Skeptic Project

Someone should remind these people that it's 2012 and not 1612...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/18/world/asia/nepal-witchcraft-burning/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Quote from emcada

Well this isn't the USA for one. Do Nepalese still believe in witches?

Yes. Belief in witchcraft is not narrowly defined in the way european witches are defined. In fact, beliefs in witch craft have existed, and continue to exist, across cultures. James Siegels "Naming the Witch" deals with witchcraft historically as well as contemporarily in Java. "Witches" are defined differently and operate along slightly different registers.

In post Suharto Indonesia, the instances of mob violence among individuals was reported, especially in Java. Witches, in Java, are understood to be people who have been infiltrated by death and have the capacity to redirect deaths powers onto others. Now of course we had news coverage on the matter , but I think some of the best exploration on the subject came from the Siegel book I mentioned above. I wrote papers on the psychodynamics of witch craft as explored by Siegel, but I would recommend his book for a lucid exploration of the subject. I also highly recommend Evans-Pritchards Withcraft among the Azande to understand that witchcraft is often actually synonymous with our notions of "bad luck," though Evans-Pritchard's analysis does suffer from some pretty basic critiques.