraft. Then I shall look into each
of the two positions on the nature of witchcraft. For each, I shall try to show where the
judgment is misconceived, where the justifications offered are logically untenable and where
some of the conclusions are invalidly derived. At the end I shall try to rectify these faults,
clearly spelling out the justifications and consequences of the claim that witchcraft is real.

John Middleton and E. H. Winter define witchcraft as “a mystical and innate power which can
be used by its possessor to harm other people.”2 Bringing out more clearly the salient
features of witchcraft M. J. Field, in his Search for Security, said: “The distinguishing feature
of killing or harm by witchcraft is that it is wrought by the silent, invisible projection of
influence from the witch. Witches are believed to be able to act at any distance.” 3
(emphasis mine).
It is clear from the above that witchcraft is usually regarded as a peculiar power by virtue of
which some people perform actions which the ordinary man cannot normally perform. The
most unique and mysterious characteristic of this power being the claimed ability of the
witch to affect her victims, or perform actions, without any physical contact and using no
medicine. Thus, the late Professor Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard, one of the most renowned
authors on witchcraft, introduced his famous book on the Azande with the observation that
“Azande believe that some people are witches and can injure them by virtue of an inherent
quality: a witch possesses no rites, utters no spell, and possesses no medicine. An act of
witchcraft is a psychic act.”4 Finally, Mr. E. O. Eyo in a paper read almost a decade ago said:

I, myself, do not believe that a man or woman is a witch in the supernatural sense
except in so far as he or slip is practically a social deviant or an unpleasant person
within the community that believes in witches . . . what is correct is that it does
exist, not in reality but only in the minds of some people. Witchcraft exists in fantasy
in the minds of mentally sick people.5

One can go on almost indefinitely quoting extracts to show this general attitude towards
witchcraft and witchcraft belief. Although there is no dispute about the fact that most
primitive societies, including almost all African societies, believe in witchcraft, the attitude of
authors from the “modern societies” can be summarized in the words of J. R. Crawford who
asserts that “witchcraft is essentially a psychic act and is, objectively speaking,
impossible.”6

Now, what about those who claim that witchcraft is real? I let a few of them speak for
themselves. Professor E. Bolaji Idowu, writing in an article titled “Challenge of Witchcraft,”
said:

Do witches exist? I will assert categorically that there are witches in Africa; that they
are as real as murderers, poisoners, and other categories of evil workers, overt or
surreptitious. This, and not only imagination, is the basis of the strong belief in
witchcraft.7

Professor John S. Mbiti, formerly Professor of Theology at Makerere University, writing on

witchcraft, remarked:

Every African who has grown up in the traditional environment will, no doubt, know
something about this mystical power which often is experienced, or manifests itself,
in the form of magic, divination, witchcraft and mysterious phenomena that seem to
defy even immediate scientific explanation.8
Lastly Dr. D. E. Idoniboye of the Philosophy Department, University of Lagos, writes:

The point I want to stress here is that when Africans talk of spirits in the sense I
have been discussing, they are not speaking metaphorically nor are they
propounding a myth. Spirits are as real as tables and chairs, people and places. 9

These are but a few testimonies to show that despite Gillian Tindall’s claim “that witchcraft
today is virtually a dead issue in Europe . . .” and that it has ceased to be accepted either as
a force of evil or as a rival of Christianity, most Africans not only continue to believe in it but
some even go as far as trying to prove its reality.

The next question is, what exactly do these writers mean when they say either that
witchcraft is real or unreal? The word “real” is one of the most problematic if not the most
fundamental in philosophical discussions. From Thales through Socrates and Aristotle down
to Hume and Russell, philosophers have endeavoured to spell out what distinguishes the
real from the unreal. All we call do here is try to bring out the important features of
“reality.” When something is described as real, the first distinction that is commonly drawn
is between the “real” as physical and the “unreal” as abstract. Hence quality, (e.g., redness)
will be unreal in this sense while a chair will be real. Next, we speak of different levels of
reality. Redness, for instance, is real because there are instances of red things in the world.
Hence, although there is no tangible object which we call refer to as redness, philosophers
still regard it as real in its own way, though having no objective independent existence.

