It is an idea that many people are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with: might mental and physical illness be caused by spirits, disincarnate entities of various kinds? We live in a society where science has declared the invisible realms of spirits, angels and deceased souls are of fairy or fantasy books. But did they make a big mistake by doing so? People still report seeing and encountering spirits, ghosts, fairies and other spiritual creatures. Possession by spirit beings is still been reported, and in contrast to the movies it is not all evil. It is just a question of knowing what is going on and how to handle it. The following is based on accounts of different people who have successfully worked with identifying and liberating possessive spirits.

The_E-Syndrome

Possessions_and_Attachments

The_Nature_of_Angels_and_Demons

The_Distinction_Between_Evil_and_Good_Entities

How to Rid Yourself of Negative Entities

The E-Syndrome

The E-Syndrome is the title of a marvelous book (in Dutch) I read in the early 1990's. It was written by Roger Vanderdonck, a psychologist and clairvoyant, in Flanders, Belgium (he died in 1991). He discovered that certain people cannot be hypnotized or it is very difficult to hypnotize them. He discovered that a large percentage of those people were "possessed". The totality of their symptoms he called the E-Syndrome or Entity-Syndrome, what refers to the presence of one or more spirits with a particular person. He purposely did not advertise or publicize his own investigation in this matter. In this way his clients came to him from word of mouth. During two years he kept detailed notes and analyzed his findings to get a better understanding of the phenomenon. During this period he examined 1131 cases in which 921 had a 'presence'.
The symptoms are not all the same and vary from person to person. The longer an entity has been with a person the greater the chance that the symptoms are present or that the symptoms are stronger. So what are the symptoms that can show up?
1. Head complaints are very frequent, from a normal 'pressure', or 'band' around the head to headaches and migraines. Some 63% of his clients had this symptom.
2. Neck complaints, also frequent (60%), often unilateral, with or without pain, stiffness of the muscles.
3. Internal disorders, as with the digestive system, heart problems and breathing problems. Vanderdonck only took those symptoms into account that had no known origin.
4. Depression and related symptoms (77%), from occasional dark thoughts with a pessimistic outlook on life to heavy depression.
5. Suicide thought or attempts (23% of his clients). A high number of accidents are also a strong indication to the presence of an entity.
6. Fatigued and being overly tired. It is rarely the cause of a visit to his practice because it is is almost always present (84%). When spirits don't make the transition to the Light, and remain here on earth, they do need to take in energy in order to sustain themselves, and this energy they get from a living person to which they attach themselves.
7. Relationship problems or social problems.
8. Other therapies don't work, classic or alternative. The entity often made it impossible for for the therapy to work.
9. Rarely (less than 5%) there are direct signs for the presence of an entity. The patient feels a the presence of an entity in himself, or that an entity is always watching him, or is doing things he doesn't want to do, or is even physically pushed by an unseen entity. Other signs are: feeling a cold wind, hearing of sounds, seeing images, feeling pressure on the body and so on.
10. Signal symptoms. The person adopts characteristics, behavior or habits (especially negative) of the entity that is possessing them. This can also be physical, like pain, or tics, or bad hearing or vision and so on. 94% of his clients had physical symptoms that the doctor was not able to find the physical cause for.
Roger Vanderdonck developed a unique and effective diagnosis method to determine if a person has a spirit, or entity, attached to him. he calls it the swing-posture test. The client stands upright in a relaxed position. Vanderdonck first magnetized (magnetic 'passes') the person to reduce tensions. The patient looks at a point on the wall and is asked to drop down in a relaxed way, in whatever direction is natural to him. The patient knew that he would be immediately caught in the arms of Vanderdonck. From the way the person drops down it can be determined if there is an entity present. If the person drops backwards, there is no entity present. If the person drops forward there is an entity present. If the person drops to the right, there are two entities present or there is one clearly negative entity. When the entity drops to the left, then this is a signal of the the person's spiritual guide who wants to communicate or give a message to the person. After this initial test, Roger Vanderdonck verified his findings clairvoyantly.
Another test he did was the feeling of the temperature of the person's neck, left and right. Some people, with an attached entity, complained of a big difference in temperature left and right in their neck. The left side was often much colder than the right side. The temperature on both sides would equalize after the treatment.
Roger Vanderdonck also looked at the eyes of his clients. Their eyes were often pale, dull and 'veiled'. Eye problems were not uncommon.
As Roger Vanderdonck was not only a psychiatrist but also a clairvoyant, he was able to find out what entity (or entities) were attached to a person. He found that the death of the entity always happened between the day of conception of the client and the day of the visit of the client to Vanderdonck. Yes, an entity can join a living person during its pregnancy, thus before birth. This is rarely the case, but it can happen. So what kind of rules did he find in this regard?
1. Once an entity arrives at (=attaches to) a living person it can not leave by itself. It will only leave when that living person dies or when it is taken away. There is an exception to this rule, and that is when the entity goes from the mother to the child during pregnancy. A spirit of an aborted baby or miscarriage can stay with the mother, or can transfer on to the next child.
Another exception is when a black magician put a curse on a person for the duration of generations (a family curse) by sending a dark entity to that person. That entity thus hops from one generation to another until it has been dealt with.
