The idea of this blog is to argue for a spiritual perspective to be included in 'Western mainstream medical psychiatry' (the hospital doctors of "First World countries", eg the USA and UK) along with the material perspective. But this won't help everybody - I believe there will always be a need for medication as well as for spiritual healing. Some people have real paranormal experiences called psychosis, and some have actual psychotic experiences - and there are also a portion who have a combination of the two varieties of experience. I admit to much psychotic experience. I only recently had a breakdown that brought on full hallucinations and delusions, reminding me that I am susceptible to psychosis (I had stopped taking my medicine suddenly). I have had two breakdowns - or rather, technically, one breakdown and one relapse. The original breakdown left me with delusions which lasted some years (not including beliefs in the phenomena that I here claim are real); after the relapse, I quickly recovered my regular state of health with the reapplication of medicinal treatment.
(Paranormal beliefs: wouldn't it help if there was someone to say, "OK, you may be susceptible to some incorrect beliefs - that's OK, it's a complicated world and we're not all Einsteins - let me help you." Wouldn't it be great if there was someone who could look at a person's thinking and help them discern between truth and impossiblity in difficult areas? I know that's Cognitive Behavioural Therapy territory, but I myself haven't had anything like this).
How do you discern between someone having a potentially 'paranormal' spiritual experience and someone who is in need of close medical attention? Perhaps the paranormalists are able to function well, they are articulate and are not responsive to medication. I believe that a person' s testimony should be considered. If they say they are being affected by something paranormal, at least consider it, test the possibilities.
Fortunately nowadays doors are being opened, and spirit release therapy is being undertaken by some pscyhiatrists who put their patients under hypnosis. (It is a norm in the section of society that claims to interact with the spiritual for there to be beliefs like this: that, given the existence of the soul and an 'Afterlife' existence, some people after death do not move on to their proper place, through fear or addiction or grief for example and these individuals can become 'bonded'/attached to others who are still incarnate, adversely affecting their minds, emotions and behaviours). Spirit release seeks to help both incarnate and 'discarnate' people. Here, then, is exorcism, or Old World thinking entering into New, scientific World thinking. You can get rid of superstition, but you can't get rid of the supernatural! So maybe all that tradition of believing schizophrenia to be 'demonic' possession was partly absolutely correct.
If you are a training doctor, why not make contact with someone in the spiritual healing profession and interview them? This could give you valuable insights.
I wonder what doctors who have fairly regular religious beliefs think when they encounter someone who fervently reports a fairly regular instance of spiritual 'disturbance'? Since a belief in God and Heaven and the soul easily allow for the logic of the existence of souls who do not wish to ascend (to meet what they believe is a God of wrathful judgement) and so remain close to the Earth where they affect sensitive individuals. What do doctors of spiritualist faith think when they encounter people who claim to be bothered or possessed by spirits?
But how do I know that what I experience is a real interchange with other real beings external to me, and not a clever and perfectly convincing hallucination, a chemical malfunction of the brain's imaginative faculty?
I believe in God, I have encountered God.
I believe in departed saints, I have encountered departed saints.
I believe there are people in another dimension of Being commonly known as Heaven, I encounter these beings daily.
I believe it is possible for people who are commonly known as ghosts to avoid God and Heaven, I encounter these beings daily.
The experiences are not just negative, they are benign as well - I frequently encounter my departed family and friends, they are with me on and off every day throughout the day, I suppose to help me and lift my energyduring this difficult phase of my Life. (I am glad of my firm belief in the afterlife, tanks to my experience; I have great friends who can be with me in any place and at any time!). The night before my father died, three and a half years ago, I was sitting writing down my thoughts of him and I spiritually heard his voice, he said "I will be by your side every day." Later that summer I was tending the barbecue and I felt a subtle movement above my head, full of power, spelling out the words "Hello, young man"; it was my father; I sensed hm behind me (I'm good at sensing him!); he was full of great strength and gravity - his celestial nature (the way we are supposed to be). There was an incident at a spiritualist church of confirmation too that he knew my thoughts, and he comically responded, passing a message through a friend there! [(Also, at the church one of their clairvoyants assured me that I was healing myself, as I had the White Light of God's Being around me)].
One time a famous departed Indian saint who I think of sometimes visited me and said he would 'ward off evil'... Because what disturbs me is evil sometimes, when it is not simply malicious.
What is it that makes me struggle to believe my own beliefs?!! Being told I am insane, I suppose. It's not a nice feeling and position.