Authors who deny the existence of witchcraft claim that witchcraft neither designates
something tangible or observable nor does it refer to something that has an independent
existence either in the sense of being actual or true, they label it an illusion. This, of course,
as hinted above, does not rule out the possibility of witchcraft having a metaphysical reality.
Furthermore, there has never been any doubt that many Africans believe in witchcraft, i.e.,
to them it has what Max Marwick calls a threatening reality, so much so that they project it
to the level of reality as “actual” or true. This wrong projection, this lack of ability to
separate the objects of the ordinary world of experience from those of the world of thought,
is what western authors often refer to when they call witchcraft belief “a fallacy.” This then
is the position of those who say witchcraft is unreal; that there is nothing like witches.

Let us now discuss the views of those who claim that witchcraft is real. Dr. Idoniboye, in his
article referred to above discusses how Africans use metaphysical explanation of the
existence of spirits to express “their view of what is the case in the world around them.”
Clearly the African is postulating a metaphysical explanation. And although this explanation
does not rule out the theory that metaphysical assumption can relate to factual situations,
yet it does not automatically do so—it has to be shown that it is so. It may be true that to
Africans, ideas of spirit, witches, etc., have “a threatening reality.” This only establishes, in
the language of Professor Bolaji Idowu, that “it is real that Africans believe in witchcraft.”
But it is not the reality of the belief that is under examination. No matter how vivid our
ideas of spirits and witches, the vividness alone cannot vouchsafe for the objective self-
existence of what is believed. If to Africans “spirit is real, as real as matter” it is only in their
thought that there is no difference between the witch and matter. If Africans regard spirits
as part of the furniture of the world and not merely as logical constructions out of certain
unaccountable manifestations, it may simply be that the “universe of the African” is
different from the objective one. It appears to me that Dr. Idoniboye is here ably arguing
for the metaphysical (theoretical) reality of the concept of “spirits” to the African. He has
not tried to establish the scientific basis of the belief. If his aim was to establish the latter,
then the former is neither a necessary nor a sufficient basis for doing so. Reason demands
that we ask for the logical as well as the “empirical” justifications of such belief. The latter
part of Dr. Idoniboye’s article was meant to illustrate the empirical rather than the
metaphysical reality of witchcraft. And he went straight to the point when he said, “this is
no sheer sentimentalism. Witchcraft is ever present with us.” In support of this claim, Dr.
Idoniboye relates an experience he had as a child.

When Professor Idowu asserts that “witches are as real as murderers and poisoners, etc.,” it
is quite evident that the type of reality he is claiming is an objective one (actual)—the
practical efficacy of a power possessed and used by human beings just as poisoners
effectively use medicine to kill. Thus, he wrote:

“There is no doubt that there are persons of very strong character who can exude
their personality and make it affect other persons. Witches and witchcraft are
sufficiently real as to cause untold sufferings and innumerable deaths.”10

This excursion into the claims of these authors is but all attempt to clearly spell out the kind
of reality they are talking about, because in many cases, the authors seem to confuse
metaphysical reality (the reality of a belief) with reality as stressing correspondence to what
exists in nature or to all known or knowable facts. Hence, when in fact all they try to show
is a theoretical reality, they seem to think that they have shown the reality of witchcraft in
the sense of its corresponding to the facts.

On what grounds to proponents claim either that witchcraft is real or that it is unreal? Those
who claim that witchcraft is unreal defend their position by saying that for anything to be
real, it must be such that it is observable even if only in principle, that it is susceptible to
observational test, i.e., observable through the five senses either with or without the aid of
scientific equipment. There are some who say that science does not deny the possibility of
other modes of knowledge beside the strictly observable. This may nominally be true but
there is an onus of proof which this liberal claim puts on anyone who professes there are
other modes. Not only must such a person be ready to describe and/or show how it works,
he must also be prepared to tell us how we can share in his knowledge. Put in another way,
the demand of those who deny reality to witchcraft is that anything that we designate as
real must be either actual in the sense of conformity with what exists in nature, or true in
the sense of fitting into a pattern, a model, a standard; in short into a system whose outline
is already well known. Anyone who calls witchcraft as illusion seems to say that since it does
not cohere with a body of known facts, it cannot itself be a fact. What methods, what tests,
what observations could establish for example, that: “a man who has been DEMONSTRABLY
asleep on a mat throughout the night has spent the (very) night feasting, or that a dead
person who has clearly suffered no cannibalistic ravages has been slain through witchcraft?”
The conclusion is therefore that anything that cannot be tested, observed, etc., is not real.