2. In general the entity is from human descent, that is it was once a living human that died and crossed over to the hereafter. But Roger Vanderdonck found a couple of exceptions.
One was that of a woman who had already been with two doctors, in vain. She said that something had 'fallen' on her that was exhausting her enormously. Vanderdonck clairvoyantly discovered that it was not a human but very strange creature that was attached to his client at her left side. It looked like a kind of red 'branch' or 'tree', twisted, with rough skin surface and a bunch of strange little extensions. When mentally contacting this creature it communicated that "I come from far away...I was lost...my fuel was gone...I fell on this planet...I took the first energy source I found...that was this life for here...I want to go to the red light." In two other cases he found the same kind of small figure in a kind of space suit, who were also taking away a lot of energy from the person they had attached themselves too.
Another exception is the presence of 'the little people', that is dwarfs, kobolds, elves, nymphs and so on.
In two cases he found an animal spirit, from an animal that the patient had known. In both cases there had been a strong emotional connection between patient and that animal.
3. Usually the entity is a family member that they will recognize immediately when Roger Vanderdonck describes the entity. In some cases the patient did not recognize who the entity was, because the entity is a complete stranger to them, or the patient is too young, or the entity is from an earlier generation.
4. The present entity seldom has a negative motivation to attach itself to the living person. The fact that the person is suffering from the attached entity, is because that entity is not on its place within the energy field of the person, and thus it is creating an imbalance, distortion or harm to the person. Although an entity, when it has just died, is concerned about a still living family member or just wants to find as place of comfort by attaching itself to a living person, this is an egotistic motive, although not recognized by the entity. Good intentions can do harm. Negative motives can also happen out of jealousy, hate, revenge and so on.
5. Depending on the emotionality that once existed between the patient and the entity, it is usually a grandparent that is the attached entity. The we find parents and blood relatives who have died. Attachment by the spirits of aborted babies or miscarriages are rare, and it is often the emotionality that once existed between mother and the unborn baby that is a determining factor. Rarely is a deceased spouse the attached spirit.
So far we have seen what kind of spirits can attach itself to a living person. How did Roger Vanderdonck liberate his patients from those spirits? He said that one way is asking the help of higher spiritual forces by prayer, offerings, ritual dances and so on. This is usual done for a group of people, not so much for one particular person. But this method is not that effective and even less controlled (churches f.e. usually don't check back on their followers).
Exorcism also doesn't work. With exorcism the spirit is always seen as evil, and often called demon or devil. Vanderdonck said that only 6% of his clients had entities that were negatively motivated. Also, exorcism is only concerned about helping the person, not the attached entity. And with exorcism, the entity usually returns to the person. The reason for this is that the entity is not really evil but that the procedure of exorcism is itself a negative intention.
Spiritism, when positively applied, releases spirits the Light. These are almost always spirits connected with a place, and not attached to a living person. These are also spirits that were not able to make the transition into the light.
So, Roger Vanderdonck developed his own method that would help both the living person and the entity, and he had a 100% success with it. He did not want to bring harm to either the person or the entity, he did not want the entity to go to another disadvantageous place. He wanted the ritual to be effective immediately, and verifiable immediately afterwards. It had to be simple and he had to protect the person from being 'possessed' again. He discovered his method during his transcendental meditations, in which he frequently arrived at a scene in ancient Egypt where he saw a ritual to liberate entities. He saw that scene so frequently that he was able to write everything down in detail. At first he practiced the ritual in the presence of a clairvoyant medium, in order to check if it really worked. Once he knew it did work, he performed it without the medium. In his book he did not give all the details, because he thought that it demands a certain training and attitude, and should not be applied literally. He found out that the first ones who want to start with it are people who are not suitable and often not positively oriented. The right motivation is very important.
The first requirement is to work in a special place that is protected, as is done in magic. He then called up the right atmosphere by calling the four elements, and the forces of the cosmos symbolized by the Egyptian Gods. After this he directed himself to the entity and explained to it its situation and that its presence with the patient causes a lot of problems for the patient, but that it is also problematic for itself. He explained the entity that it will be guided to the Light by the Gods. Vanderdonck could literally feel the soul of the entity slip through his hands when it was taken to the Light. At last all the energies and beings who have helped in the ritual were given thanks and the patients was protected against recurrence, but also against negativity and black magic. After the ritual has ended, he performed an immediately 'checkup' to verify if the entity was indeed gone. He added the black magic clause because he was being confronted with this kind of entities. One wonders if this might have been the cause of his untimely death just after he finished his book. Luckily he was able to train one person in his method, Paul Kervyn, who is now using this method in his practice at Nismes – Viroinval (south of Charleroi) in Belgium. His contact information is: Paul Kervyn, Allee des Orchidees 2, 5670 Nismes - Viroinval; telephone +32 (0)60 31.18.07
and +32 (0)496 28.87.37; email: paulkervyn@hotmail.com .
 

