Like everyone else, I received small leaflets in my mailbox with advertising messages praising the talents of a Marabout Medium Sorcerer who promises wonders. And like many, I made fun of these stupid tricks. I will never be trapped. And yet….
Winter 2004. I am 21 years old. I am kind, well-mannered, friendly, intelligent and single. I’m doing my internship in a luxury cosmetics company…the dream! I meet Ch there… A beautiful friendship is established…. She put me in contact with a boy I met on the Internet. “You will see (she told me) a great guy!”
It all starts with a cat… We talk a lot. He is older than me and studies cinema. We’ll meet in Paris. First kisses. Magic. We stay together for two months. I am attached to him but he is lost and wants to break up. I cling to this ideal. I want to believe in this impossible love. Scene of hysteria in my student room. For nothing in the world, I don’t want to lose my Man.
I transfer my despair to Ch…., my new confidante. She asks me to come with her… for a clairvoyance session. I’m skeptical. She explains to me that this psychic was recommended to her. She wants to win back a man, with whom she had a brief relationship four years ago. She seems convinced of a possible return of her loved one. She explains to me that she has already had several sessions with this psychic and is delighted.
I let myself be guided, blinded by grief.
Beauvais station. A guy in traditional African costume, tall and fat, is waiting for us. It’s the marabout. I cringe. I don’t feel uncomfortable. The next train is in thirty minutes. Everything is mixed up in my head. Ch… nods at me as encouragement. I follow her from a distance. We arrive at the consultation location. It’s an unsanitary building… I don’t have time to react, as I’m led to a cramped room, serving as a consultation room. I am surprised by the dozen photos that litter the floor. The marabout is quick to reassure me: “cases [settled]” he tells me. He motions for me to sit in the old chair across from him. Like an automaton, I do so. He makes me talk. I cry. He consoles me and declares that everything is not over with R… but that we must “do it quickly”.
The notion of Time is very important in the concept of maraboutism. The consultant must avoid any reflection. The pseudo urgency of the situation blinds the consultant’s choices.
I pay “cash” the 50 euros requested for the consultation. We return to the station. The marabout insists “hurry up and make a decision. We must act quickly.”
I called the marabout that same evening. I am caught in the spiral. A year has passed since this first meeting with Mr. D.
R… and I always see each other once or twice a month. These furtive encounters fill me with so much joy that I probably don’t realize that I am only a “fucking friend” for him. It’s degrading and yet that’s what I certainly am to him: someone he likes [friend] and with whom he makes love (sex)… without romantic feelings, but friendly all the same. So I am not a fiancée, nor a girlfriend; just a person with whom he has a sexual friendship!
I continue to build castles in Spain…
In one year, the marabout gradually replaced my friends, whoabandon them, one after the other. The marabout warns me against them. He designates so-and-so as the enemy.
Of these friendships which are being scratched, there remains today a painful wound, which only Time will heal.
I call the marabout every day. Every day the same refrain: “buy me phone cards for Africa […] it’s 100 euros for this work”
My phone bill is very high. My parents are mad at me. I lost ten kilos. I no longer have the strength, become touchy. I am nothing more than a shadow of myself.
The occult works follow one another, without success. The marabout, sure of his power over me, pushes me to the limit. I have to lie down and… This session, which has also multiplied, should make it possible to consolidate the links between R… and me and stir up his sexual appetite. Every time I lie down it is torture, a real ordeal. Intolerable. The marabout then puts himself on top of me….., This disgusts me. I am “dirty”.
It is only today, almost five years after the events that I can finally put a word on what happened to me. It’s rape….
Spring 2005. I’m cracking up. I find the only bottle of alcohol in my apartment, leftover from a housewarming party, and ingest the liter of liquid, mixed with a few medications. I call the marabout and threaten to call the police. He panics and calls in my friend Ch… who then lives about a hundred meters from my house. The firefighters arrive. I’m delirious. They take me to the hospital…
Did he feel that I was slipping away from him? Still, the marabout attacks my family. He tells me that he can bewitch them. I gradually let go.
My year of study is coming to an end. I’m going back to my parents…
R… leaves me messages on my answering machine, under the influence of alcohol. It’s hurtful. I then realized, two years after our meeting, that he is not a Prince Charming…. The marabout, for his part, left to settle in Guadeloupe. He calls me and asks me for 1000 euros for the deposit for his accommodation. I have the strength to hang up on him: a great first in 2 years!
December 31, 2005. Virtual meeting with J…. It quickly becomes real and we go out together on January 21, 2006. I succumb. I am still fragile, on edge. I’m leaving for Strasbourg…, . There I meet another J…, a college friend, never seen again since the end of the Brevet. We have a quick flirt together. I blame myself. I cheated on the man I was with. It will be months before we put the pieces back together. I thank J…, for his patience and the gentleness he showed me.
The word gravity is not strong enough to express what is harmful in the consequences of maraboutism. It is bankruptcy, decline…. I consider myself lucky. Today I want to testify so that my story does not happen again. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Juliette (Var)
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