How do the African authors justify their belief that witchcraft is real? Apart from perhaps
Mr. Okunzua, I do not know of any direct or indirect justification of this belief. It is true that
many of them lay claim to the knowledge of witchcraft and witchcraft practices. Professor
Idowu, for instance, seems to suggest the existence of another mode of knowledge apart
from that obtained through the scientific method. In answer to his own question quoted
above he said, “If so then we might as well close down all churches and places of worships,
speak up and declare to the world that we have been all along babblers and chatterers,
spend thrifts of our time.” Mr. Okunzua postulates an astral plane on which witches operate.
Apparently both of these authors seem to claim that witchcraft is a mystical power, a power
that exists not in the same form as tangible phenomena. Dr. Idoniboye said explicitly that
he was not interested in the modus operandi of witches. Although Professor Mbiti did not go
into the discussion of the nature of witchcraft, yet he calls it a mysterious power. If asked,
“How do you know that something not tangible, not scientifically provable is real? How, for
instance, do you come to the conclusion that “a woman demonstrably asleep on her bed
throughout the night is the cause of the mysterious death of her neighbour?,” many African
authors are silent on this all-important issue.

Although Professor Idowu did not tell us how he knows of witches’ meetings, etc., Mr.
Okunzua seems to have an answer when he held that witchcraft not being ordinary,
witchery research cannot be ordinary. But then we can easily tell him that since most of us
are ordinary men, and hence cannot have an access to the knowledge he claims, we are in
no way obliged to accept his testimonies. Secondly, since he claims that witches operate on
another plane, probably they belong to another world not quite the same as concerns us.
There is a gap we cannot bridge and so we can neither verify not falsify his claims. To us
they remain, in an important sense, “meaningless.”

On the other hand, the claim that witchcraft is mysterious, is really an answer to the
question: what is the nature of witchcraft? Whereas the question we are supposed to be
answering is “How do you know there is this mystical power?” Probably one question
presupposes the other but definitely they are not identical and hence must be answered
differently. How does the African claim to know that [his mysterious power is real? The
answer is in some of the quotations above. In all cases, what the Africans seem to be saying
is “We know it is real because there are innumerable occurrence that prove its practical
efficacy.” We experience it, and it is ever present with us, working in our presence.” To
substantiate this claim, Dr. Idoniboye relates a personal experience; Professor Idowu tells
the story as told by one of the students in his University; and Professor Mbiti refers us to
the records of the life experience of a white author, Mr. James Neal. All these incidents are
referred to as the rational basis of the logical justification of the reality of witchcraft power.
“A power that actually works is real,” they all seem to be saying.

When the western authors say that a real object must be “actual, i.e., scientifically
observable or testable even if only in principle” they are not propounding a myth, they are
giving the canons of a method, their method of evaluation. And, as earlier noted, anyone
who rejects these canons must be prepared to produce substitutes, not just any substitute
but one which is as simple, and of the same explanatory power, as theirs. The most
important fact to be stressed here, which scientists more often than not forget, is that these
canons depend upon an assumption, an epistemological thesis yet to be proved, namely,
the assumption adequately put by Professor J. B. Rhine when he said:

It has been long a common assumption among the learned that nothing enters the
human mind except by way of the sense. According to this long-unquestioned
doctrine there is no way of direct communication between one mind and another and
no possible means by which reality can be experienced except through the
recognised channels of senses.11 (emphasis mine).

There is no doubt that this is a rational assumption, a good working hypothesis, but because
of the very fact that it is a hypothesis, we must constantly remind ourselves that it only
expresses the canons of a kind of method and not a record of an eternal indubitable truth.
By its very nature, its premise is open to doubt and question.

The true scientific attitude is that we must be prepared to adjust, to modify or even entirely
abandon our hypothesis if there is enough evidence of uncompromising experience against
it. If we leave this question open, we may at times discover that our standard is based on a
prejudice and consequently fails to take cognizance of all available facts. If on the other
hand we raise our hypothesis to the level of an indubitable fact, and use it to throw
overboard anything that does not fit our pattern or standard, then, we should suspect the
inadequacy of our standard—of failing to take into cognisance a number of things which
may in fact be as natural as those we knew earlier on. So, rather than adjust our experience
to suit out, standard, science should really proceed vice versa.