Possessions and Attachments (based on Shakuntala Modi)

In old times, and even at present in some regions of the world, shamans have explained to us that illness was caused by malevolent or misguided spirits, and they based their practice on removing those entities from the patient. Almost every religion has its 'exorcists' who drive out the bad spirits. Only modern day science has rejected the idea of the existence of spirits interfering with our health. But there seems to be a change happening. Recently I found a book, Remarkable Healings, A Psychiatrist Discovers Unsuspected Roots of Mental and Physical Illness, by Shakuntala Modi, M.D. (published by Hampton Roads, ISBN 1-57174-079-1). She is part of a new generation of medical people who are changing their outlook on illness. One time, quite by accident, one of her patients spontaneously regressed to a previous life when asked to go to the root of her problems. Another patient described the root of her problems to be the spirit of her deceased father who was with her. He had died of stomach cancer. By staying with his daughter he unwillingly was transferring the stomach pain he had when he died to his daughter. Trying to solve this new problem, Modi asked the patient if she could see anything else. The patient reported seeing a bright white light and angels coming to help to help her deceased father to make the transfer to the Light. Since then Modi has regressed her patients and asked them to go to the cause of their problems. Once the problem was found and dealt with, the patient's illness disappeared quickly. Modi was quite astonished by the high success rate she had with this new unorthodox method, with the classic therapy methods she had been having very little success.
With some people Modi uses hypnosis to have them look inside for the cause of their ailments, with others she uses a couple of other techniques. Some people spontaneously regress to other lives or can see the spirits inside. Modi then conversed with those spirits through the patient, this is where all the information comes from. Modi herself does not form an opinion about the existence of past lives or spiritual entities. For her it is more important that the method works, and her patients get better quickly.
Although you can find other books about the same subject, Modi's book is very interesting because it is comprehensive (631 pages!), well structured and with many case histories. So, what does she tell about the cause of mental and physical illness? The following is a summary of what her patients told her; Modi herself did not come up with it.
Some illnesses are caused by traumas in this life or in past lives. This includes birth traumas and prenatal traumas. Re-living the traumatic event, the more emotional the more effective, releases the blocked energy and healing can be instantaneous, or it happens in the next few days.
Her patient's illnesses were usually caused by possessing or attached spirits. The pain and emotions these spirits were going through when they died, is transferred, willingly or unwillingly, to the living person they are now attached to, or posess. In these cases medical treatment does not help. Modi calls these spirits 'earthbound spirits' as they did not make the transition to heaven or to the Light after they died. For some reason, often family ties, they chose to stay with a living person. Sometimes they are confused, sometimes they stay with the living person out of love, sometimes out of the desire to take revenge, sometimes they want to continue their desire to experience drugs, or other addictions through the person they posses.
Some spirits are really malevolent, they are usually called dark or evil spirits, demons, devils. These are beings who have turned themselves away from the Light and derive pleasure from harming both other spirits and living beings. We have to be careful not to condemn these beings as they are also light beings, or angels as you could call them, who have covered up their inner divine light with darkness. When called upon, other angels come and will force the dark spirit to look inside. This will allow him to discover his inner light and thereby be transformed into a light being, at the same time leaving the patient. This is not exorcism. Exorcism is the forceful removal of a dark spirit from a person, but this will always fail or even cause more trouble as the dark entity is not transformed and remains the same. So the treatment of the patient is actually a treatment of the entities that posses or are attached to the patient. They have to be convinced about what they are doing to the patient, about what they really are and that going to the Light is the best solution for them.
