Paper short abstract

This paper will address the relationship with the demonic among members of a Ugandan Pentecostal movement called “The Saved”, where ‘demons’ are rendered the spirits of one’s departed family members. Is the ‘better devil’ from the saying really the one you know?

Paper long abstract

Drawing on fieldwork among the “Balokole” (‘the Saved’), a Ugandan born-again Pentecostal movement, this paper will speak about its members’ relationship with the demonic. While all contemporary Ugandans are familiar with the image of the Devil, through either a Christian or Muslim upbringing, during my fieldwork with the Pentecostal movement called the Balokole there was rarely any talk of the Devil. Instead, it was ‘demons’ [emizimu] which preoccupied my interlocutors’ thoughts – and in and outside of church, much ritual work was aimed at combating the demonic forces which plagued people. Interestingly, emizimu, the word to describe demons in this homegrown branch of Pentecostalism, was also the Luganda word for an ‘ancestral spirit’. The spirit of a departed grandparent, aunt or sibling was therefore the very demon which my interlocutors were trying to distance themselves from by dutifully attending church.

This paper will outline the theological underpinnings of the diabolisation of one’s departed relatives, as it relates to the pre-Christian public healing practices, but also try to reason around what the implication of this notion of the demonic does. How is evil conceptualised when the demonic actor who brings the evil unto you is a dead family member? How do the Balokole negotiate the demonic influences in their lives when the devil is not something external and out there, but rather something in the family?