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(OPINION) I hear them, usually at night. The sound of a neighbor’s cattle lowing, that deep, mournful mooing under the moon. And now I am thinking about cows, particularly sacred cows. 

True sacred cows are a Hindu thing, but also what we collectively call things held sacred, things often nonsensical to those who don’t hold those same religious beliefs, things we hold as superstitions. Latter-day Saints with their protective underwear, Scientologist E-meters, Catholic relics and exorcisms, Jewish kaparot, shamanic Kachina ceremonies, Islamic niqab, and so on. 

I go to the internet to find some sacred cows that I don’t know about. It doesn’t disappoint and delivers a deep dive into religious superstitions such that my algorithm will never be the same.

My deep dive du jour: Pentecostal witch branding and the ongoing work of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches. And there is this: the official Research Memorandum for the U.S. Air Force’s Project RAND, “The Exploitations of Superstitions for the Purposes of Psychological Warfare.”

Today, in 2024, with centuries of historical evidence to show witchcraft accusations as false, nonfactual and harmful superstition, there are thousands of innocent people accused of witchcraft who are tortured and killed annually. Most of the accused are children, a few elderly women and people who can’t physically defend themselves. They are tortured into confessing nonexistent crimes, forced to undergo horrific “exorcisms” by preachers and abandoned or killed by their own families or communities.

According to the Advocacy for Alleged Witches, the organization that works to rescue the accused, this child witch-branding rose with the spread of Pentecostalism across Nigeria. The practice of branding children as witches is quite lucrative for Pentecostal preachers who claim they are able to “exorcise” the child from the influence of Satan for a price. 

‘Sanctioned by God?’

In the BBC documentary “Saving Africa’s Witch Children,” a preacher who calls himself “the Bishop” says that he has killed 110 witches and “enacts delivery from Satan” by feeding children a concoction of alcohol, mercury and his own blood for two weeks, while also pouring a liquid into their eyes and ears.

For this, he charges impoverished parents around $1,500. If they cannot pay, the children are held captive until they can. Often a preacher declares a witch during church services so the whole community is in on it.

This is the power of unchallenged (sacred cow) beliefs, the power of believing mistruths from religious doctrine: impoverished parents paying to have their child tortured and killed. It’s easy to cringe on the horror of this sect’s extreme beliefs, but I once believed in dangerous religious superstitions, too. In the religion of my birth, people were killed or “blood atoned.” This was approved by church doctrine and leaders and therefore sanctioned by God. 

I believed the Bible’s epic battles to be righteous genocides. My religion taught that people with dark skin were cursed by God and therefore unable to participate in sacred rituals to obtain salvation. I believed in the “meant to be-ness” of God’s destruction. The God of my youth had a blood lust, and my church did, too. When God models homicide, what is a believer to do? Believe harder so he doesn’t kill me and so that I remain in God’s favor. Fear is an abusive mental trap, and a useful technique to control people. 

Belief, superstition and manipulation

Which brings me to the United States Airforce’s Project RAND report from 1950 on the exploitation of superstition in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia during WWII, and the way the war propagandists used people’s superstitions to manipulate the population. Cited targets from the report were people who believed in:

1. Prophecies concerning future events, either optimistic or pessimistic. 

2. Belief in protective devices and acts.

3. “Fringe” or “radical” religions, particularly those maintaining that the end of the world is at hand.

4. Belief in magical phenomena, miracles, etc.

5. Fatalistic attitudes toward their demise (persecution complex and martyrdom).

That was me. My government had me pegged as superstitious and manipulatable, able to be used and psyop-able, by the religion I was born into. And they were right. This report precedes the work of Dr. Robert J. Lifton, whose research on Chinese Communist brainwashing led many people to learn how their minds work and how minds can be manipulated. 

Today’s experts call superstitious group beliefs and practices “influence” and warn of a continuum from benign to harmful that is present in most institutions today: churches, political groups, corporation cultures, health clubs/yoga/mind-over-matter groups, etc. Some superstitions are unharmful, while others create damaged brain networks through prolonged exposure and harm people’s lives. 

Americans should be taught the history of the Project RAND report and Lifton’s work on brainwashing in social studies as cultural phenomenon. Human psychology basics are useful to brain owners. We need to inoculate people, young and old, against the dangers of the manipulative use of propaganda used to get people to override natural human empathy.  

Grooming the intellect

There is no fence-sitting here for me. I’m against dangerous religious superstitions. I am against the grooming of human intellect to make people more able to fall for falsities and uninvited psyops. I am against backward superstitions, harmful undue influence and the use of religious propaganda (fear-based is most common) without a person’s consent. The catch? People under the influence are not able to give consent. 

The words are still there in the doctrine because there’s no changing that. But the religion of my birth no longer practices “blood atonement,” racial discrimination, polygamy, etc. It took secular laws to curb the religion’s immoral behavior, to shelve the harmful doctrine. And it will take secular laws and the work of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches in Africa to curb the Pentecostal witch-branding. When secular laws out-love and out-moral religious doctrine, is it worthy of obedience? 

Reasonable religions invite the rigors of real consent, critical consideration of truth claims and accountability for moral failure. They admit doctrinal errors, adapt to current human knowledge. They learn about the effects of indoctrination and their responsibility to do no harm. They do not discriminate, subjugate or kill children. 

I gave up my religious indoctrination for personal, moral reasons but also for the larger worldview — to be the change. The religion of my birth still discriminates against LGBTQ+ people and subjugates women. They still use fear-driven manipulative propaganda because it works. But I can’t support it. I want to live as fearless and free as I can.

This piece is republished from FāVS News.

Janet Marugg is an avid gardener, reader and writer living in Clarkston, Washington, with her husband, Ed, and boxer dog, Poppy. She is a nature lover, a lifelong learner and a secular humanist. She can be reached at janetmarugg7@gmail.com.