FringeWizard: African occultists aren't nearly as advanced as European ones or you'd have achieved a lot more remarkable things with your practise of magick by now but Africa is still stagnant and a terrible place to be. Look at how Alchemists, Occultists, Mystics etc. in Europe advanced all of our society forward with their incredible power.

Allow me to remain sceptical over these since my little research over European history has convinced me that the main reason of post-medieval Europe's advancement were mostly technological and materialistic. The only think that seems consistent with your claim is the foundation of the Free-Masons and the development of philosophical and spiritual circles on a Greek (mostly non-religious) root.

I get the feeling you don't even take yourself seriously and beyond healing and curses you probably haven't done anything all that mindblowing[/b]

I hope you realize that as a healer my primary concern is the well being of my patient, so when it comes to it my duty is to put priority on scientific medicine and secondarily on spiritual practice.

Indeed I haven't done something mind-blowing, pretty much the opposite, I managed to heal head trauma from a child academic physicians had claimed was doomed to remain in vegetable condition for life and heal a limb with so advanced gangrene humanitarian aid doctors said it should be severed. These in addition to many donations from richer former patients, including white ones, that allow me to travel and expand my knowledge and the extent of my practice are more than enough to boost my confidence on my powers without letting me grow too arrogant, since you claim you are a white practitioner of magic you must certainly know the aesop of Faust (and though one does not need my divination skills to know that you are going to protest for patronizing you with cautionary tales ) maybe you should take it a bit into consideration.

Peppercat: I will leave Guinea after my quarantine (a strict isolation and detention imposed to prevent the spread of disease, not an infection factory) is over and I'm testing negative for ebola. I will leave that infested hellhole for what it is, and never return. I have, after six years, lost all my faith. In God. In the people that called me their sister. I will watch you writhe over one another as you bleed out. There is no educating you or your ilk. I will return to Suriname, and I will warn every colleague, every student, against travels to the African nations.

If what you say is true, I understand your bitterness and hope it will heal over time. As a healer myself (even though you would probably view me as a charlatan and an enabler of superstition) I just want you to know that your struggles and sacrifices weren't in vein.

Whether you choose to stay and keep fighting with a heavy heart or leave with regret I must thank you for helping people either way.

meteoric: Everyone should disregard this prank.
Also you might want to read this

http://www.vocativ.com/world/nigeria-world/ebola-4chan-anime/

I don't take them seriously, I just enjoy the conversation. Also I admit their cartoon is very cute and pretty , even the bloody skull and the blood stains contribute as a strong contradiction to highlight her image.

FringeWizard:

What the heck is this even supposed to mean, "jesus saves"?

So by your logic an "egregore" formed and "worshiped" by a site for cartoon discussion and bored white kids is spiritually more influential than the millions of prayers to an at least 2000 years old "egregore" based on a real person that couple of billions of people and the most powerful religious organizations revere as The True God?

FringeWizard: Why do you insist that names are so important?

Because they are. An entity might exist in its own realm as a spiritual form or an abstract but it's the names we give them that outline their essence and provide a link for them in the physical world.

I would think their sigil would be more important than the name.

Sigils are just other forms of names. What are sigils? Symbols meant to represent a concept without a direct visual immitation of it, just like words, just like names.

If you drew these symbols having "Ebola-chan" in mind then sorry to disappoint you but your very nomenclature might have some serious spiritual contamination by that benevolent entity.

FringeWizard: From what magic tradition are you? Obeah man? Do you just call yourself an Animist?

Nothing in particular. My family is Tigray Tewahedo Orthodox from Gambela but my grandfather was a local healer using folk medicine (mago) in a southern Gambella region village.

FringeWizard: Are you a voodoo-practitioner?

Though you can describe me as such (or more accurately as a hoodoo-practitioner) my mentor (grandfather) never used the term (which is not familiar in the area) or anything giving strong religious connotations to our practice, he also kinda hated being accused for "witchcraft" but as long as he could help people he did not really deny it. He was expert at removing evil eye and other shielding/protective charms (practice the Church allows) and divination, most notably as a seer and medium for the dead, less so as a fortune teller (Church allows "visions/dreams from Saints" but not fortune telling). On a more secular basis, his was adept at capturing snakes and gathering their venom for antidotes and harvesting healing herbs (it was mostly my grandmother doing that for him). He also successfully encouraged my father to study and become a pathologist to carry on his tradition more effectively but my dad got a "real job" in a hospital after taking his diploma and rejected my grandparents' superstition and he only voluntarily helped our villagers on our rare visits there. Still since my village panicked after my grandfather's death and insisted that I carry on my grandad's heritage I utilize whatever I can remember from his teachings, my limited formal studies in theology and botany (two times uni drop-out), my dad's medical manuals, my book and internet education on spiritualism/philosophy/mythology and frequent travels in Congo countries, Zimbabwe and Tanzania to share wisdom with various cultures' folk-practices. I was planning visiting Gabon for a consult with some Bwiti sages and if I was lucky also other people before that Ebola issue started and had to postpone my plans.

With all that personal info about me, I guess you can try and throw some of your cartoon hexes on me. You're welcome.

Do you just call yourself an Animist?

Don't be silly. I call myself Christian, I just respect tribal cultures and recognize they might possess some of the most unadulterated wisdom in existence.

[quote author=FringeWizard]

Well we refer to her as "Ebola Chan" not simply as "Ebola" and I would hope that would be enough to prevent any mental contagion link there along with the fact that all the people we're using to incubate Ebola Chan don't even know about the undine you mention.


Wishful thinking but you know it won't really help you.

To give you an extreme comprehensible example, you can draw Satan as a non-threatening cartoon girl or a pokemon, call him Lucifer-chan and spread the entity's influence in related demographics, you can adopt this mental image to protect your sanity in the unfortunate for you event that you had the extremely bad idea to summon him, but you can't radically alter his nature from being an omnipotent malicious diabolist arch-devil into a cute innocent and misunderstood child-figure no matter how much you trivialize him and romanticize him in popular perception (which if I'm right is pretty much the case in western media).

Same way you can't just fundamentally alter the existential core or just steal away the name of even a minor deity with thousands of years or reverence in its back. And the bad news for you is that, as you probably know, river-spirits are mostly linked to sustenance, providence and healing so your pagan "prayers" may even protect people from the epidemic, at least in the near vicinity of the river, even for the most narrow-minded witch-hunting Christian priests as long as they feel gratitude towards God for the "gift of the river" (and they probably do since having a steady source of flowing water is a major privilege in rural Africa).

Typical arrogant white man. You did not create or animate that "Egregore" or whatever you whites call it.

Ebola is one of the many animistic deities in the region of Congo, actually the river spirit of the depository river with the same name.

At best what you managed to do was to reshape her into a cute girl and give her a pestilence-attribute for her appearance and interaction with mortals (probably just the ones not having an already formed image of her). If you are indeed a magic practitioner you'll probably know that connection of supernatural entities with their originally given/taken namesake is inseparable.

So what are you gonna do with your magics? Make Ebola flood nearby villages or run out of fish?