My father told us the poignant story of his mother, my grandmother, giving birth to 14 children and only two of them survived. The gap between him and his only surviving sibling, my late Uncle, was roughly 10 years. In between them were more deceased siblings that could not survive the first few years of their lives. They were deemed “Abikus”. My grandmother died in her early fifties. Poor woman. She bore the brunt fourteen pregnancies. One is exhausting enough, but what about the emotional trauma of losing 12?

As it turned out, those 12 deceased children were most likely sickle cell carriers at a time and age when the relevant medical knowledge was unavailable and inaccessible. There really was no mystical or magical explanation for their condition. It was in the science, even if unknown at the time. And that ignorance was no bliss. It was misery. Unmitigated, and shrouded in mystery, for good measure.

If you are a Nigerian on my timeline, you already know what this post is about. For my non-Nigerian friends, a bit of context is warranted. Last week, a story was making the rounds in the Nigerian newspapers about a couple engaged in illicit sex, and the man collapsed and died in the process. The man was a traditionalist (‘Babalawo’), and the woman is a Pastor’s wife.

So the man died in the act, and Nigerians are very exercised about this. Many are suggesting that the Pastor had placed a magical spell on the unfaithful wife, in the manner, it must be said, of traditionalists and Babalawos. Some have suggested a specific spell known as Magun, during which the genitals of the illicit become stuck. There really isn’t much room for natural explanations. Perhaps the Babalawo had a pre-existing condition, say heart problem?

Well, like Abikus, there are actually mEricka terminologies for conditions relating to stuck genitals: Vaginismus and penis Captivus. While these are said to be extremely rare occurrences, there have been reported in learned journals for centuries. You can check out the following links to learn about these conditions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1596579/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325940

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25827175.amp

These articles highlight, among others, the physiology- psychology nexus in reported cases, which are said to be mostly, if not exclusively, associated with illicit sex. My own theory is that forbidden nature of the escapade could add the extra layer of psychological stress, or ecstasy, that makes the experience more intense, more severe, and potentially fatal. The “spell” can be rationally explained, even if the experience is psychosomatic.

The wider point here is that a lazy recourse to the mysterious, almost by default, is damaging and detrimental to societal progress. It is quite an irony that this self cosseting intellectual laziness is increasingly endemic in this age of information explosion. Now dont get me wrong. I believe in the reality of the spiritual. I have written at length about this. The rational mind cannot exhaustively account for things as they are, but it must be fully engaged nonetheless, to get us as far as it can. And any spirituality, or spiritualism, that induces you to anti-intellectual obscurantism is fake and dangerous.