by Rev. Judith A. Baldwin

Excerpted from the forthcoming book,
The Spiritual Gifts of Discernment, by Rev. Judith A. Baldwin

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That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered on absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.

-Paracelsus

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Humankind is spiritually ripe; or at least a growing number of us are. Perhaps it is the anticipation of apocalyptic events which urges us back to our spiritual roots. Or perhaps we have grown weary of the limits of the reasoning masculine mind bereft of the intuitive feminine mind. In any case, isn’t it strange that 20th century humankind should at once be irrevocably drawn toward spirituality, and yet be ignorant of what qualities and skills are inherent in a spiritual being?

With the intention of reclaiming the knowledge of our inherent spiritual nature, let us look backwards to pre-history, and retrace the journey our thinking has taken. Once this was a world where spirit and human were inextricably linked, where every experience was rooted in the rich soil of spiritual overtones. But we turned away from our spiritual heritage and sought after what was intentionally spirit-less.

Before the historical period, the human and non-human species which inhabited this earth, relied upon a sixth sense to sustain themselves. This visceral knowing, of gut feeling, was present in all of nature long before we learned to rely solely on what we now call the five senses.

Throughout history, were it not for the hierarchal pronouncements which declared spirit, mind and body as being different “stuff,” Western science would not have discounted the remote internal sensing we now call intuition, or non-local mind. In other worlds, our thinking would not have veered away from what was natural to life on earth; that is an inner knowing, or intuition. In time, this prescribed disowning of “aspects” of our spiritual selves, resulted in the ostracism and even murder of those most intuitively gifted or spiritually advanced.

Across the millennia the faculty of thinking, passing from universal mind to individual human, can be recognized in these distinct stages of human consciousness.

A Glimpse at the History of Thinking

1. In the beginning, human and nature were entwined. This human was a being belonging so entirely to the natural processes of the world that she was without an individuated consciousness. That is to say, the consciousness of this “natural being” made no personal response to the impact of nature. Rather nature and she were one. Until this “natural being” evolved enough to detach from the organic process, and observe natural events through the eyes of onlooker as opposed to inherent participant, mythological history could not begin. For history belongs to human beings with consciousness sufficient to separate enough to view events from some distance, no matter how slight; and not to natural beings so finely interwoven within the matrix of nature they could not be differentiated from it.

   However, there was a price for humankinds’ extrication from natural beingness. It was the loss of, or the denial of natural clairvoyance, clairaudience, and the other psychic faculties intrinsic to natural being’s experience. Without an individual consciousness, natural being shared unselfconsciously, or naturally, in thinking which was the purview of higher intelligence, or greater beings. Natural being was so close to the spiritual world she was more aware of spiritually than she was of the physical world around her. This was the time of mystical “history” when humankind intrinsically knew the secrets of the cosmos.

2. The epoch of “natural being” came to an end between 4000 and 3000 BC and was typified by the people of the Middle East who civilized and socialized their existence. They precipitated a startling transformation of consciousness when through language and writing they defined themselves, and thus separated themselves from the natural world around them. Now were they more observer than participant in the greater experience of Life. At this point, they declared themselves no longer the puppets of the gods or the spirits, and began to disregard their inner knowing. Thus, with this separation from the spiritual world, they began to exclude themselves from their natural though unconscious birthright, the inherent experience of psychic awareness.
3. As we cross the bridge of socialization to ancient Greece, we find individual thinking humanizing universal intelligence through the great myths. Now is humankind weaving her own thoughts and beliefs, replete with the capacity for human error. Whereas fate once rested in the hands of the gods, individuals proclaimed themselves masters of their own destinies. So wanes the ancient faculties which gave birth to mythology; and thus is born the beginning of the Greco-Roman Age, we find the first blossoming of Western art, architecture, drama, poetry, oratory, and politics.

   Fading is the reliance on intuition or inner knowing. Thinking now is based on logic as exemplified by Aristotle’s reflections on perceptual stimulus and response. This kind of thinking was to last more than two thousand years.

4. In 524 AD at the sixth Council of Nicea made the disowning of spirit official. The Council ruled that humankind would no longer consist of spirit, but only of soul and body. Thence forward the spirit was relegated to an intellectual quality of the soul. Quite literally, by eradicating the individual human spirit the Council closed the gates of the spiritual world for the mass of humankind. Only the hidden Orders of Initiates retained the knowledge of spiritual realms and the capacity for spiritual vision, and the original gifts of discernment.

   The Dark Ages (A.D. 476 to about 1000), inexorably followed the Council’s ruling. Humankind turned away from the light of spiritual inspiration from the end of classical civilization until the revival of learning in the West. The belief that thinking, arising solely from the physical brain, is the way to reach ultimate truth would last into the Middle Ages.

5. The 14th century Renaissance which ushered out the Middle ages, led Western mind to quickly become familiar with the forces of the physical world in order to harness these forces for material ends. Now does mind turn fully toward invention, investigation, technique and the properties of matter. Humankind was at the gateway between handcrafting and industry. Yet this was not so much a sign of greater mental acuity, but rather the result of mind moving into a new sphere.
6. In the fifteenth century Western thinking is following sense-derived observations. By the sixteenth century the dawn of the age of science and materialism is well underway. As with the later Greek mind, ideas are “real,” and phenomena, including and most especially mystical experience has become insubstantial.

   Francis Bacon, the father of modern science, expresses perfectly the mood of this age: “Reality only presents itself to us when we look upon the world of the senses. The senses alone provide us with realities, the realities of empirical knowledge.” Thus was the age of inductive reasoning underway, and the Western mind was now fully separated from its former awareness of spiritual origin; and alone in a mind devoid  of “heavenly help.” Science is the “place” to worship, and observation and experiment are “holy.”

7. Thus did the Western mind completely sever the link to the spiritual mind. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, consciousness was focused on materialistic existence. Spiritual faculties were kept alive only within the secret lodges of the craftmasons who had built Europe’s great cathedrals, and the secret Orders of Initiates and their Mystery Schools.
8. In the present moment, thinking has descended even further from its spiritual beginnings. It has turned into cold inhuman abstraction; the kind of thinking which spawned nuclear weaponry, ethnic cleansing, genetic experimentation and manipulation, environmental devastation of this planet, and the proposed rape of distant planets, all in the name of scientific advancement. Now have we unleashed powers which our thinking cannot control. We have arrived at the threshold of our annihilation – and/or new beginning. Perhaps our salvation lies in the full reunion of body, soul and psychic spirit.

But wait, what if all is not lost? Can the mind actually lose some of its inherent properties? Can the powers that be actually dictate the quality of our thinking – without our acquiescence, that is? Is it possible for us to actually fall so far from the original blueprint of consciousness?

Thinking is but the product of the mind, not the mind itself. Perhaps as our thinking moved farther and farther away from our spiritual essence, so did the expressions of our souls until what was once inherently spiritual now is exclusively mental. If that were so, at the deep inherent level of being, or our natural state, we would not be changed at all. Rather we would be expressing ourselves differently, thought not really changed. Our thinking and beliefs may have wandered far from the original us, but the original self remains nonetheless, regardless of the wandering.

That being so, what if history is no more than a subjective perspective of what has occurred? What if there are parallel histories: one seen by thinking humankind, and one seen by spiritual humankind? What then would be normal and what paranormal? What believable and what extraordinary?

It is intriguing that in our Western dictionaries psychic is defined as extraordinary mental processes; while the ancient Greek defines psychic as of the soul. Further exploration of the dictionary reveals “psyche” as “the spirit or soul. The mind [non-local] functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior.”

So another word for soul is psyche, which also means mind and self. And mind comes from the Greek menos, for remember, indicating that the psyche has a past. While self comes from the Sanskrit swa, meaning one’s own, oneself. Then does it follow that psychic skills are the gifts of the spirit resident in our original mind?

Discernment comes into the equation because these original gifts were meant to be used to guide we spiritual beings safely through our earthly adventures. After all, discernment is defined as “the act or process of exhibiting keen insight and good judgment.” Spiritual wisdom admonishes us to be wise stewards, and so we shall be with spiritual discernment.

Though we have been anesthetized, deadened, blinded and deafened, we long for our spiritual gifts of discernment, or psychic faculties, in which is encoded our spiritual certainty, to show us the way to reawaken our sleeping Self.

In the seventeenth century, the Cartesian dogma of dualism pronounced the rational mind king, and the felt sense as second rate, unimportant and unreliable. Perhaps three and a half centuries later it is time for a fresh start. What if we changed Descartes’ “I thin there I am” to “cogito ergo non sum, I think, there I am not?” For clearly we no know that it is only when we stop thinking that we begin to be. And perhaps science would like to join in the experiences of spiritual being. As Charles Tart so clearly stated in his address to the Second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993: “…we would also be fools not to let the potential and power of genuine spirituality inspire our scientific efforts, lest the world expire in that slough of despondency know as scientism.”

