Psychic Insight

Many of us were scared of the dark as kids. Most of the time the fears came from assumptions that the shadow on the wall was a crazy serial killer out to get us, or that the screech was a banshee come to steal us away into the night. This obviously didn’t happen, but the fear was real! Most of us still have that ‘fear of the dark’, because the dark is simply that which we can’t clearly see. This manifests in metaphysics as a fear of some of the more unsavory aspects of the energetic realms which, much like the shadows on the wall, seem much bigger and scarier than they actually are. Many metaphysicians, psychics, healers and ‘lightworkers’ are guilty of letting their shadows turn into monsters. I’d like to remedy in this article.

I place the term ‘lightworker’ in quotation here as this seems to be an ill defined term. My personal definition for a lightworker is a person who seeks to brighten their inner light and help others to do the same. I usually refer to a person who is working in the ascension paradigm as a lightworker, though some wouldn’t term themselves as such. I wanted to start here as those who term themselves lightworkers believe themselves to work ‘only in the realm of Divine Light’. This is all well and good (encouraged, in fact), but what is missing from this understanding is that every light must cast a shadow. What falls into the shadow isn’t bad, it’s simply not yet illuminated. On the flip side, not everything in the shadow is good either. Sometimes we don’t want to look at something because it’s something that isn’t necessarily beneficial or benign. I am not asking our lightworkers to aspire to be demonologists or anything as such. I’m simply asking that our lightworkers not allow the ‘shadow’ to become synonymous with ‘feared’ or ‘evil’.

Since it’s been brought up, let’s take a quick look at demons. Demons derived from the Greek word, daimon. The Latin speaking world had a term for this same being – a genius (no, not like Einstein, but related. We’ll get to that in a moment.) This term is related to the Middle Eastern djinn, better known as a genie! Makes you rethink the whole Aladdin epic, doesn’t it?

These terms have come to embody different meanings. While a djinn is seen as a non-human spirit that will grant wishes or do a person’s bidding, it did exact a heavy toll on the bidder, and then would usually twist the ‘wish’ around to discourage the bidder from bothering it again. Djinn weren’t seen as always malevolent though, more like a trickster spirit such as a pixie or fairy could be.

Genii (plural for genius) and daimons are understood to be something a little different from the djinn. Genius will refer to a spirit of the land (again, like a fairy). The genius loci is the guardian spirit or soul of a particular place. Daimon has come to represent a sentient interacting anima or animus (depending on the gender) of a person, usually represented in an animal form. This is sometimes called the fylga or fetch beast in traditional witchcraft. In this respect a daimon is an extension of a person’s psyche.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t nasty disembodied astral entities out there. As a matter of fact, there are probably more than we’d all like to know about. Here’s the thing though – they very rarely (if ever) have enough interest to randomly pester us, much less swoop down and take possession of us, without provocation.

Possession is real. It’s very real. The culprits, however, are seldom demons, daimons, genii, or anything in this category. Possession is a strong term that is inflammatory at best and downright misleading at worst. Most metaphysicians refer to this phenomenon as ‘spirit attachment’. This is much more explanatory, and an easier pill to swallow. When spirit attachment happens, a person’s personality and habits will suddenly change. They may feel tired and unmotivated, or feel inclined to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. This is because the spirit that attaches its self is a person who hasn’t crossed over to the otherside, and is looking to experience life again through the host. These spirits are usually stuck here by addictions and predilections – frequently the same that led to their demise!

That’s right folks! They AREN’T trying to drag our souls to hell or torture us. They just want a fix! These spirits will usually attach when we are experiencing a high level of stress – enough to break down our energy fields. Traumatic incidents and accidents can allow this to happen, but also intoxication does a good job of lowering our energy along with our inhibitions. Where can you find these poor spirits? Look no further than your local bar. They seem to be drawn to the places where it’s easier to find someone to attach to.

What can you do if this happens to you??? The quick way is to work with an energy worker, shaman or hypnotherapist to do a ‘spirit release’ session. The slower way – figure out what it is that the spirit is after (intoxication, sex, drama, etc.) and simply eliminate that from your life for a while. Once the over the top urges subside, then you’ve most likely made it clear that you weren’t going to be the spirit’s ‘supplier’ anymore, and they float along their merry way. Sounds a lot less sinister than projectile pea soup and doing naughty things with crucifixes, huh? That would be because it is. While stories like that aren’t unheard of, more often than not the person with the attachment won’t have a spirit looking to just flat out antagonize people. It will want to do something fun like drink or screw.

Now onto the final topic of this essay – curses. Are they real? Yes. Do you need to pay some crazy gypsy lady thousands of dollars to remove them from you? That would be no. Most often, when people hear curse, they think of a cackling crazy witch throwing vindictive spells. Does this happen? Well, I’d love to say no, but sometimes it does. Is it an everyday occurrence? Goodness no! Every person I know who practices any form of magick would NEVER throw a curse on someone unless they did something really really bad. I’m not talking about cutting you off in traffic or gossiping about you bad; I’m talking about molesting your child or killing a loved one bad. So, if you think you are cursed by dark magick, then what the hell did you do to deserve it and to who?

The other type of ‘curse’ is actually a lot more common. This is when we accept another person’s belief about ourselves and hold it to be true. What is the most common environment for this to happen? In the family!! Think about it. ‘Aren’t you a little old to be………’ ‘Shouldn’t you be married by now?’ How about some more direct ones: ‘Just wait and see – all the women in our family go from hourglass to coke bottle by the time their 25.’ ‘The men in our family all die in their early 50s from heart disease.’

The great thing about curses is that we don’t have to accept their power over us. Shakti Gawain has a great exercise called the Core Belief Process that is perfect for addressing these types of ‘curses’. Energy workers work with these all the time, frequently through Emotional Release processes. Long story short, like most of what we fear, there is a simple and reasonable explanation for this phenomena.

I could go on for days talking about all of the ‘shadows’ that are out there. We all have them. We all experience them. If you give them fear, you give them power. If you give them understanding, you give them a place. Not everyone who reads this is going to feel comfortable utilizing all the concepts that were addressed. That’s okay. These understandings aren’t necessarily for everyone. What I hope that everyone does get out of this is that shadows are a lot less scary once you know what’s actually making them.

Next month, we’ll talk about Mystery Traditions and Schools, who utilized our fears as a weeding process for their participants and left us with many of our ‘shadowed’ beliefs.