| Spirit attachment is like a parasitic infestation that | | | | magnetic field. c. Personification is an inherent |
| steals the nutrients of its host's physical body. 1,2,3 The | | | | weakness of hypno-analysis. In hypnosis the subject |
| attached spirit leaches on the energy of the host spirit. | | | | surrenders the direction of their thoughts to the |
| If the attaching spirit is of a lower order, it is argued | | | | hypnotherapist and their resistance to the therapist's |
| that it will feed on the negative energy emanating from | | | | instructions is diminished. The subject is told to |
| guilt, manipulating the individual and leading them into | | | | recognise something. When they have no accurate |
| guilt-provoking situations. An attaching spirit is like a | | | | information to offer, they may proffer incorrect |
| hijacker, and the concept of mental space. and the | | | | statements to please the therapist, without any |
| weakening of its walls on rare occasions may have | | | | awareness that they are mixing truth and falsehood. |
| some explanatory value in the discussion of spirit | | | | Hypnosis can release the dramatizing powers of the |
| attachment. In possession, the total executive powers | | | | mind. D.ESP is a complex explanation. Hypnosis |
| are also taken over by the attaching spiritual entity. | | | | enhances the ESP powers of the subject and the |
| Overshadowing refers to the presence of an | | | | therapist resulting in paranormal communications |
| influencing discarnate personality. There is also a | | | | between the living and the spiritual realm, and this can |
| variant of this hypothesis suggesting that the discarded | | | | adulterate the hypnotherapeutic exploration. |
| fragments of the soul body getting attached to the | | | | In claims of detection of spirit attachment through |
| living mind are actually responsible for entity possession | | | | hypno analysis, the imagination of the patient may run |
| and not the returning soul-It is analogous to the trapped | | | | wild. We have our limitations when it comes to |
| foreign body in the trachea. It is recognised within | | | | exaggerating truth, but we have apparently |
| adherence of spirit attachment theory that such a | | | | inexhaustible powers of imagination as far as |
| condition can cause depression, mood swings, eating | | | | stretching a lie is concerned. Individuals can fabricate |
| disorders and addictions. | | | | narratives of imagined experiences in greater detail |
| Two aspects of the school of thought favouring the | | | | than may be accounted for by the application of |
| spirit attachment hypothesis are salient. Raymond | | | | conscious knowledge. |
| Moody who popularised near death experiences | | | | Dissociative states have been compared to spirit |
| states that in their clinical practice most psychiatrists | | | | attachment; the latter is a subtler phenomenon than the |
| come across patients with a distinctive altered state of | | | | former. Dissociative states are usually correlated with |
| consciousness that fits with the possession states | | | | intensely painful psychological events. The dissociative |
| described in medieval literature and some of these | | | | response is initially adaptive, but when it persists |
| patients respond to depossession techniques and | | | | beyond the trauma context it subsequently becomes |
| dislodging the alleged attached entity . 4 Nobody can | | | | maladaptive and pathological. Spirit attachment causes |
| say definitely how common are true cases of spirit | | | | inner psychological trauma, and the dissociative state |
| attachment, and more research in this challenging field | | | | itself may be an adaptive response to spirit |
| is warranted. | | | | attachment or the aftermath of an attempted spirit |
| The concept of "mental space" is helpful in | | | | attachment. Spirit attachment is a disturbance to the |
| understanding spirit attachment. A person's physical | | | | spiritual homeostasis. Most often dissociative states |
| body is in physical space and his mind exists in a | | | | occur owing to external psychogenic traumas, but |
| personal mental space- a higher dimensional space | | | | theoretically they may also occur because of intrinsic |
| existing like a satellite spatial system occupied by | | | | spiritual traumas. Multiple personality disorders may |
| minds, or at least components of minds. 5 This | | | | sometimes be a cultural expression of spiritual distress. |