Even though it would seem that although there is a conflict between spirituality and the current scientific paradigm, the paradigm is not science. It’s just the scientific belief system adhered to at this point in history. Right now science is faced with an unexplainable anomaly: that is, it has no explanation whatsoever for the existence of consciousness. The fact that we humans are, each and every one, being that have experiences is undeniable.

Day after day every scientist on earth must face the fact that they are a conscious being. Yet nowhere within the current scientific paradigm is there a prediction that life is conscious. Indeed, this is a scientific anomaly. Itself mystical and nearly ethereal, quantum physics has given scientist the means of exploring the human experience heretofore unreachable. Because of the quantum correlations now confirmed as present in nature, one wonders if perhaps the original sense, that is the intuitive or inner felt sense, is the natural sense, and therefore the first sense.

Quantum hologram research leads us to this conclusion and explains virtually all the psychic or intuitive experiences and effects that humans have reported during historic times.

Further, as science moves into the next paradigm, the superparadigm, it will see that consciousness is primary; and space, time, matter and energy emerge out of consciousness.

Spiritual Gifts of Discernment

For every physical sense there is a corresponding spiritual gift, or spiritual “sense.” Humankind is ready at last to resurrect and redevelop these gifts.

• Seeing/Clairvoyant: One who sees clearly; seeing beyond what the physical eyes can see; acute intuitive insight or perceptiveness; visionary; ability to “see” into the etheric world and other dimensions; ability to see lights, shapes, colors, geometrical figures, auras, thoughtforms, discarnates, other worldly being, etc.; understands the meaning and significance of messages and/or symbols; ability to reach into another vibrational frequency and ascertain symbolic information; can see at will or spontaneously; best accomplished in meditative or alpha state.
  Subjective clairvoyance is ” seeing” within the mind, or behind the yes, seeing on back of eyelids or back of forehead.
  Objective clairvoyance is perceiving a vision at a point in outer space, like watching a play or a movie.
  One is advised to keep clairvoyant visions under control, perceiving only when desirable or advisable. Being besieged by or interrupted by constant visions can rob the seer of her own life. Such continuous psychic intrusion and distraction can lead to nervous disorders mental illness.
• Hearing/Clairaudient: One who hears clearly; hearing of things beyond the range of the normal perception of physical ears; hearing the music of the cosmos; inner hearing of profound words, or hearing important messages from other dimensions; understands the meaning and significance of messages and symbols; can hear at will or spontaneously; best accomplished in meditative or alpha state.
  Subjective clairaudience is “hearing” within the head.
  Objective clairaudience is “hearing” words, music sounds from “out there.”
  A more rare skill is tuning into the subtle vibrations and frequencies of nature to hear the sound of grass growing or flowers opening. One is advised to keep this skill under control at all times. Uncontrolled or incessant sounds, voices and messages can interfere with tasks at hand, become extremely distracting, cause accidents, and eventually lead to psychotic breakdown.
• Feeling/Clairsentient: One who feels clearly; inner sensing or feeling; hunchability; inspired feelings and knowings; especially sensitive to “gut feelings” and whole body sensations like “shivers” or “goosebumps;” synonymous with intuition; understands the meaning and significance of feelings; can feel at will or spontaneously.
  This kind of psychism is easy to develop but it is doubted the most. Clairsentience is the least disturbing to the feeler because it comes within the body at any time and does not take her attention from other things. It is often disregarded, or when noticed, is quickly put aside.
• Knowing/Claircognizant: One who knows without reason for knowing; clear knowing; meaning and information come into the mind like downloading a computer; knowing “bottom line” information without benefit of data; appeals to the masculine. “I don’t know how I know, I just know”; understands the meaning and significance of information; can know spontaneously or at  will.
• Sensing/Clairempathy: One who feels or senses the physical, mental, emotional sensations, impulses or thought of another; a form of telepathy; ability to tune into an area or event and feel the attitudes and feelings of those who were present; understands meaning and significance of feelings; can sense spontaneously or at will; often used in police work.
  One is not clairempathic unless she can discern which attitudes, thoughts and emotions are hers and which belong to another.
  It is advisable to keep this skill under control so one is not overridden by symptoms, conditions and reactions which are not one’s own. Taking on another’s responses can lead to confusion and uncertainty, and eventually sickness.
• Smelling/Clairscent: One who smells clearly; smelling odors, foods, fragrances not in one’s surroundings; can indicate an omen such as being in the presence of a high being; e.g. essence of rose indicates presences of a Christed One; frequently a psychic taste accompanies the smell; understands the meaning and significance of the smell and/or taste; can smell at will or spontaneously.
• Tasting/Clairsavorant: One who tastes without putting anything in the mouth; clear tasting; frequently a psychic smell accompanies the taste; understands the meaning and significance of taste and/or smell; can taste at will or spontaneously.

In addition to the spiritual gifts, we are gifted wsith the spiritual sensitivities and the spiritual faculties, all of which are part of the original endowment of our spiritual blueprint. Mostly that endowment has “rusted and atrophied,” laying in wait for us to reclaim it. such a reclamation asks of us the same kind of commitment and discipline needed to refine any skill or attribute.

There are prohibitions to the spiritual gifts built into the beliefs, personalities and behaviors we have adopted. Likewise there are tools which aid and refine our lifestyle, allowing us a greater expression of the spiritual gifts; just as there are instructions for expanding the spiritual faculties and honing the spiritual sensitivities.

It is likely that not all the spiritual gifts, sensitivities and faculties will be highly developed in all of us. Some may remain potentially ours, while others may mature. Just as we are not all talented in the same ways, so we may not all express our spiritual talents to the same degree. Still the potential is there, and as humankind evolves more abundantly into the full expression of spiritual giftedness, what seemed exceptional will be the norm. Our spiritual future is guaranteed. In this we can rejoice. A child of God is a spiritual prodigy whether she realizes it or not. Even though she may never choose to develop the full allotment of spiritual giftedness, the gift is nonetheless given. As with any real gift, only she can say if and when it will be realized.

Paying attention is one of the greatest, oldest and deepest spiritual masteries; and very few of us have achieved any significant degree of proficiency in it.

The simple task of observing, and acknowledging, which thoughts, words, emotions, and actions one is choosing, is not only life enhancing, it makes life credible. When I am fearful, I am harmful. When I am loving I am helpful. Love joins; this is healing. Fear separates; this is traumatic. What could be clearer?

Consequently, with everything I think, say, do and feel: I am always either contributing to the light or adding to the darkness of this world. What a (potentially) wonderful or disastrous responsibility!

The keystone of protection is the ability to pay attention. Only if one is cognizant can she be conscious of what is around her, or coming towards her. How can she declare “Stop! I do not give you permission to approach” if one is oblivious of herself and her surroundings?

Most of us live in a kind of trance. We’re pretty much running on automatic. In our “overcrowded” lives, we are scarcely able to recall what we did yesterday, much less be aware as we are doing it. Therein lies the problem. Until we are paying attention we cannot measure our spiritual expertise. Thus we cannot know accurately where we are on our journey to spiritual expertise; usually we give ourselves more credit than we deserve.

Homework: commit to paying attention one day per month. At the end of the day tally how well you did.

Thoughts

We are a product of thought. All thoughts, our own, other people’s, and the collective world thought, affect us.

Thoughts are things. Until we fully comprehend that the power of our mind is sufficient to “create” the world we live in, we can delude ourselves into believing that so long as we don’t realize what we are thinking, or doing, we will be spared the consequences of those thoughts.

Christ said to pray unceasingly. All thoughts are prayers. All thoughts call for a response from the universe. All our thoughts will either contribute to our healing, and therefore the world’s healing; or they will postpone healing. Such is the power of our God-created mind. Consequently, we must recognize what it is we are praying for. When we focus our thinking on what we would avoid, or what is destructive or fearful, or dreadful, or painful, to ourselves or another, we re actively praying for the unwanted to occur. Thus does our “prayer” empower those things which are contradictory to well-being, or which oppose the integrity of our being.

Homework: One day per month commit to observing one’s thinking. Notice how much is “stinking thinking.” Keep score.

Declarations

We may not think of speaking as a privilege. In this moment consider the power and the consequence of the spoken word. Frequently we neglect the discipline of intentional, careful use of our words. For the most part we pay little heed to what we say, how we say it, or when we say it. Such a lackadaisical attitude regarding the power of our declarations has sometimes gotten us in trouble.

