“Magic” In Contemporary Africa

Abstract

“Magic” has become shorthand for using invisible supernatural power to affect people and events in the visible and tangible human world. Although in the West it tends to equate with fortune-tellers at funfairs, teenagers dressed in black with pentagrams around their necks, or more sinister groups practicing blood rituals, the contemporary remit of “magic” is in fact much broader. Most mainstream religions include ritualistic practice intended to invoke supernatural powers, be it through prayer, communion, sacrificial offerings, or incantations. Religions and belief systems that have captured a space close to the political power center tend to become more sanitized and their rituals less explicit, whereas belief systems that have not been awarded official status are often more devolved and less doctrinal in addition to maintaining more explicit rituals. “Magic” usually falls into the latter category, even though the type of beliefs behind practices are not fundamentally dissimilar from its more organized and centralized kin in cathedrals, mosques, and temples around the world. For all belief systems where supernatural power (or power not explicable through the laws of nature) plays a central role, the application of that power could be referred to as “magic.” While there are important substantive differences between the beliefs of a Vodun practitioner in Benin and a Sunni Muslim in Lebanon, it is important to not separate types of religion too strictly lest we build artificial boundaries that obscure more than they clarify.