In which I reveal spiritual afflictions & the demonic

So the premise from which I am working is that spiritual, psychological, emotional trauma can result in anything from mental illness to physical illness, to a feeling of being possessed or harrassed by an evil entity depending on the level of trauma and how it has been assimilated by the person. We create and manifest our own reality.

In 1991 when I was diagnosed with clinical depression, I was put on Prozac. It didn't take me long to learn why Prozac was controversial. It ripped me into reality so hard and fast that I was left with only one thing -- the realization of how my illness had affected everyone and everything around me. I had heard that people were committing suicide after being put on Prozac. No wonder. Had I not had the support that I did, both from friends, family and my faith, I might have done the same. The thing was, that the support I received held me steady while I looked around and said, "Okay, I take responsibility for this. Now what?"

What responsibility did I have in it? My depression stemmed from things done to me in the past -- BUT! Although the cliche trips easily off the tongue -- dealing with the reality is something else: the fact that the only thing we can control when things are done and said to us is our reaction to it. As a child, we might have no control whatsoever. But when we are adults and become aware of what has happened to us, then it's what we do with that knowledge.

The bad things that happen to us become a source of grief. And we deal with grief in one of five ways -- we deny it, we get angry, we bargain with it, we get depressed over it, and hopefully, ultimately we will accept it, come to terms with it, deal with it, get over it, and let it go. But coming to that last stage depends on each individual. While we are trapped in the first four stages, going in and out of the different stages in different orders, sometimes stuck in one or all of them for years and years, we cannot heal. Our mind cannot heal, and ultimately, it wears on our body. It can break through in the form of physical or mental illness, or, depending on one's worldview, can manifest as an entity (spirit or demon).

When I was steeped in the evangelical Christian mindset, before I was diagnosed with depression, I was positive that I was being seriously demonically harrassed because I could literally feel fluttering wings and talons inside my chest. Was I crazy or delusional? No. Christianity and Christian theology was my entire existence. It was my total, complete mindset. So my psychological affliction manifested itself in the way my mindset interpreted it -- as a demon inside me.

I was in seminary at the time, in the School of Missions, and was learning "Cosmic Christianity" and healing methodologies. I was also a very troubled young woman going through divorce and having an affair. So, of course, I was tormented. I was a saint on one hand, praying for people, being recognized as clergy, having high levels of the gifts of prayer, healing, and knowledge (gnosis), while also being involved in what the Church would term high levels of sin. I was a torment unto myself. I was living a double life, torn in two. How could I possibly be operating at such a high level of giftedness while so deeply in sin? The inexperienced would shake their finger at me and tell me it wasn't possible -- that I had to be operating in the Devil's power. All too many clergy people know the truth, but no one was going to come to my aid on that score because to admit the possibilities would mean to examine things outside of Church doctrine and dogma.

So, at that moment, I succumbed to my Christian teaching -- that I must be demonically harrassed and oppressed. I was doing such good works that the Devil was tormenting me. And the more I believed that, the more manifest the wings and talons became.

So I drove 185 miles round trip twice to be delivered or have those demons exorcised. They were exorcized -- then I was able to move on with my life and realize I needed other help. That's when I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with the clinical depression. But then a psychiatrist made a pronouncement that I needed to accept that I had a "depressive personality" and would always have to remain on a maintenance dose of anti-depressants. That was not acceptable to me, but neither was going back to the way I had been before.

So I began to look for the root causes of my malady, and that's when I was introduced to alternative therapies. My demons were gone, my life cleaned up, but I was still depressed. It had taken me a long time to recognize depression. I thought it had to do with being sad and despairing while I was an upbeat, enthusiastic person. But my doctors ignored my pleas to look beyond and seek a cause and just kept pushing pills on me.

I finally found a homeopath who worked on energetically rectifying the chemical imbalance in my system created by my depression. And I became depression free.

So we can understand how someone's worldview can convince their mind that they are possessed or harrassed by an evil entity. And once the mind is convinced, the symptoms or manifestations follow. When I was "delivered," I accepted it because it had been performed in the name of Jesus which I trusted, therefore it was done. I could move on.

So, is exorcism valid? Is it needed? I would say, "Absolutely!" I pity the unfortunate mind who thinks the only way to deal with things is to rely on modern medicine. And what for people who don't have that mindset? As we said on the show, any tool set works. Any tool set, that is, that gets to the actual root of things and sets about extracting the root or at the very least integrating it -- not just medicating symptoms. On to other methods and worldviews in the next entries!