At one time, all agreements were contracted by a person’s word. What one said had substance, and people were categorized by whether their “word” was good or bad (which meant meaningless). Now, however, we don’t seem to take our words as seriously as we once did. Every day we say things which we do not mean, or what we mean we do not say. In emotional outbursts we blurt out cruel words, vile words, words which compromise ourselves, and any others in the path of those words.

This is a mistake. Words are still as potent and meaningful as ever they were; and like all volitional proclamations, the consequences of our words remain one of our great prerogatives. For we can have the fruits of our pronouncements, or will suffer the consequences of them.

For this reason, we must not allow our wounds, fears, or weaknesses to “speak” for us. Unfortunately, this is often what we do.

Homework: One day per month commit to observing the quality, or lack thereof, of the day’s declarations. Take note of “foul mouthed” (as in stinking thinking) words and what they produce.

Actions

How many times have we heard: “Your actions speak louder than your words.” To know what we truly believe, simply watch what we do. We may talk differently, but we always do what we believe. Our behavior will tell the truth about who we really are.

There are not enough good intentions or sweet words to cover up the actuality of what we do. Right action is an important part of the triune law of life: purity in thought, word, and deed. We are foolish if we believe we can bypass any of the three parts of wholesome spiritual living. We are measured by our actions.

Homework: One day per month make your words match your actions and thoughts. Speaking aloud what you think and what you do will force you to take not of your “real” beliefs. Keep a record.

Beliefs

In my experience, fear can be summarized within three main categories:

1. I will not get what I want

2. I will lose what I have.

3. There is not enough to go around.

Though we may not realize it, a disproportionate amount of time we are involved in some kind of fear thought. It is shocking to discover we live as fearful primates. Fear is the single most effective tool of the dark. Without our fear the darkness would have very little influence on us.

Honest examination of one’s mind set will likely lead, directly or indirectly, to a hidden coffer of fears. Fear is a universal condition. It is the great barrier to human growth. As we grow older we learn more and more fears so that by the time we reach maturity most of us are loaded with them. Unknowns create fears. When these unknowns are commonly and regularly exposed, the fears seem to diminish and disappear. In most cases this is but a temporary repression of what was never reconciled, only exposed. Thus does the buried fear putrefy and spread like an infection of the mind.

The trick is not to deny the presence of fear, nor to attempt to banish it by force. Rather admit to fears, as well as mistakes or shortcomings, and acknowledge them openly. “Confessing” this way is sufficient to unplug the emotional charge of fears and inadequacies which undermine calm, clear thinking. Confession can be an intensely, empowering act of self-reclamation. “Unfriendlies,” whether they be self saboteurs or the DFEs, use our secret fears and guilts as effective tools for twisting self worth into self loathing. Fear of exposure must be active in us in order for DFEs to use these secrets and fears as a weapon against us.

Ask yourself: Am I thinking, or am I fearing? Fear is anything unlike peace, love or well being. Therefore all worry, concern, anxiety, doubt, uneasiness, revenge, guilt, blame, condemnation, resistance, and so on, is fear. No matter how slight the disturbance, it is nonetheless. Just as a female cannot be a little bit pregnant, so also we cannot be a little bit fearful. With our thoughts we are either “growing” fear and thereby adding to the darkness; or we are “growing” peace and thereby contributing to the light. It is that simple. That clear. That unequivocal. There is no middle ground of fear.

Homework: Daily ask yourself all through the day, am I fearing or am I thinking? Before retiring, think about: How am I growing my fear?

Close Extraterrestrial Encounter Syndrome (CEES) is an Adjustment Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DSM 309.9): a reaction to a close extraterrestrial encounter (CEE), remembered or repressed into the unconscious, which substantially alters patterns of daily living or social relationships in a mildly disorienting or unsettling way, and has four or more of the following 20 associated symptoms. these symptoms may include:

1. Repeated anxiety/unexplained restlessness after an anomalous event, (such as one involving nocturnal lights, viewing a UFO, a sense of a foreign presence in the house, or an unexplained detour from one’s ordinary driving route);
2. Phobic reaction to phenomena consciously or unconsciously associated with a CEE, (such as an accurate sketch of an extraterrestrial face);
3. Repeated sleep disturbances or nightmares with UFO/ET themes;
4. Obsessional “Dreams” or daytime thinking about UFOs, ETs or CEES;
5. Compulsive behavior (e.g., reading) concerning the UFO topic;
6. Unexplained moodiness/irritability after an anomalous UFO/encounter incident
7. Preoccupation with body symptoms/marks associated with a CEE (such as tiny scoop marks, or laser scars which don’t bleed or hurt and which heal very quickly, or inexplicable bruises noted upon wakening consistent with an extraterrestrial hand grip, or episodic ringing in one ear, or other episodic resonance vibrations felt in a particular body site, such as the upper nasal sinus cavity or the occipital lobe region of the brain);
8. Experiencing an unexplainable, substantial period of “missing time” following an anomalous incident, (such as being paced at night by a “car” with a single powerful headlight, or sitting down after dinner to watch television, immediately noticing an unusual pattern on the screen, and “waking up” at 9:00 the next morning unable to remember having watched TV or going to bed, etc.);
9. The sudden, unexplained onset of feelings of social non-ordinariness (i.e., that one is out of sync with the world, or that the world no longer seems as it used to);
10. Cosmic awareness (thinking about the Earth as a living whole, instead of confining one’s perspective to neighborhood or town or country; or thinking about the Earth as just one among many inhabited planets) which enters with unusual frequency into one’s daytime thinking;
11. Suddenly feeling an affinity for CEE experiencers one reads about or hears interviewed on television, or feeling a strong attraction to extraterrestrials as somehow familiar;
12. A sense of receiving telepathic messages or repeated gifted intuitions, presumably from an extraterrestrial source;
13. A sense of one’s mindspace being episodically entered into and shared with an extraterrestrial being;
14. The onset of or marked increase in, psychic/ESP ability, (such as clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, or telekinesis);
15. Onset of attraction for a spiritually or religious practice based on the in-dwelling of the Supreme Source in all nature, and resultant reverence for all lifeforms as related;
16. Sense of longing for the primary-contact Extraterrestrial one has dealt with during one or more Encounters;
17. An obsessive sense of having a mission (clear, vague or unconscious) derived from the CEE, and related to the extraterrestrials’ messages;
18. A sense of strong “pull” to travel to a specific area, either with an intuition of an impending close encounter there, or for an unknown reason, (which turns out to be a CEE);
19. Having an extraterrestrial perspective to the Earth’s situation, or feeling a genetic heritage partially derived from extraterrestrial sources, or having a sense of having come from off-planet, or having somehow had an extraterrestrial as one parent;
20. Sense of one’s destiny as off-planet, or feeling a “pull” to go “home” to an extraterrestrial planet one was shown by the ET’s, or to “rejoin fellow” extraterrestrials elsewhere in the galaxy.

Then, there are those experiencers who are suffering from major symptoms of a Complicated Close Extraterrestrial Encounter Syndrome (CEES). Most often this is because they are still dealing with residual emotions from an earlier, severe, human-caused trauma, for which they have not yet completed a successful course of psychotherapy. In such instances, the extraterrestrial visitations cause an abreactive exacerbation of previous, human-caused Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other preexisting disorders which predispose an experiencer to develop major symptoms after an encounter are: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Borderline Personality Syndrome, severe Histrionic or severe Dependent Personality disorder. For such dually-challenged persons the therapist will need to consider longer-term psychotherapy.

Such therapy will need to deal with both the human-caused traumatic issues and the emotional exacerbation and turmoil resulting from extraterrestrial visitations. Special care will be needed to keep distinct the issues stemming from the human-caused trauma, and those issues stemming from the extraterrestrial contact itself. It cannot be expected that the experiencer who has had previous human trauma will initially be able to keep the two events separate. In fact, in my research experience, such experiencers almost always confuse the feelings coming from their extraterrestrial encounter with the residual feelings from their human trauma.

And this is to be expected. The reason such confounding of close encounter feelings with feelings from human trauma occurs is because the human trauma is invariable extremely intense, catastrophically unexpected, out-of-the-norm, and extremely intimate. The unresolved human traumata most likely to cause flashback emotions after a close encounter are: childhood sexual molestation, childhood or adult rape, or childhood ritual (Satanic) cultic abuse, (usually involving sexual molestation and torture). Such human traumata leave the victim with deep feelings of being intruded upon intimately by an unwanted other person, feelings of being overpowered in a frightening way, feelings of loss of the usual protective boundaries between what is personal and what is socially shared, and feeling of loss of distinction between where self ends and where another person begins (intimate invasion).