Aside from the dark spirits, or demons, the patients also quite frequently talk about Satan, a term many people might have trouble with. Satan is a term that comes from the Catholic Church. From what Modi's patients tell, Satan seems to be the embodiment of the most evil things. One can easily give him another name derived from other religions or you can make one up for yourself. He seems to be a master demon, who tricks many souls into the darkness.
Patients also report how negative entities create dark energy shields around a person, dark devices that are placed inside the person and dark energy cords by which they can influence the person from a 'distance'. Interesting ideas, as I have once seen pictures of a person who was being influenced by black magic. On these pictures (snapshots inside his house) there were several luminous cords attached to him.
Another problem patients report is the loss of soul parts. One or more pieces of their soul had been lost over time, mostly stemming from traumas in this life or from past lives. The loss of soul parts is another of those old ideas one finds in the practice of shamans. Somehow a piece of our energy can remain behind and stuck with other people or places. The soul parts need to be retrieved, cleansed, healed and integrated again with the main body of our soul. Sometimes a part has come in the possession of an evil spirit who uses it to inflict harm on the person, as the person still remains connected with that soul part, wherever it might be. It is also possible for a person to have a soul part of another person, which also can cause problems to the person who has that soul part.
Although the dark entities, demons and Satan claim to have great power, they are easily controlled, released and transformed by the appearing angels. It seems that they only have as much power as we are giving them. Through Modi's patients, the archangels gave instructions for a protection prayer (go here). As human beings we are vulnerable to emotional and physical traumas, emotional outburst and environmental influences that all can cause a weakened body and soul, making it vulnerable to dark entities. But we can master our emotions. Dark entities feed and stimulate negative emotions in us. We have a choice to react on a situation with increased anger, hate etc. or not. Somebody who lets his negative emotions run free, is also attracting a lot of dark entities. We can protect ourselves a great deal by the way we live, feel and think. We can heal ourselves by resolving our traumas. For the rest we can ask protection from the angels.
From what her patients told her, Modi has built a basic structure of the universe. In their therapy sessions they have frequently experienced a huge Light that they describe as God who is an ocean of Light and love. Then there are a number of large divine beings, described as godheads, masters, and oversouls. I found their descriptions very similar to what the Gnostics called the Aeons (see my Gnosticism article). They can appear in the form of religious masters. Under them are the angels and other light beings. Every living being is connected to God by a energy cord. Humans go through a process of incarnations, by which they live their physical lives being influenced by both good and dark forces, and spend their afterlives (between births) in realms of light. We are here to learn about ourselves and the universe and to eventually reunite with what we call God, or the Divine. Some beings have decided to go against the natural flow of the Divine in its creation and have become the dark spirits, the demons, Satan. They too will eventually be transformed into light beings and reunite with God.
 

