Spiritual Possession: Looking at the Spooky Subject Without the Spook

There is no fear in the house of love, all love, no fear

I recently interviewed an interesting author whose understanding of history and social dynamics richly incorporates the notion of spiritual possession, which he discusses at length in the interview. I will post the interview soon, but because there is so much spook around this topic, I decided to write about it first, from the position of spiritual connection, strength and love. My take is different from many institutional, anxiety-based takes, and I am sharing it as food for thought. Not as dogma, not as something that is set in stone or that you have to take on faith but as food for thought. At the end of the day, it is your soul that decides what makes sense to you, and how the world works.

The institutional take is that if a spiritual experience comes in a flavor that can be described in terms of an officially “approved” faith (i.e., “a vision of Christ,” “an encounter with an angel,” etc.) then it’s good. Otherwise, it is not so great. I believe that the things are a bit more complicated. For example, what if one has a “visitation from God,” the official “God,” and that “God” tells the person to go kill strangers in a foreign land, was it really God that they had a visitation from?

I believe that the litmus test of godliness of any spiritual encounter is not the branding but whether it elevates the soul and helps the person understand themselves in the context of love. 

But first things first.

We are composite beings

On every level, we are composite beings.

We are composite beings who exist in many dimensions. Imagine a Lego that is built from bricks that are all alive—and that are held together by the all-mysterious power of love. That is a fairly precise description of us. Furthermore, every brick is also composite, and its parts are also alive and composite and held together by the power of love. And those, parts, too—and on, and on, and on, to the tiniest particle of love!

In the realm that is visible to the eye (“the physical world”), we consist of cells.  Every cell is a part of us but it is also alive, going about its business in the way it knows, eating, releasing waste, having relationships with other cells, etc. Also, on the inside (and on the outside) of our bodies, we have myriads of microbes. While technically, they are not a part of our body per se, they are still an integral part of us. Those microbes play an active role in our immune response, they produce enzymes for our body to use, etc. etc.. They are separate beings, yes, but they are also a part of us, and if a particular microbial community stays with us our entire life, how separate are they?

When it comes to microbes and even cells, their “resonance” or “life’s mission” or whatever you call it in fancy terms may be harmonious to ours, or neutral to ours, or completely at odds with ours. For example, one can argue that Bifidobacteria are our big friends, while pathogenic molds or protozoan parasites like toxo are our foes. Similarly, if the cells decide to never die and just keep multiplying, they become cancer cells, etc. “Friends” do things that are good for us—and “foes” do things that have the potential to harm. There is an existential point to the existence of “evil,” but we’ll get there a little but later. For now, let’s just say that “friends” help, and “foes” can harm.

When it comes to the invisible realm, we are also composite. I believe that the world “spiritual” simply refers to the things that exist in the invisible realm, and non-scholastically, the word “spirits” means “energies that we can’t see.”

Personally, I am subscribed to the view that everything natural in the universe has a consciousness and a free will, and that everything is bound together and set into coherent motion by the most mysterious and beautiful energy of love. Everyone carries a spark that comes directly from the Creator. Each living being’s potential range of habits, desires, and choices is designed to make the big picture work.

I believe that the spooky feeling created around the notion of “spirits” was created on purpose by people with not-so-good intentions to separate the majority of people from our connection to nature and natural spiritual powers (that are fully approved by the Creator, in my opinion, because it is the Creator who created them in the first place, for love!)

For example, when you are sick, you take a medicinal herb that may help you, in addition to praying however you pray. You may choose to pray to be guided to choose the right herb, too. You don’t say that herbs all come from the devil, and so, on principle, the only thing you are going to do is pray and you are going to banish the herbs! I mean, you can, and you can deal with however it works out for you but… Medicinal herbs exist for a reason, and they wouldn’t be here if they weren’t brought to this world by the loving Creator, so.... The way I see it, same goes for the invisible realm. It is the people with not-so-good intentions who scared the hell out of people so that the people forget their way to the good spiritual forces, unless they are “licensed by authorities” (who usually only license ideas that they hope will lead the people astray) and start praying not like loved, dignified carriers of God’s spark but like shrunk slaves.

Going back to us being composite beings, just like in the visible realm we consist of our own cells, microbes, etc, in the invisible realm, we consist of different energies, some of which are intrinsically “ours,” a part of us, and some are “external” but also a part of us in a way.

Interacting with different forces

For example, if you go to a movie theater and start suddenly crying at a sappy scene, it could be viewed as a spiritual possession of sorts since you were just “given” a feeling by an external invisible force. You encountered an energy that connected to something resonant inside you, and that interaction impacted you in a mysterious way and made you feel something you didn’t feel a minute ago.

