The Devil Made Me Do It

South Africa can sometimes appear to be awash with occult crime. From satanist conspiracies and witchcraft accusations to muti murders and demonic possession, a trawl through our national news suggests a society at war with the forces of evil. Why does the occult have such a grasp on our collective imagination? In this vastly unequal country, with its crises of gender-based violence, child abuse, poverty and unemployment, there are more than enough obvious dangers to our social stability. Why, then, are South Africans so quick to blame the supernatural for violence and misfortune? How do beliefs in occult crime intersect with problems of gender, race and class? And is there any truth to these supernatural tales? The Devil Made Me Do It examines these and other thorny questions by probing the stories, beliefs and rumours behind the so-called occult crimes that have entranced South Africa’s fractured psyche. They include the murder of a child mistaken for a tokoloshe in the 1920s, the satanic panic that gripped the nation in the 1980s and 1990s, the Krugersdorp cult killings of 2012–16, and the muti murder of a six-year-old girl in 2022. What can these crimes, and the way they are represented by media, police and other institutions, tell us about South Africa today?

Nicky Falkof is a writer and academic based in Johannesburg. She is a professor of Media Studies at Wits University and currently heads up the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies. Her research is primarily concerned with race and anxiety in South Africa, with a specific interest in the forms, mythologies and consequences of white fear. She has secondary interests in gender, popular media and culture, moral panic and the social geography of global south cities. Nicky has a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium, part of Birkbeck College, University of London. This is her fourth book. For more information, visit nickyfalkof.com.