Paper 87 Overview: The Ghost Cults

The ghost cult began as a way for early humans to deal with bad luck and fear of the dead. People believed that ghosts could cause trouble for the living. This led to many religious practices to avoid or please these ghosts.

Over time, these ghost beliefs grew into more organized religions. The ghost cult helped mankind start moving up in religious development. It was based on fear, but it pushed humans to eventually look for a real God instead of just fearing spirits.

The ghost cult started because people needed to explain why bad things happened to them. Their early religious practices came from their fear of bad luck and of the dead. These beliefs were not about honoring higher powers or gods. They mainly focused on how to avoid, drive away, or control ghosts.

The ghost cult was like an insurance policy against disaster, not a way to gain future rewards. Humans struggled for a long time with their fear of ghosts. This fear actually helped people begin moving up in religious thinking. People's imagination would not stop searching until they found the idea of a true God.

People feared death because it meant another ghost was released from a body. Early humans tried to prevent death to avoid dealing with new ghosts. They worried most about ghosts during the time between death and when the ghost left for the spirit world.

Early people thought ghosts had special powers but not much intelligence. They tried many tricks to fool ghosts. Even modern religious people hope their outward religious acts will please God. Primitive people feared sickness as a sign of coming death, and they destroyed houses where death occurred.

In religion, the negative practice of pleasing ghosts came before positive worship. The first religious acts were about defense, not respect. Modern humans buy insurance against disasters, and primitive humans did the same by trying to please ghosts.

Early people believed ghosts wanted to be quickly laid to rest so they could go to the ghost land. Funeral services started as a way to help the ghost soul leave. People provided food and clothes for the ghost's journey. They observed silence after a death and sometimes hurt themselves as a form of mourning.

As the ghost cult grew, it led to ancestor worship. Early gods were simply glorified humans who had died. Ancestor worship connected regular ghosts to higher spirits and evolving gods.

Ancestor worship started more from fear than from respect. The custom of adopting children began so someone would make offerings after a person's death. Most tribes held yearly feasts for all souls. As time passed, people began to see ghosts as moving from a lower form to a higher existence, and this led to worship of spirits and gods.

Ghost fear was the source of all world religion. For a long time, many tribes believed in just one class of ghosts. They taught that people had good luck when ghosts were happy and bad luck when ghosts were angry.

As time passed, people began to recognize higher types of spirits that weren't connected to specific humans. The idea of two kinds of spirit ghosts developed around the world. This belief in both good and bad spirits was a major advance in religion and human thought.

Early humans viewed spirits and ghosts as having many rights but no duties. Spirits were thought to watch humans constantly fail in their spiritual duties. People believed ghosts demanded constant service as the price for not interfering in human affairs.

As the ghost cult grew, it became more complex with worship of higher spirits. Primitive humans paid more attention to bad ghosts than to good spirits. They thought human success made evil spirits jealous. People tried to look ugly or poor to avoid spirit envy, and they avoided complimenting things they loved.

As ghost cult beliefs progressed, people tried to find ways to control spirits. Early humans felt helpless against the forces of nature. This feeling of weakness drove them to look for ways to even the odds in the struggle between humans and the universe.

In early days, humans only tried to please ghosts by offering bribes to avoid bad luck. Later, they began trying to force spirits to cooperate. They developed many methods to fight ghosts, including cutting off heads, stoning death houses, and burning bodies. Eventually, they used one spirit to control another in the practice called exorcism.

The cult type of social organization continued because it provided symbols for preserving moral feelings and religious loyalties. Cults grew from "old family" traditions and became established institutions. Every inspiring ideal looks for some lasting symbol, and cults meet this need.

From the beginning of civilization, every social or religious advancement developed a ritual or symbolic ceremony. The cult preserved emotion but often blocked social progress. It's hard to create a new cult from scratch - they must grow naturally. Despite their problems, cults serve important purposes in human development.