Charismatic Healers in Contemporary Africa

Abstract

Based on ethnographic studies conducted in several African countries, this volume analyses the phenomenon of deliverance - which is promoted both in charismatic churches and in Islam as a weapon against witchcraft - in order to clarify the political dimensions of Spiritual Warfare in contemporary African societies. Deliverance from evil has also become a recurrent political theme in the speeches of African Heads of State who call for a witch-hunt (against migrants, refugees, Muslims, homosexuals) to “heal the nation”. Against this background, this book reflects on the responsibilities of Pentecostal deliverance politics within the condition of “epistemic anxiety” of contemporary African societies - to shed light on complex relational dimensions in which individual deliverance is part and parcel of a wider social spiritual struggle. An contribution to ongoing debates about witchcraft and deliverance in Africa which cuts across the study of religion, healing and politics, and in addition looks at