Because extraterrestrial encounters often involve the sudden appearance of one or more extraterrestrials without warning in an expected location, such as one’s bedroom at night, their appearance can feel, at first, like an invasion. the extraterrestrials’ use of mental telepathy, and their facility for reading one’s thoughts and the contents of one’s mind, can feel, to the previously traumatized person, like an old, familiar, and unwelcome intrusion into what is in our culture one’s private space. Here we have the clash of two cultures, polar opposite in their assumptions. In human culture, (Western modern industrial culture, anyway) the assumption is that one’s thoughts and living space are private, because individualism is prized. In extraterrestrial cultures researched thus far, it appears that living space and thoughts are inevitably shared, because of the automatic, two-way nature of the mutual telepathic ability of all members of their society. they live in a shared mind-field “commons”.

There are other aspects of some close encounters which may also cause traumatic flashbacks. Sometimes an extraterrestrial will cloak him/herself (yes, they have gender) by imposing on the mind of the experiencer the borrowed appearance of a familiar family figure, so that the experiencer believes (and remembers) that it was Dad, or Uncle Henry, or Grandma that was actually in the bedroom the night they woke up with a presence in the room. If that close encounter also includes a scientific-medical exam, with the experiencer on her back, paralyzed or held in place by force-field ankle or wrist restraints, and if palpation of the pelvic or buttocks areas, or a gynecological procedure is part of the procedures, and the experiencer has only sketchy recall of the encounter, their memory may put the fragments remembered together and come up with the pseudo-memory that Dad, or Uncle Henry, or Grandma pinned them down in their bedroom and molested them. I have discovered at least five instances of such pseudo-incest memories in an 86-case research sample, and Hard psychiatrist John Mack reports more.

Then, there are those minority of cases, perhaps 5%, of persons who are the victims of pseudo-Alien abductions. These are staged by human Military/Intelligence “Special Operations” personnel to extract information or test exotic technology, and may include drugging, narco-hypnotism, psychological and physical abuse, interrogations, threats, rape, or torture, in exotic unfamiliar settings, with bizarre pseudo-”Aliens” (costumed Special Forces) present. The federal Department of Health and Human Services has been collecting reports from these victims.

Differential diagnosis of CEES from schizophrenia is relatively straightforward. Genuine experiencers do not have bizarre, grandiose, somatic, religious, nihilistic or persecutory delusions, (although the clinician must distinguish such report as telepathic communication by ETs from schizophrenia thought-insertion delusions.) Likewise, schizophrenic auditory hallucinations, where “the voices” criticize or command, must be distinguished from audible-seeming ET telepathic communication. And genuine experiencers are not incoherent, nor locked into illogical thinking or loose associations, as schizophrenics so often are. Also, experiencers’ affect is anything but blunt or flat. Nor is their behavior grossly disorganized, as the schizophrenic’s so often is.

Borderline Personality Disorder, as well as Factitious Disorder with Psychological Symptoms, provide differential diagnosis challenges, because many attention-seeking Borderlines and Factitious Disordered are now hopping on the “abductee-victim” bandwagon. Further, they have been exposed to enough media or support-group data to cleverly mimic experiencers. But persons who have had genuine encounters generally lack the marked mood-shifting, stubborn anger, history of intensely unstable relationships, gnawing identity disturbance, impulsivity patterns and chronic acting-out to enliven an empty life, which are the hallmarks of Borderlines.

Likewise, the Factitious-Disordered person’s chaotic array of symptoms and stubborn clinging to “victim” status do differentiate them from the generally well-functioning experiencer, who genuinely wants to understand their experiences and come to feel resolved.

The differentiation of Delusional Disorder, Paranoid Type from CEES is more exacting, because a Delusional could, and sometimes does, have a single-topic delusion of extraterrestrial visitation, and otherwise be functional. However, the characteristically-disproportional, consuming paranoia of the Delusional is quite different than the sometimes-afraid reaction of some experiencers. And Delusionals are refractory to reality-based educative counseling, which experiencers are able to use to master their misgivings and uncertainties about their encounters.

Frontal-Lobe Epilepsy may produce transient organic hallucinations, which can infrequently include “seeing” extraterrestrials. But the emotional lability, impulsiveness, intellectual rigidity or social disconnectedness often also seen in these organic personality syndromes distinguishes them from genuine experiencers, who are usually psychologically indistinguishable from the general population.

In my view, there is no more interesting and rewarding work than working with persons who have experienced a personal extraterrestrial visitation. The opportunities for healing, learning, and growing are immense. Yet clinical skills will be tested in this arena. And the need for vigilance to screen out the false and imitation presentations will always be present. And traditional sources of professional and colleague support are not yet evolved to encompass this reality. Until then, one finds new supports, in organizations like ACCET and PEER and from other avant-garde clinicians and experts.

One hundred years ago psychiatry was not an accepted discipline. One hundred years from today, people will marvel that Psychology once excluded extraterrestrial encounters as delusions.

________________________________________________

Richard Boylan, Ph.D.
2826 O Street, Suite 2
Sacramento, CA 95816, USA
(916) 455-0120
E-mail: rich.boylan@24stex.com
Primary website: www.ufonetwork.com/boylan/
Author: Close Extraterrestrial Encounters; Labored Journey To The Stars, and Project Epiphany

and

SPIRIT POSSESSION SYNDROME

A Comparison

by

William J. Baldwin, Ph.D.

© 2000

PO Box 4061

Enterprise, FL 32725-4061

e-mail: revjudith@cfl.rr.com

The study of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) cannot be complete without a serious examination of the condition known as Spirit Possession Syndrome (SPS). Comparison of DID and SPS reveals some interesting similarities. Some signs and symptoms of the two conditions are similar, some distinctly different. Among most mental health professionals there is considerable skepticism regarding both conditions.

Dissociation and formation of alter personalities in DID is nearly always the result of childhood trauma. The classic symptoms of DID may be muted and attenuated in childhood. The condition is often ignored, misunderstood, misinterpreted or misdiagnosed. A child’s complaints and behavior are frequently disbelieved, passed off as childhood fantasy, and may lead to punishment.

Recognizable symptoms may begin to manifest in the late teens, but the condition is often not discovered and accurately diagnosed until the mid to late thirties. Approximately 65% of cases are found between the ages of 20 and 40 (Kluft, 1985a, p. 215). The condition has a natural history from the original traumatic episode(s) to full manifestation of symptoms of DID. The person with DID usually holds a poor self image of mental and physical health. Cases of DID in the United States may number in the thousands (Putnam, 1989, pp. 54-55).

The earthbound soul (EB) of a deceased human can form an attachment to a living person at any point between conception and death. The mental, emotional and physical health of the host have no bearing on the potential for an attachment. Many cases of SPS are discovered in therapy while seeking the cause of a chronic problem or unexpected new conflict in the life of the client. Some investigators in this field estimate that between 70% and 100% of the population are affected or influenced by one or more discarnate spirit entities at some point in their lives (Berg, 1984, p. 50, Fiore, 1987).

Some phases of the treatment of DID and Spirit Releasement Therapy® are parallel in intent, yet the final goal is totally different. For the alter personalities in DID, the final step is either cooperation and co-consciousness or integration and fusion (Braun, 1986). For the condition of spirit attachment, only the release of the spirit can bring relief of the symptoms (Fiore, 1987; Baldwin, 1992).

Transformations of personality, as evidenced in trance mediumship and dissociative identity disorder (DID) formerly multiple personality disorder (MPD), have occurred throughout history. In ninety percent of societies worldwide there are records of possession-like phenomena (Foulks, 1985).

Through the annals of human experience people have believed that there was a non-physical existence parallel and coexistent with the physical universe. People considered this world to be filled with spirits. The ancients believed that most sickness was caused by evil spirits (Hoyt, 1978, p. 6).

The early writings of the Chinese, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks show that they generally attributed mental disorders to demons that had taken possession of an individual. Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle studied and wrote about mental disorders. All considered the cause to be natural, not supernatural.

Mental illness and demonology, the study of spirit possession, have been inseparably linked through the tortuous course of history (Coleman, Butcher, & Carlson, 1980, pp. 25-44).

Spirit Possession Syndrome

Demons and devils were thought of as commonplace in Babylonia and Assyria. In ancient Egypt the exorcism was performed by a team consisting of a physician to cure the ailment and a priest to drive out the demon of disease (Hoyt 1978, pp. 6-10).

In the New Testament fully one fourth of the healings attributed to Jesus consisted of casting out unclean spirits. He specified more than one type of spirit. In the Old Testament there is one reference to an evil spirit in I Samuel (Jones, 1966).

