THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
The term ‘miracle’ is used very broadly in every day, ordinary language. We speak of miracle drugs, or of miracle babies, and some household products purport to be miraculous as well. Then there are those Christmas miracles. Philosophical discussion of the miraculous, however, is confined to the use to which religion — and, in particular, theistic religion — puts that conception.
A miracle, says Roman Catholicism, must be, in some sense, contrary to natural law, indeed a “violation” of natural law.
Philosophers have wrestled down the years with concerns about what sort of observable criteria would allow us to identify an event as a miracle, particularly insofar as that means identifying it as a violation of natural law.
Can miracles happen? Do they?
I have always somewhat thought that faith can move mountains, have a belief of mind over matter. I’ve always kept a very open mind to such.
She had a large, black beaming face, a toothless smile. She crouched to the left, giving the appearance of a humped back. This was Soweto, South Africa, 20 years ago, and the old woman was a Sangoma, imbued with powers of good and evil. Powers made possible because she was, if you believed, the incarnation of an ancestral spirit, and a practitioner of Muti medicine — divined using herbs and plants and animal tissue.
Three years before that day in Soweto, I woke to a busted, arthritic knee, brought on by an earlier fall in which I had broken my foot in two places. Micro surgery was recommended but there was no guarantee of permanent healing.
For more than two years, the knee was as good as ever but then, overnight, it came back with a vengeance — constant pain, intermittent immobility. I persevered with pain-killers but eventually took the knee back to the consultant. VHI or no, there was a 10-week waiting list.
In the meantime, armed to the gills with pills, the knee strapped up, and promising to do the daily physio, I took myself off to South Africa to report on its first 10 years of independence.
Last census put the number of Sangomas at 1% of the 60 million population. They gather in ‘lodges’ away from the public eye where they call on the spirits of their ancestors to protect their powers … for the better good.
If you know what to look for, the Sangoma can be found on any street corner in any South African city, most recognisable by their dress of red, white and their black beads. Faith in the works of the Sangoma is widespread and, as such, is protected under South Africa’s model Constitution.
The room was sparsely furnished, the occasional animal skin thrown over a wooden box, feathers and skins hanging from a wall, another wall holding all kinds of containers and canisters — the Muti. The old woman sat before me and from a cloth sack removed a collection of bones of varying shapes and hues, made of wood and ivory and animal.
She tossed the bones onto the mat, and said my ancestors would guide me.
My Sangoma then entered a trance-like state, rabbiting away in Xhosa to all and none. Take off your trousers, the interpreter said. The Sangoma then removed a container lid, stuck a boney finger into it and scooped out a clear, sticky substance like Vaseline. She leaned towards my knee and then it hit me.
The strongest smell; pungent, sickening like rotting flesh. I recoiled. Wow, strong Muti, I said, laughing nervously. Undeterred, she applied the foul-smelling gel and massaged it in for a minute or so. The back of my head was on fire like after a good curry, and the odour was toxic.
Apply it once a day until it was all used, I was told.
We emerged back onto Soweto’s streets, just before sunset when Africa is cooling down, all the smells and hues settling back into creation before the anonymity of the night. I looked into the pink sky and was overcome with an urge to run a mile. I skipped and hopped down Soweto’s hills, my knee no longer racked with pain and inconvenience.
I threw the Muti away the next day, as it was smelling out my hotel room. But I had no longer need of it. My knee was now pain-free and fully functional. Back in Ireland, I cancelled the proposed second operation. To this day I have never looked back, knee-wise.
Was it a miracle? I like to think so…
