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Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast presents Modern Witch Hunts 101 Part 1: A Dialogue on the Nature of Today’s Witch Persecutions. Podcast Cohosts, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack reflect on how researching the modern witch attack crisis has revealed the connectedness of witch hunts across time and the globe. Learn how big the problem is and the circumstances under which pervasive witchcraft fear translates into widespread violence. How do we know what we know? We connect past witch trials to today’s witchcraft fear and witch hunts with a discussion answering our advocacy questions: Why do we witch hunt? How do we witch hunt? How do we stop hunting witches?

Learn what the world believes about witchcraft today with American University’s tenured Associate Professor of Economics, Dr. Boris Gershman. He is an active academic researcher and writer who has written several academic articles on the relationship of witchcraft beliefs and sociodemographic characteristics. We discuss his journal article “Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis.” Find out about solutions to the current global witchcraft accusation crisis based on Dr. Gershman’s evaluation.

Dr. Leo Igwe, activist and advocate of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, speaks with us about the witch hunt crisis in Nigeria. Leo teaches us the historical, societal, and cultural implications leading us to this modern day situation and calls for specific support. We discuss the urgency of immediate interventions and ways of building up Nigerians to be able to address and implement their own solutions. This episode is a call to action for all people worldwide to take action against witch fear and to create safe communities for the vulnerable citizens in our world communities.

Learn with us! Damon Leff of the South African Pagan Rights Alliance Advocacy Against Witch Hunts shares about South Africa’s alleged witch situation. We learn about South Africa’s belief in the occult, magic, witchcraft and muti. This interview considers the common denominators and differences between past and present witchcraft hunts. We discuss how interventions must recognize regional and cultural nuances and the discriminative risks of law reform. “In South Africa, in almost all cases of accusation of witchcraft, the accused will:
a. not be offered access to legal defense against the accusations,
b. not be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,
c. be driven from their communities,
d. lose their homes as a result of arson,
e. be forcibly separated from their families, loved ones and friends,
f. be placed in custody by the South African Police Services, ostensibly for their own safety, spending at least one night in a prison cell to avoid being attacked by members of their own community,
g. may never return to their homes and communities of birth, and
h. be forced into unwilling exile in unofficial and unacknowledged refugee camps.”