Another example. Many of us have heard stories about people acting with extraordinary physical strength under an extraordinary circumstance, like what people do in situations of great danger to save a friend’s life, etc. As a kid, I heard a (yes, hearsay) story about a mother who lifted up a part of a heavy truck to save her child. She didn’t have the physical strength to do it but her infinite mother’s love invoked the good spiritual forces who came upon her and allowed her, in that moment, to do something extraordinary that in her “normal” state she would not be able to do. Which makes it a spiritual possession, help from the spirits that saved her child’s life.

Another example. If you are in a room, and then someone comes in in a different mood, be it a very excited mood or a very angry mood, you may be impacted by that mood—or not, depending on whether it resonates with yours. If you look at that mood as an energy that is simultaneously “somebody’s mood” and an energy of its own that travels around and interacts with people under favorable circumstance, you are looking at a “spirit.” And so, if you end up interacting with that energy to the extent of “picking up the mood,” it’s a kind of a spiritual possession, too.

Good and bad

To my senses, good and bad from the human perspective are best understood in the context of the indigenous myth of “choosing one’s destiny,” according to which, once spirits decide to be born as people and experience existence as people on Earth, they go select a “task list,” get it approved by the Creator, and then come to Earth. According to that myth, the circumstance and even the challenges are meant to help the person walk their highest destiny. The parents, any joy, any dysfunction, any blessings, anything one has to overcome—all of it is meant to make the person best equipped with the skills to do their job. And I feel that the “job” is usually about enacting love, in a myriad of ways.

Now, from that perspective, “good” desires for the people to walk their destiny (approved by the Creator and fitting in to the mysterious big picture), helps according to its strength and ability, and respects free will. “Bad” doesn’t care for either, and in fact, it would try to distract people from walking their destiny, make them scared, forever scarred, arrogant, self-destructive, etc. It’s kind of like the Christian devil. But it serves an existential purpose because without the chance of choosing wrong or destructive, there is no free will.

I believe that the mysterious ‘end goal’ of all this is the powerful union with all the good things, the realization, in the level of perhaps the entire universe, that love is a superior way. But it is only a really beautiful choice when it’s a choice, you know… Just like, if you are sane, you are not going to enjoy the “loyalty” of your spouse that comes as a result of you chaining their leg to the leg of a table in the living room and not allowing them to leave the house. The enjoyable part is if they love you and are loyal to you because they want to, then you feel honored in a beautiful way.

Possession, etc.

Personally, I don’t have a lot of kind words for the people who create spook around it. Spook is not good.

I believe it’s a good idea to “unspook” it and think about it in a way that it is a mystery to be taken seriously and with total reverence for the Creator but at the same time, our entire life is about love, and the Creator is kind, and everything that happens ultimately serves love.

One may think about it in terms of connecting to power, either supportive or not, either voluntarily or not. Non-voluntary things are either a part of the predestined learning (once the learning is done, it will make beautiful sense), or an indication that the person needs to change something on the inside (once the mistake is corrected, it will make beautiful sense). At all time, under all circumstance, the good spiritual powers are watching out for us and breathing love into our sails.

Here is a way to look at connecting to power.

On the “good” side of things, let us say, you have a friend in a position of power, somebody with an important title, etc. If you find yourself in a situation where you need help, you reach out to your friend, and you get help.

On the “bad” side of things, perhaps you want your neighbor’s house, and you happen to have friends in the mob. So you reach out to your mobster friends, they beat the living hell out of neighbor, and the scared neighbor hands you the keys to his house. In this case, you kind of “won,” and you are a proud owner of a stolen house--but one day, you may fail to pay off your ruthless mobster friends, and, since they know the way to your house…

If we go to the earlier analogy of being like a Lego set consisting of various parts, including in the invisible realm, then when you connect to a powerful energy, it can temporarily or permanently integrate itself into your being, and the principle is not good or bad, the principle was created by the Creator, it’s the specifics that matter, and the key point, I believe, is love vs. fear.

For example, if you become overwhelmed by a loving spiritual energy that helps you understand love, it’s a very good thing. If you become overwhelmed by an energy that entices you to act cowardly, to betray yourself or others, or that makes you feel helpless or terrified, it is not such a good thing and an indication that you need attend to your soul, and do it with courage and love.

I believe that the good spiritual forces always guide us when we reach out to them not like slaves but like dignified carriers of God’s spark who perhaps have no idea how to handle a circumstance but who insist on walking their path with grace and love.

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