It may not be wrong to say one of the major root causes of crimes, poverty, poor healthcare, suicides, killings and avoidable deaths today in the world is superstitious beliefs mixed with severe psychological manipulation, religious and spiritual delusions that often lead to family members abandoning their loved ones; especially their parents for fear of being bewitched, doomed or suffered from the delusional curse or spell superstitiously believed had been placed on their parents or loved ones, and this act, do also lead to the accused family members committing suicides or being banished, beaten, or even killed by jungle justice, and inline with the numerous cases documented globally and locally, we have seen where individuals have committed murder or caused death due to acute spiritual delusions, which in psychiatry, these are often diagnosed as cases of religious psychosis, schizophrenia, or clinical lycanthropy, where the perpetrator cannot separate objective reality from spiritual hallucinations, this may interest you to know that in August 2025, at Atwood Lake in Ohio, United States Of America, USA, an Amish mother obviously suffering from a severe spiritual delusion, drowned her 4-year-old son in Atwood Lake, investigators revealed that both she and her husband believed God was speaking directly to them, demanding ritualistic tasks to prove their worthiness, and as such, she explicitly told the police that the Lord wanted her to perform the sacrifice, this may not also be different from the case of a 22-year-old Nigerian and an engineering student named Benjamin Obenim, whose life seems to heavily revolved around his church, who suffered a sudden psychiatric break in 2025 after his family initially mistook his erratic behavior for a standard demonic attack rather than a medical issue, allegedly driven by the delusion that his mother and sister were witches spiritually plotting to destroy him, he, as a result of that, attacked his family, resulting in the death of his mother but he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia under clinical custody, it maybe recalled that one of the most famous historical cases of spiritual psychosis in the United Kingdom, UK, was the murder of Robert Dadd in 1843 by his son, the English artist, Richard Dadd stabbed his father to death on account of a delusion that his father was actually the devil in human form, and that he had been chosen by God to battle the forces of evil, this act, made him to spend the remainder of his life in psychiatric facilities, and in 2008, a passenger inside a Greyhound Bus in Canada, Vince Li killed a stranger, Tim McLean, Li claimed that the voice of God told him McLean was an alien or a demon, and that if he did not kill him immediately, the man would come back to life and kill everyone else on the bus, and one of the most recent cases of crimes caused by superstitious beliefs occurred on Friday, 9 May 2026 at Umuezeali area of Awo-omamma community in Oru East local government area of Imo State when Micheal Akujiobi killed his uncle and two other elderly people on the ground that they were the evil forces behind his misfortunes and problems in the family, the suspected murderer who said he returned from Lagos state to his country home in 2018 to wage war against spiritual forces so that his father’s name wouldn’t go astray, confessed to killing three people, identifying the first victim as his father’s senior brother and his uncle, Joseph Akujiobi, the other victims were  another man and a woman, during his interrogation, the suspected murderer said when he was in primary school, he could read and write very well, but, along the line, he was no longer brilliant and thus he believed his uncle was the evil forces behind his academic misfortunes and other setbacks in life, accordingly, the suspect said he came back to kill evil people who do not want the younger ones to grow and succeed in life, adding, he was acting under the instruction of the spirit of God to eliminate evil people in the community, the suspect who admitted of previously selling indian hemp in the community, seems to be unremorseful despite the gravity of his actions, insisting he had won the battle, and he knows the consequences of his action according to the law maybe death penalty or condemned to life imprisonment, Michael Akujiobi did not allege any specific personal wrongdoing, financial dispute, or physical abuse committed by his uncle against him, instead, he framed the attack entirely around generalized spiritual warfare and occult cleansing, his action may not be unconnected with existing cultural superstitions and psychological manipulation regarding spiritual hygiene, occult warfare, and familial curses, this, almost in a similar situation, men of the Nigeria Police Force in Anambra State in March 2022, arrested ‘Juju’ Priest among other people for assaulting, humiliating a woman accused of killing her husband simply because she slept or make love with another man, according to the Nigeria Police Force, its men arrested a ‘juju’ priest, Anthony Obanye over the beating and nakedness of a woman round community in the state after she was allegedly accused by the native doctor of causing the death of her husband through infidelity, the then Anambra State Police Commissioner, Echeng Echeng, said the juju priest who is not a trained medical doctor confessed of administering herds to the deceased before he died, the Police Commissioner also said Anthony Obanye also confessed he was the one that told the family of the deceased that his wife was responsible for the death, saying, the said husband had been sick, instead of taking him to the hospital, investigation revealed  that his brother, Mr Udalor took him to Anthony, a native doctor where Anthony confessed to having taken the decease on some spiritual cleansing and administered him some herds before he died, and it was Anthony who allegedly told the family of the deceased that the cause of his death was as a result of the wife’s infidelity, in contrast to existing cultural and generational superstitious beliefs wrecking havocs in our society today, Kelvin Chimaobi Emmanuel a.k.a Kel Armstrong Amobi, founder of KAA Truth Podcast on May 5, 2026 took to his social media accounts and said he set a bet to prove his mother wrong, that, his father who died years ago, was not killed by spiritual forces, rather, he believed his father was poisoned to death by enemies apparently within family, according to him, “We were not just financially poor, We were mentally colonized by superstition, their debias and prophets told them, as I grew, I faced serious setbacks, I felt like I was fighting spiritual forces but I kept learning, I kept evolving, and then I began to see things clearer, when I began to succeed, the family thanked God and concluded that I was simply the one the juju could not catch, they said God has chosen to save me, but what kind of a God saves one out of many when he has the power to save all, it was the kind of God that superstitious beliefs created”.

