What Attracts People to Occult and Witchcraft Practices?

Abstract

This article does not research the topic of witchcraft. For this reason, you will not find in it different perspectives about witchcraft and references to what this or that author says. Rather this work reflects what I have seen and experienced about witchcraft in Africa and what attracts people to it. More specifically, the paper explores the following questions: What are the definitions of the occult and witchcraft? Why are people attracted to witchcraft, in spite of strong biblical teaching against it? What kind of people are most attracted to witchcraft? What are the fundamental reasons why people seek help from witches? Why are people from Africa in particular attracted to witches? Why are people, including Christians, turning to witchcraft for solutions to their daily challenges of life? In 2005 eleven bodies were taken to a mortuary in a small town in Zambia after a 22-wheeler truck ran over them. When the bodies were identified, we learned that three of those were Adventists. It is not because they were Adventists that caught my attention, rather it was what was found on their dead bodies. When they were undressed, it was discovered that all three were wearing pieces of animal skins inside their outer clothes that were wrapped around their waists with some small horns hanging around those pieces of skins. After enquiring from those who lived in the area what this was all about, I was told that all three of these young men were businessmen who had turned to witches from Tanzania in seeking power to make wealth. All three were involved in very thriving businesses. The question that bothered me was why these, apparently faithful Adventists, were attracted to and even had taken to magic to make wealth. In another story an Adventist woman whose six daughters died within a period of three years decided not only to find out why her daughters had died, but also to seek protection from witches for her life and that of her