I Was A Witch Doctor
AS TOLD TO “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN NIGERIA
FORTY-SIX of my seventy-four years of life have been associated with the witch-doctor business. I could easily perform magical feats, diagnose diseases and counteract harmful, even death-dealing, spells.
My parents were deeply rooted in fetish worship. In fact, my father was a famous leader of a fetish group called Logun. In our native Yoruba language this is the name of a war god. Barren women would come to him to have the fertility goddess Oshun appeased, believing this would make them pregnant. Warriors would also come to him to appease the war god Logun, seeking immunity from bullets and machetes. All this brought fame and prestige to my father.
Tutored in all my father’s rituals, I eventually became a priest for the Logun and Oshun deities.
Occult Powers
My father kept in close contact with a group of old women who were witches. These acted as mediums for my father in curing ailments of various kinds, to the amazement of others. I was in constant attendance with my father in consulting with these witches. He suggested that, if I myself could attain the mysterious powers possessed by the witches, I would gain more power than he had and would be able to wield greater influence over people.
So, at the age of about twenty-five, the time came to have imparted to me the occult powers of the witches. The witch group charged a fee of two pounds, two shillings (about $6) aside from items used for sacrificing to the spirits. They also demanded animals such as guinea fowls, pigs, snails and pigeons. After sacrificing these in a secret manner, the witches used the remains of the animal victims to prepare a meal at midnight.
When it was about 2 o’clock in the morning, we got together in a secret room, all of us dressed in white robes. Some mysterious medicines were injected into my head from four angles, and I was made to eat the meal that was to impart occult powers into my body.
Another special preparation was given me to be put under my sleeping-pillow, something never to be shown to anyone else. A white flag was also handed to me, and this was to be hoisted in front of my house. From this moment on, I began to find myself in strange company, with spirits who would present themselves as God’s angels. I heard voices from the invisible realm and saw things I had never seen before.
For ten years I continued in association with this group of witches, during which time I found them to be cruel and unkind, hostile to other people. Shortly I was to begin my own witch-doctor business.
Joining One of Christendom’s Churches
Some years before this I was reading a little book in Yoruba about a churchman who went to preach in a village filled with idol worshipers. For preaching against idols, the villagers did not lodge him in a good house but rather in one filled with such images. He started to break their idols of wood and to set them afire. When the villagers asked him why he was destroying their gods, he read Psalm 115:4-8 from the Bible. He added that, though these idols were shaped like humans and had eyes, noses, mouths, feet and hands, they were valueless. Immediately I thought of my father’s idols. I related this story to him, expressing the desire to desist from idol worship. I told him that I would like to get baptized as a Christian.
Greatly displeased, my father said that I would disappoint him and the family, as I was being prepared to inherit all his witch-doctor influence. I assured him that I would not put away all the idol worship nor my work as a witch doctor, but that I would go to church only on Sundays and carry on my other pursuits as usual.
So I was baptized as a member of the local church, paying all my dues and going to church services on Sundays. It seemed that this was all the church cared for anyway. In fact, it was after my baptism that I became a professional witch doctor. In time I was appointed to be a catechist in the church, so I combined my professional witch-doctor work with that of being a catechist. My church affiliation did not turn me away from magical and occult practices; to the contrary, it helped me in my witch-doctor business. Church members and nonchurch members alike would come to me for cures or looking for omens. They all knew that I had spiritistic powers.
Daily Life as a Witch Doctor
The mystic powers that I gained made it easy for me to diagnose people’s problems and ailments. One day a woman came to me because her children invariably died in infancy. I knew that spirit powers had been used against her by her enemies. Though this was the first time I met her, I immediately recognized that the child that she had with her was being killed by the spirits evoked by her enemy.
I related to this woman all her previous unfortunate experiences about the death of her children; I also told her what would relieve her and save the present child from death. Arrangements were made to prepare the witch remedies in which to bathe the child and also for the child to drink. The mother readily complied with the treatment. The child is still alive. Charges for witch cures of this type were never less than two pounds, two shillings (about $6).
Cases such as this were handled daily. This resulted in an increase of my weekly income to an average of no less than twenty-five pounds (about $70). Besides the financial benefits, my witch-doctor profession evoked fear and respect from others. They feared to offend me, believing that I could do them harm through my occult powers. Undoubtedly I could have harmed people, but I never did try to cast harmful spells on others, as is common with so many witches. So my clients esteemed me to be a very godly man, especially since I held a responsible position in the church.
Sometimes I would perform magical feats. For example, I had rings and other kinds of preparations that I could put on. Then I could withstand twenty able-bodied men, and they would not be able to lift me up or move me from a certain spot. Such feats also built up my reputation as a witch doctor.
Learning the Bible’s Truth
One evening in 1932 I was in Abeokuta, a town in western Nigeria. Walking along the street, I saw a crowd of people listening to an open-air Bible lecture. I stopped. The speaker, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, was discussing God’s coming judgment when all the wicked ones would be destroyed; he read from the Bible at Revelation 16:14, 16, about the demons gathering the nations to “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” He added that the churches would not escape God’s wrath, because they had misrepresented him in many ways—by false teachings based on pagan ideas and by tolerating idolatrous practices among their members. It sounded as if the speaker were talking to me personally; the points touched my heart. The speaker also used God’s name Jehovah. It all sounded strange but logical.
