THE

AKWỤKWỌ

♑︎

Egwu

(Aka ga n'ihu)

FAMILY thought ghosts get their start by some one in a family thinking over some particular trait, feature, aim, misfortune of himself or his family. Continued thoughts add force and body to and make a more complete thing, a definite entity of the original thought. So far, there is only an individual thought ghost bearing upon a person’s family and its members’ traits of excellence or doom to misfortune. His thought communicated to other members of the family causes members of the family to value some of his deeds, be impressed, with the belief in the reality of the family trait or the certainty and warning of impending misfortune, or other feature in which the originator believed. The group of the thoughts of the family or clan centred around the particular feature of the family or clan, forms a family thought ghost.

One member is impressed by others with the importance and reality of the belief and then contributing his share of belief, adds to the strength and life and influence of the thought ghost.

Among family thought ghosts are such as the thought ghosts of the honor, pride, gloom, death and fortune, or financial success of the family. The thought ghost of honor starts with the doing of some praiseworthy, exceptional deed by some member of a family, which deed brought general recognition. Thinking of this deed continued, incites other members of the family or clan, to similar deeds.

The pride ghost has for its essence the thought of the family name rather than the thought of a noble deed and the doing of similar deeds. The pride ghost then causes those it influences to think of themselves being, as members of their family, better than others. It often prevents unworthy deeds which might injure the name or hurt the family pride, but often it has another effect by allowing iniquitous actions because covered by the family pride; and further, it tends to foster boastfulness and empty, unworthy conceit. The pride ghost is often good in its initial influence, but becomes a sorry and ridiculous affair in the end, when a person has nothing of himself to be proud of, but has only the family ghost of the name.

The family thought ghost of calamity begins usually by a pet theory of a person that something is going to happen. This theory extends to members of the family, and becomes a fact. Something then does happen. This supports the theory, and the thought ghost of calamity takes hold of the minds of the family. Usually the ghost manifests to them as forewarnings; they live in a gloom of apprehension that something is going to happen. That thought compels the happenings. The family nurses the ghost by noting and telling the many happenings of disasters and tragedies in the family. Little incidents are magnified and given importance. By this the ghost is nourished. This line of thought makes people impressionable and tends to the development of the astral senses of clairaudience and clairvoyance. If the warnings of impending danger or disaster are true, it is a question whether it is better to be apprised or not to know. These warnings are often received clairaudiently or through clairvoyance. They come as warnings by a certain wail that is heard, a certain sentence which is repeated and heard by one of the members of the family; or the family ghost will manifest as an appearance in the figure of a man, woman, child, or an object, like a dagger, appearing, or a symbol, like a cross being seen. Depending on the particular prophetic sign, sickness of a member, an accident, loss of something are indicated.

Warnings by a deceased mother or other member do not come under this head. They are dealt with under the heading Ghosts of Dead Men. But the calamity thought ghost can be made to appear by the thought of the living members of a family, in the form of a deceased ancestor or relative.

The family thought ghost of insanity may have its genesis in the pondering of one on the thought of insanity and connecting an ancestor with the thought, and impressing his mind with the thought that there is an ancestral strain of insanity. The thought may be suggested to him by some one else. But it will not have any effect unless he conceives in his mind the thought of insanity as a family strain. The belief communicated to and received by members of the family connects them with the ghost, which grows in importance and influence. If there be indeed a hereditary strain of insanity, it will not have as much as such a ghost to do with any particular member of the family becoming insane. The family insanity thought ghost may obsess a member of the family and be the direct cause of his insanity.

The death ghost usually gets its inception in a curse. The curse hurled at or prediction about a person or members of his family is impressed upon his mind and he builds up the mental spectre of death. When he dies or the member dies, the death ghost is established and given a place in the thoughts of the family and is nourished by their thoughts, as are the other family thought ghosts. The death ghost is fearfully expected to perform his duty in time, by officiating through some manifestation at the time the death of some one in the family approaches. The manifestation is often the breaking of a mirror, or other furniture, or the fall of something suspended from the wall, or a bird flying into the room and falling dead, or some other manifestation the family knows to be the sign of the presence of the death ghost.

The fortune ghost comes into existence through worship of the thought of fortune by a person. He becomes the head of the family. By his worship of the thought of fortune he makes connection with the money spirit, and becomes obsessed by this spirit. The money spirit is a separate entity and not the ghost of fortune, yet it inspirits and makes the family fortune thought ghost active. The thought ghost makes actual connection with the individual members of the family, and, if they respond to the thought demanded for the feeding and maintenance of the ghost, the fortune ghost will overshadow them and be the vehicle through which the money spirit will act. For generations this fortune thought ghost of the family will be a thing which will make the gold flow into the family coffers. But in order to have this continue for generations, the original thought ghost maker and worshipper will communicate to his descendant, and they will pass on the idea to perpetuate the ghost in the family, and so the particular means are passed on by which the accumulation is had. It is as though a compact were made between the family thought ghost and the members of the family. Instances of such families will readily come to mind. The name of the controlling entity is not known as family thought ghost of fortune.

Any family thought ghost will continue as long as it is nourished by thought from the members of the family. Persons outside the family can remind the family of the ghost, but only those of the family can perpetuate the ghost. The family thought ghost dies from lack of nourishment, or else it may be broken up or destroyed by one or more members of the family. Aggressive disbelief is not enough to destroy a thought ghost. That may put the particular disbelieving member out of touch for a time with the influence of the family thought ghost. To dissipate the thought ghost, something must be done actively and the thought must be contrary to the nature of the ghost. This doing and thinking by a member of the family will have a dissipating action upon the body of the thought ghost, and will also act upon the minds of the other members of the family and prevent them from giving maintenance to the ghost.

The honor thought ghost begins to be dissipated by dishonorable action and dissolute habits of some members of the family. The pride thought ghost begins to vanish when the family pride is wounded by one of its members, and in the case of foolish pride when one of the members of the family shows and insists on its emptiness. Fearless action by one of the members of a family in face of the ghost’s dire warning, is the sign for evanescence of the calamity ghosts. Other members see that they too may in like manner become free from the influence of the ghost. As to the insanity thought ghost, any member of the family may become free from it by refusing to harbor the thought that insanity is in his family, and by holding positively with sound judgment an even balance, as soon as he feels any influence suggesting a family strain of insanity. The death ghost disappears when a member of the family ceases to be afraid of death, refuses to be led into the state or under the influence suggested by the death ghost, and by showing other members of the family that his fearlessness of action has carried him beyond the time set by the death ghost.

The fortune ghost usually comes to an end when an excess of worldly possession has caused in the members of the family debauchery and ensuing physical and mental disease and sterility. The ghost ends before if the members fail to live up to the compact of worship they know of.

(Ka ga-aga n'ihu)