Modern afflictions & possibilities

I read recently that 80% of "diseases" presented to doctors are "psychosomatic." That means that they are generated in the mind. Does that mean we are a nation of hypochondriacs? Emphatically, no! (By the way, I've also heard that 13% are "yiatrogenic" which means the doctor caused them and another percent are "nosocomic" which means that you got them while you were in the hospital.) These aren't random statistics that I picked up on some wacky Internet site -- they are statistics I was presented with in textbooks when I was teaching Health classes at Tucson College.

So then what percentage does that leave that are actually caused by something you are attacked by bacterially? Very, very little. Let me tell you that our billions upon billions of health care dollars spent every year (aside from cosmetic treatments) are because of a basic misunderstanding of what causes disease. We don't need a healthcare plan, we need real education that addresses some very fundamental things. I want to see a day come very soon where the only surgeons and hospitals out there are for those who want cosmetic enhancements (or to fix broken bones) -- extreme, heroic measures, not everyday diseases. (Argue that one with me all you want -- I'll give you an explanation for anything you want to shoot my way.)

So, what on earth does this have to do with Exorcism? Okay, I learned one thing myself on the MindCast Friday night. When Goat was talking about exorcism having been performed on Mother Teresa because she was being so demonically troubled in her dreams -- I learned then that Catholics do recognize demonic harrassment although they may not call it that. Obviously, Mother Teresa was not "possessed" in the manner by which I define possession -- in other words she had not invited an entity within. However, she was obviously being harrassed by a demonic presence in her dreams, something perhaps from her daily interactions with others. The "cure" was still apparently labeled as exorcism; I begin to understand,then, that their view of exorcism is the same as the Protestant "deliverance" or Shamanic "extraction." The idea that a troubling spirit entity is present and needs to be shown the way out whether "exorcised," "delivered" or "extracted." All one and the same.

My assertion at the beginning of this blog is that the majority of disease out there is brought on by the mind -- whether from inside or outside. The connotation of "hypochondriac" that seems to plague our society is that they make up diseases to get attention. That's not really accurate. Hypochondria is when a person focuses all their negative mental energies on their physical state, so, for instance, every new disease that they read about, they are sure is afflicting them. That's not what I'm talking about when I mention psychosomatic disease.

The fact is that psychological and emotional issues can go so deep that they begin to manifest themselves physically in ones body. Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it is actually healthier if someone thinks they are being afflicted by demons and that the name of Jesus can cure it. Lots simpler and cheaper than going to the doctor and having thousands of dollars worth of tests run only to have the doctor say, "I don't know what it is, but I'm going to prescribe hundreds of dollars of meds that will treat your symptoms." Because doctors are focused on treatments of symptoms rather than prevention or getting at causes. But then we also know people who are spending thousands of dollars on psychotherapy and getting worse and worse as well. It's like the blind leading the blind.

So now, I'm in the middle of two subjects -- modern medicine and exorcism. Let me finish my soap box on modern medicine, then I'll segue into what all that has to do with exorcism. 

The fact is our Newtonian scientific mindset has gone awry in our societal understanding of disease. Yes, people are living longer now that we've discovered that bacteria causes disease and we've "cleaned up our act" so to speak. Unfortunately, our scientific mindset makes us think that there is some bacterial or chemical cause to every disease and that modern medicine should be able to cure it. But when 80% of disease is affected in the mind -- we need to be looking at something else.

The fact is that there are hundreds of ways of effecting healing. And modern medicine is only one of them. But insurance only pays for that one. Ah! I mustn't get started on that issue, too. Too many threads, but stay tuned, we'll get to that one eventually, too.

There are many holistic arts out there, many New Age and Holistic arts practitioners whose cures are more effective. First, there are alternative doctors such as naturopaths, homeopaths, there are osteopaths and chiropractors who use those healing methods as well. There is Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Next there are Energy Healing arts which get categorized as "New Age," while some are ancient healing methods and some are new methodologies using ancient mindsets. But the medical community and the Church both try to debunk these things as quackery -- the medical community for obvious reasons -- it would threaten their financial security if people learned how to heal themselves. The Church because they (and I'm obviously painting a broad stroke here when I say "The Church" because not all try to debunk it, but many Christian sects do) equate it with "witch doctors" and "witch medicine."

