How and why to talk about witchcraft? Discourses on witchcraft and uses of bewitchment narratives in 21st century rural eastern Slovenia

Abstract

The article, based on fieldwork conducted in rural Eastern Slovenian region, discusses specifics of various discourses – Christian, rational, New Age, and, in particular, witchcraft discourse – that the inhabitants of the region use in discussing witchcraft. It shows the occasions in everyday life in which the witchcraft discourse may be mobilised and strategically used by people for their own benefit. Later, it compares the discourse used by traditional magic specialists in the unwitching procedure, performed when misfortune is ascribed to bewitchment, with the discourse used by a contemporary New Age therapist in therapy performed for the same reason. The author argues that in basic elements they resemble each other, the main difference being that the key underlying premise of the traditional unwitcher, i.e. that the source of misfortune threatens from the outside, loses its importance in the New Age therapy. In this, the main arena of counteraction against the perpetrator is transferred from the outside to the inside, to one’s own body and mind.