What the Witch Doctor said...

Any mention of witch doctors conjures up visions of rather frightening masks available in curio shops and slapstick movies in which the protagonists must elude these magic-users in some jungle. But "witch doctors" exist and in some countries are closely allied to those having political power. In describing the powers wielded by these sorcerers, Jacques Bergier noted that they "have access to medicines unknown to us, such as a product that cures diabetes; an antidote against snakebite,...and the knowledge of very efficient poisons which work on contact".

In his book La guerre secrete de l'occulte (Paris: J'ai Lu, 1978), this French scientist and student of the esoteric relates a conversation he sustained with President Tombalaye of the Saharan republic of Chad. Bergier describes Tombalaye as an elderly professor and a firm rationalist whose belief system began to change shortly after ascending to his country's highest office.

On his first day in the presidency, a committee of witch doctors brought him a strange liquid product which would supposedly heighten the president's telepathic abilities. The wizards' potion was never analyzed, but was believed to be "a mixture of alkaloids with some other mineral product". Tombalaye was pleased to demonstrate to Bergier the liquid's efficacy by reading a document that was contained within a sealed envelope, which was small stuff compared to the ability to ferret out his political adversaries' hiding places. The former academic considered the witch doctors to be an authentic source of political power.

It must be noted, however, that Tombalaye's sorcerous allies weren't quite as good as the other coterie of magicians who overthrew the president's government -- something that for all of his foresight, he had been unable to predict.

Nor should the reader be lulled into thinking that the role of witchcraft in Africa's political scene is diminishing: quite to the contrary, Peter Geschiere, author of The Modernity of Witchcraft ?? Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa (Univ. Press of Virginia, 1997) discovered that politicians in Cameroon were relying even more heavily on the sorcerers known as ngangas than ever before; the knowledge that local strongmen were aided by such supernatural puissance caused a sense of apathy toward the political process among the average man, who realized that there was no way to defeat an oligarchy so well "protected".

But the perception, as this anthropologist would discover, is reciprocated by Cameroonian bureaucrats, who felt that government initiatives were thwarted by village sorcerers displeased with the notion of change, whether in the form of highways or new waterworks.

There are times when the paranormal, rather than merely being at the service of the political, seeks to acquire its powers. In 1960, a Brazilian radio personality by the name Moab Caldas decided to seek the aid of that nation's burgeoning spiritist community in attaining elected office. Thousands of believers in Spiritism gladly gave Caldas their vote, and would have appeared at his swearing-in ceremony wearing the white garb of a practitioner of Umbanda, had he not been sternly admonished not to do so. Caldas became famous for invoking his spirit guides during parliamentary sessions, but even this otherworldly assistance didn't serve him well. Like Tombalaye in Africa, he was removed from office by a military junta.

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