Mens Daemonica: Guilt, Justice, and the Occult in South Africa.
Comparative Studies in Society and History July 1, 2021 Sonia Rupcic 2 citations
In Thohoyandou, South Africa, a series of rapes and murders in 2014 sparked panic, with local stories attributing the violence to demonic forces—a claim the accused himself confirmed, saying he was possessed. Based on 22 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article describes how state criminal justice sites in South Africa grapple with the occult in ambivalent ways. Spirit possession is difficult to reconcile with legal methods of determining criminal liability in courtrooms, yet when imprisoned people are paroled, the state entertains bewitchment in public reconciliation ceremonies. The article proposes the concept of mens daemonica ("demonic mind") to describe a hijacked selfhood, contrasting it with mens rea ("criminal mind") in law.