"These earthbound spirits are the supposed 'devils' of all ages; 'devils' of human origin, by-products of human selfishness, false teachings and ignorance, thrust blindly into a spirit existence and held there in a bondage of ignorance.
Humanity is surrounded by the thought influence of millions of discarnate beings who have not yet arrived at a full realization of life's higher purposes. A recognition of this fact accounts for a great portion of unbidden thoughts, emotions, strange forebodings, gloomy moods, irritabilities, unreasonable impulses, irrational outbursts of temper, uncontrollable infatuations, and countless other mental vagaries.
They maintained that many such spirits were attracted to the magnetic aura of mortals – although the spirit, as well as the mortal, might be unconscious of the intrusion – and thus, by obsessing or possessing their victims, they ignorantly or maliciously became the cause of untold mischief, often producing invalidism, immorality, crime, and seeming insanity.
The risk of interference from this source constituted, they said, the gravest danger to the unwary novice in psychic research, but to be in ignorance of these facts was an even greater risk, especially in the case of the susceptible neurotic.
The practice of calling for specific or particular spirits should not be indulged in, as this may lead to deception by mischievous spirits, who may step in and attempt to impersonate the spirit called for." – Wickland
Dr. Carl August Wickland (1861-1945) was a psychiatrist, a paranormal researcher, and a non-fiction author. In collaboration with his assistants, and after many years of research, Wickland wrote and published, in 1924, Thirty Years Among the Dead, a book that detailed their experiences in abnormal psychology and established solid arguments for the intrusion of discarnate human entities as the prime source of everything from nervous conditions to full-blown possession is susceptible living humans.
Wickland's lifetime of psychological and psychical research contributed a clarity and understanding of the many kinds of intruding intelligences that inhabit the spiritual realm that is severely lacking in the field of paranormal research today. His research proved that the unhappy dead are not merely shady apparitions and half-sensed "feelings" to the living, but instead are a genuine danger to all of us on the earth plane.
This argument, supported by Wickland's years of research in the subject, also disarms the many irrational and dogmatic concepts that still hold sway today claiming that tormenting, obsession and possession are always the products of demonic activity. In case study after case study Wickland and his associates consistently proved that this is not the case.
Unfortunately, through the passage of many years, Wickland's ground-breaking research and explorations into the preternatural have been relegated to near-obscurity, often lumped in with the reams of puerile writings that were the product of the later Spiritualist movement. This fact, though regrettable, does not alter the veracity and timeliness of Wickland's work to the field of paranormal research in general and to that portion of it that focuses on the activities of demons and their interactions with human kind.
Wickland's work supports the odd-sounding but accurate conclusion that while we want to blame demons for so many abhorrent actions on the part of humans, the fact is, humans are quite evil enough on our own and sometimes our vileness survives even death.
Here are some important excerpts from Wickland's Thirty Years Among the Dead:
"The spiritual world and the physical world are constantly intermingling; the spiritual plane is not a vague intangibility but is real and natural, a vast zone of refined substance, of activity and progress, and life there is a continuation of life in the physical world. On the physical plane of expression the soul obtains knowledge through experience and contact with objective things, and intelligence finds itself by manifesting through physical organs; in the spiritual plane progression of the individual continues, the mind unfolding along lines of reason, through spontaneity of service, the attainment and appreciation of high ideals and an ever broadening conception of life's purpose.
The change called 'death,' – the word is a misnomer – usually regarded with gloomy fear, occurs so naturally and simply that the greater number, after passing out of the physical are not aware that the transition has been made, and having no knowledge of a spiritual life, they are totally unconscious of having passed into another state of being. Deprived of their physical sense organs, they are shut out from the physical light, and lacking a mental perception of the high purpose of existence, these individuals are spiritually blind and find themselves in a twilight condition – the "outer darkness" mentioned in the Bible – and linger in the realm known as the Earth Sphere.
Death does not make a saint of a sinner, nor a sage of a fool. The mentality is the same as before and individuals carry with them their old desires, habits, dogmas, faulty teachings, indifference or disbelief in a future life. 'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' Prov. 23:7.
Assuming spirit forms which are the result of their thought life on earth, millions remain for a time in the earth sphere, and often in the environment of their earth lives, still held by their habits or interests. 'Where your treasure is there will your heart be also.' Matt. 6:21.
Those who have progressed to the higher spirit world ever endeavor to enlighten these earthbound spirits, but the latter, due to preconceptions concerning the hereafter, labor under the delusion that the departed are 'dead,' or are 'ghosts,' and often refuse to recognize their friends or to realize their own condition.
Many are in a state of heavy sleep, others are lost or confused; troubled minds may be haunted by fear of the strange darkness, those conscience-stricken suffer in anguish or remorse for their earth conduct; some, impelled by selfish or evil inclinations, seek an outlet for their tendencies, remaining in this condition until these destructive desires are outgrown, when the soul cries out for understanding and light, and progressed spirits are able to reach them and aid them.