If all Middleton and Winter mean when they describe “witchcraft as a mystical power” is that
it is a “a power not yet understood,” there would not be much ado; but to proceed the way
Crawford did by saying “it is objectively speaking impossible” is to go beyond the limits of
what a model, a pattern, a standard can legitimately be used to do. We can of course say:
so far this piece of experience has peculiarities which make it different from the ones we are
used to, or rather, that are common. Yet one is making an unsound logical leap by denying
such an experience a reality just because of its non-conformity to known laws.

Regrettably, scientists have recorded a poor history as far as this attitude is concerned. It is
true that many times they have changed their views or positions and in such cases appear
to be wonderfully open-minded. But apparently, scientists are interested only in the region
of reality they want to be interested in. Where their curiosity should be aroused, they
sometimes turn deaf ears. Although most scientists eventually accepted Einstein when he
showed that Euclid’s theorems and Newton’s law of gravitation, hitherto regarded its
indubitable, were both inadequate and in a sense untrue, it was not without some
resistance. The history of science is punctuated with similar resistance to revolutionary
discoveries. Scientists today hold their hypothesis as a sort of religious dogma, and many
cling fanatically to it as if it were the last word on possible knowledge. Until scientists accept
that they have not discovered an indubitable method of knowing what is real until they
realise that science, being based on the generative theory of causal relationship which
treats statistical evidence of succession as the basis of the hypothesis that a causal
mechanism exists, is a direct consequence of our epistemological rather than an ontological
requirement, so long will they give room for being accused of “intellectual fraud”—“fraud”
for substituting the epistemic for the ontic. As a matter of fact, this demand, this scientific
hypothesis, transcends experience. For nothing in our experience tells us that the real is
only the scientifically provable. Our consent to the occurrence of mysteries confirms that the
mysterious is that which is not yet understood but not that which is unknowable.

Hence, to declare something impossible just because “there is no place for it in

contemporary science” is to present a logically invalid argument. If we are not careful, we
shall be inadvertently committing ourselves to the presumptuous claim that “man, after
some 400 years of scientific endeavour set in a universe with a time span of some
4,000,000,000 years, has discovered all the features of reality.”12 Yet it is only on this false
assumption that science justifies its denial of the mysterious as anything real. And just as
Socrates and his pupil Plato were so much impressed by the validity and “apparent
certainty” of logic that they relegated empirical studies to the realm of illusion, so may
scientists be intoxicated with the undeniable successes of science that they too are ready to
brand as illusory anything that does not conform to their empirical dogma. Thus, they may
shut the gates of their heaven to any experience which fails their test. No one denies that
“any fact which can be checked, reproduced at will, varied and tested,” in short, any fact
that can be established through one or more of the experimental methods of science, takes
on an enormously increased reality, yet the inability to check, reproduce, etc., may not be
the result of the non-existence of what is studied but rather an evidence of the inadequacy
of our present method of experiment. Future scientific progress may remove this
inadequacy.

What then does one say about the African justification of his belief in this reality of
witchcraft? Many writers have criticised attempts at the empirical justification by Africans as
either fake or based on fallacious reasoning.

First is the claim that many (if not all) of the stories and testimonies that are cited as
evidences of the practical efficacy of witchcraft are make-belief, created to safeguard the
existence of a traditional dogma. The few that are not fake are just ordinary occurrences
whose real causes can be known if the primitive man knows a little of science. Ignorance,
therefore, makes Africans postulate obscure mysterious causes for scientifically explainable
occurrences. For instance, not knowing the real cause of some disease, they say “the witch
has killed my child,” etc. Some people “see” others as the cause of their misfortunes just
because they are psychologically disturbed (e.g., the paranoid); others who confess to
effecting these mysterious occurrences often are victims of different diseases of the mind
like schizophrenia. People who claim to do things which in reality they did not do are people
who need to assert themselves because of poor social status. This is especially true of the
women whose social status in many African countries is a little above that of slaves. Another
reason why the primitive man believes in the existence of witchcraft powers is because he
has been indoctrinated right from youth. And finally any mysterious event whose occurrence
cannot be dismissed in any of these ways are mere accidents or coincidences. Here the
claim is that the primitive man postulates an occult power at work because “the idea of the
unexplained,” “the unknown” is abhorrent to him. In short, the verdict is that Africans see
connections between different events where no such connections exist. They apply the post
hoc, ergo propter hoc invalid argument pattern to their claims.