Verbatim, Chimaobi said; “I Placed A Bet Against My Mother’s Belief. I Won. This is a private family matter but my desire to pull someone out of a mental prison is stronger than my desire for privacy. So I will share. I was born into poverty. Not the soft kind. The cruel kind. The multi-dimensional kind with different faces and different names.

No one in my entire family’s bloodline ever owned a car. No one had meaningful wealth. No one attended university. No one held any position of consequence. No one ran a thriving business or understood how wealth is created. They had all sat on the passengers seat of survival and driven by their beliefs that wealth was beyond them. We were not just financially poor. We were mentally colonized by superstition. I was born into it.

When my father died, I was a very little boy. The family consensus was that enemies had spiritually killed him. But I believed he was simply poisoned. They also believed those same enemies had locked the destinies of his children, ensuring none of us would amount to anything. Their debias and prophets told them. My two older brothers believed it. My mother believed it. Everyone believed it. Except one rebel. Me.

And my rebellion was not even a sophisticated one. I did not have the theology or the philosophy to argue against it. I was just a stubborn little nobody who refused to accept that anything had the power to trap him. That was the whole arguments. Pure, irrational stubbornness.

As I grew, I faced serious setbacks. I felt like I was fighting spiritual forces but I kept learning. I kept evolving. And then I began to see things clearer. When I began to succeed, the family thanked God and concluded that I was simply the one the juju could not catch. They said God has chosen to save me. But what kind of a God saves one out of many when he has the power to save all? It was the kind of God that superstitious beliefs created.

That is when I sat my mother down. I told her plainly that no juju is fighting this family. What we are fighting is a generational curse born out of ignorance. Ignorance of how wealth is created. There is nothing spiritual about it. The enemy has no name and no face. It does not exist. She laughed. Said I was still a child in this area, regardless of how far I had travelled or how much I had seen. I said: fine. Let us bet.

If I was simply lucky to escape, then luck cannot be replicated. So I will take the last born son, raise him the way a father would, and pour everything I know into him. If he also succeeds, you will accept that the chain was never juju. If he does not, I will concede. She agreed.

I unofficially adopted my little brother when he was very young. I emptied myself into that boy. Equipped him with profitable skills. Today he is a big boy. Makes good money for himself. Sponsoring himself in university, building his own life. The juju could not catch me. It could not catch him either. I won the bet.

My mother now understands. The chain was never a curse. My forefathers were not cursed men. They were noblemen. They were simply men who believed a story that made them powerless, and they passed that story down like an inheritance. The chain was the belief.

I share this because many of you reading this are still inside that same battle, fighting invisible enemies, collecting evidence for a war that only exists in your interpretation of events. And the evidence feels real because you are refusing to analyze your situation critically or do anything differently.

In my family, those who still hold onto the superstition are still making the same mistakes and blaming invisible forces. Those of us who stopped believing it blame only ourselves when we fail. That accountability is not punishment. It’s a real responsibility. And responsibility is the road to the life you want. If you can defeat the superstition living in your own head, you can defeat anything outside of it”.