For most of my life, I thought possession was only something found in fiction. A demon takes over the body of a child or elder, swears a lot, and rotates their neck 180 degrees; possibly complimented with some wall-crawling and supernatural jargon.
This is the image we have of possession, right? It’s a pretty grim image at best. Sure, it makes a good story, but possession isn’t real…
Is it?
I’m here to tell you that not only is possession real, but I have witnessed it several times while working closely with shamanic healers. Spiritual possession is not make-believe, nor is it improvisation, the result of psychosis, or people losing their marbles on medicine.
Possession is something that must be taken seriously. I have a huge amount of respect for the healers who perform strenuous and often grueling exorcisms, as I’ve seen it in action multiple times.
Here I will tell you everything I know about spiritual possession and a little about my experiences with people who have undergone it.
The difference between entity attachment and entity possession
Over the last couple of years, I’ve lived in multiple shamanic communities in Ecuador and Peru. During this time, I have witnessed several exorcisms, which have ranged from ‘I’ll take this with a grain of salt’ to downright disturbing.
But before we get into the details, I need to clear something up. When you hear the term possession, you probably think of demonic possession. After all, this is how popular culture tends to depict it. Even though demonic entities certainly exist, possession usually occurs from entity attachments.
Here’s the thing.
The spiritual realm is teeming with life. Like people, spirits come in all sorts of forms and figures, each with different personalities, vibrations, intentions, and desires. Believing that a spirit is either good or bad is a polarized view, and doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.
All spirits are different as all souls are different. Just because a spirit possesses someone doesn’t necessarily mean it’s evil.
The spirit may be the lost soul of the deceased who latched on to someone out of fear. Perhaps it was a nonhuman spirit that attached to a person while they were energetically exposed to alternate realms of information.
As there are many spirits of light in these realms, there are also neutral spirits and dark spirits. A spirit of light will not attach to a person, a neutral spirit might depending on the circumstances, and dark spirits often try to because they benefit from the interaction.
Occasionally, a guest in the shamanic medicine communities I have lived in would begin acting out of character either during or after a ceremony. Their energy would flip. What was once a cheerful young man or woman would pivot into something completely different.
Now, sometimes people act strange after a couple of cups of medicine which isn’t anything new. Actually, it’s expected. However, possessions are different as the person’s consciousness is hijacked by the spirit, rather than piggybacking off it.
Often, the shaman can see the entity, recognize what it is, where it came from, and whether it’s masculine or feminine. I’ve seen a shaman see the points on a lady’s back that an entity was latching to. After pointing to those spots, the lady said that was exactly where she had been experiencing pain.
After performing a cleansing, the entities causing the woman’s deep-rooted depression were banished which allowed her to heal.
This is a minor example, but let’s dig into possession.
How does entity attachment occur?
As described to me by a shaman I worked closely with in Ecuador, dark entities attach to wounded souls because they’re easy targets.ย Dark entities feed off low-vibrational energy, therefore they’re attracted to people who are suffering.
Think of it this way: People who are deeply suffering are like beacons for spirits with nefarious agendas. They’re low-hanging fruit for dark spirits who want to take advantage of the situation.
Entity attachment is quite common. In our Westernized, rationalized paradigm of thinking, we tend to attribute many of these issues to mental dysfunction, an error of the brain, rather than an external energy influencing the person.
I’m not saying that mental illness isn’t real because it is. Many times the person’s condition is a result of their brain’s chemistry, but often entities are causing the dysfunction, and once removed, the person can begin healing.
This is the side we don’t see in Western culture because, for the most part, we discount spirituality as simply a belief and nothing more.
Entity attachment is when an entity latches onto you, often for an extended period. Think of an entity attachment as a spiritual parasite, which may or may not evolve into possession under the right circumstances.
On the other hand, possession is rather rare. I’ve witnessed a few cases of spiritual possessions, and each time they occurred from an attachment that came to the surface with shamanic medicine.
