Belief in witchcraft-in various forms and with many different names-exists today in virtually all parts of the world, including Western society, although in developing cultures it appears more widespread and visible.
Voodoo Death
Can one person, using nothing but rituals, spells, and incantations, cause another person to fall ill-or even to die? History records many such events, and scientists have struggled to find the physiology behind this deadly phenomenon. One of these scientists, Walter Bradford Cannon, is considered the father of modern neurophysiology, having elucidated the workings of the unconscious, body-regulating nervous system (autonomic) and the neurochemistry of fight-or-flight. In 1942, Cannon, a Harvard professor of medical physiology, published what he felt were reliable accounts, by outside observers, of death induced by local witch doctors or medicine men: "voodoo" deaths.
In South America, Tupinamba Indians succumbed to death apparently from fright after pronouncement and sentencing by the "medicine man." In New Zealand, a Maori woman was told she had eaten tabooed fruit. She was dead within twenty-four hours. Descriptions of such events in the Australian outback involved the slow but inexorable deterioration of the victim, usually over several days, ending in death. A Western physician working at a local mission observed no fever, pain, or signs of disease; the individual simply appeared ill and became weak, refusing food and water along the way. This fatal cascade began when the witch doctor pointed a bone-a tribally recognized form of condemnation-at the person. In one instance, the sentence was found to be reversible: After discovering that a native had been duly cursed by the witch doctor and had begun his decline, the mission physician threatened the witch doctor that his supply of food and water would be stopped if anything happened to this man. The witch doctor returned to the bedside and explained that it had been a mistake, following which the deterioration reversed almost immediately.
What these "voodoo" demises had in common was a steady downhill course, over several hours or days, proceeding much faster than the effects of deprivation of food and water alone. This differs from the classical form of death associated with intense fright or emotion, which is sudden and is generally due to a clear cardiac cause. Yet these were apparently deaths from fear. Cannon noted that a belief system was also necessary, where all members of a tribe or group hold an unwavering belief in the powers of the witch doctor, so that believing that one is doomed to die is simultaneously necessary and sufficient.
Cannon recounted similar instances from a psychiatrist's report from the Spanish Civil War regarding fatalities not from physical wounds, but from profound emotional strain. Afflicted soldiers had previously shown "lability of the sympathetic (nervous) system"-i.e., overreactive fight/flight reflexes-and "severe mental shock." Unavailability of food and water attended these deaths. Cannon tried to explain, using what was known about the nervous system's physiology at the time, what would cause this steady and terminal descent of bodily processes. Reviewing Cannon's work sixty years later in the American Journal of Public Health, neuroendocrinologist Esther M. Steinberg commented that today, Cannon's discoveries would never have reached publication because they are too anecdotal and unscientific-a bit paranormal, perhaps.
Modern neuroendocrinology, now more complex, adds to the plausibility of Cannon's accounts. But we still lack the precise science behind the transformation, in one to three days, of a healthy adult into a corpse, based only upon the belief that this would happen. Steinberg complimented Cannon for his courage in combining "open-mindedness and scientific rigor," and in predicting that, someday, the mechanism would be known.
Cannon clarified the role of a small area at the bottom of the brain that controls emotion and regulates bodily organs. Called the hypothalamus, it mediates everything from heart rate to digestion, automatically keeping the body, internally, on an even keel. Our hormones are also regulated here, through the adjacent pituitary gland. It was discovered independently in 1934 that packets of hormones could travel along nerve fibers (a process called neurosecretion) through the hypothalamus, meaning that electrical nerve impulses could be converted into hormones. So we now understand many of the connections between emotions, nerves, the brain, the body, and hormones, but we don't know yet how a designated sorcerer, without even the laying-on of hands, can manipulate the body's autoregula- tory machinery into the ultimate meltdown.
