Traditional medicine recognizes three possible causations of misfortune, unfortunate conditions and events. The conditions and events discussed here are either by chance or beyond human control, meaning preparation, caution, practice, etc. could not prevent them. Examples include (but are not limited to) being struck by lightning, death, job loss (not due to performance), crop loss, loss of livestock, robbery, abuse (emotional, financial, physical, sexual, and spiritual), life threatening sicknesses, accidents, etc.
The three possible causations of misfortunes are:
1. To create a balanced life
Sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain
Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain
Many men (5O cent)
It’s unfortunate that to truly value anything in life one must first appreciate its absence. The reason is simple: familiarity breeds contempt. Most human beings take oxygen for granted because it’s always there, it never runs out. Some people don’t even know where oxygen comes from because they don’t pay for it, and don’t really need to do anything to create it. Hence, deforestation and global warming because people don’t see the value in the trees they didn’t plant – because familiarity breeds contempt.
When a person is in a long-term relationship with a partner that loves them unconditionally (meaning, no matter what they are put through, they still stay). The most natural human response is to take that person for granted by cheating on them (and or abusing them) because familiarity breeds contempt.
You never love anything or anyone unconditionally (except for babies and cute pets). Whenever you do, it’s a sign that you lack boundaries and standards. Or if you do have boundaries, it’s a sign that you are not enforcing them.
Having something in perpetuity, with no conditions, breeds contempt and makes a person lose interest in (or a desire for) the thing. Misfortunes create a sense of lack and / or loss. Lack and loss are critical because they create desire and yearning, which give life meaning.
When a person does not have something, they desire it. When the desire is strong enough, it pushes the person to draft a plan and take the necessary steps to achieve the desire. This is also true with loss. When one loses something, they yearn for it. When the yearning is strong enough, it pushes one to take action.
In this case, misfortune becomes the counterbalance to the norm. Its role is to stir up feelings of desire for a diametrically opposite circumstance as well as cultivate feelings of gratitude and appreciation for life.
2. Atonement and ancestral healing
A miasm is an inherited condition. It can be physical, mental, emotional and or spiritual in nature. A miasm does not just affect the infected person, but it affects the person’s family and their entire lineage. The person infected with a miasm usually experiences some type of misfortune, e.g., a sickness.
A well-known example of a miasm came from Adam’s disobedience in the garden of Eden resulting in the fall of mankind. Because of the first man’s sin, sin entered into the rest of mankind. Adam’s son Cain killed his brother Abel, because sin begets sin. Many generations later, Jesus was born to atone for the sin of Adam and to restore mankind.
When a person gets an ancestral calling, they become possessed by the spirit of idlozi, an ancestral spirit. Amadlozi (plural for idlozi) are the spirits of people who have died after an illness. These spirits are usually of a paternal relative or maternal relative. A possession by an ancestral spirit is a type of miasm, as evidenced by the treatment. Whenever a person is possessed by idlozi, the remedy is a ritualized physical, emotional, and spiritual purge known as ukuthwasa in Zulu. Ukuthwasa is a process of healing intwaso, a condition associated with an ancestral calling that is characterized by various kinds of illnesses, dreams, and psychiatric disturbances. To heal intwaso, the infected person has to undergo an initiation to become a healer. Becoming a healer doesn’t just heal the infected person, but it also heals the family unit and the entire ancestry.
3. Bewitchment
This one is due to human nurture. Even though human beings came from something good, God. We live in a world that, according to the bible, is ruled by Satan. Hence, by nature human beings are good, but by nurture humans are diabolic to the bone.
Witchcraft is what happens when a person with a lack of self-control gets jealous. It’s right up there with battering (physical abuse), rape (sexual abuse), and gaslighting (emotional abuse). Witchcraft is a form of spiritual abuse and just like gaslighting and other forms of emotional abuse, you can prove them. But unlike emotional abuse, you cannot tell or report it to anyone, because witchcraft does not exist.
When a human being with no moral compass sees another human being with something they deem should belong to them, all bets are off. Witchcraft is the use of occultic knowledge and concocted medicines to manipulate a person energetically (or spiritually). The manipulation can remain at an energetic level, however in most cases it manifests physically as a series of unfortunate events and conditions.
When a person learns to see conditions and events as working for them and not against them. Misfortune ceases to exist, and the person begins to see every condition and event as an opportunity to live up to their potential. Human beings are created by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God, no human being will ever truly live up to their true potential because of the inherent physical limitations of the human body. However, “misfortunes” are meant to give human beings a glimpse of the unlimited “God” potential in them. So, instead of dreading misfortune, embrace it and allow it to reveal the God-ness in you!!