In the period of the Middle Ages, 500 AD to 1500 AD, there was a revival of the most ancient superstition and demonology slightly modified to conform to theological demands. Treatment of mental illness was left largely to the clergy in the belief that it was caused by evil spirits. All sorts of physical pain and scourging were used to drive out the devils (Coleman, Butcher, & Carlson, 1980, pp. 30-33).

The Spiritualist View

Modern spiritualism began in America in 1837 in Mount Lebanon with communications received from spirits. In 1848 two young girls, the Fox sisters, purportedly received spirit communication in the form of knocking sounds. Spiritualism is concerned with two basic premises: the continuity of personality after death and the powers of communication with the spirits of the deceased. (Fodor, 1966, pp. 360-366).

Mediumship is the phenomenon of a non-physical intelligence, usually a discarnate human, assuming some degree of control of a physical body for the purpose of communicating something useful and meaningful. Mediumship is distinguished from the phenomenon of spirit possession in that it occurs only with the deliberate cooperation of the medium and produces a constructive result. The difference is in purpose, duration and effect.

Dr. James Hyslop, was professor of Logic and Ethics at Columbia University, New York, from 1889 to 1902. Hyslop was elected president of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1906. Survival of consciousness, spirit obsession, and multiple personality disorder were high on the priority list for the Society’s efforts under his leadership and he explored the problem of distinguishing obsession from multiple personality. (Fodor, 1966, pp. 180, 265-266).

More than a theoretician, Dr. Hyslop was an experimentalist and empiricist. After he admitted the credibility of the existence of spirits, it required ten years of investigation to convince himself of the possibility of obsession by discarnate beings as a cause of mental illness. In the years that followed, he accumulated the facts that make it scientifically probable (Hyslop, 1920, p. 385). He is the true pioneer in the systematic investigation of spirit obsession and possession as a cause of mental disorder.

Dr. Carl Wickland was a psychiatrist and an avowed spiritualist. His seminal work in the treatment of spirit obsession and possession is chronicled in his two books Thirty Years Among The Dead (1924) and Gateway to Understanding (1934).

Spiritualism began losing its popularity in 1888 after the public confession by the Fox sisters that they had faked the spirit rappings. Belief in spirit possession became increasingly suspect, and the decline of belief in possession paralleled the decline of interest in multiple personality disorder.

Hypnosis lost favor in professional circles, multiple personality disorder was no longer diagnosed, and the process of exorcism as a healing technique virtually disappeared among the medical practitioners and the clergy as twentieth century materialism flourished in America.

Dissociation is considered a coping mechanism for a traumatic or overwhelming, stressful situation. Not all people who suffer this kind of abuse develop DID. It depends on the capacity to dissociate in response to the post traumatic stress of the abuse.

Dr. Richard Kluft (1986, pp. 87-89) has developed a “four factor theory” of the etiology of MPD (DID). The four factors he deems necessary for the development of multiple personalities are:

1. A biological capacity for dissociation.
2. A history of trauma or abuse.
3. Specific psychological structures or contents that can be used in the creation of alternate personalities.
4. A lack of adequate nurturing or opportunities to recover from abuse.

Dr. Bennett Braun (1986, pp. 5-9) has proposed the 3-P model of the development of the disorder.

1. Two Predisposing factors are hypothesized to be necessary. One is an inborn biological/psychological capacity to dissociate and the other is repeated exposure to an inconsistently stressful environment.
2. A Precipitating event must occur, a specific overwhelming traumatic episode to which the potential DID patient responds by dissociating.
3. The Perpetuating phenomena are interactive behaviors usually with the abuser that continue for an unspecified time and are beyond the control of the abused.

The near-death experience, or NDE, is well described in the literature. It seems as if the consciousness separates from the body, remains fully aware and “sees,” that is, perceives, everything in the vicinity in precise detail. The consciousness of the person rejoins the body, much to the great surprise of observers. The unmistakable implication of the NDE is that the personality survives physical death, fully aware and conscious, as a discrete entity, a volitional being. The term entity is defined as an individual consciousness, a whole integral being of distinct and demonstrable existence, separate from the physical body. By definition, this is a spirit.

Spirit Possession Syndrome

The condition of spirit possession, that is full or partial takeover of a living human by a discarnate being, has been recognized or at least theorized, in every era and in every culture. This condition has been called possession state, spirit possession, spirit possession syndrome, spirit obsession, or spirit attachment (Hyslop, 1917; Wickland, 1924, 1934; Allison, 1980; Guirdham, 1982; McAll, 1982; Crabtree, 1985; Fiore, 1987; Baldwin, 1992), and Dissociative Trance Disorder (APA, 1994, pp. 728-729).

Contemporary clinical evidence suggests that discarnate beings, the spirits of deceased humans, can influence living people, mentally, emotionally, and physically. The entity becomes a parasite in the mind of the host. A victim of this condition can be totally amnesic about episodes of complete takeover.

An attachment can be benevolent in nature, totally self serving, malevolent in intention, or completely neutral. Attachment to any person may be completely random, even accidental. It can occur simply because of physical proximity to the dying person at the time of the death. Most people are vulnerable to spirit attachment on many occasions in the normal course of life. Some investigators in this field estimate that between 70% and 100% of the population are affected or influenced by one or more discarnate spirit entities at some time in their life (Berg, 1984; Fiore, 1987; Baldwin, 1992).

Any mental or physical symptom or condition, strong emotion, repressed negative feeling, conscious or unconscious need can act like a magnet to attract a discarnate entity with the same or similar emotion, condition, need or feeling. Altering the consciousness with alcohol or drugs opens the subconscious mind to infestation by discarnate beings. This includes the use of strong analgesics and the anesthetic drugs necessary in surgery. A codeine tablet taken for the relief of the pain of a dental extraction can cause enough alteration of consciousness to allow entry to an entity. In the case of an organ transplant the spirit of the organ donor can literally follow the transplanted organ into the new body.

An entity of the opposite gender can influence the sexual preference and gender orientation. In some cases of transvestitism and transsexualism, the spirit of a deceased female is causing the desire to dress as a woman or to become a woman through gender reassignment surgery.

Many areas of a person’s life can be influenced by one or more attached entities. In short, spirit attachment can interfere with any aspect of the life of the unsuspecting host.

Inconsistent behavior can result from a shifting of control between separate entities. This behavior is similar in appearance to the phenomenon of switching between alters in DID.

The host is usually unaware of the presence of attached entities. The thoughts, desires and behaviors of an attached entity are experienced as the person’s own thoughts, desires and behaviors. The thoughts, feelings, habits and desires do not seem foreign if they have been present for a long time, even from childhood

Vietnam Veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often have flashbacks of horrendous combat scenes, including the experience of having died. Yet they survived the war. These memories often turn out to be the actual memories of men who did lose their lives in violent combat before attaching to the survivor.

In ignorance, most people do not refuse permission to these non-physical intruders. Individual sovereign beings have the right to deny any violation or intrusion by another being. With little knowledge or distorted perceptions of the nature of the spirit world, the non-physical reality, many people leave themselves open and create their own vulnerability as part of creating their own reality.

The differential diagnosis between DID and SPS, must include the consideration of discarnate influence or spirit obsession, possession or attachment as a factor. Certain manifestations of the two conditions are similar enough to appear identical. The etiology and history of the afflictions are vastly different. The outcome and prognosis depend on the correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

The essential features of DID include a disturbance of identity and memory and the presence of two or more distinct personalities or fragments of personalities within the person. These personalities may present different gender, race, IQ, age, even specific mental disorders, and claim a different family of origin. The belief that one is possessed by another person, under the control of a dead person, deity or demon, power, spirit or other outside force may occur as a symptom of DID. The separate personalities may be able to function individually and be totally unaware of the others (APA, 1987, pp. 269-272; APA, 1994, pp. 484-487).

The clinical procedures and interventions of Spirit Releasement Therapy appear to facilitate the release of the attached spirit entity. After successful completion of the process, the imposed symptoms are alleviated partially or fully, often immediately and permanently.

Similarities Between DID and SPS

There are interesting similarities that become evident when comparing spirit possession and multiple personalities. Some signs and symptoms are comparable, some distinctly different. A spirit attachment can develop at any time in the life cycle between conception and a brief period following death. Dissociation and development of alter personalities in DID nearly always results from childhood trauma.

Hypnosis is the accepted method of discovering, diagnosing and treating the condition of DID. Hypnosis is the primary therapeutic method for accessing the subconscious portion of the mind. Hypnosis is also one method of probing for any attached entity that may be interfering with a client.

