A Cape Town mother is living in fear that she may lose her son to a demonic curse.
The frightened mother says her 12-year-old boy has vanished from home four times since an evil voice started luring him away.
Local holy men say there are satanic forces at play, trying to steal the boy's soul.
Athini Magqabini appears to be a regular boy who loves playing with his friends and having fun in his Philippi-East home.
But when he hears the voices in his head, he wanders off and speaks in a strange language in a trance-like state.
He was once found standing upright, clinging to a pole with his eyes shut in what appeared to be a deep sleep.
His mother Phumla Magqabini, 38, is at her wits' end after Athini recently disappeared for the fourth time in five months.
Last Sunday, she again relived the terror that comes with each disappearance.
Athini vanished while playing in a park with friends in MC Crescent in Marcus Garvey Informal Settlement, Philippi-East.
"When he went missing he was found sleeping under a tree five days later," Magqabini said.
"He just wandered off while playing with his friends and was found in Crossroads by a man who saw him sleeping under a tree.
"He tried to run away but the man caught up with him and took him to the police station."
She said that that night Athini had been restless.
"He danced all night long even though there was no music," she said. And he spoke in a strange language she could not recognise.
"We couldn't make out what he was saying," said the distraught mother.
Magqabini said her son has told them he is merely obeying strange voices calling him to follow them at night.
He said the voices started speaking to him in November last year when he was completing Grade 5.
"The first time he vanished was after I sent him out to buy milk. Three days later he was found sleeping behind a house in the neighbourhood," said Magqabini.
"The second time he disappeared (was) after his father sent him to the shops and he was found three days later holding on to a lamp post (while) in a deep sleep."
Magqabini said the third time had been when Athini took his toys to play with friends outside the house but never returned.
"Again, three days later he was found wandering in the street," she said.
Magqabini said the desperate family had consulted a faith healer who told them satanic forces are influencing her son.
"I curse the person behind all this. I love my child very much," she said.
"We are Christians and I pray to God to save my little baby."
Her local pastor Reverend Reuben Nyobile of the Baptist Pentecostal Church agrees that satanic forces are at play.
"There is a lot of demonic practices in our communities and some parents are not aware how their children are lobbied into satanism," he said.
Magqabini said her son gets emotional when trying to explain his actions.
"When we ask him (Athini) what the voices are telling him to do he says they tell him to follow them and then he starts crying," she said.
When the Daily Voice visited the house, Athini was holding his five-month-old brother while his mother was busy in the bedroom.
"I have to close the gate and keep an eye on him. I have sleepless nights every time he disappears," said the mom.
"I suspect there is a dark side in my son's life. The strange dances, the screams. We fear for the worst ... that he may vanish and never return."
mothers anguish over satanic son
by Weeping 17 Replies latest jw friends
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Weeping
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mrsjones5
Here we go again
Weeping, are you this one dimensional in real life?
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yknot
OMGoodness and in this day and age!
Ignorance breeds superstitions!
He probably is suffering from a mental illness like schizophrenia or his behavior is a result of post traumatic stress .....
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White Dove
Sounds like schizophrenia to me, but I'm no expert. Certainly don't believe in
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HintOfLime
Bogeyman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe bogeyman (also spelled boogyman, bogyman, boogieman, boogey monster) is a legendary ghost-like monster. The bogeyman has no specific appearance and conceptions of the monster can vary drastically even from household to household within the same community; in many cases, he simply has no set appearance in the mind of a child, but is just an amorphous embodiment of terror. Bogeyman can be used metaphorically to denote a person or thing of which someone has an irrational fear. Parents often say that if their child is naughty, the bogeyman will get them, in an effort to make them behave. The bogeyman legend may originate from Scotland, where such creatures are sometimes called bogles, boggarts, or boggers. [1]
Bogeyman tales vary by region. In some places, the bogeyman is male; in others, female, and in others, both. In some Midwestern states of the USA, the bogeyman scratches at the window. In the Pacific Northwest, he may manifest in "green fog". In other places, he hides under the bed or in the closet and tickles children when they go to sleep at night. It is said that a wart can be transmitted to someone by the bogeyman. [1] Bogeymen may be said to target a specific mischief – for instance, a bogeyman that punishes children who suck their thumbs – or general misbehaviour.
- Lime
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jamiebowers
People with a certain type of bipolar disorder can have auditory and/or visual hallucinations. I wonder why no one has taken this poor kid to a doctor for a complete medical and psychological exam.
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ana_dote
damn you outlaw! that picture scared the crap outta me cuz I wasn't expecting it! LOLOL! jerk! :-P
and yes, I would agree that checking into schizophrenia (with possible additional disorders) would be a good place to start. A close friend of mine has a brother with schizophrenia (among other things) and when he is not on medication he sees people that aren't there (while ignoring the reality around him, which could be considered trance-like) and has conversations with them in what is supposed to be (or at least sounds like) spanish, although spanish-speaking individuals say it is jibberish/unintelligible spanish. Yet, on medication he is fully functional within society and has no such episodes.
lol just tell these folks to follow the american example and send the kid to a shrink lol aren't we the experts by now on mental illness?? :-P
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White Dove
Outlaw,
I hate you! I'm so sick with a chest cold and sinus infection that every time I laugh even slightly, I go into coughing spasms and fits. Just had one and threw up in the kitchen sink because of your very funny "puppy" picture. A curse on both yer houses!
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nelly136
***Magqabini said the desperate family had consulted a faith healer who told them satanic forces are influencing her son.***
think that says it all really,
just one link of the suffering caused to children in africa by hysterical accusations of witchcraft,
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/archive/2009/10/africanchildrenaccusedwitchcraft
More and more children in Africa are being accused of witchcraft by church leaders out to make money, and then tortured or killed, often by family. Church leaders were involved in half of 200 cases of ‘witch children’ and 13 churches were named in the case files, the Associated Press news agency said. "It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity," said Gary Foxcroft, head of children’s charity, Stepping Stones Nigeria.
The idea of witchcraft has taken on new life recently partly because of a growth in evangelical Christianity.Campaigners say about 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and about 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire. The families of these children are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund. Eight out of 10 Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day. "When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats," he said. "It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change ... and children are defenceless."
It is the most vulnerable children — the orphaned, sick, disabled or poor — who are most often singled out, said Sam Itauma of the Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Network said. "Even churches who didn't use to 'find' child witches are being forced into it by the competition," said Itauma, whose organisation runs a home for the scores of child victims. "They are seen as powerful because they can detect witchcraft and the parents may even pay them money for an exorcism." Just mentioning the name of a church is enough to children at the home. "Please stop the pastors who hurt us," said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. "I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch."The United Nations Children's Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.
By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children
