ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES

Sophie Oluwole

Introduction, Polycarp Ikuenobe

THE AFRICAN PHILOSOPHER SOPHIE OLUWOLE examines Africans’ belief in witch-

craft 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 tra-
ditional beliefs regarding witchcraft should be critically examined and not be
defended or accepted blindly as unalterable truth. Oluwole starts by examin-
ing 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 per-
form actions without physical contact. Some think that it is a psychic phe-
nomenon, 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 some-
thing 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, peo-
ple 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
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 under-
stand 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 justifi-
cation 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 everyday; these experiences prove their efficacy. Those who
object to the reality of witches on scientific grounds provide a method of eval-
uating 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 testi-
monies 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
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 knowl-
edge 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 philoso-
phers: it says that such power involves the mind, which is capable of bring-
ing 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 illu-
sion, there can be little wonder that a Nigerian psychologist recently asserted
that “even now, manuals on whether witches exist have become ency-
clopaedic 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 justifica-

“On the Existence of Witches,” by Sophie Oluwole, reprinted from African Philosophy:
Selected Readings, ed. Albert Mosley, 1995, Prentice-Hall. Originally published in Second
Order vol. 2, No. 182 (1978): 3–20
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

tions 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 characteris-
tic 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 supernat-
ural 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 atti-
tude towards witchcraft and witchcraft belief. Although there is no dispute
about the fact that most primitive societies, including almost all African soci-
eties, 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 cate-
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

gories of evil workers, overt or surreptitious. This, and not only imagi-
nation, is the basis of the strong belief in witchcraft.7
Professor John S. Mbiti, formerly Professor of Theology at Makerere Uni-
versity, 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 expe-
rienced, 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, philoso-
phers 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 “real-
ity.” When something is described as real, the first distinction that is com-
monly 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, hence
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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-exis-
tence 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 meta-
physical (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 estab-
lish 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 “empiri-
cal” 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
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 posi-
tion by saying that for anything to be real, it must be such that it is observ-
able 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 possibil-
ity 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 can-
nibalistic 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 jus-
tification of this belief. It is true that many of them lay claim to the knowl-
edge of witchcraft and witchcraft practices. Professor Idowu, for instance,
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 Pro-
fessor 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 can-
not 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 ques-
tion 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 say-
ing 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 stu-
dents 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
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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., sci-
entifically observable or testable even if only in principle” they are not pro-
pounding 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 hypothe-
sis, 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 mod-
ify 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 conse-
quently 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 objec-
tively speaking impossible” is to go beyond the limits of what a model, a
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 simi-
lar 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 rela-
tionship 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 pre-
sumptuous 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 cer-
tainty” of logic that they relegated empirical studies to the realm of illusion,
so may scientists be intoxicated with the undeniable successes of science that
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 experi-
ence 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, repro-
duce, 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 empir-
ical 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, cre-
ated 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 occur-
rences. 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 exis-
tence of witchcraft powers is because he has been indoctrinated right from
youth. And finally any mysterious event whose occurrence cannot be dis-
missed 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 Profes-
sor Mbiti when he hinted that “in a non-scientific environment, belief of this
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

type cannot be ‘clean’ from fear, falsehood, exaggeration, suspicion, fiction

and irrationality.”13 In short, some of the criticisms of the belief and accusa-
tions of witchcraft seem not completely out of place. But rather than agree
totally with Mbiti that these exaggeration, etc., are the results of an unscien-
tific 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 can-
not 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 fol-
lowing quotes, Africans agree that these incidents refute every scientific
explanation.
After dismissing as fraud and stressing the fallacious nature of the rea-
soning 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,
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 objec-
tive 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 psy-
chical 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 rela-
tionship 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 cre-
dence to his claim; for each is an acceptable method of scientific proof.
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 nec-
essarily 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 repeti-
tions. 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 substi-
tute 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 with-
out 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:
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 experi-
enced)” 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 enor-
mous 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 prac-
tices, many of these are of course spurious. But many Africans as well as
scholars from the western world can testify to some apparently genuine pow-
ers 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 pow-
ers of Harry Houdini (1874–1926) as recorded by J. R. Rhine in the Ency-
clopaedia 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 oper-
ates. Yet, apparently he can make it work over and over again; he can con-
trol 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 is
not 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 radi-
ation transmitted through brain waves. To be sure the theory raises some
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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 automat-
ically 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 manip-
ulate 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 sci-
ence. 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 mistak-
ing 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 gen-
erally agreed that to err is human, self-deceit, we should also agree, is an
unpardonable intellectual sin.
  ON THE EXISTENCE OF WITCHES 

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.