Devil-Esu is a harmful deity which is sent by other gods to cause trouble. It cannot kill a person but leads people into danger and temptation.
In the olden days image of the deity is kept in a niche at compound gate in order to keep evil things away.
EviI-Ikpata is an evil spirit living near the roads, believed to be able to seize people by means of fatal disease or accident.
In the olden days sacrifices put in a bag, together with a viper’s skin, suspended from a root of the tree are offered to them. Human beings possessing the evil spirit are called Out-Ikpata-evil people. Evil can also be abated with certain ceremony (bi-Isusu).
Evil denotes disorder, both physical and moral. The purpose of evil and the relationship between physical and moral evil is a variety of positions with regard to the causes of evil.
There is a variety of positions with regard to the purpose of evil, especially physical evil. On the relationship between physical and moral evil, there are also several possible positions with direct link such as physical violence, dissipation, passions, moral irresponsibility and theory of divine punishment.
In order to appease the devil not to spoil things, cause confusion, trouble, violence and worries in the realm, masquerader would be adorned, and its appearance would scare the Devil.
The indirect link for instance, are human wickedness symbolized by physical evil.
Witchcraft is an image of implacable unrepentant human wickedness. It is an inborn power to harm others secretly. Witchcraft takes the place of the Devil and is thought to be a child of the devil. It strengthens the sense of helplessness in front of evil. The only defence is retaliation. This strengthens enmity and fear.
Witchcraft beliefs form an intellectual theory which cries out for verification through accusation and conviction. The theory derives its power from authority that accept it and from witch finding institutions which confer social approval on the process of applying the theory.
The belief is that there is an organized cosmic conspiracy of evil. Witchcraft beliefs are a collective nightmare, systematically contradicting all the positive values of society. They act in the reverse way that a human being acts.
Outwardly, witches are like ordinary people. Inwardly, they have a secret alliance to evil. They can make themselves invisible and hold secret covens. They fly through the air on the backs of night birds and are associated with scavenging animals.
Beliefs feed on popular rumours and fears. There is no question of repentance or forgiveness but only a despair of goodness, a direct encouragement of enmity, envy, tension, insecurity and rendering of evil for evil. Only with increased pluralism and the decline of traditional social institutions, does a choice of explanation appear and the possibility that witchcraft theory can be challenged.
Popular beliefs about witches and demons were linked in people’s mind. It was believed that some people made pacts with the Devil and practiced infanticide and cannibalism.
The witch craze flickered out with witch trial by ordeals-iyin and with the enlightenment the fabric of witchcraft theory was exposed.
Witchcraft accusation is an outlet for repressed hostility. It establishes the accuser’s innocence and dramatizes accepted and un-accepted social norms. It makes it easy to account for secret crimes, without the need for evidence.
What is needed is an enemy, an inexplicable misfortune and the verdict of a diviner, oracle or ordeal; and can be used to discredit a political rival, equation of authority and evil power.
Though witches are feared, suspects sometimes confess to being witches. This may be the only way a depressed or subordinate individual can enhance a status and accepting the imputation; may be the only way a suspect can retaliate against the accuser.
Witchcraft eradication or cleansing is a form of collective finding and mass purification. Preaching the gospel and blackmailing people into attending public sessions in which instruments of witchcraft are handled.
Eradication removes the fear of witchcraft and strengthens the fear considerably. Consequently, eradication is also the basis for religious movements that are world cleansing.
Walpurgis night is the eve of the first of May, when witches according to certain culture, rode on broom sticks and he-goats to hold revel with their master the devil because first day of May is the day St. Walpurga is remembered from about 778 C.E.
Evil is wicked, mischievous, disagreeable, unfortunate, that produces unhappiness, calamity, harm, wickedness, depravity, caused by one who does evil-the evil doer.
Conversion occurs not in the very acceptance of any message but in the more fundamental act which is made possible by an interior gift accessible to every human being. Ordinary acceptance of response to the workings of grace is the basic transcendental conversion.
A person comes in the objective reality of every day life both in the involvement of action and in the intellectual activity of thought and comprehension.
He is actualizing as the condition which makes possible such involvement of action and in the intellectual activity of thought and comprehension as the condition which makes possible such involvement and comprehension of inconceivable and incomprehensible fullness of reality. This fullness in its original unity is at once the condition of possibility both for knowledge and for the individual thing known objectively.
This possibility was called “ground of our being, the ineffable holy mystery” hence the medieval philosopher had defined “As the sun is present to lighted air, so tong as it is lighted, so God is present to whatever is, so long as it is.”
This means that the existence of anything is as a result of God in it; that there is God in everything. “not one shall flee, no survivor shall escape, though the break through to the nether world; even from there my hand shall bring them out. Though they climb to the heavens, I will bring them down. Though they hide from my gaze, in the bottom of the sea, I will command the serpent there to bite them”.
The result is the total change of heart and mind that leads a person to think a new and live a new lease of life.
It was also clear that the one God is the Universal God recognize by all human persons in all cultures. It is divine that all who devote to God hears and understands in each and every one’s language, and in their daily activities in their culture.
Spirit possession is basically a belief that a spirit (evil or good) is submerging someone’s personality so much that the person affected performs actions conforming to the identity of the spirit.
The identity and character of the spirit depends on the particular context. There is a mystical geography in specified places to which the devil and evil spirits have movements in the roost of culture.
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