| concept is now supported by particle physics. Mental | | | | There may have been an error in generalising all cases |
| events occur in a space that is different from the | | | | of dissociative states by classifying them as either due |
| space we occupy in everyday lives as well from the | | | | to psychological causes or to spiritualistic factors, |
| physical space that physicists describe. For example, | | | | without recognising that these states may be |
| the image of a bear that we may hold in our minds (in | | | | spectrum disorders stemming from intrinsic and |
| the absence of a live bear) has spatial dimensions, and | | | | external psychogenic causes. There is no shortage for |
| we can locate that bear in our minds at a distance | | | | dramatic case studies of spirit attachment but they are |
| from an also imagined river and a salmon in the river at | | | | not going to convince the skeptics, and what are |
| which the bear may seem to lunge. We cannot | | | | needed are clinical trials. 7 |
| however speak intelligibly about the distance between | | | | Adherents of spirit attachment theories caution against |
| an imagined bear and its imagined surroundings but on | | | | complementary therapies that have mediumistic |
| the other hand we can do so about any object that | | | | inclinations. Therapists ought to assist their clients to |
| we locate perceptually in physical space. | | | | concentrate on the protective influences of the |
| The mental space is a very personal one and | | | | positive spiritual realms and the richer realities -there |
| protected from the intrusions of other person's | | | | are more angels than the stars in the sky! Marian |
| thoughts probably by electromagnetic fencing. Dr Ian | | | | apparitional studies are highly relevant in this context. |
| Stevenson who is a believer of the afore mentioned | | | | We need to suspend our judgement on spirit |
| hypothesis states that the barriers of the mental | | | | attachment until we know more about the subject. |
| space weaken on rare occasions and we experience | | | | Equally, the concept of clinical reincarnation where non |
| unusual telepathy and paranormal communications. 6 | | | | biological depression could be a carryover from a |
| The real arena of spirit attachment is probably the | | | | previous life needs further exploration. It is my |
| mental space - the complex particle dimension beyond | | | | contention that the equal incidence of schizophrenia all |
| the brain and it may also be a field of subtle energy | | | | over the world indicates a biological etiology of |
| system. Weakening of the walls of the mental space | | | | schizophrenia but psychic healers think differently. |
| may facilitate the entry of entities into the subatomic | | | | REFERENCES: |
| energy system. Considerably more work would have | | | | 1. Fiore Edith (1988) The Unquiet Dead. New York: |
| to be done along these lines, however, before any of | | | | Ballantine Books. |
| these conjectures can be defined convincingly. | | | | 2.Patrnicka Wanda (2006) Possessed by Ghosts |
| The scientific validity of detecting spirit attachment | | | | :Exorcisms in the 21st century. Warszwa: Centrum |
| through hypno-analysis is questionable as the | | | | Publishers. |
| information retrieved through hypnosis is unreliable. The | | | | 3.Modi Shakuntala (1998) Remarkable Healings. |
| following opinions have to be considered about spirit | | | | Charlottesville: Hampton Roads Publishing Co. |
| attachment detection through hypno analysis. a. The | | | | 4. Smythies J.R. (1988). Minds and Higher Dimensions. |
| ego-strengthening power of hypnosis may be | | | | Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, |
| inappropriately applied in hypno-analysis. b. Hypnosis | | | | Vol.55.No, 812 |
| may increase the confidence with which a memory is | | | | 5.Stevenson I. (1981) Can we describe the mind? |
| held, while reducing the veracity of the memory. c. | | | | Research in Parapsychology. Metuchen N.J: |
| Information obtained through hypno- analysis may be | | | | Scarecrow press |
| correlated to that emanating from a historical novel | | | | 6.Moody Raymond((1988) Forward in "The Unquiet |
| that constitutes a synthesis of fact and fiction: a few | | | | Dead" page. New York: Ballantine Books. |
| items of memory derived from an alleged attached | | | | 7.Sanderson Alan Lindsay (2003) Spirit attachment and |
| spirit arguably become dislodged and reattached to | | | | Health. spiritrelease.com/review_spiritrelease. |
| fantasies - rather as iron fillings become attached to a | | | | |