How one Cambridge researcher is reaching beyond academia to enhance societal understanding of witchcraft and possession.
Dr Naomi Richman has always been interested in contemporary spirituality, particularly the global movements that seem to disrupt predictions of sweeping secularisation. “That's what led me to Pentecostalism,” says the anthropologist of religion, and Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Pentecostalism is now the fastest-growing Christian denomination in the world. “It’s a thriving example of what we might call post-secular spirituality,” says Richman. “It's flourishing around the world, very much against the odds.”
Soaring popularity
This form of evangelical Christianity emphasises the duality of spiritual forces. The work of the Holy Spirit is believed to produce positive spiritual transformations in people’s lives. Yet the intrusion of evil spirits, often linked to witchcraft, also explains any personal challenges humans might face, from unemployment to infertility.
“Pentecostalism fills a spiritual vacuum left by the decline of traditional mainstream Christianity in many parts of the world,” Richman explains. “It is focused on addressing immediate practical problems, providing solutions in the here and now, not just salvation in the world to come.”
Richman’s research has focused on the Pentecostal practice of deliverance. Through acts such as fasting and intensive prayer, this ritual aims to eliminate intruding demonic spirits from the lives of people affected.
“Many religions and cultures perform exorcistic practices, ancient as well as modern. In some ways, deliverance is a rebranding and reshaping of an ancient practice to suit present day needs,” says Richman.
In the second half of the 20th century, especially in the 1990s, deliverance churches spread rapidly in number and popularity worldwide. Those experiencing personal difficulties, from the commonplace to the acute, are increasingly attracted to the promise that the responsible evil might be altogether purged from their lives.
Early research
“Nigeria is a real powerhouse when it comes to manufacturing Pentecostal ideas and trends,” says Richman. Ideas introduced there emanate far beyond the continent, adopted by the global Christian community. Richman focused her doctoral research on Nigeria’s most influential deliverance church, an institution with many international outposts. “Where I was living in Oxford, there was even a branch down the road,” she says.
She studied the church in multiple locations to consider the different problems people faced and how the church responded. Her research revealed it was the perceived decline of marriages and births that were most concerning for the church, who attributed these to the destructive presence of witchcraft and demonic spirits. Preaching centred on how to find an appropriate spouse and how to conceive and raise Christian children. Deliverance concentrated on ridding the spirits that obstructed their notion of Christian family life.
Scepticism and exploitation
Considering its intense popularity, deliverance has received relatively little scholarly attention. “It can be an intellectually uncomfortable, challenging topic,” says Richman. “This is especially true for Western secular people because deliverance assumes there are such things as demons that control our lives. Many wouldn't accept that assumption.”
Deliverance can also be “ethically contentious” for other reasons. Sometimes, it is vulnerable people such as children that may be accused of spirit possession or witchcraft. “In a Western liberal context, there are firm ideas around consent, bodily autonomy, and the rights of a child, for example. These notions do not easily accommodate suggestions that a child might be a witch or possessed by an evil spirit, and that the answer is to subject them to deliverance,” explains Richman.
While most of the time these practices are conducted safely, there have been examples of exorcisms that have resulted in physical, psychological, sexual and spiritual abuses, both historically and more recently. In the UK, the rise in deliverance has garnered suspicion from the police, social services and other public authorities. In recent years, several high-profile child abuse cases, some resulting in murder, related to accusations of witchcraft, usually by family members. The Victoria Climbié case was one of the most prominent.
Furthermore, the practice can be hard to oversee and regulate, especially when it occurs outside of established institutions, in the privacy of a family home or satellite places of worship. Faith leaders themselves have expressed concern about instances of unregulated deliverance conducted by rogue preachers for financial gain.
Underlying tensions
During her research, Richman became aware of mounting opposition in the UK to some deliverance churches. In one incident, the controversial use of deliverance on a gay man at a church in Liverpool triggered public protests, drawing in the police and media. Tensions escalated rapidly, prompting one local MP to call for an ‘outright ban’ on deliverance rituals.
