Hal and Orin on the phone: JOI's suicide (pp. 243–244)
‘The new Discursive O.E.D. says the Ahts of Vancouver used to cut virgins’ throats and pour the blood very carefully into the orifices of the embalmed bodies of their ancestors.’ […] ‘Apparently the Ahts tried to fill up ancestors’ bodies completely with virgin-blood to preserve the privacy of their own mental states. The apposite Aht dictum here being quote “The sated ghost cannot see secret things.” The Discursive O.E.D. postulates that this is one of the earlier on-record prophylactics against schizophrenia.’
Context
Hal, clipping toenails into a distant wastebasket during the first Orin–Hal call (5 Nov YDAU), deflecting Orin with burial-lore trivia pages before the brothers finally enter the suicide itself. The Aht dictum is epigraph-grade for the whole wraith system: the dead must be fed and managed or they see your secrets — which is exactly what neither Incandenza son ever did for their unmourned father. Planted as trivia; on reread it's the book's ghost-thesis stated outright.