'Witchcraft' claim sparked deadly soccer riot

Wow, if I knew THAT spell... I mean sheesh.. being able to cause a riot?

Damn.. thats one hell of a young witch I tell you what.

>snarky

Believing in spells is common in certian parts of Africa. A few years ago, there was a spell circulating that if you were a man shook the hand of someone with a spell your penis would fall off.

I was in graduate school with someone from Zimbabwe. He was an intelligent, ambitious, reasonable guy--except for when it came to the penis falling off topic-- he was convinced it could happen. No reasoning could get him to think otherwise. He probably has his Ph.D by now.

More info:

The penis falling off spell is only given to the trusted few...

I think you are right.

Trying to reason with this guy about this topic went nowhere. An additional note: he was a father to two sons, one who died when he was one or two years old when they still lived in Africa. I remember him telling me his son died "of a mysterious illness." As far as I could tell, he was given no medical diagnosis of why the little boy died, and he accepted it as a mystery.

Can you see this taking place in the US?

The entire reason spells work is BECAUSE of people like that. People who feverishly believe in something will make it happen.
Not that you could -make- your penis fall off because you believe it will.. but you could give yourself adverse effects in bed if you were constantly worried about such thing and believed with all your might it was going to happen.

But I come from a biased point of view..