“I could see how these groups were speaking past each other. Each made wrongful assumptions about the other and that was leading to conflict,” says Richman.
“Deliverance, and the beliefs in demons and witchcraft that tend to accompany it, are often packaged as something exotic and dangerous that’s been imported to the UK. Sometimes it’s seen as primitive and backwards. But this is not only inaccurate, it’s also really problematic. At the same time, we need to appreciate the surrounding conditions that lead people to seek out deliverance: the material challenges many people, including migrants, face in multiple areas of their lives.”
In the UK, these misunderstandings can be exacerbated by poor levels of religious literacy. This can quickly lead to a breakdown in understanding and trust between faith communities and the wider public, as well as ‘secular’ institutions like the police or the NHS.
“Real efforts are needed to break down the stigma in beliefs in witchcraft and possession, as these are common to so many cultures around the world and are rarely used to legitimise harm to others,” says Richman. “In situations where things have gone wrong, there is almost always a wider context at play, usually socio-economic insecurity, disintegration of the family unit, and so on. Few are better placed to explain these dynamics than anthropologists.”
Promoting better understanding
Richman was aware that her research and anthropological training could help to widen understanding of deliverance, facilitating better relations between conflicting groups.
“It’s such a cliché, but you need to start by listening and trying to understand before intervening. That's why anthropology is such a valuable subject. Anthropologists strive for a depth of cultural understanding that really allows them to make sense of people.”
She began reaching out to dedicated NGOs and charities, sharing her research, and providing specialist guidance on how to navigate the topic of spiritual abuse. In 2017, she was invited to participate in the ground-breaking United Nations Workshop on Witchcraft Belief and Human Rights: the first of its kindto consider witchcraft and human rights at international level. Government representatives, activists, faith leaders, survivors, and other academics together explored why accusations leading to violence had risen, and how these issues could be suitably discussed.
Other pioneering collaborations followed. In 2021, she began working on The Amber Project, a partnership developed with the Metropolitan Police, the University of Chester, Barnardo’s National FGM Centre, and INFORM (King’s College London), and supported by the UK Government Department of Education. Leaders from faith communities provided additional support.
The project was initiated in response to heightened concerns about the effect of COVID lockdowns. Data gathered by the team suggested that greater personal challenges might increase witchcraft-related blame of children, leading to a rise in abuses – and that these might go unnoticed by authorities, until it was too late.
The Amber Project ran training courses for professional practitioners who might encounter deliverance and witchcraft in their work, but lack the knowledge to identify cases or provide support. This first-of-its-kind training aimed to improve understanding of exorcistic practices and beliefs, whilst challenging damaging stereotypes.
Over 500 people from a great variety of different sectors attended each course, from police officers and teachers to social workers and medical professionals. “It was really eye opening, particularly in the diversity of working people it attracted. This spoke to how wide-ranging and important this topic is,” says Richman.
Some attended from unexpected sectors, such as border control officials, responsible for airport luggage security. With bags arriving from all over the world, officials must effectively screen contents and make quick assessments about what might be a ritual object, or what could be used for illegal or harmful purposes.
There were different goals amongst team members and participants. For the police, courses aimed to help officers identify potential spiritual abuses, ensuring cases were referred and accurately classified. Those representing religious institutions may have sought to expand people's understandings within and outside of their communities.
“My role, as I saw it, was to explain what deliverance and witchcraft is, and point to the vast cultural and historical repertoire it rests on,” explains Richman. “I wanted to try to correct and challenge cultural and religious misperceptions. It was about reaching large but targeted audiences, who could use this information in their daily work to find better language and make better choices.”
“The project was inadvertently a fantastic example of societal impact. I am really motivated to connect my research with interested parties beyond academia to improve cultural understanding.That kind of engagement is really important.”
Richman’s research on Nigerian Pentecostals forms the basis of her forthcoming book, published by Oxford University Press. It explores deliverance churches and the movement more broadly, focused on gender, sexuality and family.
Words by Joanne Dodd, Communications Coordinator in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences