Dr Akhigbe

March 11, 2023

By NZB3

Interesting and rare bit of spam appeared on Anarchist History of New Zealand that I had to moderate. Instead of blocking the obvious rubbish I decided to take another approach and respond to it intelligently. But what to say about this?

A small Facebook page is trying to get attention for the purported Astrological and Psychic powers of one Doctor Akhigbe who is allegedly adept at helping women get their lost husbands back.

As a sociological student of magic I realised this was a bit interesting after all. The idea was that a woman had lost her husband to the spell of another and with the help of Akhibe she had cast her own spell and brought back her spouse!

The target of this spam is quite a primitive and simple-minded woman who really thinks it is magic and superstition that gives her value rather than an honest and intimate values connection to her husband. Because this is so primal there are bound to be plenty of idiots ready to think this way though and think that Akhigbe can help them win a Love Spell competition to get their guy back.

I’ve been reading Robert Briffault lately so I thought it was a passage of his that lit up in my mind. After flicking through the pages of The Mothers (e.1959) I realised it wasn’t him at all, it was Eric Ericson! Here is the passage I was thinking of where Magic meets Freudian psychoanalisis…

“In the boy, the emphasis remains on phallic-intrusive modes; in the girl it turns to modes of “catching” in more aggressive forms of snatching and “bitchy” possessiveness, or in the milder form of making onself attractive and endearing.” – Eric Ericson

“My husband was acting strange again then he left me so I decided to leave then I found Dr Akhigbe spell online I explain everything to him he told me to send his picture and full name then I did what he told me I should hold on that he will be back, then he came and said that my husband loves me but there is a woman who is trying to separate our relationship that is why she cast a spell on my husband but now we are living happy life again thanks Dr Akhigbe spell if you are also in a situation I advise you to dm him and check was the problem Message him on his page.” – Elizabeth Sarah to AHNZ

I intend to make heavy use of Ericson’s model of psychosocial development so it’s only right I read the source material. His developmental chart is widely known and used but I highly doubt many users these days have bothered to see how it was generated. It’s eye-opening!

The urge to “catch” and “hold” a man is a particularly female urge, Ericson says. So is the idea of compeeting with anther woman in that respect. So is the idea of a Love Spell.

It is interesting ‘Elizabeth’ turned to a male guru for help at being a woman though. Freudian interpretation suggests she doesn’t think she’s attractive to her husband. Or, in particular, that the intended target women who see this advertisement are people who think (or, rather, do not think) this way.

Freudians typically think women, by nature of their primary sexual characteristics, want to catch and hold things as based in the nature of anatomical femininity. If Briffault were writing about this he would probably have several etymological and ethnographical examples to back up this association. Yet even Ericson slips in the word “snatch” in the above quote which is a crude double entendre I’m sure he fully intended!

I don’t think the spammer is going to get much traffic by exploiting Anarkiwi comments sections. By giving me material for this post I’ve already received more benefit than they could ever extract. Maybe people who google for Doctor Akhibe will find this page and it’ll help them avoid being scammed by the Astrologer-Psychic.

The idea of Love Spells etc. is simply a female equivalent of male Pick-Up Artistry which also nets lots of money for exploitative scammers at the expense of broken people. Ericson would refer to the Crisis in question here as ‘Intimacy vs. Isolation’. Unfortunately there are many broken New Zealanders who have never Attached or had modeled for them a healthy human pair bond. They think of people of the opposite sex as objects to be manipulated, gamed, tricked and proceed about doing it. Scams like the above reinforce this mistaken and try to monetise it.

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