Listening to stories about the practices and meetings of witches, even the most credulous
African at times finds it difficult to disagree with Professor Mbiti when he hinted that “in a
non-scientific environment, belief of this type cannot be ‘clean’ from fear, falsehood,
exaggeration, suspicion, fiction and irrationality.”13 In short, some of the criticisms of the
belief and accusations of witchcraft seem not completely out of place. But rather than agree
totally with Mbiti that these exaggeration, etc., are the results of an unscientific
environment, I would add that they are part of man’s natural reaction to the “unknown.” In
other words, it is a natural reaction to something that seems inexplicable. To substantiate
his claims therefore the African needs not only show that his reasoning is not necessarily
invalid, he must also be prepared to experimentally establish the causal relationship
between an event and the witch supposed to be its cause. This he can do by showing that
his belief has a basis in his experience, or showing the practical efficacy of witchcraft.

But before we discuss this it is interesting to observe that no matter how sceptical one is,
the honest observer call testify to Professor Idowu’s and Professor Mbiti’s claim that there
are some events and occurrences, that cannot be explained in the language of modern
science. I do not think that many scientists would deny the occurrence of mysteries as such,
only they would want to dismiss them its coincidence or accidents. Yet the recognition of
coincidences requires some degree of justification. As it is clear from the following quotes,
Africans agree that these incidents refute every scientific explanation.

After dismissing as fraud and stressing the fallacious nature of the reasoning that leads to
the primitive man’s postulation of a mysterious power which he labels “witchcraft,” Arthur S.
Gregor notes:

There is a side to magic, a dark shaded area we have not been able to penetrate. No
investigator has been able to explain away some of the powers the shamans
possess, and there are witchcraft phenomena that refuse to yield to our cold Western
analysis. “Hay algo mas alla.” “There is something beyond,” as the Mexicans say.
 We may strip the magic from the magic, but the mystery remains14 (emphasis
mine).

Gregor’s honesty of admitting that there is something to be explained is a step in the right
direction. And although the tacit acceptance of a different possibility does not imply that we
must accept just any explanation, it is much more faithful to the true scientific method, and
it is far more likely to lead us to the truth in a much more convincing way than the sceptic’s
attitude of dismissing the unknown as accident or coincidence. Only an unbiased, honest
study of these events can reveal the truth or falsity of the African position. Any explanation
given by the Africans in support of their claim, must not only be logically sound, it must also
be experimentally verifiable; it must have at least some bearing on experience, otherwise it
would for ever remain a speculation and a fantasy.

Now let us examine the “evidence” advanced for the claim of the objective reality of
witchcraft and then test the validity of the argument on which it is based:

A fly is trapped in a stopped bottle . . . no amount of shaking would wake the

witch; . . . the fly was released, and the sleeper awoke. —IDONIBOYE

On this visit . . . the woman brought a cock and declared it was going to cause Obi’s
death. . . . Obi jumped up and seized the cock, . . . managed to pluck out two
feathers. . . . The following morning everybody was amazed to see the feathers
where Obi had placed them and the blood on the bed. —IDOWU

It is true that these and many other stories, being mostly testimonies, do not conclusively
prove the existence of witchcraft. Yet it is equally difficult to dismiss some, such as those
recorded by Mr. Neal or the results of some psychical researches, as fake. The point,
therefore, is that just as it is fraudulent to assert the existence of a power whose nature we
know nothing about, so also is it equally fraudulent to deny the occurrence of an experience
just because we do not yet understand it. It is true that a philosopher worth that name
would insist on the validity of arguments. Also no philosopher has any justification for
dismissing an inference based on experience, no matter how bizarre that experience might
be, just because it fails to comply with known limits of possible occurrence. The African
inference, though its authors claim it is empirically justified, is what most western authors,
for one reason or the other, regard as the application of the post hoc, ergo poster hoc
invalid argument form.

But I think there are at least two or three methods through which the African can logically
refute this derogatory comment.
 1. First he can do this by giving an explanation of the nature and modus operandi of
witchcraft power.
2. Short of this, he must be prepared to demonstrate a causal relationship between this
postulated occult power and the mysterious event he cites to prove its practical
efficacy.
3. Thirdly, he call try to prove his knowledge of the reality of this power by practically
manipulating it. I think any one of these and not necessarily a conjunction of the
three will give credence to his claim; for each is an acceptable method of scientific
proof.

