The Ghost Cults

87:3.1The ad­vanc­ing ghost cult made an­ces­tor wor­ship in­ev­i­ta­ble since it be­came the con­nect­ing link be­tween com­mon ghosts and the higher spir­its, the evolv­ing gods. The early gods were sim­ply glo­ri­fied de­parted hu­mans.

87:3.2An­ces­tor wor­ship was orig­i­nally more of a fear than a wor­ship, but such be­liefs did def­i­nitely con­tribute to the fur­ther spread of ghost fear and wor­ship. Devo­tees of the early an­ces­tor-ghost cults even feared to yawn lest a ma­lig­nant ghost en­ter their bod­ies at such a time.

87:3.3The cus­tom of adopt­ing chil­dren was to make sure that some­one would pro­vide of­fer­ings af­ter death for the peace and prog­ress of the soul. The sav­age lived in fear of the ghosts of his fel­lows and spent his spare time plan­ning for the safe con­duct of his own ghost af­ter death.

87:3.4Most tribes in­sti­tuted an all-souls’ feast at least once a year. The Ro­mans had twelve ghost feasts and ac­com­pa­ny­ing cer­e­monies each year. Half the days of the year were ded­i­cated to some sort of cer­e­mony as­so­ci­ated with these an­cient cults. One Ro­man em­peror tried to re­form these prac­tices by re­duc­ing the num­ber of feast days to 135 a year.

87:3.5The ghost cult was in con­tin­u­ous evo­lu­tion. As ghosts were en­vi­sioned as pass­ing from the in­com­plete to the higher phase of ex­is­tence, so did the cult even­tu­ally pro­gress to the wor­ship of spir­its, and even gods. But re­gard­less of vary­ing be­liefs in more ad­vanced spir­its, all tribes and races once be­lieved in ghosts.