ABSTRACT
Although the malevolence of the supernatural is primarily expressed in disease causation it is not the case, despite the fact that certain types of disease are attributed primarily to the action of supernatural only, that most illness is caused by supernatural. According to one traditional doctor, supernaturally caused diseases consist preponderantly of eye trouble, intestinal ailments, and madness. The supernaturals cause illness, it will be recalled, from either anger or malevolence. Typically, a nat causes illness as retaliation for having been ritually neglected or insulted. The first diagnostic task is to determine whether the patient's symptoms are naturally or supernaturally caused, for the therapy differs for each of these broad classes of illness. Basically there are five types of therapy: simple curative propitiation, simple curative magic, a combination of propitiation and magic, exorcism without a seance, and, finally, an exorcistic seance. The first three are used almost exclusively for physical, the latter two for mental, illness.
