Pakistan Moves to Ban Black Magic
A bill approved by the country’s Senate in March would impose prison terms of up to seven years and thousands of dollars in fines on people who provide a vaguely defined set of supernatural services.
Spiritual practitioners worry that a range of esoteric practices will be targeted in this deeply religious and culturally conservative country. They point to the inherent difficulty and danger in policing belief, and say that the legislation risks conflating spirituality and superstition with con artistry and criminality.
The bill, which now moves to the lower house of Parliament, would require spiritual practitioners to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which would decide which activities are outlawed.
Aiysha Mirza, a Lahore-based spiritual healer who blends tarot cards, birth charts and hypnotherapy in her practice, said that the ministry “cannot understand what I do.”
“The government needs to broaden its perspective,” she said. “What we really need is a new Religion and Metaphysical Authority.”
Pakistan is no stranger to spiritual contradiction. A nuclear-armed state with a highly wired population, it is also a place where political leaders consult holy men before taking office and where television anchors read horoscopes on prime-time news shows.
Everyday believers — many of them highly educated — seek solace in a mix of religion, ritual and metaphysics, even as orthodox Islamic scholars have long declared astrology, palmistry and fortune telling incompatible with faith.
Shabana Ali, a tarot reader who has a steady following among professionals in Islamabad, the capital, said she had no intention of registering with the government.
“I’m not interested in being judged by clerics who think in binaries — haram and halal, real and fake,” she said.
In legislating belief, Ms. Ali said, “you’re not just regulating fraud. You’re deciding what kind of spirituality is allowed.”
In India, several states have passed anti-superstition laws, often after gruesome cases involving exorcism or sacrifice. In Saudi Arabia, the religious police have pursued people accused of sorcery, in some cases leading to their execution. But rights groups warn that laws targeting spiritual practices — often vague by design — can be weaponized.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/world...magic.html
A bill approved by the country’s Senate in March would impose prison terms of up to seven years and thousands of dollars in fines on people who provide a vaguely defined set of supernatural services.
Spiritual practitioners worry that a range of esoteric practices will be targeted in this deeply religious and culturally conservative country. They point to the inherent difficulty and danger in policing belief, and say that the legislation risks conflating spirituality and superstition with con artistry and criminality.
The bill, which now moves to the lower house of Parliament, would require spiritual practitioners to register with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which would decide which activities are outlawed.
Aiysha Mirza, a Lahore-based spiritual healer who blends tarot cards, birth charts and hypnotherapy in her practice, said that the ministry “cannot understand what I do.”
“The government needs to broaden its perspective,” she said. “What we really need is a new Religion and Metaphysical Authority.”
Pakistan is no stranger to spiritual contradiction. A nuclear-armed state with a highly wired population, it is also a place where political leaders consult holy men before taking office and where television anchors read horoscopes on prime-time news shows.
Everyday believers — many of them highly educated — seek solace in a mix of religion, ritual and metaphysics, even as orthodox Islamic scholars have long declared astrology, palmistry and fortune telling incompatible with faith.
Shabana Ali, a tarot reader who has a steady following among professionals in Islamabad, the capital, said she had no intention of registering with the government.
“I’m not interested in being judged by clerics who think in binaries — haram and halal, real and fake,” she said.
In legislating belief, Ms. Ali said, “you’re not just regulating fraud. You’re deciding what kind of spirituality is allowed.”
In India, several states have passed anti-superstition laws, often after gruesome cases involving exorcism or sacrifice. In Saudi Arabia, the religious police have pursued people accused of sorcery, in some cases leading to their execution. But rights groups warn that laws targeting spiritual practices — often vague by design — can be weaponized.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/world...magic.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
