Dear Editor,

Please permit me to comment on Ms. Michelle Stoby's response captioned "Obeah is a reality of the West Indian Region" (25.3.2002) to my letter captioned "A morbid fear occasioned by useless ceremony and exploitative claims of the ability to control spirit forces" (l8.3.2002).

First of all congratulations to Ms Stoby on having recently completed her undergraduate (1st Degree). Keep on writing, Ms Stoby, in time to come literary courtesy will replace the exuberance of youth.

But on examination of the matter at hand I find your response seriously lacking, in that I never in my letter attempted to "interpret" anything that brother Kwayana wrote nor to comment "contextually". What I did was to concur or agree or accept totally his opinion as stated; then by the phrase "and suggest further" I signalled my total divergent and independent opinion on the subject of obeah and its claim to efficacious value.

The great controversy of my letter is not whether obeah is good bad, demonized, credited or discredited by propaganda, prejudice, resentment or belief. The proposition is contained in the ninth to twelfth lines of the third paragraph of my letter which asks for evidence that obeah was able to produce "some evil consequence" or supernatural manifestation good or evil. The authorities to which Ms Stoby refers say nothing to reconcile this quest.

If some European militarists were chased helter skelter off the field of engagement, or are "readily admitting that some of these defeats were linked to obeah" they were defeated by nothing more than a morbid fear of the "bogey man behind the door", whether they be Europeans or my next door neighbour.