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Gluckman’s distinction between simplex and multiplex relationships is applied here to ethnographic data in two locations of Tanzania and one in Congo, spanning a research period of 20 years. The study links the rising success of Pentecostalism in rural areas not only to a globalizing and neoliberal society establishing the sense of bewitchment conducive to such spirituality but also to ongoing struggles over cultural reproduction in the community, converging particularly on witches and spirits. Indications of experiential atrophy are discussed and interwoven: the suitability of Pentecostal sermon to current lifeworlds, the simplex experience of conversion, the impact of simplex sociality, the loss of experiential shifts in magic, the globalist equation of the latter with witchcraft, the vanishing of spirit cults and their replacement by Charismatic possession, the structural intrusion and the choice for Pentecostalism by the ‘nuclearized’ families of village communities.

One of the many strong points of this collection is that it vividly shows the kaleidoscopic character of phenomena for which people use terms like witchcraft or sorcery. Almost anything seems to be possible: the stereotype for witches in many parts of Melanesia seem to be that they are ‘backwards and ugly’ (see Introduction, this volume), but in Thomas Strong’s contribution on Eastern Highlands of Papua they are envied because they live in a world that people describe as ‘highly ordered, flashy and modern’; Congolese Pentecostals suspect that witches now work through modern technology (Katrien Pype, this volume); but Bjørn Enge Bertelsen shows that they themselves can also be suspected—as in Mozambique where German Pentecostal

Framed by an ambitious introduction, this book contributes importantly to the literature on modernity and the occult by highlighting the workings of Pentecostalism in that relationship.