Witchcraft still exists?

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Had an extremely interesting conversation with some local girls I made friends with a few nights ago. We spent the evening discussing a form of medicine which I thought was no longer practiced on Earth - how wrong of me!

According to google and it's reliable Wikipedia, witchcraft is the use of magical faculties and has been around since the earliest human cultures.

Witchcraft is taken very seriously here. I was told that an educated, western doctor will step aside in the corridor of a hospital if a witch-doctor was to pass.

According to locals here, if you truly want to harm someone or bring bad luck to someone, you must approach a witchdoctor and request a spell or potion to do so. Stemming from the devil and his power, witches are wives of Satan and act to serve him through witchcraft.

An anecdote told to me by a local friend: There once was a young woman in South Africa who had a stomach the size of a large balloon. Many people would mistaken her for being pregnant and often ask her how many months along she was or when she was due. Fed up, the women went to a near-by church or religious space of witchery and was given oils and potions during a ceremony conducted by a witch. Soon after the practice, the woman went to the toilet and flushed out everything inside her which was said to all by green. Her stomach went from a 'pregnancy belly' to being completely flat and she became much healthier. Later on, the woman found out that her father had been feeding her a particular potion each night after dinner in order to make her body sick and unhealthy in his attempt to kill her. The father had received the potion from another witch.

This story really shook me because although many people out there would not believe it, the faces on the two girls sitting before me last night did not show a hint of laughter or indication that they were lying. The two girls were very serious and one mentioned that she blamed her horrific pregnancy on witchcraft so they certainly took the concept seriously.

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