Spirit Attachment, Possession and Visitations & Psychics, Exorcists and Spiritual Healers:

How does the former group create challenges for the latter?

This topic deals in part with people who are invaded by spirits which either attach themselves to a living person or possess them.  By what you just read you could possibly conclude that Saint Patrick was possessed by the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity. Psychiatrists and psychologists, who believe that there is no soul, spirit or afterlife, entirely reject the notion of spirit possession or attachment. They instead refer to such mind states as delusions arising out of mental disorders. On the other hand, the most saintly, devout and mystically inclined religious people are usually in a nearly constant state of prayer or meditation actively seeking to deepen their connection with the Divine by inviting the Divine to enter into their hearts and guide and protect them. They sense the Spirit of God is within them. Accordingly, one could argue that such people, like Saint Patrick, are possessed by the Spirit of God. Such devout persons believe that they are presently part of the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within them.

On the other hand, there are other entities ranging from well-meaning disincarnate spirits, to not well-meaning disincarnate spirits who intend to harm living humans, to outright ferociously evil spirits who destructively seek to attach to or possess living human beings. For thousands of years Shamans and Medicine Men and other priestly class members of indigenous peoples have practiced forms of exorcism. Buck Ghost Horse, a California-based Medicine man I met in Berkeley in June, 1985, explained to me how disincarnate spirits of alcoholics possess living alcoholics drinking in bars just to be able to feel the alcohol buzz again. Buck Ghost Horse, who is quite psychic, was then working closely with Matthew Fox, a renegade Dominican priest who had written a number of books, one of which was entitled Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths and Twenty-Six Themes, (1st Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam Edition, San Francisco, 2000.)

Buck Ghost Horse told me that he could see invading spirits enter through the Occipital Ridge at the base of the skull into one or more alcoholics sitting and drinking at a bar, possess them, induce them to get into a nasty barroom brawl and then depart after the drunken alcoholic had gotten into a barroom fight and been knocked unconscious by a barstool that struck him in the head. He said there’s not much that can be done to help such depraved persons unless they seek help.

The Catholic Church for its 2000 year history has used exorcism for depossessing evil spirits. In the early centuries of the Christian Church a lower order of ordained priests was engaged full-time in performing exorcisms. Prof. Stafford Betty in his section on Spirit Attachment and Possession of his book, When did you ever become less by dying? (at page 72), stated that, “A great deal of Jesus’ ministry was devoted to exorcising ‘evil spirits’ or ‘demons.’. Seven specific accounts in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) show him casting them out of their human victims. And St. Paul wrote to the early Christian community in Ephesus that their struggle was not so much against worldly powers but ‘the spiritual army of evil in the heavens.’ All over the Developing World right down to the present day, ‘spirits’ both good and bad, are taken for granted as realities which share our world and sometimes must be dealt with. Depossession rituals are commonplace throughout South and South-East Asia, Central and South America, and sub-Saharan Africa; and there is no place in the world where they are unknown.”

Considerably more detail on spirit possession can be found in Talking with the Spirits: Ethnographies From Between the Worlds by Jack Hunter and David Luke, Daily Grail Publishing, Brisbane, Australia, 2014. These anthropologist co-authors tell us that they “treat the subject matter [of spirit possession and mediumship] as if it is real [and has] been borne out elsewhere, or at the very least the opinions in the informants and host cultures have been respected and collected with care, like precious cargo not just superstitious folly.” (Book Review from The Journal for Spiritual and Consciousness Studies, Vol. 37, Number 4, October 2014, pages 265-268.)

Now some modern day therapists with mediumistic skills – practicing what could be called a form of Alternative and Complementary Medicine – assist their patients in detaching and depossessing unwanted spirits. Sometimes the patient does not even know that he or she is possessed. One time about ten years ago someone I know well was caring for his dying wife and the poor man was so exhausted that he nearly died himself. It is quite common for exhausted caregivers to predecease their chronically infirmed spouse. So he went to see a medicine woman and complained that he had suddenly lost most of his energy and didn’t know what was going on. The clairvoyant medicine woman observed that the concerned disincarnate spirit of the man’s mother was so worried about her son dying of exhaustion that she, seeking to be of assistance to him, attached herself to him and unknowingly began living off his highly depleted energy. The medicine woman telepathically and gently persuaded the disincarnate spirit of the man’s mother to detach herself from her son. After she did so his energy levels spiked back up to normal almost instantly.

If you talk with any member of the Spiritualist tradition you will be told that spirits are everywhere living humans dwell. Haunted houses are a case in point. Clairvoyant and clairaudient psychics, almost all of whom are also mediumistic give spiritual readings routinely and while doing so see and converse with spirit beings. Some are disincarnate spirits of their client’s parents or other deceased relatives. Some are Spirit Guides. Some are Ascended Masters. Some are Angelic Beings. It is quite common at the end of Spiritualist worship services for the mediumistic minister to go into trance and channel disincarnate spirits whose descendants are sitting in a nearby pew as devoted parishioners. Not infrequently, the person whose spirit the Spiritualist minister is channeling will later be referred to as a commonplace, “worried dead Granny”.

It is not at all unusual for spiritual healers or energy workers who are clairvoyant and clairaudient to notice a small group of disincarnate spirits quietly walk into the room following the client and then just stand there silently observing the healing process. Sometimes they will ask the spiritual healer or energy worker to announce their presence and convey their well wishes. It is entirely possible that the same small group of disincarnate spirits will show up about the time that same person is dying. But this time that feeble person near death will likely recognize them because he or she may well then be having a Deathbed Vision.

