Woman claims being harassed with ‘evil muthi’

Former Ballito resident, Madelaine van Rooyen wrote a letter to the Courier in which she told how she had been targeted by someone who kept planting an African witchcraft muthi in her garden and the effect it has had on her life.

Van Rooyen said she lived in a beautiful double storey house in Ballito with spectacular 180 degree sea views, had a flourishing business and enjoyed the kind of coastal life that city slickers dream of.

Life was good for the widow and her son until someone with ill intent planted muthi in her garden.

She lost her business, was nearly forced off the road, the geyser burst, the fridge gave in, the swimming pool pump broke, a few pipes burst and her house had been broken into a couple of times.

Van Rooyen had her suspicions about who the person behind the series of unfortunate events was, but was powerless to do anything as there is no law against using muthi against someone else.

She turned to a “healer” who advertises as a facilitator in such matters, who with the help of a sangoma, found and dug up the muthi every time her foes planted muthi in her garden.

Undeterred by the healer’s efforts, Van Rooyen’s enemies persisted and planted fresh muthi every time the healer dug up a batch.

Fearing for her safety, Van Rooyen put her house on the market and moved to Cape Town.

But even the Mother City was not far enough and before long, the evildoers had sniffed out Van Rooyen’s new home and the house break-ins started again.

The Courier spoke to Van Rooyen’s healer and a Christian pastor who both agreed that the power of muthi was real.

The healer did not want to be named for fear of being targeted.

The healer said parcels of muthi represented a person’s bad intention towards someone else and reached into the lower dimension of the evil world (or hell) to access supernatural (demonic) powers.

He said money was used to make the victim poor, a bullet for the victim to get hijacked and anything from dog faeces to pig’s blood or a finger nail is used to attack the victim’s health.

The healer said only a sangoma can make muthi and cause it to manifest, but once it has been found and unearthed, it loses most of its power. He said people usually came to him if things keep going wrong in their lives. If muthi was involved, the healer’s spiritual guide showed him where it was buried.

He said muthi has been around for thousands of years and was not race or culture specific.

Apparently family members and business opponents use muthi against each other. He said the best protection against the power of muthi was prayer.