AFRICAN MAGIC AND SORCERY

magic has always been seen as the manipulation of the physical world which involves incantations to bring about a desired outcome or effect on the body of an estate or harms on a fellow human being.
magic are basically distinguish in two broad ways, either according how harmful or beneficial the outcome of magic can be.
*when the out come of magic is beneficial it is known as 'white magic' in the language of anthropology.it is an expression of the common usage of magic,the individual uses it for the benefit of others,to heal,to cure diseases and to ward of harms and danger,likewise using it to gain wealth.
*when magic is used to do harm or cause harm it is known as 'black magic' in anthropology it is called sorcery because its involves the employment of objects to cause harm to people.
 black magic makes use of two principle :
1.the principle of sympathetic magic,meaning like beget likes
2.the principle of contagious magic,meaning a part affecting a whole for instance when a a part of what  an individual makes use of is manipulated for example a lady sanitary pad can be manipulated with the use of magic to stop her from getting pregnant.
in understanding African magic there has always been a great deal of literature and at the same time a great deal of falsifications,prejudice and ignorance . such ignorance is made up of two camps !
.firstly it is made up of a large camp,those whose ignorance,false ideas and exaggerations has be little the whole concept of mystical power
.second view are made up African scholars who seriously considers African fears,uses and the manipulation of African fears.

An image of a typical African voodoo man.

IN REALITY most of these distortion came from the mostly the Europeans and American writers,missionaries and formal colonial administrators most of them who grew up in African environment have perchance experienced this mystical powers in form of magic,divination and sorcery and most times in forms of witchcraft which i will talk more on in my next post, for them they have all seen this in effect and thus defies scientific explanation,,for instance an account was in 1962 by a man named Mr Neal,who was then a British investigation officer in Ghana then,he told a story to an anthropologist that during his teen age back then,when he was growing up in a village then about how they witnessed a locust invasion in every bodies farm in that community except the farm of one elderly woman who had previous burnt an anti-locust medicine around her farm land which automatically secured her field from such locust invasion,thus this was a mystical power and no body was able to explain it.although he later sought and fought such power but ended up sorting and seeking refuge in such same power as an European ironically we may say its seems weird but of a truth such power still and does exit in African only an experience will further expose us to such fact.sign up to my blog for more of this in my subsequent post thanks and i hope to see your comments.