The Nature of Angels and Demons (based on Daskalos)

Daskalos, also called the Magus of Strovolos, a Greek magician-healer-shaman, has become known to the West in a series of books by Kyriacos C. Markides. His knowledge is based on Western traditions and on his own experiences as a spiritually gifted person. His ideas about possession by spiritual entities gives us additional information. Daskalos says that people become possessed by elementals (=etheric beings created by our own thoughts and/or emotions) which they themselves have created as a result of their weakness. In contrast to Shakuntala Modi, Daskalos only rarely encounters possession by beings who reside in the etheric world. Maybe this is because Daskalos works with the local population, while Modi as a psychiatrist works specifically with mentally ill patients. At times her patients might mistake the artificial, self created elementals for real spirits.
Deceased humans often hold on to their hate towards particular people or situations when they pass to the next world. This is the cause of them finding themselves oscillating between the physical and the divine world. It allows them to come into contact with the physical world again and again by taking possession of living human beings who have certain phobias or who are in a certain psychological state that permits those spirits to enter the person. One needs to understand that possession, be it by a demon, elemental, or a deceased human, can take place only if there are reasons, that is, when the individual vibrates analogously with whoever or whatever tries to enter him. In other words the person must himself have the predisposition to be possessed.
The most difficult type of possession to cope with, Daskalos says, is by deceased humans. They have a particular persistence. It is not easy to send them away. And you cannot destroy or dissolve them. They are eternal beings and cannot be destroyed.
About demons, Daskalos says that they, like the rest of creation, evolve too and will one day be part of the Holy Spirit (the Light). "Humans are afraid of demons because they are invisible. Had they not been so, men would have exploited them like other animals." A surprising statement! Demons can take ugly animal-like shapes but can also acquire the shape of human beings as they can adapt themselves to whatever they see; they are like chameleons of form. Demons have no genitals, they are usually dark and sometimes even handsome.
Daskalos explains that demons and angels are both emanations of archangelic forces. In themselves neither demons nor angels are eternal beings. They are elementals of the archangelic force which is projecting them. Human beings also are capable of creating both demonic and angelic elementals. Demons are archangelic emanations in the negative side of existence in order to create the realms of separateness. The archangel Lucifer is down here to create the opposite side of energy and power in order to bring balance. The purpose of this Evil is to create for us more sharply the meaning of Good.
Man is allowed to create both demonic or angelic elementals. Archangels can only create angelic elementals, but Lucifer can only create demons. Demons posses a form of subconsciousness that enables them to converse with humans. One can reason with a demon but not with an angel because an angel is an unshakable law. An angel cannot deviate from his divine purpose. A demon opposes the work of the angel and can influence man. Once a demon attaches himself to a human being, he acts along with him, using the logic of man, regardless of the fact that it may be a form of unreason. An angel cannot do that. An angel has no choice but to do good. A demon cooperates with man and therefore absorbs part of his experience. The angel expresses the love of his archangel uncolored. A demon expresses within the realm of separateness the love of his own archangel which is sentimentality. That is why a demon can more easily get attached to a human than an angel. The angel can only create blindly, fully, and beautifully through the Holy Spirit. The demon does everything that man does.
In contrast to what most believe, Daskalos says that angels and demons are not in conflict. They only appear to be so in human consciousness. But in fact they cooperate. They take different positions within the subconscious of the individual in order to make it possible for us to know the meaning of good and evil.
We mentioned a couple of times that angels and demons are actually elementals. What does the term 'elemental' mean? Elementals are beings not created by the Divine, they were and are created 'artificially' by the archangels or by man. Elementals have a life of their own and can have an existence independent of the one who projected them. Any thought and any feeling that an individual projects is an elemental. That is why it is so important to watch your emotions, or feelings, and thoughts. There are actually two kinds of elementals: those that are projected subconsciously, which Daskalos calls 'desires-thoughts', and those consciously constructed and called 'thought-desires'. 'Desires-thoughts' are made by a person who lives primarily by his emotions (most people are like this). 'Thought-desires' are made by a person who lives primarily by his thoughts. These are more powerful and last longer.
As most people live by their emotions, they produce 'desire-thought' elementals, but those people also lack understanding of the nature of desire and thought. Consequently they often fall prey to the very elementals they have created. Nature determines that these elementals will eventually return to the person who created them. (Once again, watch your emotions and thoughts!) When they return they surface from the pool of memory to the conscious level in order to acquire new energy, and then withdraw again. The same cycle is repeated until such elementals succeed in staying within the subconscious of the person on a more permanent basis. They then absorb energy from the etheric double (=our life-energy body) of the individual and in this manner they extend their life. This is how habits and obsessions such as smoking, gambling, and drinking are formed.
 

