If you weren’t aware, Brazil has one of the world’s fastest rising divorce rates. To tackle the increasing number of marriages ending, heartbroken Brazilians are doing what any sane person would do in hopes of maintaining love, fidelity, and keeping that spark alive in a relationship.
They’re turning to witchcraft.
An article in The Wall Street Journal a short while back discussed the trend, which is gathering momentum because, according to those seeing witches to help their love life (just like they would a doctor for health reasons), the success rate of the spells cast by witches is better than expected. Sometimes it’s too good.
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“My life became hell on earth,” said Josefina, who declined to give her surname in the article “for fear of angering the spirits.” Concerned her husband was cheating on her, the 67-year-old housewife from São Paulo asked a woman who identified as a sorceress to cast a spell on her fella, only to have him follow her around the house all day. “He wouldn’t leave me alone, it drove me crazy,” Josefina said. She ended up shelling out another $50 for a witch to undo the spell.
Hey, none of us need a stage 5 clinger, so I get it.
The rituals witches go through to get these kinds of results can be eyebrow-raising. Brazilian witches guide lovers through rituals such as wrapping frogs in underwear or dipping a chicken’s feet in honey. Among the most popular rituals are those that promise to keep cheating husbands faithful by giving them erectile dysfunction.
Shudder!
As you might expect, many ridicule such things. But that hasn’t stopped people from believing, said Rodney William, an anthropologist and Candomblé (an African occult religion) leader. “If I say I’m a wizard, and people want me to be a wizard, then who’s to say I’m not a wizard? It’s not much different from some of the country’s popular evangelical preachers, who promise instant wealth and success in exchange for generous tithes.”
“Everyone wants to be loved and rich,” he said. You have to admit, it’s hard to argue that isn’t true.
A look at the craft
According to a popular organization devoted to witchcraft, the Covenant of the Goddess, a witch is “One who worships the Goddess, and sometimes also Her Consort, the God; practices magic; and considers her/himself to be following the spiritual path of Witchcraft.” The term “God” typically references an ancient horned god or the Sun, while “Goddess” is associated with both the Earth and the Moon and is thought of as a triple deity that manifests as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.
Wicca, or “the craft,” is, at its core, an animistic religion that attempts to control and benefit from the spiritual powers that supposedly inhabit everything on the earth. Its morality is summed up in its simple mandate, “An’ ye harm none, do what ye will”.
That philosophy seems to be popular. For example, WitchSchool.com boasts over 200,000 practitioners, and Wicca’s growth has been explosive in the U.S. since the 1990s, expanding into the millions by the 2020s.
This shouldn’t surprise us because, as Rodney William said, “Everyone wants to be loved and rich,” and so they’ll turn to whatever seems to work to make that happen. People in Brazil sure are.
It’s easy to scoff and think there’s no wood behind the witchcraft arrow, but Scripture begs to differ. Although theologians debate on exactly what they did, the sorcerers who opposed Moses seem to duplicate some of his miracles with their “secret arts” (Ex. 7). The book of Acts records the account of “Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonished the people of Samaria” (Acts 8:9) and a woman who had “a spirit of divination … who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling” (Acts 16:16).
With real (dark) power behind such things, maybe this is why the Bible is firm and calls out witchcraft by name in a prohibition:
“There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead … for those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so” (Deut. 18:10-11, 14).
Instead, when you and I need help in any area of our life, Scripture instructs us clearly on what to do by declaring: “When they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people consult their God?” (Is. 8:19).
I’m betting if the people of Brazil looked to the Bible for how to live, love, and follow God’s design for marriage, they’d be much better off than by going to witches. Tim Keller sums up the divine design when he says, “The greatest pleasure you’ll ever receive [in marriage] is to give pleasure to the one that you love.”
Live that like, and I doubt you’ll ever need a witch to get your love life back on track.
Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master’s in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.