Onset and development of DID apparently spans a long period of time and the precipitating events occur in early childhood. About half of the reported cases have under ten alter personalities, the other half have from ten to over one hundred. Impairment varies from mild to severe depending primarily on the relationship between the personalities (APA, 1994, pp. 484-485).

A newly formed spirit attachment can occur suddenly and changes are apparent immediately. Long standing spirit attachment may be discovered when a person enters therapy to resolve a chronic or continuing problem. Except in the rare cases of full possession the entity does not take over completely. The effect of spirit attachment is manifested and experienced in unusual ego dystonic drives, appetites, urges, contradictory thinking, internal voices, arguing and dialogue.

The person diagnosed with DID usually has a history of a poor concept of mental, physical, and emotional health. Spirit attachment is neither affected nor determined by the health concepts of the host.

The multiple has a history of emotional, physical and most often sexual abuse in childhood during which there was no sense of being able to control the circumstances. The childhood sexual abuse history of the host has no bearing on spirit attachment.

Alters usually have a feeling of belonging, being part of or owning the body. Entities are aware that they are separate beings. In a futile attempt to remain and not be dislodged from a comfortable place, an attached spirit might attempt to persuade the therapist that the body they inhabit is their own. Specific questions will elicit the truth in this circumstance.

In the true multiple there is normally an amnestic barrier between the alter personalities. Yet, in an altered state of consciousness, sometimes referred to as hypnotic trance, one alter can recall the activities of the other alters when they were “out,” that is, in charge of the body. It seems that the sense of self and the memory of the alters exists in the subconscious.

Attached entities usually know about other entities or groups of entities and certainly know about the host as a separate person. Entities with a person diagnosed with DID know about the alters and the alters may recognize the entities as separate beings and not part of the “group.” In such a person, the alters will refute the entity’s claim to the body.

A traditional therapist may not believe an entity when it claims to be a separate being. Should the therapist attempt to integrate such an entity, the attempt will be unsuccessful and the best result possible will be co-consciousness.

William James (1842-1910) in his 1896 Lowell Lectures spoke on “Demoniacal Possession.” Recapitulating the previous lecture, “Multiple Personality,” he mentioned three types of mutations in the sense of self: insane, hysteric, and somnambulistic. The fourth type, he said, is spirit control, or mediumship that in the past had been equated with devil worship and pathology. He went on:

History shows that mediumship is identical with demon possession. But the obsolescence of public belief in the possession by demons is a very strange thing in Christian lands, when one considers that it is the one most articulately expressed doctrine of both Testaments, and…reigned for seventeen hundred years, hardly challenged, in all the churches. Every land and every age has exhibited the facts on which this belief was founded. India, China, Egypt, Africa, Polynesia, Greece, Rome, and all medieval Europe believed that certain nervous disorders were of supernatural origin, inspired by gods and sacred; or by demons—and therefore diabolical. When the pagan gods became demons, all possession became diabolic, and we have the medieval condition (Taylor, 1984, p. 93-94).

In James’ day, there was “…much alarmist writing in psychopathy about degeneration,” and he suggested that “…if there are devils, if there are supernormal powers, it is through the cracked and fragmented self that they enter.” (Taylor, 1984, p. 110).

James (1966) went on to say:

“The refusal of modern ‘enlightenment’ to treat ‘possession’ as a hypothesis to be spoken of as even possible, in spite of the massive human tradition based on concrete experience in its favor, has always seemed to me a curious example of the power of fashion in things scientific. That the demon-theory will have its innings again is to my mind absolutely certain. One has to be ‘scientific’ indeed to be blind and ignorant enough to suspect no such possibility.“

James’ prescient forecast concerning the “demon theory” is proving true. Dr. Ralph Allison (1985), considered a pioneer in the modern treatment of DID, says bluntly that many of his multiple personality patients have exhibited symptoms of possession. He states:

Repeatedly, I encountered aspects of their personalities that were not true alter personalities…In many of these cases, it was difficult to dismiss these unusual and bizarre occurrences as mere delusion. In the absence of any ‘logical’ explanation, I have come to believe in the possibility of spirit possession.

Dr. Allison (1985) states that he has corresponded with many professionals who have come to similar conclusions about the origin and purpose of alter personalities.

It is interesting that the three subjects, hypnosis, spirit possession and multiple personality disorder were prominent at the turn of the century then faded almost simultaneously into obscurity. Popular literature on the subject of MPD again brought the condition into public awareness. Hypnosis gained acceptance in mid-century. Treatment of spirit possession never ceased but continued quietly through the years without much publicity.

Dr. Richard Kluft (1985b) has coined the term co-presence. By this he means the ability of an alter to influence the experience or behavior of another personality. This describes precisely the effect of an attached earthbound entity on the host.

Dr. Walter Young (1987) described a case of ostensible adult onset of MPD. Duane, a veteran of WW II, began having dissociative episodes after his discharge from the navy. Duane did not drink or use drugs. He described an inner voice that had been present since the war which sometimes advised suicide.

Duane had an unhappy childhood but there were not the usual precipitating factors leading to MPD. Duane and a friend named Max joined the navy together. In a tragic episode, Duane ordered Max to stand his (Duane’s) gunnery watch. A Japanese plane strafed the area and Max was fatally wounded. Duane was with Max in the last moments and heard Max promise “I’ll never leave you.” Duane felt responsible for the death of his friend.

Under hypnosis Max claimed to have entered Duane because Max held Duane responsible for his death. He claimed he had a score to settle with Duane because, he protested, “it wasn’t my time to die.” He denied the presence of any other alters. He acknowledged that he was the “voice” that Duane heard. He took control occasionally and Duane was amnesic during these periods. Max lived a hedonistic lifestyle when he was in control of Duane’s body, riding motorcycles, having affairs with women and urging Duane to leave home on repeated trips. This fits the definition of co-presence described above.

Previous psychiatric records revealed that a dissociative condition was suspected. Max revealed that the psychiatrist knew of his presence and had attempted to “banish” him. He just went away briefly and returned after the psychiatrist was gone. This is the result of inadequate knowledge of the spirit releasement therapy procedures.

Duane left therapy with Dr. Young after three months. His anxiety increased as hypnotic sessions were conducted with the intention of exploring the war and early life experiences.

In the discussion Dr. Young suggests these unusual aspects of the case. Because the adult onset of MPD is rare, it is little studied and little understood. A single alter in a case of MPD is highly unusual. His discussion attempted to explain the case in psychoanalytic terms but without concrete conclusions.

The description of the case of Duane and Max is typical of spirit attachment. There are many specific indications including the following:

1. There was no history that would indicate the antecedents of MPD.

2. The two were friends.

3. Duane was present at the time of Max’s death.

4. Duane felt guilt, Max felt blame. This is an exact fit of emotions

5. Max promised, “I’ll never leave you.”

6. Max said he had entered Duane. This is a clear description that the therapist must accept as valid.

7. The voice urged suicide as a way of assuaging the blame and guilt and achieving peace for both. The idea of achieving peace is a manipulative deception.

8. With Max in control Duane was amnesic of the lifestyle adopted by Max. This is a case of occasional complete takeover.

9. Max knew he was a separate being and resisted the psychiatrist’s efforts to banish him. Max was not at all confused by the situation.

10. The situation worsened with further inadequate and inappropriate treatment. Psychiatric intervention was obviously the wrong treatment approach for the condition.

Spirit attachment, or possession, is not affected by standard medical treatment and traditional psychotherapy simply does not apply. Psychiatric intervention especially the use of mind altering drugs can exacerbate the condition. A process of releasing the attached entity is the treatment of choice and indeed the only successful method of alleviating the problem. The process is gentle, logical, methodical, systematic and grounded in sound psychotherapeutic principles.

Spirit releasement therapy procedures are not dangerous or frightening once a client is aware of the reality of the situation. The condition of spirit attachment if properly treated can be cleared immediately. However, hypnotic suggestion can mask organically caused symptoms, behavior can be altered by post-hypnotic suggestion, and the placebo effect of any kind of treatment ritual is well known. For these reasons a psychological evaluation is recommended prior to the intervention and a thorough medical examination is necessary if there are physical symptoms. This treatment cannot be considered as a substitute for appropriate medical or psychological treatment.

TREATMENT

Some phases of treatment for these two conditions are parallel in intent, yet the final goal is totally different. For the alter personalities in DID, fusion or integration is the final step; for the condition of spirit attachment, only the release of the spirit can bring the relief of symptoms (Braun, 1986, Fiore, 1987; Baldwin, 1992).

