Jamaican Christian leaders have expressed strong opposition to the campaign to abolish the Ober Law of the People, warning that legalizing spiritual customs in folklore will open the door to “confusion” and demonic forces.
The pushback follows the efforts of the Unchi Foundation, a nonprofit African spiritualist group that advocated decriminalization of OBEAH on Tuesday night prior to the constitutional hearing and advocated for the vigil. The foundation says its mission is to empower and heal people of African descent through African knowledge traditions, including Obea.
Obeeh, a set of Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices, blends elements of African tradition with Christianity, and has historically been used for healing, protection and divination, but is also associated with rituals that some critics use to harm others or to protect criminal conduct. Church leaders opposed to legalization in Jamaica warn that such practices can burn violence, empower criminal elements and invite what they call demonic influence.
Bishop Alvin Bailey, president of Jamaica’s Evangelical Alliance and project director for Jamaican church groups, told the Jamaican observer that the practice is injuring Jamaican society despite its illegality.
“That would be the worst and most disastrous decision this country could make if they decided to legalize Ober,” Bailey said. “We believe that the devil and the devil are behind many of these actions. That’s why you hear that an authoritative man is out of control and seeking divine intervention.”
Bailey warned that decriminalization would burn practitioners and increase social harm. “Legalizing Obeah is creating unprecedented confusion,” he said, adding that the pastor views it as a responsibility to resist the move.
He described the practice as broad, saying that people from any parish could find a practitioner in their neighborhood Ober, and that the spell they cast “destroyed people’s lives in many ways.” Bailey said church leaders are actively praying to these forces, believing that they lie behind acts of violence and deviance.
Other pastors reiterated Bailey’s concerns. Bishop Rowan Edwards, a ministry in the Lighthouse Council, told observers that the church must take a strong stand to prevent voodoo from pursuing legally recognized Haiti. Pastor Darbert Simmons of the Spanish Town Minister’s Brotherhood said Ober remains dangerously influential, citing testimony that some criminal groups use rituals to protect gunmen and justify violence.
The Jamaican Ober Act, enacted in 1898, makes it illegal to assert supernatural powers with penalties, including fines and imprisonment, or use Ober tools.