That very evening I had dreams in which the spirits gravely warned me not to listen to such talks again. They told me that I was already a catechist and knew the Bible, that I was blessed by them in my profession as a witch doctor, so “why listen to such junk?”
However, on two more occasions I stopped briefly to listen to the Bible talks sponsored by Jehovah’s witnesses. But these Bible truths did not greatly influence me until I married my third wife. She had relatives who were Witnesses. Not until after our marriage, however, did her interest in the Witnesses become aroused. As she continued attending the meetings of the Witnesses, she stopped performing certain acts that were customary among our people. When I questioned her as to why she was becoming rebellious, she explained in a mild way that the Bible’s counsel against creature worship, as well as her conscience, would no longer permit her to continue doing these things.
I reacted with annoyance. My decision was to go with her to the meeting of the Witnesses. I would challenge them, leaning heavily on my influence as a catechist and witch doctor. I requested to see the presiding minister of the group to ask him questions about my wife’s attitude. Though I was shouting at the top of my voice with pride, I was surprised to see this Witness mildly present answers from the Bible, doing so in a most convincing way. It all culminated with my accepting one of the Watch Tower Society’s books in the Yoruba language, and a weekly visit was arranged to answer more of my questions.
Our weekly discussions soon revealed from the Bible how deeply rooted I was in false religion. In a few weeks my three wives and I were attending the meetings of the Witnesses. Soon I desired to speak to others about the truths I was learning.
Doing God’s Will Despite Opposition
Opposition developed, my worst human opposers being my own parents. What a big disappointment I was in their view! My father had done so much so that I could inherit his witch-doctor fame, and now I wanted to live entirely by God’s will as expressed in the Bible. Fellow church members were bitterly incensed, the majority thinking I was going insane. Others thought I should be given a higher position than that of catechist, in order to allure me to remain in the church.
The demons too were active in dissuading me. And the entire group of witches thought something was seriously wrong with me, but I kept drawing comfort from the Scriptures, such as Isaiah 41:9-12 showing that God will uphold his servants. Despite opposition from demons and men, I was determined to do God’s will.
I soon found out that I could not combine witch doctoring with being a true Christian. The Bible makes clear the source of occult powers. And it strongly warns against involvement in any kind of spiritism, identifying the Devil and his demon angels as its source. (Acts 16:16-18; Eph. 6:10-13; Deut. 18:10-14) I really wanted to be baptized as a true Christian. To give evidence of my change to pure worship, I collected together all the instruments connected with witch-doctor practices—my white flag, the talisman under my pillow, my white robes and my images. All of these I dumped into a river. Other items I buried in the ground.
Determined to do God’s will as revealed in the Bible, I now knew that a Christian man, if married, should be a husband of only one wife. (1 Tim. 3:2, 12) So I divorced my secondary wives, to remain only with my wife that had the seniority.
Joys and Rewards of True Worship
Since taking up true worship, many indeed have been my joys and rewards. For example, when I attend an assembly of the Witnesses I am thrilled to hear the experiences of others who have also been liberated from bondage to spiritism. Recently I heard of a witch doctor who had been suffering physically for years; he himself had perhaps become a victim of the demons he worshiped, as is so often the case. One day he met a Witness, who was a full-time preacher of Bible truths. Upon hearing the good news from her, he made a confession to her that he was in trouble with his relatives because his fetish (juju) kept destroying his people, despite many sacrifices to appease the spirits. Impoverished now, he had sought help from his religious leader of the “Mount Zion” sect and even suggested to the priest that the juju should be burned. How surprised he was to hear the church leader say, “Not me! I don’t want this thing to kill me and destroy the lives of my people”!
With the church leader afraid to take action against the demons by destroying the juju, the witch doctor now begged the witness of Jehovah to help him. She talked to the presiding minister of her congregation, and he made immediate arrangements to have the juju burned. The people in the neighborhood, of course, expected that the Witnesses who destroyed the juju would surely die. But when nothing happened to them, they themselves decided to learn more about the true God, Jehovah, who is more powerful than any other. As for the witch doctor and his wife—they were freed from the demonic spell. They began attending the meetings of the Witnesses, and after six months were baptized. The former witch doctor is now a full-time pioneer minister himself and helps others to break free from the bondage of spiritism.
Though no longer enjoying the financial income of witch-doctor cures, I have true refreshment for my soul by doing God’s will as Christ’s disciple. (Matt. 11:28-30) And what joy it gives me to bring this refreshment to others! Now I can tell others that, not by witchcraft but by means of God’s King-Son Jesus Christ, He will perform permanent cures for all obedient mankind, bringing them to human perfection. (Rev. 21:3, 4) And how thankful I am that in the near future Jehovah will destroy all false religious practices, of which witchcraft is but one.—Rev. 22:15.
My joys keep multiplying. Four out of my nine children now share the hope of living forever in God’s new system of things. My younger brother, who joined my parents in bitterly opposing my becoming one of Jehovah’s witnesses, has had a change of heart and is now serving the interests of God’s kingdom. And at the age of seventy-four I have been privileged to attend a special course for congregation supervisors sponsored by the Watch Tower Society in Lagos, Nigeria. Truly great have been my joys and rewards since breaking free from spiritism and dedicating my life to the true God!