The first method is the most scientific, if it could be done. But how does one experimentally
demonstrate a causal relationship between two events? Does this also entail adhering to the
first method? My answer to the second question is an emphatic no. And without wasting our
time, I quote from a renowned physicist.

Physicists have been very pleased thus to be able to preserve the two great
principles of conservation which had been threatened and although the neutrino has
obstinately refused to divulge its existence to experimenters they nonetheless
generally admitted its existence.15

Although one can assume the nature of a source of power, one does not necessarily need to
have observed it before it is scientifically accepted as proved. In some cases it may not be
observable, at least through the medium of modern scientific apparatus. Once we can
establish a constantly conjoined occurrence, we have the right to suspect causal
relationship. And to strengthen our suspicion we need to prove the constancy by many
repetitions. The more times it is repeated, the greater our faith in its truth and reality. This
directly involves the third method, which is based on K. Kuypers’s assertion that part of the
philosophy of science is that one does not understand something until one can make it
oneself.16 And I would think this is also true put the other way round, i.e. to make, at times,
implies to understand.

Which of the three proofs must the African present before his assertions can be accepted
within the logic of western science? I think his claims are based on methods (2) and (3).
But claiming these is not enough, the African must be prepared to justify such claims. For
although it is quite true that like all human beings Africans decide how they shall behave on
the basis of their view of what is the case in the world around them; the ingenuity of the
early Greek philosophers lies not in their ability to codify Greek cosmology but to show the
“absurdities and interior confusions” they contain. More painfully perhaps, they had to throw
away a great part of their cosmology and substitute in its place principles which to them
“lay wholly within the world of experience.” One of the methods of experimental inquiry
suggested by J. S. Mill is the method of concomitant variation. This method may not be
without any criticism but such criticism will equally be valid against many of the acceptable
theories of science as we know them today. For example, if it is said that the knowledge of
causes must be accompanied by a demonstration showing the connection between cause
and effect, then one can answer in the words of K. Kuypers who noted:

If this (knowledge of cause) is not the case as with natural bodies, then we do not
know what constructions, and consequently there is no demonstration possible
either, but instead we must start from the effects and seek to derive the possible
causes from these.17 (emphasis mine).

And I think this is exactly what physics did with the neutrino. If we are not so biased, not so
prejudiced as to “deny the occurrence of something just because we have not ourselves
experienced it (not that it cannot be experienced)” or suspect overall fraud just because we
are die-hard sceptics then we may agree that it is possible that the African, through various
experiences of the types listed above, can validly infer the existence of a mysterious power
in the same way as the physicist inferred the existence of the neutrino. In both cases the
student has not seen the phenomena but he sees their effects and from here seeks to
derive the possible causes.

If the African can go on to strengthen his claim by applying the third method, (i.e., of
manipulating this power) then his claims “take on an enormous amount of reality.” There
exists innumerable claims of different related powers of controlling and manipulating these
occult powers. We have the magicians, the sorcerers, the native-doctors who claim
knowledge of these powers. As in the case of stories and testimonies of witchcraft practices,
many of these are of course spurious. But many Africans as well as scholars from the
western world can testify to some apparently genuine powers of some of these people.
Anyone who has read through the testimonies of Mr. Neal would likely find it difficult to
dismiss Uncle Tetteh and Mallam Allarge as frauds.18 The stories of the bilocational and
dematerialistic powers of Harry Houdini (1874–1926) as recorded by J. R. Rhine in the
Encyclopaedia of the Unexplained should leave a cold grip on all its readers. In short, Uncle
Tetteh may not be able to explain in scientific terms the nature of the power he evokes and
manipulates, nor how this power actually operates. Yet, apparently he can make it work
over and over again; he can control it, he can use it, he can teach it to others. Well, in some
cases may be science can do more than this by giving scientific explanation but then this
isnot a prerequisite of the acceptability of any claim to scientific knowledge.

Many writers, both Africans and non-Africans, have attempted different explanations of the
nature and modus operandi of these mysterious powers. Some of these explanations are
occult and hence hold very little-interest for philosophy. But quite philosophically interesting
is the postulation that the mind can affect other minds either by a kind of physical or
nonphysical radiation transmitted through brain waves. To be sure the theory raises some
problems, but I do not think they are insurmountable. As philosophers, our first concern is
not to spell out the modus operandi of witchcraft as such. At least it is not our first priority.
Rather it is to try to show that the existence of witches cannot be ruled out on purely logical
grounds.

