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Reaper

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

November Rain

Amazing what the power of suggestion can do.

Does black magic exist? Not in this way. Can people's minds do strange things & even affect them physically, if they believe something enough? Absolutely. Mass hysteria.

Texpat

Did the police uncover any stolen penises? (peni?)

A believable eyewitness. Credible testimony if I've ever heard any.

Norton

This indeed is the only magic involved in "black magic". Faith healing falls into a similar category.

buad hai

I'm sure that's what happened to mine....

Northern Scum

[quote=Reaper;604405]panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft[/quote]

They're all fucked in the head.

Plan B

Soooooooooo.

The reverse is also true? Things can be unshrunk?







Just askin'.

Spin

Sadly, Dalton has been a victim of this, no theft but shrinkage has occurred, according to females who have seen the proof

November Rain

Of course.

stroller

Well, if the mind, or belief, is such a strong force that it can affect one physically, why should this possibility a priory be limited to one's own body?

momo8

Agree with Rain here,power of suggestion is a strong one,or persuasion for that matter too.

Norton

I could be a smart ass and say because I said so. But I won't. I will think on this to come up with an irrefutable response. Tending toward mind over bladder rather than mind over matter as a theme.

stroller

Well, one argument is that your state of mind has ascientifically proven an effect on your bio-chemistry, i.e. during the state of meditation, your biochemistry also has an (obvious) effect on your feeling status. This connection is established, though not satisfactorily explained.
Psycho-somatic interaction, sort of thing.

Norton

^^This explains what is well documented.

I was going to debate against what I thought was implied by your question. That being, a faith healer had some special power to zap someone on the forehead and heal them.

stroller

Yes, that is what I suggested, though I would not have put it like that.

I just wanted to make sure the mind-body interaction within an individual is accepted as fact.

As for "faith healing" and stuff, I have some personal experiences to share , On "Black Magic" not, I am glad to say.

Dalton

What a load of crap, it's just my gut there's getting a bit bigger....

Jet Gorgon

I'm listening.

Panda

Its just a shame they don't have Internet as there are plenty of companies from the west sending out email advertisements for penis enlargement creams and pills that could counteract this wave of penis theft!

But of course as civilized, educated people we wouldn't fall for that kind of BS would we?

momo8

You'd be surprised at the amount of money women spend on breast enlarging creams in the hope of achieving bigger boobs.

Panda

same same.