Vodoo, Juju and The Ancestral Powers Part 1

My paternal uncle in the village, a self-acclaimed wizard sometime in 2007 after patrimonial disagreement, threaten to use “MBAIM” on yours truly. MBIAM is a highly feared voodoo or “juju” in my native place which is believed to possess powers to terminate the life of an individual or strike the designated person with an incurable ailment. As stubborn and disbelieving this Son of David right here has always been, I told him to go and pour the Mbiam and do his worst. Many years passed and here I am.

Sometime last year, I decided to pay a traditional visit to my kinsmen in the village to acknowledge my ancestors, spirits of the land and greet all and sundry and make amends with the kinsmen. My kinsmen are of royalty lineage called “OBONG” in my native dailet, in other words I am from a family of OBONGS and MKPON-OWO (Big and powerful people or ancestors). Like tradition demands, I took along the necessary gifts which included the African she-goat.

After much lengthy talks, I presented my gifts to the “EKPUK” (kinsmen), shockingly, they rejected them, telling me they’ll have to think about it before receiving them. I was passively angry and lashed back at them with witty proverbs and sensational rhetoric which threw them into guilt and self-defense saying they are not rejecting my gifts, but rather the entire EKPUK is not present at the moment, but we should fix a date to make it very official and traditional, and I agreed to it.

On the set date, on reaching the large ancestral compound, a “busy-body” who is kind of related called me on side to gossip what was happening behind my back. He told me that a few of them out of fear of me, went to consult voodoo or an oracle to find-out whether my gifts were poisoned or meant as a trap to kill them. As ridiculous as it sounds, I laughed so hard, that he pleaded with me to reduce my voice. He went ahead to enumerate that my paternal uncle (the self-acclaimed wizard) took my name to a native priest sometime ago to hurt me, but the juju instead told him “IBOK ISI TAGHA IBOK”, translation “Juju doesn’t feed on another juju”. According to him, since then, my uncle has been on the leash to spread to anyone who cares to listen that I am a WIZARD or whatever. Again, I busted into an uncontrollable guffaw, and he really felt uncomfortable with it begging me not to disclose this to them. He went ahead to enumerate how their consultations to the oracle went: when they asked the oracle whether I am wizard, a member of some occult and if I possessed some spiritual powers or whatever, but the Oracle never responded with a yes or no. All the oracle told them was that, I had no intention to hurt them and my gifts are neither poisoned or charmed.

After all and sundry was prepared, one of the elders stood-up and spoke saying : “We initially weren’t sure about these gifts; these days a lot of things happen, young men do not allow elders sleep at night all in the name of SECRET SOCIETY. So we went to pray about this and…..” before he could say anything further, the rest of the elders interrupted him and one of them said “we are not into long talks here. All what you’re saying is unnecessary, we are happy for this our son here, who has come to his home to acknowledge us, let’s just get into business”, the rest agreed in unison, like they were avoiding something.

My eyes eventually made contact with the gossip guy and his eyes were like saying “I told you”. Isn’t it laughable when a self-acclaimed wizard calls someone else a wizard? I am no fan of superstitions and fairytale, but this is what I’ve come to learn about these things:

First all, the mind is a substance of great power, where the power to wield good and evil lies in it thereof, those who tap into it en mass will wield great power…..

Part 2……………….

Quran science 1: The earth is flat and the mountain is it’s anchor

One of the dumbest statements one will hear a muslim assert is “The quran is a book of science or scientific truth”. The quran like any primitive book of religion is fraught with medieval science and illiterate assertions. Like the bible, the quran claims the earth is flat and even went ahead to claim that the mountains are anchors or pegs used to clip the earth from loosing its balance. Here are some of the verses:

 

Quran 15: 19 And We spread out the earth, and placed mountains as anchors in it, and in it grew all things by a proper measure.

 

Quran 78: 6-7 Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse, And the mountains as pegs (anchor)?

 

The funny thing is that the muslim asserts that the quran was not written by any human but Allah. Isn’t it amazing to see that Allah had no knowledge of science? Allah was sure that the earth is flat like a carpet and mountains are there to anchor the earth so that earth does not shake with us. Allah really needs to take science classes.

