Spiritual husband, spiritual wife

Demystifying Chivanhu/Isintu/African Tradition
with Mbuya VaChinjanja Muroro

One of the bad spirits that have become common in recent years is popularly known as the spiritual husband or spiritual wife. This spirit mimics a real spouse or partner in that they become attached to a person as an alternative partner in every sense of the word. They are mostly nocturnal spirits that become active while someone is asleep. During the day, some migrate but others are present. They might or might not perform sexual intercourse with their victim. The objectives of these spirits depend on their source but the end result is that the afflicted person leads a tormented life.

The following are the sources of spiritual spouses
Ngozi or avenging spirit: This is a spirit of a murdered person that comes back to avenge his death and demands that the family of the perpetrator gives his family a girl child.
However, in terms of Section 94 of the Criminal Law (Reform and Codification) Act, Chapter 9:23, it is a criminal offence to pledge a female.
Families are getting around this by persuading the avenging spirit to take over the wife directly. Unfortunately, some families are also pledging where it is unnecessary to avoid making material compensation.
Witchcraft: This occurs when a person acquires a goblin for their material gain and allocates it a husband or wife to satisfy its demands. A goblin might also be pledged purely for witchcraft purposes shaisano or to block good spirits especially those intending to possess a medium. Another such spirit is night mubobobo where a person dreams of sexual intercourse or masturbation happening near them but not to them by either animals or humans.
Symptoms and consequences
Symptoms and consequences include dreams of sexual intercourse with an ex, a celebrity, colleague at work but generally with someone you like and therefore the intercourse is consensual. Some dismiss these dreams as wet dreams but a rational human being can distinguish between what is normal and not normal.
The dreams also go hand in hand with other symptoms and consequences such as being frequently jilted, breakdown in marriage, violent relationships, failure to perform sexual intercourse, mood swings, bad luck, loss of jobs or wealth and  people disliking or hating you for no reason.

Note that these symptoms or consequences do not necessarily mean one has a spiritual spouse but if they occur repeatedly then a person needs to find assistance from people qualified  in exorcism.  It is important to locate experts because trial and error angers this spirit more and it fights back.
-Article by Mbuya VaChinjanja Muroro. She can be reached on rmrmashamba@gmail.com