There is a morbid fascination with the occult and its cousin, cults — one that intrigues the mind and opens a trapdoor of prejudice born from misunderstanding. The idea that evil can be orchestrated through supernatural forces has long held a peculiar grip on the public imagination. In South Africa, a country with layered belief systems, contested histories and deep social wounds, this fascination often transforms into fear, and fear into moral panic.
The Devil Made Me Do It, by Nicky Falkof, steps into this fraught territory. It is not a salacious catalogue of South Africa’s most violent occult crimes, nor an attempt to embellish for entertainment. Instead, Falkof offers knowledge, insight and a respectful, pragmatic account of some of the country’s most poignant occult and cult cases. Her approach is measured and deeply human, acknowledging how belief, fear, desperation and inequality can converge in ways that produce acts of astonishing violence.
Falkof does not sensationalise, nor does she shield sensitive readers from the gruesome details of occult and cult-related crimes. Her writing is clinical where it needs to be, empathetic where appropriate, and analytic throughout. Shaped by Falkof’s work at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, this book reflects academic rigour without losing accessibility, making it readable for anyone interested in understanding the complexity behind these crimes.
Across nine chapters, Falkof examines cases that span decades of South African history. She begins with the 1920s’ murder of a child mistaken for a tokoloshe, a case that reveals how colonial misunderstandings of African belief systems shaped the early legal responses to occult crime. From there, she moves through South Africa’s satanic panic, muti murders and cult killings, weaving a thematic narrative. Each chapter stands alone, but together they form a powerful mosaic of violence, belief and misunderstanding.
A central thread running through the book is the law and how South Africa’s legal system has grappled, often clumsily, with crimes linked to the occult. One of the earliest and most influential cases, Rex v Mbombela, forms a cornerstone of Falkof’s analysis. Described as case zero for occult-related legal precedent, it involved the killing of a child believed to be a tokoloshe. The court’s handling of the case revealed the profound cultural blind spots of the colonial judiciary and set a benchmark that would echo through decades of case law.
Falkof argues that one of the key issues at stake is how South African law defines the reasonable man and how this standard can introduce cultural bias into legal reasoning. She writes, “Dhumi Mbombela’s tragic mistake thus became part of an arsenal of legislation that suppressed and criminalised black South Africans’ eminently reasonable resistance to apartheid and white domination.” The quote captures the structural irony at the heart of occult-related crimes. Culture itself became a point of criminalisation, even when belief systems were being misinterpreted or dismissed by those in power.
Mbombela’s case, however, is only one example of how the legal system has struggled to interpret occult crime without imposing external meaning. Falkof’s discussion of the satanic panic of the 1980s and 1990s, years shaped by anxiety about social change and rising crime, illustrates how misinformation created a climate of suspicion in which any unexplained act was quickly attributed to satanism. Schools, churches, police stations and newspapers all contributed to fuelling the panic. This environment paved the way for the creation of one of the world’s only specialised units dedicated to investigating occult crime: the Occult-Related Crimes Unit, better known as Ocru.
Falkof is at her sharpest here. She questions how a country as culturally diverse as South Africa could attempt to investigate occult crime through a unit shaped largely by Christian worldviews. She writes, “Sending in Christian policemen, with bibles blazing alongside their guns, will not help to find out what pushes people to perform these types of acts, especially when belief in muti and witchcraft is not unusual in South Africa, or to prosecute them.”
Her critique is pointed and vivid, illustrating the limitations and contradictions within the system meant to police these crimes.
The book’s deep dives into some of South Africa’s most violent occult-related crimes are not for the faint-hearted. Falkof revisits the Krugersdorp killings, carried out by a small cult-like group under the sway of Cecilia Steyn, who presented herself as a fearless Satan-hunter ordained by God. Falkof approaches this case with restraint and care, unpacking how manipulation and the promise of spiritual warfare fused to create an environment where murder became rationalised as righteous duty.
She also examines the stabbing of Keamogetswe Sefularo, another crime labelled a satanic killing almost immediately by the media. Falkof highlights how the press’s rush to categorise the crime fed into the existing national panic and overshadowed the complex psychological and social factors that may have contributed to the tragedy. It is one of the clearest examples in the book of how narrative can overtake evidence.
Collective panic and spiritual manipulation are explored again in Falkof’s account of Lethebo Rabalago, the so-called Prophet of Doom from southern Limpopo. His bizarre practice of spraying insecticide into the faces of congregants to purge them of evil became a national sensation. Falkof not only describes the practice but also reflects on how charismatic authority, economic vulnerability and communal hope can converge in ways that enable harmful acts to flourish. Her account shows how state institutions, including the health department, eventually intervened to stop the dangerous ritual.
The brutal murder of six-year-old Bontle Mashiyane is among the book’s most devastating chapters. Allegedly linked to muti killings and vigilante justice, it is a chilling example of how violence, poverty and desperation collide in communities long neglected by the state. Falkof writes, “Bontle’s vicious, heartbreaking and ultimately pointless murder was yet another example of our perilous state of inequality, in which the rich eat the poor, sometimes literally.” Her analysis reinforces that crimes rooted in superstition are worsened by South Africa’s entrenched socioeconomic failures.
The eighth chapter recounts the brutal and frenzied attack on Phumeza Mnyamezeli by her husband and two adult children in what was claimed to be an exorcism, leaving her “lifeless and mutilated on the living room floor”. Falkof examines how certain churches can perpetuate harmful belief systems. In this case, the church that seemed to endorse the idea of possession largely slipped out of the public spotlight, leaving the tragedy largely unexamined.
Across the book, Falkof is determined to demystify occult crime and strip away the exaggerated power often assigned to it. Without dismissing the influence of belief systems, she shows how many so-called occult crimes reflect deeper societal issues, including gender-based violence, inequality, community fragmentation and the actions of individuals with a psychological predisposition to harm, who use the occult as a form of explanation or disguise.
Each chapter is a considered and interconnected part of a larger whole. Falkof offers a nuanced understanding of the cultural, social and political forces that shape occult crime. Her work invites readers to look beyond the sensational and towards the human, reminding us that the real horror often lies not in the supernatural, but in the failures and fractures of the society we inhabit.
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