DID

The steps in the treatment of the multiple personality can be listed as follows:

1. Trust, establishing the therapeutic alliance.

2. Making and sharing the diagnosis.

3. Communication with the personalities and honoring or validating them as individuals.

4. Contracting with the personalities to continue therapy, not to harm self or others, including the therapist.

5. Individual and system history gathering. This means learning details of each personality such as the name, its present age, the age of the client when the personality was created, the reasons for creation and present function, location of the client when the personality was formed, the present position in the power structure, what functions it now serves, what problems and issues arise, and how it believes it was created.

6. Therapeutically working the issues of each personality.

7. Special procedures, such as sand play, art therapy, occupational therapy.

8. Interpersonality communications, an early step to co-consciousness and integration.

9. Resolution and integration. After the conflict areas are resolved, integration is the goal. Some alters refuse to integrate or to be absorbed, some fear they will die. An acceptable but less stable form of resolution is a co-consciousness or mutual cooperation between alter personalities, and is less than complete integration.

10. New coping skills.

11. Social networking.

12. Solidifying gains and skills.

13. Follow up.

These steps are detailed in the first book published on the treatment of MPD (DID) (Braun, 1986).

Steps 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11,12, and 13 are also standard in the treatment process for spirit possession syndrome. Step 4 is less important, as the release is most often accomplished during the same session as the discovery of an attached spirit. If the release is not completed during the first session, it is wise to request an agreement with the entity or entities to return for another session, to remain quiet and not attack or harm the host.

Regarding step 7, it is unnecessary to use adjunct procedures for the attached spirits. Therapy with the entity is not aimed at resolution of its issues so it can lead a productive life, as it has left its physical body; it has no life as such. The goal is to effect sufficient resolution to release the emotional or physical bond that holds the entity to the earth plane and release its attachment to the identified client. This will allow the next step to be accomplished—that is, releasing the entity into the Light.

The point of widest divergence between the therapies for the two conditions is step 9. After the resolution in spirit releasement therapy, the entity is sent on to the next step in its own evolution, to its rightful place in the Light. One spirit cannot be fused with another. It cannot be forced to blend or integrate with another separate, sovereign entity.

By letting go of something, releasing some inappropriate connection, by getting rid of the burden of an attached spirit, the client is left whole and complete in him or her self, without the parasitic attachments. In therapy with multiples, the alter personalities are fused, integrated and blended with the original personality in the attempt to reestablish the wholeness that was destroyed by early trauma.

The differences between DID and SPS may be due to the disparate theoretical frameworks, or therapeutic paradigms. It may be simply an artifact of the two distinct metaphors. It also may indicate that the two models are both valid and accurate in the description of their respective conditions.

The two disorders have some characteristics in common that appear similar in outward manifestations, yet are distinct from one another in cause or precipitating factors, onset, history, diagnosis, prognosis, and successful treatment, and must be diagnosed and treated appropriately. The treatment for DID is useless and confusing for a person burdened with attached spirits. Releasing discarnates from the person afflicted with DID may allow for earlier success during treatment with the methods appropriate to that condition.

SRT

Historically, the treatment of spirit possession has been primarily in the hands of the shaman, medicine man or clergy. Rituals of many sorts have been used from verbal incantations and incense to beating with sticks. Baptism and christening of infants is a form of exorcism. The Finnish sauna and the attendant beating with branches is a form of exorcism. The Native American sweat lodge is a means to the same ends. Jesus commissioned the twelve disciples to heal the sick and cast out unclean spirits. After them He also commissioned the 72 (The Bible, Luke 10). Ministers today perform “deliverance” on those afflicted with “demons.” They employ much exhortation and prayer.

Spirit Releasement Therapy is used on an individual basis. The process of spirit releasement therapy consists of the following six distinct phases:

The first step is to discover and identify any attached discarnate spirits, or entities. Seldom is only one entity attached.

The second step is differential diagnosis. The earthbound spirit of a deceased human is the most common attachment, yet there are many other types of nonphysical beings that interfere with living people. The following steps apply to the attached EB.

The third step is to engage the spirit in dialogue. There are four specific purposes:

1. Resolution of the emotional conflicts or physical needs that have kept it in the earth plane.

2. Determination of the specific circumstances that led to the attachment to the client.

3. Discovery of the vulnerability or susceptibility that first allowed the attachment.

4. Assessment of the effects of the spirit attachment of the client.

At this point, the discarnate entity is treated like any other client with an emotional problem. The therapist assists the entity in resolving these issues for the express purpose of effecting its release from the client. It is helpful for ongoing therapy with the client to discover the vulnerability that allowed the attachment to this person and to identify and assess the effects of the attachment.

The fourth step is the actual release of the spirit into the Light. This is a phenomenon similar to that described in the NDE. There is often a tearful reunion as the spirits of the deceased loved ones come to welcome the returning human soul.

The fifth step is a specific guided imagery of Light. It is very important and necessary to fill metaphorically the space left by the departing being or beings. The client is directed to imagine a brilliant spark of Light deep in the center of the body. It glows and expands to fill the body, then expands outward about an arm’s length all around, forcing out anything unlike itself. It forms a shimmering protective bubble of Light surrounding the person. The client is urged to repeat this visualization several times each day.

The sixth step is ongoing therapy. Other entities, or layers of entities, are often discovered. It is essential to resolve the conflict and to heal the emotional vulnerability that allowed the attachments. Inner child healing and treatment of subpersonalities is very effective in the ongoing work.

The experience is profound for the client, and very satisfying for the therapist.

DISCUSSION

The ancient concept of spirit possession may be quite valid, though largely ignored in modern, scientifically oriented, materialistic society. Spirit Releasement Therapy can bring profound and unexpected results, mental and physical, ranging from minor improvement to a total remission of hitherto untreatable symptoms and conditions. The methodology is straightforward and grounded in sound psychotherapeutic principles.

I suggest that some significant and essential knowledge has been excluded from contemporary Western psychology and psychotherapy. That is the transpersonal or spiritual dimension. I suggest that we must view the concept of spirit interference, spirit obsession, spirit possession or spirit attachment, not as a metaphor, but as a condition that exists as a very real part of the human condition. Greater knowledge and understanding of this condition will begin to eliminate the fear and superstition within which it has been veiled forever. If a spirit attachment is present, then the methodology of SRT is a clear, systematically organized, consistent process of correcting the condition. It is truly a holistic, spiritual psychotherapy.

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A new breed of therapist is healing the mentally ill not with talk and drug therapy but by releasing troublesome or malevolent spirits who have attached themselves to their victims. I am not talking about religious healers like Francis McNutt, but secular healers, some of them licensed psychiatrists or psychologists, who have discovered, often by accident, that this new therapy works better than what they learned in medical or graduate school. They tell us that too often drug therapy only masks symptoms, and talk therapy reaches only as deep as the patient’s conscious mind can go. But spirit releasement usually heals, often permanently. Not only does it heal the client; it heals the attached or possessing spirit.

William Baldwin’s Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual, published in 1995, was a watershed event for this movement. Dr. Baldwin left a dentistry practice to pursue his passion. His ensuing doctoral dissertation in psychology was the first ever to take seriously spirit release as a legitimate therapy.

The disciples of Dr. Baldwin, who died in 2004, deal with spirits, or entities as they are often called, in a manner very different from most church-based exorcists and deliverance ministers. Missing is the adversarial command to come out in the name of Jesus! These alternative therapists treat the spirits with respect and compassion. To threaten anyone, living or dead, they say, only provokes an angry reaction, but a gentler, more rational approach is usually enough to coax the spirit out of its host and into the light of the afterworld, where it should have been all along.

Spirits come in several varieties, we are told. Most often they are EBs, or earthbound. These are more attached to the loved ones they’ve left behind than to the light they’ve turned their back on; others are addicted to earth’s vices, such as alcohol or narcotics; still others are simply confused, not even sure they’ve died. But DFEs, or dark force entities, are another matter. Intending evildoing, they attach themselves to unsuspecting mortals to inflict maximum damage to self-esteem, family relations and every expression of love.

Speaking through their victims, they swear profusely. They are belligerent, disruptive, threatening and thoroughly unpleasant. They claim they belong to a satanic intelligence that rules them and punishes them when they fail at their tasks. Yet their loyalty to this negative force can be dislodged; with skillful handling they, too, can be released into the light.