 

This illiterate medieval mentality is what people in the 21st century call a book of scientific truth. Islam more than any religion has the highest numbers of illiterate followers. Many of them do not read the quran, they only hear what the Imam or whoever that is tutoring them has to say. The Imam uses pseudo-scientific explanation for dummies and out-right lies to decieve the ready-made illiterate.

 

Even the few educated ones bank on claims from self-acclaim Islamic scholars who still do the same thing, using pseudo science and illiterate twaddle to hoodwink the folks. How can anything truthful describe the earth as flat and spread-out like a carpet? 

God(s) ought not be thanked

The theist and religious may in their customary routine find it desirous to appraise the sky-daddy on their birthdays, in fact some of them do that everyday, owing it pledgeful to thank some God as a gratitude for bestowing life on them. Their plight, I understand very well, for in my times of “religitardness”, I thought same, but now, I am free from such idiosyncrasy.

Many will consider themselves very BLESSED or recipient of some kind of GRACE, BENEVOLENCE and MERCY from whatever they consider as God. This indeed, I thought as much when my senses was under the administration of indoctrination and fable tales.

Contrary to what the religious thinks of his being alive, the truth is that being alive is a CURSE; a burden of the flesh. Better is the unborn than the born or the living. Even the dead is better than the living. The be alive is a burden; the burden of paying bills, the burden of working hard, the burden of gossip, the burden of prayers, the burden of hopes/wishes and disappointment, the burden of sickness and escaping death, the burden of enmity, etc. While the living is on the conscious fight of trying to postpone his death sentence, he doesn’t want to come to terms with the reality that being alive is like being a criminal whose death sentence is pending and could be decided anytime and anywhere.

The religious more than anyone is convinced that his being alive is indeed a gift from God. This indeed is a misconception from medieval consciousness and mentality of religious indoctrination. How can you call something that would be taken from you willy-nilly a GIFT? This is a skew-whiff understanding of what a gift is. A thing is considered a “GIFT” if it’s yours forever. If you claim someone gave something to you as a GIFT, then he’ll come back later to take it from you, how is that a gift? The foremost characteristic and attribute of a GIFT is that the recipient of this GIFT has an autonomy over this said GIFT, but if you ask the believer he’ll assert “MY LIFE IS OWNED BY GOD”. If your life is owned by a God how does that make your life a GIFT from God? The notion is irreconcilable.

“There is no greater happiness than freedom from Worry, and there is no greater wealth than contentment”, says Lao Tsu. Who is truly a man of contentment, great happiness and free from worry? If you ask this Son Of David here, I’ll give it you succinctly that the unborn and the dead are truly the happiest of all, for they are free from worry and are absolutely contented in their state, for there is no greater wealth than this.

I have no deity to thank, other than nature. I did not ask to be born, neither did I apply for life on earth, if at all there is a God that is responsible of my being, he owes me an apology for bringing me here without my consent, for sending me to this place under duress and without sheer negotiation with me. So what the heck do you mean by I should be grateful to someone who I haven’t seen and whose name has caused more mishap than cocaine? He should have said to me “Hey Son Of David, do you wanna be born a Nigerian, do you wanna be born in the 1980s, do you wanna be born tall, short, fat, Hindu, etc? He sent me here without my consultation, approval and consent. In real sense, if that God you people refer to exists, he owes me apologies and payment of damages in excesses than I owe him a single thanks.

Well, I am here now on this planet, so I’ll do the best of my living to the uttermost surfeit of my essence. I live life creatively and make an art out of my existence. Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. Succinctly, I make art out of life.

“Hey Son of David how can say that, you have blaspheme God, blah blah blah…”, the religious may say. Bertrand Russell said “.. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence”. It’s not “god” that will take offence to what I’ve said it always humans. And here is another one to the religious: “If there is a god maybe it rewards those who don’t believe on the basis of insufficient evidence―and punishes those who do.”
― Peter Boghossian.

“Son of David why is that you like saying these things against God and religion?” The irritated may ask. Well, this is why: My friend, I don’t know how to pretend, that is a fault from God! I never wanted to be irreligious or an unbeliever, I just wanted to read the bible and all the so called holy books then applied my common sense, well, here I am.