Let me give you some concrete examples: would you rather pay $100 to have the doctor irrigate your ears, or $33 to have your ears candeled? And another $33 can give you an Indian Head Massage which will relieve headaches, tension, sinus problems. So for $66 you've done something that will open up several different blockages and raise your immune level, or for $100 you've gotten rid of your ear wax.

My favorite example is from when I broke my elbow several years ago. I went to the doctor. They x-rayed my elbow, put me in a sling and sent me home telling me I had just sprained my elbow. They called me back three days later to tell me that a radiologist had looked at my x-ray, and that it was, indeed, broken -- would I come back so they could put me in a cast? Then whenever I saw my doctor for follow-ups, he was so busy -- in 2 months, I saw him twice, for about 2 minutes each time. Thus, when my cast came off, lo and behold, my elbow was frozen. I couldn't straighten my arm. "But physical therapy will rectify this, right?" "No," he said, "you'll likely have to have surgery to fix it." He shrugged. I politely excused myself from his presence and shouted something unprintable in my mind all the way back to my car.

I called my acupuncturist. She fixed it, set it to rights completely, in just three sessions. I have full range of motion in my elbow and zero pain. And NO surgery.

Are you getting my drift here? Okay, granted, we're not talking about spiritual/psychoemotional afflictions. But since I don't want you to say TL;DR (too long; didn't read), I'm going to end this here, and we'll take those up in the next entry. But again, Shakespeare said it best -- "There are more things in this life than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

And in other news...casting out demons - no, really!

Got the political ranting out of my system, viewed Salon's Baby Animals: Your election antidote http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/11/03/baby_animal_slideshow, so on to other news!!!

Making progress in the advertising department. Friday I establish MindCast Productions as a business. It's tough being both the creative person and the marketing person. Two different sides of the brain. That's why I was resisting the selling at first and wanting underwriters (donations) instead.

But the cool thing is that the response to the idea of the broadcast has been so warm. Nearly everyone thinks this is a fabulous idea. (I wanted to say "everyone," but I did encounter one curmudgeon today.) So the sales are not difficult once I pick up the phone.

We WILL go on the air on the 12th as scheduled. I'm very excited. There's so much to say, so many stories to tell. I'll actually have to be organized and have notes -- not so I won't have dead air space -- just the opposite! So I can prioritize and leave time for the audience to tell their own stories.

I find it interesting that the majority of my what would be considered "paranormal" experiences, happened in one paradigm. I've tried analyzing them or rather re-analyzing them from my new paradigm, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Luckily both paradigms include Otherworld experiences so it's not a conflict of "believe it or not," rather a matter of perspective.

It's like going from a traditional medical view to an alternative medical view. Neither says the malady doesn't exist, but most often in the traditional view they're looking for symptomatic abatements or cures via pharmaceuticals, where alternative medicine looks for underlying causes and works to resolve the issues without causing further harm to the individual, effecting a real cure from the inside out.

When I was a Christian pastor and well -- uh, the traditional term would be "exorcist," but it seems less off putting, perhaps, to call it "deliverance from spiritual harassment," I would take my son with me because he could sense things in the physical realm that I could not. When we did house cleansings, he would smell sulphur in certain places. It was like the "x" on buried treasure, or like getting "hot or cold" in a child's game -- if I followed up on his nose, I could always get to the source of the harassment. Why? Sulphur was associated with The Devil in Christianity, so the assumption was that a smell of sulphur meant there was something demonic nearby. So now, if I try to reanalyze what happened in light of my current paradigm where I no longer "believe" in that Devil nor his sulphurous reputation, where does that leave me?

The fact is that when he smelled the odor, we got to the bottom of the problem, the domicile was purged of the offending item or entity and everything was better. My point? Who cares what the methodology was or the philosophy behind it? The "cure" was effected. As in alternative medicine. A real cure, not a symptomatic masking nor a treatment where the malady was likely to reoccur.

When dealing with "energies" or "powers" or "entities" or illnesses or what-have-you, there are many, many ways to approach them. What matters is how the person being treated feels about the approach and its fit for them. Do you know that most doctors sued for malpractice did not have a good relationship with their patient to begin with? No trust. Go figure. Hmmm...I never had that problem with my clients...