Some have commented that traditionally the term “witchcraft” connotes a supernatural,
mysterious power, and that as such the possibility of a scientific explanation does not
exist.19 My answer to such an objection is that while it is true that some even now still
believe that witchcraft is supernatural in the sense of “being beyond explanation” we may
discover that they are in fact making a mistake. Secondly, to say something is mysterious
does not automatically mean it is beyond explanation. At times all it means is that it is “not
yet explained.” So the possibility of an explanation may exist at least in the future. Above
all, the African doctor or scientist does not regard witchcraft in any of these senses. He
understands it well enough to be able to influence and manipulate it. More accurately, to
him witchcraft is “paranormal.”

Another objection is that if we accept these bizarre experiences as real, science, as we know
it today, would have to undergo a radical change to incorporate them. Some of its basic
laws and principles would have to be rethought. This, scientists think, is intellectually painful
and should be resisted. As earlier on noted in this paper, this kind of resistance is not novel.
But quite unfortunately the resistance has almost always been found to be based on
emotion. I quite agree that nobody finds it pleasant to throw away a baby after nursing it
for two or three centuries—as scientists have done science. Emotion, on the other hand, is
not always a justifiable basis of resisting change. Furthermore, a discovery of a part of
nature that does not obey the same laws as now formulated by scientists, does not
necessarily imply a destruction of science. It may, in fact, only set a limit to the probably
false notion of the uniformity of nature. We may even be able to retain this notion if we
could work out a framework that can accommodate both of these apparently contradictory
positions. But even if a destruction of the present assumptions of science is what results,
the only legitimate care that should be taken is that we are not substituting a framework
based on the whims and caprices of our minds. Hence, an “intellectual pain” can only be
justified if it results, in this case, from a feeling that we have for so long erred by mistaking
a part for the whole. The alternative, of course, is to avoid the pain by tenaciously holding
on to what we know to be false. And although it is generally agreed that to err is human,
self-deceit, we should also agree, is an unpardonable intellectual sin.
ENDNOTES

1. Tunde Akingbola, “Do Witches Really Exist?,” Spear (October, 1975), p. 15.

2. J. Middleton and E. H. Winter, Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa (London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963), p. 3.

3. M. J. Field, Search for Security (London: Faber, 1960), pp. 36-37.

4. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1927), p. 21.

5. E. O. Eyo, “Witchcraft and Society” in Proceedings of the Staff Seminar, African

Studies Division, University of Lagos, 1967.

6. J. R. Crawford, Witchcraft and Sorcery in Rhodesia (London: Oxford University

Press, 1967), p. 40.

7. E. Bolaji Idowu, “The Challenge of Witchcraft,” Orita: Ibadan Journal of Religious

Studies, IV, No. 1 (June 1970), p. 9.

8. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (London: Heinemann, 1969), p.

194.

9. D. E. Idoniboye, “The Concept of ‘Spirit’ in African Metaphysics,” Second Order,

11, No. 1 (January 1973), p. 84.

10. Idowu, Op cit. p. 88.

11. J. B. Rhine, New Frontiers of the Mind (Greenwood, 1972), pp. 5–6.

12. J. R. Smythies, “Is ESP Possible?” in Smythie (ed.), Science and ESP (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 5.

13. Mbiti, op. cit. p. 202.

14. Arthur S. Gregor, Witchcraft and Magic; The Supernatural World of Primitive Man
(New York: Scribner, 1972), p. 26.

15. Louis de Broglie, Physics and Microphysics (New York: Harper and Row, 1960),
p. 33.

16. K. Kuypers, “The Relations Between Knowing and Making as an Epistemological

Principle,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, No. 1 (September,
1974), p. 69.

17. Ibid. pp. 69–70.

18. James H. Neal, Juju in My Life (London: George Harrap, 1966), Chapters 1 and 8.

19. For these and other useful suggestions, I am greatly indebted to Dr. P. O. Bodunrin,
of the Philosophy Department, University of Ibadan, and my colleague, Dr. R.
J. M. Lithown, of the Philosophy Department, University of Lagos.