About This Forum: Social Sciences, Moral and Religious

[marct]

Hi BB,

Marc, I replied to you over in harmonium. We'll see if that stirs the pot a little! A little cross-fertilization is always good.

True - I replied to your reply as well.....

The assumption is that such extreme measures are taken in times of desperation, but this appears to contradict this assumption and imply that perhaps people are getting rich precisely b/c they have made these sacrifices and that's why the rate of human sacrifice is increasing.

Personally, I think they are either misusing the term "witchcraft" in place of "sorcery" or they have missed the boat. Both can rise during times of social strain, and I suspect that both are on the rise in Uganda. Witchcraft, and witch doctors (finders, etc.) tend to rise when individuals perceive that they have suffered a relative misfortune, while sorcery tends to rise when people feel that they are not getting what they could / should out of current opportunities.

The assumption about the efficacy of the sacrifices is the key point to actually stopping them. Unfortunately, it is insanely easy (well, relatively speaking), to reconfigure a general belief in "magic", loosely construed, into the practice of blood magic in one form or another. What is much harder is stomping it out. By way of example, consider the Thugee cult in India during the 19th century...