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Reviewed by:
  • The Devil's Children. From Spirit Possession to Witchcraft: New Allegations That Affect Children
  • Richard Jenkins
Keywords

children, witchcraft, possession, Africa, persecution

Jean La Fontaine , ed. The Devil's Children. From Spirit Possession to Witchcraft: New Allegations That Affect Children. Farnham and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009. Pp. xvi + 204.

Children and young people are a disturbing presence in supernatural beliefs and in scares about witchcraft or other forms of supernatural aggression. They often figure as supposed victims: struck down by maleficium or the evil eye, sacrificed at the sabbat or ritually abused by shadowy occult conspiracies, taken by the fairies or possessed by demons. Their vulnerability has frequently put children in a position to accuse, too: notoriously during the Salem witch hunt, but also in many other episodes, throughout Europe, and not only during the early modern persecutions. Finally, and much more rarely, vulnerability and victimhood may become transformed in another sense—particularly in cases of possession and similar states—and the tables turned on all concerned, child and adult alike. The image of the child or young person as a powerful supernatural force is the stuff of nightmares which has become a staple of horror as a modern narrative genre: who can forget Carrie or The Omen?

This collection of papers addresses a recent and disturbing variation on that last theme: the increasing numbers of children, particularly but by no means exclusively in Africa and the global African diaspora, who have the great misfortune to be diagnosed as possessed or, worse again, labeled as a witch. The results can vary along a continuum from relatively mild exorcism by prayer and worship to stigmatization, ostracism, and expulsion from home to violent exorcism and, in some cases, death.

This is clearly a matter that is of more than academic interest. The contributions in this volume indicate that broad concern, coming from social scientists, people of various faiths, and child protection specialists. Following introductions by the Director and Deputy Director of Inform, the LSE-based [End Page 107] information service about new religious movements and cults that sponsored the meeting of which these papers are the outcome, the book is divided into three sections: "The Meaning of Possession," "Possession as Contact with the Divine," and "Children Accused." The first section includes substantive papers on possession beliefs and practices in British Pentacostalism, the Bangladeshi community in London's East End, and Haitian Vodou. In the second section, two papers by religious practitioners explore personal experiences of possession, in Wicca and in the Nigerian Celestial Church of Christ. The latter paper—by a practicing psychiatric social worker who is also a Prophet in the Celestial Church—comes perilously close in places to justifying beliefs that children can sometimes be witches, who should be exorcised. This paper would have benefited from a self-critical reflection on the tensions between the author's beliefs and her profession. As it is, it sits uncomfortably alongside the rest of the papers.

The third section, on accused children, is the most uncomfortable to read, and the most important part of the book. La Fontaine's account of African communities in London, de Boeck's study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Stobart's abridged version of her UK government-commissioned report on child abuse and accusations of possession and witchcraft, in particular, go some way to filling the considerable empirical gaps left by superficial press reports, grisly rumors, and sensationalism. They are essential reading if you are interested in the topic. Other chapters deal with professional child abuse issues. This is the section of the book that breaks something approximating new ground.

This is a curate's egg of a book in terms of the quality and depth of the papers, and it also offers an odd mix of perspectives. The papers on the accusation of children are at its heart; the others, at best, offer context. It is nonetheless a valuable publication: it paves the way for the possible opening up of this topic to further research and it challenges us to think critically about issues that are difficult and painful. The centrality of children and young people to supernatural beliefs, and to the...

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