“Everything God has made has a crack”~Ralph Waldo Emerson. So if you claim God made me and knew me before I was conceived, I think he already knew that this Son Of David right here will be this way, so he loves me the way I am, after-all you claim he knows the end from the beginning. Well, it’s a good thing that he is imaginary!

The religious man is one who holds one book (which he has barely read) to be sacrosanct and infallible and closes his common sense to anything that refutes it. The difference between this Son of David here and the religious is that I have read the bible, quran, book of Mormon, Tripitaka (the sacred book of Buddhism) and many others. I can confidently tell you that “GOD” is an invention of man. All those books are hokum and gobbledygook. Well, I’ll excuse the Tripitaka because it has some sense than the bible, quran, and  book Mormon. I have studied extensively on the personalities of Buddha, Mohammed and the biblical Jesus, I can confidently say that all of them (if they existed) have trends of psychos and schizophrenic patients especially Mohammed. Buddha was more learned, philosophical, reasonable, humbled and well-mannered than the other two.

Dreams and Superstitions pt3

Dreams are just dreams, they aren’t called “DREAMS” because they are real. if it were real, nobody would have called it a DREAM. What happens in the dream stays in the dream.  Dreams are ways of the mind playing games on us, it is simply the subconscious expressing itself. If you dream of yourself holding money, no matter how real and good it feels, you will never wake up with a dime.

When a man sleeps, he is analogous to a car on auto-drive without a conscious driver or chauffeur behind the wheels or the steering.  Like the car without a driver, the mind tours to wherever it pleases and regurgitates images that are already registered in the subconsciousness.  For example, a man who watched a porn video or desirous of a particularly attractive lady is likely to dream about sleeping with a woman, maybe not that same day, but as long as his mind, the subconscious has captured the event and image, the likelihood of the subconscious replaying it to him in different forms is very high. It may not replay to the person the exact way the porn video appeared, but it may make up an image of any beautiful or sexy woman to comprehend his deepest desire and fantasy.

Some people may say they never watched any porn neither do they desire to have sex or lust after anyone, like I heard a religious lady argue, trying to assert that having sex in the dream is DEMONIC or a so called SPIRITUAL ATTACK. She even went ahead to enumerate that she hasn’t had sex in a long time and does not even desire to. The truth is that those who claim they not have sex in reality are more likely to have sex in the dreams than anyone else. The reason is that, their inability to satisfy their innate human want which is sex, has forced their body to get it for them unconsciously or through the subconsciousness. Sex is a human necessity, whether you deny it or not. It is part of the subconscious. When you willfully deny your body this for any reason known to you, your subconscious, which is naturally configured to be sexual and responsive to the innate desire will pick up images to the mind while its asleep (auto-drive), to satisfy its lust and innermost silent crave. There is no “SPIRITUAL ATTACK”, or whatever about it, it is simply nature playing itself.

Others claim that getting married in the dream is demonic. This is highly superstitious and illiterate. Religion which thrives on fantasy, fear and superstition has buried this medieval buffoonery into people through the pastorpreneurs who are out to capitalize on everything. If one should observe very well, those who have these kind of dreams, are desperate singles who are hungry for marriage and the warmth of a spouse. Once your mind gets disturbed about a thing and desires it so much, the subconscious naturally receives it, and in  its desire to create a balance in the mind, it releases the fantasies and desires of the individual via dreams to saturate the mind and ease the burden of desperation and discomfort on the consciousness of the person in question.

The same goes to a man that is broke or in dire need of money. Poor people, among many other things will dream of having money, driving cars, or whatever they desire so much. This is simply their mind in its subconsciousness level of operation doing justice to the individual’s wishes. Some people in many cases who are inundated with sobriety, hopelessness and low self-esteem including pessimism, will naturally have have dreams depicting of poverty, disappointment and hopelessness, because their pessimism has over-shadowed everything about them. These things are practical common sense and psychology of the subconscious at work, and not some superstitious witchcraft or whatever as the pastorpreneurs portray them and put fear in the minds of people just to reap from their ignorance.

Only the illiterate, fearful, ignorant and superstitious fall prey to these absurdities.

pt 4…………..