08/08/2025
I did often wonder how God as the ultimate source of wisdom found a certain noteworthy amount of wisdom in a serpent until I began to appreciate its singular ability to shed its skin and get renewed. As I thought of that experience it occurred to me that the best of us sometimes still haven’t learnt to shed weight and reinvent. One telltale sign of the need to shed skin in the human experience is that certain negative circles keep reoccurring in your life. Those who practice Eckankar or believe in the A.T.R concept of reincarnation will explain that negative circle as a type of occurrence that happens as a carryover from your past-life. That position makes sense to to the adherents of such belief system because of the cyclical patterns. But one of the pitfalls of such kind of externalization is that it can leave a great number of humans in a position where they cannot take an introspective look at their own life and self-check for legitimate flaws in their character that powers that circle of affliction or limitation. When the serpent begins to feel old and slow it doesn’t look at any external factors as the cause of her sloppiness . The serpent immediately begins a process of skin shedding and ends up completely renewed. A great number of us will never seat down and check out for our own personal flaws. We like to tell ourselves that other people are the problem because it makes us feel better about ourselves. But if we start taking responsibly for ourselves the circle often ends when we fix our own skin and experience the pleasure of newness that emanates from new pathways that delivers a new and better set of results .
In more ways than one I do believe that curses are not a figment of human imagination but are a real time reality for both Africans and people of all races races,color and creed. Only that the tendency to attribute all negative experiences in our human experience to the handiwork of a curse is a flawed way of thinking that leads us to apply wrong measures as lifeline and solutions.
I hail from a majority tribe in the Edo north senatorial district of Edo state Nigeria. Among my people (Esan Tribe) there’s a ritual where a man or a woman is required to perform a ritual seclusion for a number of days and they are required to do away with the normal routine of eating from a clean plate, sleeping in a clean place, socializing, wearing clean clothes etcetera . That ritual includes a ritual-humiliation of the individual in the market square or other public places. The Process culminates in a night time excursion of the individual to a defined place at the entrance of the community’s farm-road entrance and there they pull off their mourning clothes and all the objects and utensils the individual had used the entire time.
The reason for the whole ritual for example could be that a young man is working so hard at their craft but is unable to save the profits of their labor or on certain occasions it could be a young woman who repeatedly has met with only abusive and narcissistic men in the history of their romantic engagements. These and a number of other misfortunes could lead a native doctor in my clime to recommend or prescribe “ A Mourning And Humiliation Ritual “
The idea is to humiliate the individual because of a wrong that they did in their past life that has earned them the misfortunes of their current life. The individual has to suffer for a certain period of time to atone for their wrongdoing in a past life. One of the objects they carry through out the experience is a wooden bow and arrow to shoot at the spirits from their past lives that are enforcing their misfortune in their present lives.
Without even bringing my Christian beliefs to the fore I do in retrospect find legitimate loopholes in the said practice. For one; The sheer negligence of the victims actual character flaws. The young man shows up in the house of a native doctor with a problem of “an inability to retain his wealth or money”, legitimate questions are not really raised in the discuss about things like; the presence of a money draining habit like; gambling, womanizing, Savings plan, extended family sponsorship ….etcetera .
That woman with a track-record of encountering narcissistic men could be legitimately suffering from a chronic psychological case of “ Mother Theresa’s syndrome”
And If she learns to put a balance on her charitable inclinations,her negative circle is broken.
Why should a ritual be the resort for a young woman with a malevolent and obnoxious personality when she’s simply the inspiration for any abuse that comes to her from her romantic interests who struggle to hold their temper together when the woman’s character spills-over.
Even pastors cannot deny the fact that a great number of exorcism doesn’t really produce the intended change in a possessed person many times.
This in no way reduces the legitimacy of that initial deliverance. It rather speaks to a need for the spiritually liberated individual to consider their own innate loopholes in order to keep the human side in check and keep the demons out .
Like the serpent….. we shed habits,weights,greed,pride,lust,anger,stupidity and the likes.
I constantly evolve….
I live and learn
Nelson Onaiwu