Right now I'm thinking of regular ol' Christianity - in which there is abundant belief in the occasional requirement for exorcism - but I'm [conveniently??!] not brave enough to get the local priest to go to the local bishop and get my entire family reviewed etc etc before I can get a powerful exorcism done. I don't think I truly require an exorcism anyway, as I'm not possessed; I identify my concern as 'demonic infestation' (which I suppose to be much more common than possession). And don't forget (see earlier post) 'demon' does not necessarily mean pointed tail and horns, or horror film nasty, but merely a person between Earth and Heaven with major emotional issues bent on malice and eventually being what we call evil.
So I have frequent spiritual interactions: many are benign; some of them impinge on my privacy; and others are out and out undesirable. And all convincing. The ghosts around me (who I can communciate with, but who so far refuse to leave) repeat to me (sometimes) "We're real"; and when there are aggressive disturbances to my thinking by what I take to be more distant spirits, I feel a malicious personality on the other end.
I haven't found the right spiritual healer yet. I've had varying degrees of success with them - and some 'miraculous' (ordinary spiritual) changes have occurred. But at the end of the day, I'm the king of my castle, and if I have mislaid my personal power, it's up to me to find it again.
The Catholic church conducts house blessings where they will go to a house and spiritually bless it. A Catholic group called the St. Padre Pio Centre For Deliverance Counselling offer a format for house blessing that anyone can do, here: http://www.saintpiocenter.org/materials/houseblessing.pdf. This seems to be a good ritual, with good prayers and the feature of blessing rooms with holy salt, holy water and holy medals, which may bring you a sense of comfort and wholeness/safety. Although not completely official (not officially approved of - nor condemned) and quite long, this should still be a useful resource for those who wish for some self-defense in the Christian tradition. You will need some medals of Saint Benedict, who is the Catholic patron saint of spiritual safety. Some of the wording of the ritual could be considered fear-based, going into protection against a long list of different expressions of malevolence -such as hexes, but I think this still has relevance as a defense against all kinds of ill will, and it may be relevant to you if you are experiencing disturbance. For years I wondered if I had been cursed, I thought I had angered someone terribily; I went through my memories of my past deeds wishing to 'repent' of my mistaken behaviours, because I felt what was like a powerful cloud of disparagement hanging over me causing me an unnatural depression. I believe in the power of thought, given enough energy, to cause another depression - this is not an uncommon idea in the literature I have read. I'm not sure where this depressing feeling came from for me, but it could have been from the same source that seeks to injure me.
I have recently put in a request for distance healing at a website offering this type of healing free, to help those spirits sheltering near me to move on. Although I have many celestial friends neither they, nor God or the angels, intervene to move the Earthbound discarnate people from my environment. This must partly be due to free will, which I understand to be an immutable law.
Many people offer spirit release professionally, which involves 'counselling' the spirit and directing them on how to leave, and I have by no means exhausted the possibilities of this.
The people at the Saint Padre Pio Center state that one must not talk to spirits. I don't see the harm in it; however, once I said goodnight to them, and I heard a higher voice groan "That's just cost us two years..." implying they are trying to change the situation, and my loving intentions only made things worse by causing the spirits further attachment to the Earth plane. My haunting comes under the 'non-violent' category. The Saint Padre Pio Center have a wonderful prayer for these fugitive souls: http://www.saintpiocenter.org/SelfHelp/NonViolentHauntings.asp; it goes:
"Lord Jesus, master of all things created and Creator of all things, I ask for your mercy on the poor soul in this place who still suffers here on Earth. In Your goodness, Lord, You have allowed this soul to make its presence known so that (he or she) can obtain the necessary graces to enter into Your kingdom. Look now Lord, with your eyes of mercy, upon this creature whom You love and allow them to experience the joy of Your presence for all eternity. Amen."
Thanks to the group at Saint Padre Pio Center For Spiritual Warfare for that.They advise that you don't talk to these poor souls, only pray for them, (which is a wonderful thing in itself). And it's always good to ignore the voices if they trouble you, because then you can invest your energy into the Life you do wish for.
A note on approval - the above defense methodology is Christian; just as the scientific is at odds with the paranormal, the Catholic or literalist Christian can be at odds with the New Age, where I tend to look to for help. I have faith that whatever your religious lifestyle, you can find someone you approve of to help you with spiritual disturbance. [A little PS, in Ayurvedic (traditional Indian) medicine, they have 'spirit release' too, and they call it bhuta vidya].
This has been an enormous post, in which I know I have gone dangerously close to waffling, for some readers' interest. I have tried to provide information that I think will help those in a situation like mine - and it's something to chew on for those who are here as sceptical observers.
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