Skip to main content

Black Magic and Religion

The Himalayas - from Lonely Planet


The other day, I was at a friend’s place when the cry of two women rose in the air. It was from a house a few doors down. When I reached there along with my friend, quite a few people had already gathered. The two women – a mother and daughter – who wailed explained the cause of their grief. They believed that one particular woman, whom they mentioned by name, was doing black magic against them because of which they were facing disasters one after another. The latest disaster was the daughter’s failure in her graduation examination.

One of the men who had come hearing the wailing told the mother and daughter rather bluntly that what they needed was psychiatric help. “You believe in such balderdash as black magic [koodotram, in Malayalam]?” He turned to the daughter and said, “You flunked because you didn’t study. Instead, you were loitering with your boyfriend.” He went away in disgust.

My friend told me, as we walked back, that the mother was doing black magic herself against the woman whom she had accused. “This woman performs such things as Shatru Samhara Puja – ritual for eliminating the enemy – in many temples. She won’t do it here in the nearest two temples because that is where her enemy is supposedly performing her black magic. The gods in these temples will have a problem about which devotee to please. So these two women go to different gods.”

I was quite astounded to hear such things. “We call it Prabuddha Keralam – Enlightened Kerala,” I said.

“Enlightenment shies away from the thresholds of religions,” my friend who is an active Communist said.

“There are a lot of people who find enlightenment from religions,” I said. I told him that I was currently reading a book titled The Journey Home written by an ascetic, Radhanath Swamy, who found enlightenment in the holy places of the Himalayas.

I have a sympathetic view of religion, unlike my Communist friend though I am not a believer. I know a lot of people for whom life would be utterly meaningless without their religion. If religion helps people lead meaningful lives and practice goodness, I will only encourage them to be religious. But the misuse of religion, which is what a lot of people do especially nowadays, is one of the most wicked sins as far as I am concerned.

“Radhanath Swamy was an American Jew,” I told my friend. “He left America at the age of 19 in search of meaning which he found in the freezing folds of the Himalayas where he met ascetics who guided him in their own ways.” It’s the same religion that made Radhanath a saintly ascetic that is making these two women practice black magic. That is one of the many ironies of religions.

 

Comments

  1. Hari Om
    An interesting anecdote, and one that illustrates your point very well! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are believers/devotees who kill the very spirit of their religions.

      Delete
  2. ...is education the key to eliminating this nonsense?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Me too agree with your opinion regarding religion.👍🏻😄

    ReplyDelete
  4. These days, the less said about religion is best...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have wondered what Jesus would think if he returned to earth and landed in the Vatican among all the gold and glitter of the Catholic interpretation of his teachings. The teachings of a simple man. I agree with the above comments about religion used as a weapon, here in the US we've had a recent example with the abortion issue.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jesus won't return.
      India's PM thinks he's the next Messiah.
      May our stars save us from Messiahs.

      Delete
  6. In Saudi Arabia, nurse salaries are influenced by experience, educational background, and the healthcare facility type. Entry-level nurses typically earn between SAR 5,000 and SAR 8,000 monthly. More experienced or specialized nurses can command salaries exceeding SAR 12,000 per month. Nurses working in private institutions or holding advanced degrees often receive higher pay compared to their public sector peers. Compensation packages frequently include benefits such as housing allowances, health insurance, and paid leave. The growing demand for nursing professionals in the country has led to competitive salary offers, making the role financially rewarding. Additionally, Saudi Arabia's favorable tax structure enhances the overall appeal of nursing positions in the region.
    Write 8 line description Nurse Salary in Saudi Arabia

    ReplyDelete
  7. I also agree with your opinion regarding religion. Well done

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Romance in Utopia

Book Review Title: My Haven Author: Ruchi Chandra Verma Pages: 161 T his little novel is a surfeit of sugar and honey. All the characters that matter are young employees of an IT firm in Bengaluru. One of them, Pihu, 23 years and all too sweet and soft, falls in love with her senior colleague, Aditya. The love is sweetly reciprocated too. The colleagues are all happy, furthermore. No jealousy, no rivalry, nothing that disturbs the utopian equilibrium that the author has created in the novel. What would love be like in a utopia? First of all, there would be no fear or insecurity. No fear of betrayal, jealousy, heartbreak… Emotional security is an essential part of any utopia. There would be complete trust between partners, without the need for games or power struggles. Every relationship would be built on deep understanding, where partners complement each other perfectly. Miscommunication and misunderstanding would be rare or non-existent, as people would have heightened emo...

Tanishq and the Patriots

Patriots are a queer lot. You don’t know what all things can make them pick up the gun. Only one thing is certain apparently: the gun for anything. When the neighbouring country behaves like a hoard of bandicoots digging into our national borders, we will naturally take up the gun. But nowadays we choose to redraw certain lines on the map and then proclaim that not an inch of land has been lost. On the other hand, when a jewellery company brings out an ad promoting harmony between the majority and the minority populations, our patriots take up the gun. And shoot down the ad. Those who promote communal harmony are traitors in India today. The sacred duty of the genuine Indian patriot is to hate certain communities, rape their women, plunder their land, deny them education and other fundamental rights and basic requirements. Tanishq withdrew the ad that sought to promote communal harmony. The patriot’s gun won. Aapka Bharat Mahan. In the novel Black Hole which I’m writing there is...

A Lesson from Little Prince

I joined the #WriteAPageADay challenge of Blogchatter , as I mentioned earlier in another post. I haven’t succeeded in writing a page every day, though. But as long as you manage to write a minimum of 10,000 words in the month of Feb, Blogchatter is contented. I woke up this morning feeling rather vacant in the head, which happens sometimes. Whenever that happens to me but I do want to get on with what I should, I fall back on a book that has inspired me. One such book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince . I have wished time and again to meet Little Prince in person as the narrator of his story did. We might have interesting conversations like the ones that exist in the novel. If a sheep eats shrubs, will he also eat flowers? That is one of the questions raised by Little Prince [LP]. “A sheep eats whatever he meets,” the narrator answers. “Even flowers that have thorns?” LP is interested in the rose he has on his tiny planet. When he is told that the sheep will eat f...