Two Strange Cases
In "Hex Death: Voodoo Magic or Persuasion?" (1992), Nashville physician Clifton K. Meador reports two strange cases. The first, taken from the patient's doctor and nurse, occurred in 1938 and involved a sixty-year-old black man who had been ill for several weeks and had lost a lot of weight. He was hospitalized, and, despite tube-feeding and testing that revealed nothing abnormal, he deteriorated into a semi-stupor. Then his wife, after swearing the doctor to secrecy, told the following story: Four months earlier, her husband had had an argument with a local voodoo priest. During its course, the priest waved a bottle of a foul-smelling liquid near the patient's face and announced that he had been "voodooed." Along with this came an edict of secrecy, lest their loved ones get similarly cursed. Terrified, the man staggered home and began to deteriorate; seeing him near death, the wife called in a physician.
Hearing this, the physician concocted a plan (in 1938, you could do things in hospitals that wouldn't be appreciated now, like smoke cigars). The family was gathered at the bedside, and the patient was informed that the doctor had confronted and threatened the voodoo priest until the truth was told: The foulsmelling liquid contained lizard eggs, which hatched into a lizard in the patient's stomach, and was now eating him alive From within. But the doctor would rid the patient of this, and ordered a strong emetic injection (an agent that causes vomiting), which was administered by a nurse, who was "in on" the ploy. Inevitably and violently, vomiting ensued. The doctor tossed, secretly, a live green lizard into the emesis basin, the animal having been smuggled in inside his black bag. "You are now cured," he pronounced, displaying the lizard.
The patient looked suddenly dazed, then fell into a deep sleep, awakening the next morning with a hearty appetite, and was discharged from the hospital within a week. He lived ten more years. Meador heard this story in 1961; it troubled him and made no sense until he happened upon Cannon's publication.
Meador's second strange case, in 1973, concerned a man in his seventies who was known to have metastatic cancer of the esophagus, meaning that the cancer, which had begun in the esophagus, had spread to other organs-a dreadful situation. He had undergone surgery to remove the malignant esophageal tumor, as well as his stomach, to which the cancer had spread (a pouch of colon was then used to create a stomach). A scan showed that there was also cancer in the liver; he was told he had only several months to live.
When Dr. Meador first encountered the man, he was hunched up under the covers, barely able to open his eyes, and seemed ' unable to talk. The doctor waited, quietly, until the patipht, thinking he was gone, stuck his head out from under the covers, saw the doctor, and suddenly spoke: "Go away! Leave me alone." Realizing that the man had more energy than he was letting on, the doctor arranged for intensive nursing and physical therapy intervention, forcing the patient to get out of bed and walk. This had a positive effect, as the patient gradually regained strength and appetite. He began to converse, and told the doctor a bit about his life. His first wife, his soul mate, had died suddenly and unexpectedly in an accident, after which he was heartbroken. The first symptoms of'the cancer followed within six months. After the surgery, he met and married his second wife. His only wish at this juncture was to make it through Christmas (it was October); he wished to spend the holiday with his new wife and her family. They knew, he knew, his surgeon, and Dr. Meador knew that he was dying of'cancer.
Because of' Dr. Meador's intervention, the patient walked out of the hospital appearing healthy, a far cry from the shriveled figure originally encountered. lie was well when seen at follow-up visits in the next month or two. He
celebrated Christmas with his family. But he was readmitted just after New Year's, looking near death, and died within twenty-four hours. The surprise was the autopsy: one small nodule of'can- cer was found in the liver (the scan had erred); the disease had spread nowhere else. So he died not/',,z cancer but with it, and from the firm belief', shared by family and physicians, that his death was inevitable.
These two cases differ from Cannon's only in the time intervals, taking months, not days. In the first instance, reversibility was demonstrated, as in Cannon's condemned man. In the second, the "witchcraft" involved was the doctors' pronouncements that the patient had only months to live-and the patients belief in the doctors' authority. Negative thinking, it appears, is a formidable power.
