BLACK MAGIC

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 424, 4 May 1937, Page 3

BLACK MAGIC

CHARMS AND SPELLS “Miracles” —At A Price Bucharest. April 15. An interesting “black-magic" trial has just taken place before the Bucharest Court of Justice. A gipsy of Rumania,, 88 years old Florica Ciobanul was asked by two educated Bucharest ladies owning a fashion shop which was not doing very well, to work a miracle for them and improve their business. Florica made conscientious use of her occult powers, but the trade of her two clients grew from bad to worse. After they had invested a considerable amount in the old gipsy’s arts, they decided to sue here for obtaining money from them on false pretences. Strange allegations were made in Court against the gipsies in Bucharest, who number about 3000. Mosto of them claim to be able to work miracles. The casting of spells and the sale of miracle-working fetishes is a regular business in this country, customers being recruited not only from among the rural population, but also from the well-to-do, educated town dwellers.

A witness described to the judges the stock-in-trade and technique of the gipsy magicians. Particles of automobile tyres are sold to persons who want their enemies to have a painful death in motor car accidents. Bits of copper wire are given to those who want to find buried treasures. Patches of kahki cloth are offered to girls who want to marry army officers. Jars of “dog’s fat” are dispensed to people who want to get cured of consumption. The most expensive work of sorcery in this country is a mysterious process known as “lead pouring.” It needs a special technique, at which old gipsy women are experts. The client has to undress in a dark room and a special incantation, in which a goatskin and a flute play important parts, is pronounced by the magician. After this preliminary formality the customer is plunged into a big barrel containing tepid water smelling of incense. Molten lead is then poured into the tub, when the person’s sins are washed away.

The lead takes various shapes in the water, and from these shapes’ the sorceress reads the client’s future and offers adequate advice. If leadpouring and the fetishes do not work the miracles expected from them, the magicians wisely explain that some unforeseen counter-miracle has neutralised their charm. , In the case of old Florica Ciobann, the Court acquitted her on the ground that “educated persons who believe in the year 1937 in black magic have themselves to blame if they are duped by shrewd old gipsies.”