Can A ‘Pen!s ’Really Be Stolen? -By Isaac Asabor

While Mr. X was meandering in-between throng of people at part of Oshodi market that stretches along the rail line in Lagos, he instinctively felt something left his body, and thus began to scream in pidgin, “My prick don vanish oooo”, My prick don vanish ooo, Make una help me oooooo”. Before long, horde of people has milled around him in the bid to find out what happened to him. While he cried amid tears, he told the unarguably snooping crowd that his penis, popularly known as “Gbola” in street slangs, has mystifyingly disappeared after acknowledging greetings, and handshake from a strange man. Given his weird confession, the curious crowd instantly split into two schools of thought, with one of the schools saying that Mr. X’s revelation was implausible and incredible, while the other group says it is possible, and thus had its delusory conclusion swallowed hook, line and sinker by not a few people that gathered to ascertain what went wrong with Mr. X. In a twinkling of an eye, Mr. X identified a man that was shopping few meters away as the prime suspect, and the crowd swooped on him, but the police saved the day, and prevented the suspect from being beaten and lynched.

In a similar vein, Mr. Y boarded a commercial bus at Ojota as he heads to Oyingbo in Lagos. While in the bus, he screamed to the consternation of his co-passengers that his “Gbola” has vanished, and the guy that sat closer to him in the bus was dragged down from the vehicle, and was publicly interrogated but was not found to be culpable, and so was left scot free to go.

The foregoing anecdotes are just few cases that elucidate the extent the hoax of disappearing “Gbola” has being across Nigeria, particularly in Lagos where it has been putting innocent people in danger, and instilling fear in them.  The anecdotes graphically illustrate some of the miseries, among many, which perpetrators of black magic wickedly use against anyone. When possessed, perpetrators of black magic prepared for snatching “Gbola” are heartless, particularly in gatherings or crowded public places.  In fact, they give no one any benefit of sympathy when possesed by evil spirit.

At this juncture, permit me to copiously quote from Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that says, “Black magic has traditionally referred to the use of supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes.

“The links and interaction between black magic and religion are many and varied. Beyond black magic’s historical persecution by Christianity and its inquisitions, there are links between religious and black magic rituals. For example, 17th-century priest Étienne Guibourg is said to have performed a series of Black Mass rituals with alleged witch Catherine Monvoisin for Madame de Montespan. During his period of scholarship, A. E. Waite provided a comprehensive account of black magic practices, rituals and traditions in The Book of Ceremonial Magic (1911).

“The influence of popular culture has allowed other practices to be drawn in under the broad banner of black magic, including the concept of Satanism. While the invocation of demons or spirits is an accepted part of black magic, this practice is distinct from the worship or deification of such spiritual beings. The two are usually combined in medieval beliefs about witchcraft”.

If I may guess, not a few readers of this piece may have wondered why I delved into this esoteric piece. Some may have sneeringly asked, “Must this writer always express his views on any given issue?” The reply to the foregoing loathsome questions cannot be far-fetched as the journalistic instinct in me is literarily as strong and compelling as the urge for a cock to crow at every wee hours of each passing day.

I must confess that I was inspired to write this esoteric piece on account of an expressed view that I considered to be a misinformation that black magic is not real.  Ehsan Sehgal, a Pakistani-born Dutch poet, author, journalist, scholar of English and Urdu, and the founding chairman of the Muslim United Nations, in a piece, states thus: “The black magic that evil-minded people of all religions practice for their ugly and inhuman motives. The modern world ignores that and even do not believe in it; however, it exists, and it sufficiently works too”.

“When I was an assistant editor, in an evening newspaper, I edited and published such stories. As a believer, I believe that. However, not that can affect everyone; otherwise, every human would have been under the attack of it.

“No one can explain and define black magic and such practices. The scientists today fail to recognize such a phenomenon; therefore, routes are open for black magic to proceeds its practices without hindrances”.

To further buttress the foregoing view, it is expedient to opine that the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, condemns sorcery, divination, fortune-telling and all types of black magic. Not only that, it condemns any skill, instrument, practice, or art that someone uses to contact the spirit world without the guidance of the Holy Spirit through a relationship with Jesus Christ, and at such considered it to be a sin, and also dangerous.

In as much as God commanded the Israelites to have nothing to do with those who practice black magic and clearly condemned the practice as stated in Deuteronomy 18:10–14, Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 19:26 and 31, 1 Samuel 15:23, 2 Kings 21:6, Micah 3:7, and Micah 5:12, it is crystal clear that it does not deny its existence.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is not an exaggeration to say that an article titled, “Alleged Genitals Theft: Can a Human Penis Really Be Stolen?”, written by Matthew Ma, and published on the online edition of some newspapers seeks to ascertain if a human penis can really be stolen to which the author answered in the negative.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to respond to the denial of the reality of black magic by opinionating that for tens of thousands of years, in all parts of the inhabited world, that magic has been practiced and has coexisted with religion and science, sometimes happily, at other times uneasily. Magic, religion and science form a triple spiral running through human culture. While the histories of science and religion have been consistently explored, that of magic has not. Any element of human life so pervasive and long-lasting must have an important role to play, requiring more thought and research than it has often received. After all, if black magic does not exist, prayer warriors in the Christendom will not be fasting and praying against it during weekly services across churches, and even at crusades. In the same vein, scientists are yet to dismiss it as a ruse, even as psychology which is equally a science agrees that black magic exists.

For the sake of clarity, psychology is a science because it employs systematic methods of observation, experimentation, and data analysis to understand and predict behavior and mental processes, grounded in empirical evidence and subjected to peer review.

Having contextually established the fact that psychology is a science, it is expedient to argue that in the power of belief and psychological manipulation that the influence of suggestion and expectation plays a critical role in the effectiveness of black magic. Thus, psychologists are unanimous with the fact that practitioners of evil magic use psychological manipulation to create an atmosphere of fear and susceptibility in their subjects, allowing them to control their thoughts and actions. This control often begins with the practitioner’s charisma and air of authority, which fosters trust and vulnerability in their subjects.

Furthermore, harnessing the power of belief, they can trigger the placebo and nocebo effects to achieve their desired outcomes, be it healing or harm. The placebo effect describes the situation where an individual observes a positive shift in their health status, induced by the conviction that they are undergoing therapy, regardless of the fact that the administered treatment is actually ineffective.

Conversely, the nocebo effect occurs when a person experiences negative effects due to the belief that something harmful is happening. Practitioners of black magic can exploit these powerful psychological phenomena to create tangible changes in their subjects.

At this juncture, permit me to ask the question, and which is invariably the title of this piece, “Can A ‘Gbola ’Really Be Stolen?”