Lacking physical bodies through which to carry out earthly propensities many discarnated intelligences are attracted to the magnetic light which emanates from mortals, and, consciously or unconsciously, attach themselves to these magnetic auras, finding an avenue of expression through influencing, obsessing or possessing human beings. Such obtruding spirits influence susceptible sensitives with their thoughts, impart their own emotions to them, weaken their will power and often control their actions, producing great distress, mental confusion and suffering.
These earthbound spirits are the supposed 'devils' of all ages; 'devils' of human origin, by-products of human selfishness, false teachings and ignorance, thrust blindly into a spirit existence and held there in a bondage of ignorance.
The influence of these discarnated entities is the cause of many of the inexplicable and obscure events of earth life and of a large part of the world's misery. Purity of life and motive, or high intellectuality do not necessarily offer protection from obsession; recognition and knowledge of these problems are the only safeguards.
The physical conditions permitting this impingement are varied; such encroachment is often due to a natural and predisposed susceptibility, a depleted nervous system, or sudden shock. Physical derangements are conducive to obsession, for when the vital forces are lowered less resistance is offered and intruding spirits are allowed easy access, although often neither mortal nor spirit is conscious of the presence of the other.
This encroachment alters the characteristics of the sensitive, resulting in a seemingly changed personality, sometimes simulating multiple or dissociated personalities, and frequently causes apparent insanity, varying in degree from a simple mental aberration to, and including, all types of dementia, hysteria, epilepsy, melancholia, shell shock, kleptomania, idiocy, religious and suicidal mania, as well as amnesia, psychic invalidism, dipsomania, immorality, functional bestiality, atrocities, and other forms of criminality.
Humanity is surrounded by the thought influence of millions of discarnate beings who have not yet arrived at a full realization of life's higher purposes. A recognition of this fact accounts for a great portion of unbidden thoughts, emotions, strange forebodings, gloomy moods, irritabilities, unreasonable impulses, irrational outbursts of temper, uncontrollable infatuations, and countless other mental vagaries.'
Spirits Through History
"The records of spirit obsession and possession extend from remotest antiquity to modern times…Josephus says: 'Demons are the spirits of wicked men.'…Minucius Felix, a Roman advocate and apologist, wrote in 'Octavius': 'There are some insincere and vagrant spirits, degraded from their heavenly vigor…who cease not, now that they are ruined themselves, to ruin others.'
'…"The Church admits the reality of these spiritistic phenomena and their external intelligences, in fact, it has always admitted their reality. The problem at present is to discover the nature of the intelligence…A partial knowledge of the subject may cause grave dangers" (resulting in obsession or possession).
Julian Hawthorne wrote…: 'Thousands of evil-minded and evil-acting men and women die every day. What becomes of their souls, or spirits? They want to get back here … the increasing boldness and frequency with which they take advantage of their opportunities is illustrated in many ways'
Dr. Axel Gustafson, who publicly acclaimed his views regarding the fact of spirit obsession, in quoting cases which had come to his attention, said: 'The spirits of the revengeful have power after death to enter into and possess the living under certain conditions.'
'I often see the spirits who cause insanity,' is the statement of Dr. E.N. Webster, of the mental section of the American Medical Association. "At time I even hear their voices. Insane persons who are spoken of as hopelessly insane are frequently lost under the overwhelming control of a spirit or crowd of spirits. We frequently find by post-mortem examination that no physical disorder exists in the brain or nervous system of such persons.'
Spirit obsession is a fact – a perversion of a natural law – and is amply demonstrable. This has been proven hundreds of times by causing the supposed insanity of aberration to be temporarily transferred from the victim to a psychic sensitive who is trained for the purpose, and by this method ascertain the cause of the psychosis to be an ignorant or mischievous spirit, whose identity may frequently be verified.
By this method, and without detriment to the psychic, it has also proven possible to relieve the victim, as well as release the entity from its condition of spiritual darkness …"
Dangers to Novices and the Neurotic
"Ignorant psychic experimentation may prove injurious when dabbled in by those who neglect the necessary precautions and lack understanding of the laws which govern the subject, just as ignorance and disregard of the laws governing everyday life may prove dangerous…
Research in Abnormal, as well as Normal psychology, indubitably indicates not only the existence of spirits but also unquestionably demonstrates that such entities play an important role in the various psychoneuroses and insanities…
The alarming results often occurring in connection with Psychical Research prompted me to follow up a line of investigation to ascertain the underlying causes thereof, for these also concern the physician.
The serious problem of alienation and mental derangement attending ignorant psychic experiments was first brought to my attention by the cases of several persons whose seemingly harmless experiences with automatic writing and the Ouija Board resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was necessitated.
In answer to … doubts concerning the right of 'disturbing the dead' [discarnate] intelligences asserted that a grievously wrong conception existed among mortals regarding the conditions prevailing after death.
They stated that there is in reality no death, but a natural transition from the visible to the invisible world, and that advanced spirits are ever striving to communicate with mortals to enlighten them concerning the higher possibilities which await the progressive spirit. But death – the freeing of the spirit from the body – is so simple and natural that a great majority do not, for a longer or shorter period, realize the change, and owing to a lack of education concerning the spiritual side of their natures, they continue to remain in their earthly haunts.