Entity possession is when an entity hijacks your body (or consciousness). You no longer have control, and you may or may not be aware of what is happening. Possessions are generally intense, abrupt, and traumatic for the person experiencing them.
During cases of possession, it’s necessary to see a trained healer or guide who can perceive the spirit and send it to the light where it can break its cycle of suffering.
How do entities manifest?
A person may feel trapped and unable to heal because they have an attachment. At some point, a spirit latched onto this person, and either perpetuates or exacerbates their suffering to continue feeding off the low-vibrational energy.
The host is in a hole and can’t seem to escape their suffering, despite how hard they try.
Entity attachments often latch onto people who are deeply suffering, energetically exposed and don’t know how to protect themselves. They are often flushed to the surface through medicines such as ayahuasca or Huachuma and make a move because they’re exposed.
What happens during spiritual possession?
Spiritual possession is what it sounds like: A person is possessed by a spirit.
Possession can manifest in different ways, but I’ll tell you about a possession that happened about a week ago from the time of writing this in the shamanic community I am currently living in.
Several hours after an ayahuasca ceremony, everyone was settling down for the night, singing by the fire, and integrating their experiences.
One woman however seemed to still be relatively deep in the medicine and preferred to be by herself. She said she was still integrating the experience during a brief encounter with her, so I gave her some space.ย
Perhaps half an hour later, I noticed chanting from the room she was staying in, which happened to be the same room I was staying in too. She was vocalizing quite loudly, almost as if she was singing, however, it sounded a little strange.
At the time I thought nothing of it. After all, people often go through unique processes after working with such a powerful medicine, it wouldn’t be the first time someone sang a little strangely after a ceremony. So I sat outside while playing on my phone to not disrupt her process.
The singing became louder and more offbeat until the lady began screaming different notes at the top of her lungs. Okay… I thought. Now it’s getting a bit loud, you’re going to alert the neighbors, but I wrote it off to processing and played the waiting game, hoping she would calm down in a moment.
The screams became louder and louder, and something didn’t seem right. Suddenly, the door to the room flung open, and the woman started pacing around the kitchen in circles while screaming at the top of her lungs.
A moment later, the ayahuasca shaman entered the space, grabbed the woman while she was screaming, and walked her to the fire outside. A couple of other medicine people entered the space and asked if he needed help. He told them that he would perform an exorcism and that they needed to find her passport to get her full name, which they did with haste.
Being a sensitive matter, I didn’t get involved so I did not witness the exorcism. However, the exorcism lasted for at least 3 hours. While trying to sleep I heard the woman screaming at times while still heavily entranced.ย
The aftermath of spiritual possession
After this experience, the woman spent a couple of days in solitude recovering from the ordeal. When she was finally up and about, I spoke to her about this episode, and she told me what happened from her perspective.
While taking a shower, she mentioned that the medicine abruptly kicked in with force. She described it as entering another dimension and losing her grip on reality, but she thought it was just an anomaly of the medicine.ย
She quickly dressed herself and entered our shared room for privacy. Sitting on the floor, she decided to surrender to the experience, believing it was a breakthrough. That’s when the trip started to get very dark, very quickly.
This woman explained that she was going into some dark territory and it started to feel more like a bad trip. Fear rapidly evolved into dread that she couldn’t get out, as she felt at the moment that she was about to permanently lose her sanity and be trapped in this dark-interdimensional pit for eternity.
At this moment, she began vocalizing to ground herself and open up her channels. This is when her ‘singing’ took a life of its own. As her vocalizations became louder, she lost all control of her body. This is when she began pacing the house screaming and vocalizing. By this point, the spirit was in full control of her body, and the shamans could perceive it.
Recalling the experience, the lady said she didn’t know what happened and wasn’t fully present. With that said, she did mention that it was a very traumatic and violating experience for her.
