SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Religion And Human Relations

CONTRIBUTORS:

Madu, K.E;
Obiefuna, B.A.C;

ABSTRACT:

The modern man lives in a skeptical age, one which finds the very idea of personified evil spirits
to be a superstitious remnant of the Middle Ages. Those people or religious traditionists, who
believe in the existence of the demons, are often ridiculed as being out of touch with the accepted
trend. The contemporary Western mentality, is that demonic possession is merely the result of an
inadequate social environment or due to purely psychological factors; causes which can be
remedied with a social programme or medication. In this view, the only “exorcisms” necessary
are those which rid the society of poor social conditions, ignorance, or psychopathology. Yet,
even a cursory survey of most Igbo villages and cities reveals many explicit cases of sickness
ascribed to preternatural entities; sicknesses which defy the highly placed Western medicine. In
this study, Demon Possession and Exorcism: The Igbo Perspective, the researcher brought to
light the traditional Igbo belief that in addition to physical and/or psychical causes, illnesses,
have mystical origins. He established a relationship between physical realities and their
archetypical or noumenal underpinnings. Oral (primary) and written (secondary) sources were
heavily relied upon in data collection. Employing the phenomenological method of data analysis
and interpretations, this work explored themes like: signs of demonic possession; demonic legal
rights; differences between demon possession and psychological maladies; casting of evil spell,
which the researcher appropriately, termed demonic remote control phenomenon; the dynamics
of exorcism in the indigenous Igbo society, and so forth. Because only a designated section of
Igboland was investigated, these themes were highlighted using the area-culture approach. The
research upholds the finding that Igbo world-view is permeated by the understanding that
nothing happens without a cause. In that line, a benevolent being produces good effects, while a
malevolent being is associated with evil. Hence, ndị Igbo believe in spiritio-mystical causation of
sickness, allowing no room for chance; as opposed to the Western germ theory of disease. This
study suggested that humanity has to overcome its spiritual ignorance in order to be shielded
from unseen evil principles. In these intriguing pages, one will better understand the schemes of
the demons, the nature of demonic possession, and the path to deliverance from these nefarious
entities.