They maintained that many such spirits were attracted to the magnetic aura of mortals – although the spirit, as well as the mortal, might be unconscious of the intrusion – and thus, by obsessing or possessing their victims, they ignorantly or maliciously became the cause of untold mischief, often producing invalidism, immorality, crime, and seeming insanity.
The risk of interference from this source constituted, they said, the gravest danger to the unwary novice in psychic research, but to be in ignorance of these facts was an even greater risk, especially in the case of the susceptible neurotic.
It may be asked why advanced intelligences do not take charge of earthbound spirits and convert them without having them first control a psychic intermediary. Many of these ignorant spirits cannot be reached by the intelligent spirits until they come in contact with physical conditions, when they are compelled to realize their own situation and are then started on the road to progression…
Many controlling spirits act as if demented and are difficult to reason with, this condition being due to false doctrines, fixed ideas and various notions imbibed in physical life…Other spirits, again, are in a sleepy stupor, wishing to be left alone, and severe language is at times required to arouse them…reference is often made to a 'dungeon' in which refractory spirits may be placed, and controlling spirits sometimes complain of having been kept in a dungeon.
Due to a certain psychic law, intelligent spirits have the faculty of placing about an ignorant spirit a condition simulating a prison, an impenetrable, cell-like room from which there is no escape. Herein, stubborn spirits may stay, seeing nothing but the reflection of their own personalities, their past actions appearing before their mind's eye until they become repentant and show a willingness to adapt themselves to the new condition and to conform to the spiritual laws of progression.
Tormenting Spirits
Obsessing spirits may purposely torment helpless sensitives, sometimes for revenge, but more often with a desire to punish the latter who, they declare, are interfering with them.
These tormenting spirits frequently cause their victims to commit deeds of violence upon themselves and do not seem to suffer from pain which they inflict upon the physical body of the sensitive, yet, contradictory as it may seem, many labor under the delusion that the body of the mortal is their own.
A great number of unaccountable suicides are due to the obsession or possessing influences of earthbound spirits. Some of these spirits are actuated by a desire to torment their victims; others, who have ended their physical existence as suicides, find themselves still alive, and, having no knowledge of a spirit world, labor under the delusion that their self-destructive attempts have failed and continue their suicidal efforts.
When these intelligences come in contact with mortal sensitives, they mistake the physical bodies for their own, and impress the sensitives with morbid thoughts and instigate them to deeds of self-destruction.
The fate of a suicide is invariably one of deepest misery, his rash act holding him in the earth sphere until such time as his physical life would have had a natural ending.
'As soon as I found myself out of my body, I saw at once the cause for my rash act. Evil spirits, who had been attracted to me by the jealous thoughts of other persons, were standing near, grinning with devilish satisfaction at their work. They had influenced me to end my life …'
Spirits and Narcotics and Other Addictions
Relentless as is the grip which the drug habit holds on its mortal victims, the power of narcotics extends even more tyrannically beyond the grave. The desire is implanted in the very soul itself and the agony of earthbound spirits, whose cravings for gratification are in vain, is beyond description.
Such spirits frequently obtain partial satisfaction through controlling mortal sensitives and forcing them to become addicts of some drug [or activity]…
Not at all uncommon are the cases of amnesia, when total lapse of memory occurs, all sense of identity is lost and the victim wanders to strange places, returning to his normal self without any knowledge of his recent actions.
We have abundant demonstration that this state is frequently due to the influence of obsessing spirits …
Reincarnation
…numerous cases of obsession … have been due to spirits who, in endeavoring to 'reincarnate' in children, have found themselves imprisoned in the magnetic aura, causing great suffering to both their victims and themselves.
A little boy in Chicago, Jack T., had been normal until the age of five when he began to manifest precocious tendencies and acted strangely.
Formerly he had had the disposition of a child but began to fret about things ordinarily foreign to a child's mind and acted in many ways like an adult.
He worried over trifles, lay awake at night with strange mutterings and presentiments, and at times had an uncontrollable temper.
He was a boy of good appearance but talked constantly of being old, homely and ugly looking, and was so intractable that efforts at reprimand and correction proved of no avail.
[The obsessing entity] was aware of having died and declared he was a very homely man, with ugly features and a face covered with pock marks. Nobody had cared for him and this fact preyed on his mind.
Someone had once told him [the entity] that after death individuals could reincarnate and become whatever they wished to be. Since his only desire was to be good looking, so that others would not shun him, he decided to try and reincarnate.
As a result, he became entangled in the magnetic aura of a small boy and was unable to free himself.
Finding that he was helplessly imprisoned, and incapable of making himself understood, he had outbursts of temper and "felt like flying to pieces."
Conclusions
…a single scientifically demonstrated fact of the existence of even an evil discarnate spirit will do more to prove the continuance of life after death than all the sermons on immortality that have been preached … That single demonstration would be the death knell of materialism …
Please also see:
part 1:http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/haunted/demons.php
part two: http://www.hauntedamericatours.com/haunted/demons2.php
Folklorist and occultist Alyne Pustanio is a New Orleans whose roots go deep into the local culture; it is from that proverbial “gumbo” that she draws her inspiration for most of her tales of terror and fascination.
Robert Reppert and Nancy Bradley's' New book
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