Speaking to the shaman about the experience, I was told that this woman was possessed by a dark spirit that waited until after the ceremony to attack – as this is when the woman’s defenses were lowered.
He mentioned that the spirit was female and had been with the woman for a while, likely passed to her through sexual intercourse. They mentioned the word succubus, but my Spanish wasn’t good enough to understand everything they were saying. The medicine brought the spirit to the surface, where it could then be exercised and sent to the light to be transmuted into something else.
After this ordeal, it had a happy ending. Eventually, the shaman was able to send the spirit to the light, and that seems to be the end of its lifecycle.
The best defense against entity spiritual attachment
Light energy is like a repellent to dark spirits. If you are deeply centered within yourself while experiencing energies of love, gratitude, and compassion, the spirit will move onto someone who is an easier target.
However, this is often easier said than done.
In my experience, the issue seems to be when people are energetically wide open; making an easy passage for spirits to attach to the person. Therefore, it’s important to protect your energy, especially if you are working with shamanic medicines.
Avoid tapping into energies and dimensions, such as through astral projection, plant medicines, or mediumship if you aren’t properly trained. Sometimes people have a big ego thinking they know exactly what to do when this can be a big mistake. At the least, make sure you are properly protecting yourself energetically, and cleansing after any grim encounters.
Otherwise, do your best to learn, grow, and heal. As long as you are aligning yourself with the light to experience more high-vibrational energy, then that will act as your safeguard.
Dark spirits do not like the light. They are attracted to suffering. Therefore, experiencing light energy is your best repellant.
If you suspect you have an attachment, it’s best to seek out a healer, whether they’re a shaman, sage, psychic, or priest. Find someone you trust, and they may be able to cut the cord with the attached entity.
Otherwise, be cautious when dabbling with these realms of consciousness because there are some nasty things out there. Respect the proper paths, traditions, and training, and you should be alright.
4 comments
Thanks for sharing this on Reddit! My mom saw one of her cousins in the Philippines get exorcised of a demon. She was a small, young girl but had the voice of a man and had to be pinned down by several adults during the process. It was nice learning more, thank you for sharing your experience.
Wow this is very educational. I’m currently going through what I think is pseudo possession. I hear voices in my head, a voice speaks through me and some entity moves my body around from time to time and lastly I don’t think its the same entity but I feel someone is touching my body inappropriately when I sit down and sleep at night. Do you know anyone who can help me?
I went through a very real experience, was a victim of domestic violence and became weaker until life fell apart I became addicted to alcohol and drugs, which landed me in major legal trouble. One day I went from one addiction to the next until I had a knife to my wrists and envisioned my death, it was the next day I couldnโt move, called my priest from my local church and told him I needed to talk, went to him bawling, I needed help and asked for his help, in an instant he began talking about hope and told me many people were praying for me, in that moment I asked for forgiveness and I became dripping with sweat I couldnโt stop crying and than I asked for a trash can and puked straight liquid bile into his trash can whatever happened that day saved my life, I felt this weight of pain, shame, guilt everything lifted, I did my confession went home and sat above the toilet throwing up and crying tears of joy for the first time in 4 dreadful years. To this day I am 362 days sober and have not had the obsession to want to drink or use. When you say they prey the weak minded I believe it I was very weak and almost took my own life. My faith and spiritual outlook has immensely grown and for that I am forever grateful. What made me go to the priest that day I will never know all I know is I was dying inside and knew I needed help but from someone who would listen.
Thank you Kristi for sharing your story. I would say it probably was an attachment that was causing the addiction and depression, the trauma caused by domestic violence may have opened a portal you could say, and you were an easy target due to your low vibrational state at the time. The puke was a purge, releasing an energy/attachment, this is a common way we exile these energies. Sweating and crying are also forms of purge, so it sounds like your body was definitely trying to get rid of something during that moment, and sounds like it was successful. Congratulations on your sobriety, keep following that path and don’t let anything in that doesn’t serve your highest good. God bless.