Dead Men Walking
No discussion of voodoo would be complete without some mention of' zombies. The word itself' invokes images of' a soulless body, revived from the (lead. In the Hollywood version, they're evil and they don't mind eating human flesh. In Haiti, the zombie is believed to be a formerly normal person, cursed by a voodoo master (boko), and now devoid of any free will. The Haitian phenomenon was studied in 1997 (published in the British journal Lancet) by psychiatrist Roland Littlewood, who examined three such instances in detail. What these had in common was an apparent death, within three days, associated with fever. Then, years later, the individuals are found by their families, wandering in a nearby village and in a state of diminished mental and physical capacity. In two of the three cases, Littlewood was able to obtain DNA samples, which showed that the "zombie" in question was not, in fact, related to his original family; these were cases of mistaken identity, not zombification.
Littlewood noted that there is probably no single explanation for all cases. However, poisoning has long been suspected and extensively studied as a possible "cause" of zombie-hood. A 1984 report in the Lancet examined puffer fish toxin, which causes paralysis, sweating (which could be mistaken for fever), and lowering of body temperature and blood pressure. In other words, with no physician available to make a pronouncement, the poison victim could appear to be dead. Five zombie poisons, obtained from Haiti, were analyzed, and puffer fish toxin was found in four. Interment in rural Haiti is generally above ground, in concrete tombs which are vulnerable to break-ins, making it possible, in theory, to poison and then to recover a victim. Littlewood had interviewed two sorcerers (also known as bokos), and both used puffer fish as part of their armamentarium. These bokos noted that poisonings could be accomplished directly, or at a distance. More about impacting health from a distance will come later. For now, the Haitian zombie phenomenon can probably be scientifically understood.
Witchcraft and Lupus
Understanding of' these witchcraft and voodoo hexes and healings hit a glitch in a 1981 report in the Journal n% the Amerieair iJledieal ileeoei"rtilin 61iL11iI), "Witchcraft and Lupus Erythematosis." Physician Richard A. Kirkpatrick described the case of a twenty-eight-year-old Philippine-American woman with a well-documented case of lupus, it multisystem disorder of unknown cause predominantly affecting young women. It is more than occasionally fatal. The patient had a high red blood cell sedimentation rate (evidence of inflammation), polvclonal gammopathy (immune system gone awry, making antibodies for no reason), and blood cells and protein in the urine, indicating leaks in the kidneys (nephritis). These, plus physical findings of an enlarged liver and lymph nodes, are characteristic of' the disease, and another blood test demonstrating antibodies to the patient's own [)NA confirmed the diagnosis. Lupus is known as an auto-immune disorder since it causes the body, oddly, to make antibodies to itself'. Prednisone (a form of cortisone) was prescribed, and the initial results were good: the liver and lymph nodes shrank back to normal, and the kidneys stopped leaking. The dose was tapered.
Meanwhile, the patient developed hypothyroidism (low thyroid-hormone levels) and was started on thyroid replacement. The prednisone had to be increased again, as the lupus returned. She developed some well-known side effects of cortisone-swelling, a rounding of' the face, and some mental changes. Her serum creatinine (a muscle-breakdown protein cleared by the kidneys) began to rise, indicating incipient renal failure. A renal biopsy was done, and showed strong evidence of auto-immune kidney damage, appropriate for lupus. Highdose, sustained prednisone, along with an immunosuppressive drug, was recommended. Instead, the patient elected to visit the remote Philippine village where she had been born.
Her family was distraught, her physicians skeptical. When she left, she was anemic, with a hemoglobin level of 9 (normal is 12-16). Her sedimentation rate was 149 (normal is 0-20), and her urine showed high levels of protein and cellular elements, known as casts, which form when cells seep into the tubules and clump together.
Three weeks later, she returned from the Philippines. She no longer had the bloated look of a cortisone-taker. She had stopped all medicines, and no signs of cortisone withdrawal, or hypothyroidism, ensued. She felt fine and refused further testing. Two years later, she delivered a healthy baby, having intermittent slight urinary protein and mild anemia during the pregnancy. These findings can be normal, and are all the more surprising since pregnancy generally exacerbates lupus.
