Reflections Without Mirror: The Power of Emere ( Ogbanje) or Familiar Spirit. Niyi Aborisade
Emere, Ogbanje ( Familiar Spirit)
Emere, according to Yoruba belief are special children that possesed demonic power. They are known as children who can travel between heaven and earth at will. This is because Yoruba believed that these children have spiritual groups in the firmament. There was the belief that these children attends meeting regularly with their group beyond our terrestrial atmosphere. Their colleagues are celestial beings, and it is part of Yoruba mythology that some of them were already married or were betrothed to some of the members of their group.
Emere is different from Abiku, in that whilst all Abikus would die young, Emere may grow into adulthood and sometimes may refuse to die, they can through some spiritual efforts break rank with their members and stay put. Some times they may fall in love and refused to die and leave their lovers, this may bring about positive confessions and deliverance in churches or other spiritual means, it depends on the faith of the parents or which religion they belonged. Some traditionalists claimed to know how to prepare a load of the Emeres ( won a di eru egbe fun) to appease his or her group to release him or her from their membership.
Before sharing a true life story about a suspected ‘ Emere’ that I know, I have tried to check the scriptures and researched the Ifa Oracle as well to see if there is a specific reference about these special children in them. Bible talked about witchcraft and demonic powers but did not specifically mentioned ‘Emere’ apart from the book of Act 16 vs 16 which says” it happened that as we were on our way to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave -girl who had a spirit of divination [ that is demonic spirit] and brought her master much gains by divination”. This slave girl possessed an extraordinary spirit and can see things that an ordinary person can not see. She possessed demonic power. This is the only area in the bible that I can relate to the existence of ‘Emere’, which Yoruba talked much about in their tradition.
There was one Odu ifa, which I researched that is related to it too. I will try to recite here the Oracle, first in Yoruba and then translate it into English. ( Oyeku Ogbe)
‘ Iji a ji, a ko jire
Isun a sun, a ko sunre
Ebo Oyekumeji la o mo,
A difa fun Orunmila, nigba ti o ko owo pamo sinu yara re;
Nijo to ti irin ajo de, o ri pe owo oun ti poora, o ko ro wipe awon omo awo lo ji ni, owo Orunmila wa npoora lemolemo
Orunmila wa fi eji kun eta , o wa ripe awon egbe orun, awon egbe Emere lo un ko oun lowo lo. Won ni ko rubo se riru ebo ni gbeni. Orunmila rubo awon egbe orun ko si ko owo re mo
[ in waking up, we did not wake up well,
In sleeping, we did not sleep well; it was because we were ignorant of the sacrifice of Oyeku meji;
This was the oracle that was divined for Orunmila when he kept his money inside his room;
When he returned from his journey, he discovered that his money had disappeared. He initially thought that his disciples stole it. However , his money was disappearing regularly;
Orunmila now added two plus three and now discovered that it was the Emere celestial beings that were responsible for the loss of his money; he was told to make a sacrifice because it is sacrifice that help someone to overcome his problems; Orunmila indeed made the sacrifice and the Emere stopped looting his treasury.]
From the above, we can see the characteristics of the Emeres, although it was not clear whether one of the children of Orunmila was the Emere that was leading his gang to steal Orunmila’s money but we can see what they are capable of doing. It shows that they have spiritual powers to carry out impossible mission that ordinary beings can not do. Orunmila’s money was not stolen physically by the Emeres but through spiritual means, they located where he kept his money and made it dissappeared. With all the power of Orunmila, he couldn’t find who did it until he consulted his oracle.
They Emere can be spending their parent’s money through sickness as well. Some of them may have made a vow with their gangs to die on their wedding day. There were so many evil things that the Emere could do in their community. In fact, they are not known for good things, although it was rumoured that they can protect their loved ones in a way but they will still make him or her cry anyway when it was time of their sudden depature.
Some tough teachers who beat ‘Emere’ can run into problems. They can use beautiful girls amongst them to test and destroy people in the ministry by luring the pastors into fornication and silencing them completely. Many pastors who were victims of the Emere are out there nursing their wounds. So many things are attributed to them. There were confessions of many Emeres in crusades in the 70s and late 80s, and it was like there were competitions in many churches about how many Emeres were manifesting and confessing under their ministries
I had a junior sister who was late, she told us how she became part of our family, she confessed to us how she met my father at….. to be continued.
Niyi Aborisade is a lawyer, a Human Rights Activist and a historian.