One of the most extraordinary claims made by this new kind of healer is that nearly all of us, at one time or another, have had entities attached to us. How do they know? The same way they know everything else they tell us: Under hypnosis, their clients, and the spirits speaking through them, tell them. Dr. Baldwin said he did not invent EBs and DFEs; they emerged, unsought, out of therapy sessions. Over and over and over. Other healers — from psychiatrist Shakuntala Modi, who practices in West Virginia, to the less credentialed but gifted husband-and-wife team of Melanie and Patrick Rodriguez, who practice in Montreal — describe a spiritual world and a method of dealing with it that is the same. One might suspect a conspiracy except for the fact that the movement is so widespread, with practitioners ranging from Hindu babas living in Pune, India, to a Polish healer who describes herself as a “therapist for ghosts as well as people, both needing the same love and care.”

Most of us have a child or relative or friend whose life is shattered by depression, sexual dysphoria, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism or a host of other ailments. What if you were told that there was a healer who could get to the bottom of the problem and heal it, but that the source of the problem was probably an attached spirit? Would you go for it? Could you open your mind to the possibility that your sister’s untreatable 30-year-long bulimia could be stopped dead in its tracks by identifying the spirit behind the disease, releasing it into the light, and then teaching her how to protect against a future attachment?

All in this movement hope that you would. They see the procedure not as a throwback to medieval times when demoniacs were put to death, but as an advance. William Woolger, an internationally renowned transpersonal psychologist, sees it as “the next and essential stage in the development of psychology, a kind of return to the source.”

In the meantime, Dr. Modi, the West Virginia psychiatrist, recommends a “protection prayer” for her patients, to be repeated every night. It begins, “I pray to God to please cleanse, heal, shield, illuminate and protect me, all my family, friends …”  Dr. Modi is not even certain that spirits are real — perhaps they are fantastic inventions made up out of her patients’ subconscious minds. Nevertheless, they might be exactly what they seem to be, and claim to be. And she, and almost all of her colleagues, strongly suspect they are.

In any case, all agree that treating spirits as if they were real is often the key to a startlingly quick recovery. And if the client makes himself permanently uncomfortable company for the pestering spirit through prayer and other spiritual disciplines — reenter religion — a permanent recovery.

Many years ago I watched a psychically gifted mother-and-daughter team rid a house of bothersome and sometimes terrifying poltergeist phenomena. Skeptical from the start, I studied the sensitive child’s eyes as they followed “three spirits” around the house during the procedure. (We called it an exorcism back then.) Like the therapists we’ve looked at here, the mother used persuasion, not threat, when dealing with the spirits, and there was never an appeal to religion. It took over an hour of patient, compassionate urging, and it worked.

The daughter watched the spirits finally exit the home. The phenomena ceased from that day forward. And the victim, who had put her beloved home on the market, took it off a few days later.

Since then I have paid attention to the claims of these “gentle exorcists” — whether their target was spirits attached to homes or persons. It is impossible not to be impressed.

Stafford Betty is professor of religious studies at California State
University, Bakersfield . National Catholic Reporter, December 28, 2007

Soul retrieval is a shamanic approach to healing. In the native tradition of shamanism illness was an indication that the soul had vacated the body. The shaman journeyed into the underworld to retrieve the soul and return it to the sick person restoring wholeness and health. The technique can be modified and used the clinical setting.

Soul-Mind is the term used to define the mechanism which records the sum total of experiences through physical incarnations of the spirit being. It is the permanent intellect or consciousness that composes a person’s character or individuality.

In the process of treating people for the symptoms of spirit attachment, it is not unusual to find a fragment of the mind of a living person as an attached entity. This condition invites speculation about the other person whose mind fragmented and from who the fragment separated. As part of the exploration within a session, the therapist can be alert for signs of soul-mind fragmentation in the client. Fragmentation seems to be a common condition stemming from the many perceived traumatic situations in life, ranging from minor to severe, real or imagined.

Life in human form can be considered a physical experience for a spirit being. In this human experience, most people suffer trauma, physical and emotional. Physical traumas which lead to soul-mind fragmentation can be any bodily intrusion with a real or imagined threat to survival such as surgeries, organ donation and transplants, amputations of limbs, beating or damage to any part of the physical body. Any sexual abuse such as rape or incest usually causes fragmentation with intense emotional residue can develop in military combat situations with death caused by explosion, decapitation, and atrocities such as severing of the genitals.

The emotional trauma caused by these physical violations can initiate dissociation and splitting of the consciousness as a coping mechanism. Emotional trauma following loss of a loved one, or the sight of a loved one being seriously harmed, can lead to fragmentation. The experience of the trauma is literally stored in a fragment of the consciousness, the subpersonality which becomes separated and isolated from the main consciousness.

Multiple personality disorder is the result of severe emotional, physical and sexual trauma. Inmost such cases extensive fragmentation is inevitable. Further study of MPD patients reveals that some of the fragments have indeed separated.

Some people can recall and describe incidents of childhood molestation during which they stood across the room watching the molester fondling their little body. One client reported leaving her body lying in bed while father was touching her. She jus went outside and sat on the roof until he went away. Many molestation victims report floating near the ceiling during the periods of molestation. In many cases the fragment separates only briefly and rejoins the consciousness with in the confines of brain/mind, forming a sub or alter personality the same ate as the child at the time of the molestation.

The percentage of fragmentation can range from minor to total. There can be any number of separate fragments. Each fragment maintains a connection with the main consciousness by a thread, a fiber of the silver cord which attaches the soul to the body. Bodies can function as long as the silver cord maintains its connection, even if there is total evacuation of the fragments. Evacuation can result in coma. It also opens the way to total possession by an intrusive spirit.

The fragments continue to be connected to each other by the silver threads, even after the being leaves the physical body in death, when the silver cord is detached. The fragment of the soul-mind associated with a severed body part remains with the body part, yet maintains connection to the main consciousness by a thread.

A fragment can become partially dislodged and still remain connected to the body. A fragment can separate and follow the person like a balloon on a string. It can remain in some distant location or structure, it can also attach to another living person. A fragment can actually move into the Light.

A fragment of the mind of a living person can be attached to one or more other living persons. The condition of fragmentation is not healed by death of the fragmented person. the newly deceased spirit, the discarnate entity, is also fragmented. This fragmented entity can then attach to still another living person. Thus a discarnate entity can be attached to two or more living individuals.

Another aspect of this situation provides an interesting twist to the classic condition of spirit possession in which a living person is considered to be influenced by the spirit of a deceased person. If the living mind fragment remains connected to the spirit of the newly deceased person, then a deceased spirit is being possessed by the mind of a living person.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of fragmentation is fairly straightforward. Nearly everyone who has suffered trauma has some form and degree of the condition. On one symptom is diagnostic, though a combination of symptoms may be indicative.

The language of the client will describe the condition of fragmentation. A person may describe the experience of feeling dissociated, ungrounded, disconnected, or feeling like they are not in the body. The eyes may appear vacant. The senses may seem muffled, a person may sleep a lot and feel apathetic toward life. They may feel like they are “not all there,” “not at home,” as if something is “missing.” There is a feeling of emptiness, of having no heart, of having an empty tube or a big hole inside.

As a client in altered state of consciousness scans their body they may discover dark or shadowy spots, voids, holes, and empty places. These are the spaces left by the fragmentation. The client is directed to look for the threads that lead out from the spaces. When these threads are found some will appear darker, some lighter. Joyful or happy episodes can cause a fragmentation almost as readily as unhappy occurrences and the threads to these fragments may appear light, even silvery. In all cases of fragmentation and separation the silver thread connection remains, and it is this link that makes possible the recovery process.

Recovery of the Fragment

The trauma which led to the fragmentation is processed for the mental, emotional and physical residues as for any traumatic event. These residues are retained by the fragment, the subpersonality formed by the fragmentation.

The traumatic incident which originally caused fragmentation might be located in another lifetime. The fragment can literally be floating free or clinging to a location or structure on earth in the present time, even though the event occurred in another era. Past life therapy can assist in recovering and healing this fragment.

A child can be born with the condition of fragmentation. For a young child the recovery of the fragments must be done remotely.

Witchcraft and black magic, spells, hexes and curses can cause a fragmentation of the practitioner, witch or sorcerer. their fragment remains with the victim of the magic spell or curse, even though the practitioner is deceased. There is always dark energy involved in this sort of intrusive activity. The demonic entities must be released appropriately and the fragment sent to the Light. If the practitioner is still living, a remote releasement of the attached dark entities is completed and the fragment is sent back to the person.

When the conflict resolution is complete, the fragment is invited back into the present moment. It is welcomed into the body wherever it belongs, sometimes into the empty hole inside, often into the heart. The client will report a feeling of warmth, peace, and a pleasant new sense of wholeness.

The term holistic stems from the word wholeness, meaning completeness, totality of body, mind and spirit. Fragmentation as the source of illness is an important concept in the native healing traditions. It may prove to be an important contribution to the concept of holistic healing.