Madge Rowe is a 95-year-old British Spiritualist and spiritual healer I have known for nearly 20 years who lives just west of London, England. She also heals her clients’ sick pets and is able to locate and determine the physical condition of lost dogs and cats. A few years ago Madge was able to locate the lost dog of Susan Myatt, one of my late wife Sarah’s nurses, and predict the exact date on which the dog and Susan would be reunited.

Madge’s late husband Reginald was also a spiritual healer and spiritualist. According to Madge, since his death in 1988 he has been a Psychopomp whose function is to escort recently deceased souls from the earth plane to the spirit realm. His specialty, she said, is to help the disincarnate spirits of persons who have met sudden and shocking deaths often as a result of fatal accidents. Reginald indicated to Madge telepathically that such persons are often unaware that they have died and believe that they are still living. Madge told us that Reginald’s function has been to tactfully inform these earthbound newly disincarnate beings that they are now living in spirit form only and then, having persuaded them of the reality of their disincarnate status, to escort them to facilities in the spirit world where they might stay and receive healing and whatever additional attention they require until they are able to adjust to their afterlife status.

When Madge does ‘hands-on’ healing she checks each of the patient’s seven chakras (energy centers in the body) and then, based upon her chakras diagnosis – plus the information provided by the patients about their ailments – and whatever guidance she receives from her Spirit Guides she concentrates on those areas of the body which seem to need healing by sending energy through her hands.

When Madge conducts healings over the telephone she places an empty chair facing hers and imagines that the patient is sitting on that chair facing her. In her mind’s eye Madge can sense the patient’s body sitting there right in front of her. She places her hands on each side of the patient’s head and then slowly starts scanning down the body from head to toe. Her hands pass by the forehead, throat, chest, solar plexus, sacrum, and base chakra, then down the legs to the knees and feet. As if Madge has x-ray vision she is able to detect the problem in the body in need of healing. She then moves her hands next to that part of the body needing healing and sends energy into the patient’s body. Sometimes one treatment gets the job done, but more often it takes several additional healings.

Madge, like a multitude of other spiritual healers – whether they practice ‘hands-on’ or ‘distant’ healing – prays to her Angels and Spirit Guides to assist and empower her. Madge believes that sometimes when she detects areas of her patient’s body in need of healing that her healing energy is amplified by the intervention of her Angel or Spirit Guide. She has a deep confidence that her Angel not only knows in advance what is the cause of the patient’s illness, but also where healing energy should be directed to help cure it.   Additionally, Madge’s Angel or Spirit Guide will inform Madge if there are problems Madge did not discover during her scanning of the patient such as an underlying emotional problem or block. Also they give advice telepathically on herbal supplements or other remedies that can assist in the patient’s healing.

Sometimes when Madge is feeling exhausted, distraught or burdened with an illness of her own one of her favorite Spirit Guides, an Arab named Acefi, shows up literally riding on his big white horse.  Madge said that Acefi has remarkable brown eyes. He never gets off his horse but soon after arriving he sends Madge healing energy. When he does her revival occurs instantly. She finds his presence always uplifting and she can feel the power of his love for her and can hear his encouraging tone of voice.

Acefi once informed Madge that he and she had worked together during their past seven lifetimes, before he became a Spirit Guide. In the first lifetime they came to know one another many centuries ago. Madge lived with her father in Cornwall, located in Southwest Britain. One day two Arabs came and kidnapped her and took her back to Arabia as a slave. When they returned to Acefi’s home she was branded on her right arm.  Gradually Acefi became very fond of his slave, Madge, and he impregnated her. Acefi’s mother disapproved of her son Acefi’s affection for Madge so one time when Acefi was traveling away from home she sold Madge who never thereafter in that lifetime saw Acefi again.  Sadly, she died a few months later during childbirth. In her present life Madge has had a dark mark on her right arm where she had lifetimes before been branded. Her husband Reginald in this life time, who like Madge, was quite psychic, once noticed that birthmark and informed Madge that it was a brand mark from a prior lifetime when she was a slave. In this lifetime Madge said she has always been afraid of being lost and since childhood she also felt that somebody was coming back to her. In the latter instance that person could have well have been Acefi.

Madge told me that during the many decades she worked in hospitals she discovered that more than half of the mental patients were demonically possessed, but the Medical Doctors consistently refuse to believe that such is the case. Madge also said the percentage of mental patients in prisons who are demonically possessed is even higher. Usually when Madge is treating a patient who she senses is demonically possessed she would contact by telephone close friends of hers, a husband and wife couple named Mack and Terri McKean who resided in Sterling, a different city in England, to solicit their assistance. She told me that they were powerful exorcists. A couple of years ago they died and when Madge is presently working on a patient filled with dark energy she summons Mack who shows up in spirit form to continue working with her. Madge told me, “Each time Mack comes to assist me I ask him to lovingly take the demon to the Light.” Sometimes if the demon seems to be nearly overwhelmingly resistant Madge prayerfully contacts the Archangel Michael and asks him to come and exorcise the demon. 

Similarly, when she feels she needs a powerful energy boost to help heal a chronically ill patient, who is not possessed, she contacts the Archangel Rafael, who she tells me is “quite remarkable, very powerful, always kind, responsive, helpful, encouraging and consistently reliable. He never lets you down.” (See English Spiritualist Healers, The Journal for Spiritual and Consciousness Studies, April 2014, Vol. 37, Number 2, pages 74-76)