The Distinction Between Evil and Good Entities (based on Seizan Fukami)

There are people who, involved in the esoteric, wicca, or magic, often display an interest in the spirit world. A mere interest is ok, but one should not venture into it when one is not an accomplished psychic. The spirit world is not an innocent playground. How do you distinguish between good and evil entities? Here are some guidelines from Seizan Fukami, a renown Japanese Psychic, who wrote a couple of interesting books about the matter (Exorcism, isbn4-88692-282-1; and Divine World, isbn4-88692-318-6, available by Tachibana Shuppan Inc, Japan.
One of the distinguishing features of superior spirits is that they very seldom interfere with human beings or affairs in the material world. They do not go around telling people what to do or not, where to go or when. Instead of bossing, they usually lay the groundwork in secret so that people will end up doing what they want them to do anyhow. The reason is that these superior beings have been entrusted with the education of us human beings. And pampering a person or diverting him from blind alleys in the end hampers a person's effort to gain experience and grow. Such coddling might even prevent a person from accomplishing his mission in life. The duty of these superior beings is to make sure that the people entrusted in their care have the opportunity to gain learning, training and desirable character traits.
When a person prays for something that will jeopardize the maturation of his inner being, the superior being watching out for him will turn a deaf ear to his pleas. They will be totally unbending and not lift a finger. But if the request involves spiritual growth, than they will be more than willing to help. These superior beings have a highly evolved sense of of learning, training, spiritual enlightenment and wisdom. The always respect our free will.
Evil spirits do not give a damn about the spiritual growth of people. They only act as parasites by inhabiting or being attached to a person's body. They are solely concerned with manipulating the person as they see fit. The inferior spirits indulge in unbridled passions and egotism. Unlike the superior beings, they do not have the capability to assimilate things of value. They lack the abilities to explain things or place things in their proper perspective that derive from learning. All they know is what is right in front of them and they live from moment to moment. These spirits regret the fact that they do not have a body of their own, so they want to take charge of a living person's body. Consequently, they are always on the alert, eager to discover a crack in some person's spiritual armor, so that they can go rushing in. They often lie about who they are, pretending to be some well known historic person, or god or goddess. They do not respect our free will and like to interfere and manipulate.
 

How to Rid Yourself of Negative Spirits (based on Daskalos and Fukami)

We already mentioned that spirits, demons, or negative energies attach themselves to us because there is a corresponding vibration within us that makes such attachment possible. It depends on what attitudes, emotions and thoughts we cultivate and carry around, and what karma we have inherited from the past.
Daskalos proclaims that our present personalities, and the circumstances within which we live, are the sum total of the elementals we have constructed ever since our descent into the physical world and the beginning of our cycle of incarnation. How do we get rid of the negative elementals that we have created and that keep coming back to us, stimulating more negative emotions and thoughts in us? By indifference! When negative emotions or thoughts come up in a given situation, just notice that they are there, but do not repress them nor express them. Be indifferent to them. This way they will get no more energy from us, and will be neutralized. Either they get dissolved or they float away in the etheric sphere where they will be picked up by others who are attracted to them.
Fukami stresses that one should believe in one's good personality characteristics, because these represent the real you. The traits that are dragging you in a negative direction are false and often are influences from evil spirits. In this way you will distance yourself from thoughts that you don't really want in the first place, and you will become self-reliant, believing in the real you which is always positive. This way evil spirits will be driven away. It demands strong faith but also good physical health. One cannot neglect his physical health, as mind and body go together. Be healthy, have positive thoughts, positive emotions a positive attitude.