According to the patient, the village witch doctor in the Philippines had removed a curse placed upon her by a spurned suitor. She believed her disease was cured by the removal of this "evil spirit." Kirkpatrick felt it was unlikely that the patient's lupus simply subsided, since she had biopsy-proven lupus nephritis, a high sedimentation rate, and other objective markers of disease. He ends his report with a question: "But by what mechanism did the machinations of an Asian medicine man cure active lupus nephritis, change myxedema (hypthy- roidism in extremis) into euthyroidism (normalcy) and allow precipitous withdrawal from corticosteroid therapy without symptoms of adrenal insufficiency?"
Four years after her trip, she is still doing well. Kirkpatrick is nonplussed.
Witchcraft is a many-faceted thing, incorporating varying inodi operandi; it is prevalent-and, to many people, it is real. Some of its "effects" are, in retrospect, poisonings. But some of what it purports-and has been reliably observed-to do, is presently unexplainable.
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Seeing Through the Mind's Eye:
Psychics, Remote Viewing, and
Telepathy
Here's a recent story from the newspaper: A seventeen-year-old Seattle girl named Laura Hatch vanishes. After seven unsuccessful days of searching, the sheriff's deputies assume she's run away; the family fears she's dead. She is found, however, on the eighth day, badly hurt but alive and conscious, still inside her crumpled Toyota Camry, which had crashed and tumbled two hundred feet down a ravine. How was she found? According to the paper, a volunteer searcher who said she had had several vivid dreams of a wooded area found the wrecked car in the trees. Could the girl's life have been saved by a psychic?
The Study of a Psychic
In 1975, psychologist Thelma Moss and psychiatrist Herbert Eveloff at UCLA published "A Laboratory Investigation of Telepathy: The Study of a Psychic." The authors note that psychic phenomena have been recorded in the histories of just about every civilization, but that documentation in a scientific atmosphere has been difficult. Psychics claim that their powers cannot be switched off and on, like a radio, and may vary with surrounding conditions. So Moss and Eveloff were excited when a college junior (identified as Mr. B.) presented himself as a psychic who was willing and eager to display his gift.
First, Mr. B. underwent several hours of psychiatric examination, which determined that he had no significant psychiatric illness or delusions. Then a series of experiments was designed, which would also be applied, for comparison, to a control subject who claimed no psychic abilities. Mr. B. was going to be tested as a "receiver"; could he pick up someone else's thoughts? (He had never claimed any ability to transmit thoughts.) He did request that the transmitting subject-the person whose thoughts he was to receive-be someone of his choosing, since there were some people whom he
felt he could work better with. Although this troubled the investigators, as it raised the possibility of collusion, it was felt that the experiment could be designed so the transmitter would not know any material in advance.
Here's how it would go down: Mr. B. would remain with one of the experiment's authors within a large institute, in a lab or office chosen at random just before starting; neither investigator nor subject would know where they would be. The young woman who was "transmitting," a high-school senior, would be taken by the other author to an undisclosed location. Neither subject/researcher pair would know where the other was.
Sessions lasted about an hour, were tape-recorded and then transcribed verbatim, looking for any matching words or concepts. Eight test sessions, and four control sessions (using the non-psychic "receiver"), were performed. The transmitter, identified as Miss K., did not know the content of the material until the session started.
As is sometimes the case in research, there were surprises. The first came just bef'ore the initial session got started. The two authors and two subjects met as a prelude to going their separate ways for the study. One author had spent the previous couple of` hours with it colleague discussing ESP experiments with roulette or dice; the other had just finished playing billiards. Mr. B. would have been unaware of' this, but volunteered that he was "getting something" about a roulette table and (lice and something about a pool table and cue sticks on the wall. It must have seemed as if' the aroma of' recent conversations and activities still clung to the researchers, like the aftermath of a pungent lunch.
The session officially began when the transmitter, now separated from Mr. B., was asked to immerse her foot in ice water until it got as cold as she could bear. Then her impressions were recorded: "Cold, cold ... feels like an amputation ... like a ski trip in the mountains ... once I remember I ran across an ice rink barefoot...." While at the same time, but in another place, Mr. U. said: "Something to do with skiing ... ice and water. She's going skiing this Easter. She may be talking about that now."
The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine Page 2
