Anumber of men and women willingly agreed to be tortured by their spiritual healer in a village in Sargodha, the district that produces the finest quality of citrus the bulk of which is exported. They were tortured to death.
Why?
A news report published in this paper this week says it all: “faith healer slaughters 20 in bid to cleanse them of sins”. Nobody knows what ‘sins’ the victims had committed. The faith healer does not tell us either. Surely they were ‘cleansed’ of any possibility of committing sins. The best possible way was to take their lives because as long as they lived, they tended to commit sin. ‘Sin’ is after all such an irresistible temptation. You are shocked? Hold on, what happened next would leave you utterly shell-shocked.
“None of the victim families was willing to register a case against Waheed [the faith healer],” states the regional police officer. You won’t be wrong to infer from the stance of the victims’ families that a bigger malaise of apathy afflicts them. The families believed that their dear ones deserved that they got at the hands of their spiritual guide. They in fact endorsed the killer’s view who said: “I have cleansed my followers of their sins and sent them to heaven”. You can’t be accused of having a misplaced sense of déjà vu. This is something you have already been hearing occasionally from the ideologically motivated terrorists from the Middle East, Afghanistan and tribal agencies of Pakistan but with a difference. They ‘send’ their suicide bombers to heaven by persuading them to blow themselves in the ‘enemy zones’ i.e. military and civilian.
Scholars tell us that an acute sense of helplessness in the face of natural and social forces, worship of living and dead individuals supposedly gifted with supernatural power, and belief in the phenomena of magic and sorcery have been with us sense ancient times. All such factors may explain the secret of the longevity of superstition. Superstition is in fact much older than Atharva-Veda, last of the four oldest scriptures which is called by some scholars the “Veda of magical formulas” because it tells people how to employ the magical rites to assuage superstitious fear, and spells to get rid of troubles caused by ghosts and demons. Islamic treatises also recognize the existence of genie and efficacious power of magic.
Humanity has not yet fully come out of the state of primordial fear which it experienced all around in its infancy. People scared of dreadful things beyond their control resort in desperation to the use of the rational and irrational to get rid of their afflictions. Use of irrational means such as arcane rituals, magical mantra, amulets and sorcery is much easier than finding rational solutions which demand metal and intellectual efforts. Certain societies do not treat psychic, psychological and neurological disorders as ailments. They are taken as special phenomena beyond the ordinary, a handiwork of supernatural forces. “Special power” is required to deal with special phenomena. And there are “specialists” who through seemingly ascetic exercises attain special powers which are thought to be out of reach of ordinary mortals. What is out of reach is precisely the malady, the logical fallout of unjust politico-economic and socio-cultural structures imposed on human society. Deprivation is the mother of all the ills common folks suffer from. Some show symptoms of resource deprivation, some of knowledge deprivation and some of social deprivation. In our part of the world most of the people who seek or are compelled to seek easy solutions to difficult problems turn to Pirs [spiritual healers] lack resources or knowledge or both. State and its institutions are either incompetent or indifferent to the plight of the people in trouble who are totally at loss in finding solution of what can be solved with the use of rational tools which the developed societies have at their disposal. But superstition is a universal phenomenon found in all societies, primitive and modern, backward and developed. It has become part of our primordial impulses. It is so deep rooted and widespread that even powerful people such as monarchs, dictators, rulers, political leaders and business tycoons discreetly consult astronomers, soothsayers, palm-readers and fortune tellers on the important matters of their private and public life. Why the ordinary needs the imprimatur of the extraordinary, the mundane of the sublime is a moot question. Alexander, the Greek, faced ‘mutiny at the Hyphasis’ when his exhausted soldiers and, sick and tired commanders refused his orders to cross the River Beas [Vipasa / Hyphasis] in the Punjab after his Pyrrhic victory against the bravely majestic and majestically brave Porus. The man, who got millions killed without batting an eyelid, proved as superstitious as a Punjabi rustic. He offered sacrifice and released an eagle to go beyond the river but failed to obtain favorable omens and decided to return. Tribes along the banks of River Ravi [Erivati], Alexander’s return route, offered sacrifices to their gods and started to strike the withdrawing armies ferociously at vulnerable points.
Spiritual healing has little to do with faith but faith is used, rather misused, for the promotion of motivated practices. It does not take much for a man to become a Pir. First, declare that you are of Arab descent. Claiming ancestry from some Arabian tribe can earn you respect making it easier for you to gather around you a bunch of gullible men and women who you can find in a large number. They will spread a word about your miraculous power. Find a grave and build a structure over it and it will gradually turn into a shrine. Initially, you will have to part with a bit of your money as maintaining a free kitchen is a must for any spiritual healer worth the name. Gradually, people will start pouring in with all sorts of offerings in cash and kind. Apart from offering you material wealth, they will accept you as their lord and pledge their allegiance to you. Allegiance requires followers’ unconditional submission to the Pir on spiritual and secular matters. Followers’ unconditional submission means Pir’s unrestrained control over their bodies and souls. Redemption is supposedly proportionate to the submission offered. The logic of arcane spiritual practices can make you a killer and a savior at the same time. Killings in the name of salvation may be an acceptable way of culling the rapidly increasing population. That’s perhaps why the practice is allowed. — soofi01@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2017