Latvian MP Nataļja Marcenko-Jodko has hired a prominent local witch and ‘healer’ as her aide, data on the country’s parliament website shows. Her name is Sanita Petere, but she is more commonly known as the “White Witch.”
In responding to Latvian media, Petere insisted that the country’s parliament – the Saeima – was just the right place for a woman in her line of business.
“Can’t a witch be in the Saeima?” she said. “I think we are very important and useful in politics,” adding that many of her ‘colleagues’ are actively involved in the political life of the country.
The new MP's aide is no stranger to politics herself, having unsuccessfully run for parliament and been previously nominated for the welfare minister role by the For Stability! party.
Petere is perhaps best known in the country as a self-styled healer and lithotherapy practitioner. The ‘therapy’, also known as ‘crystal healing’, is an alternative-medicine practice that uses various semiprecious stones and crystals to purportedly transform a body’s aura, flushing out bad energy and replacing it with good.