Entities on the Way

This is written in response of Alex's link to the Chan Handbook in which "demons" are discussed as something one *will* encounter on the path. In my youth, before I got exposed to magick, I was primarily mystical in orientation, and I had some awakening experiences that finally culminated in a spiritual battle with an extremely malevolent entity that I nearly lost. I hadn't found anyone who had any idea what to tell me about this, as it sounds frankly insane. However, Alex says he has heard many such stories. This thread is to share information about such phenomenon.

As the Chan handbook rightly points out, there are many kinds of demons - laughter demons, illness demons, sadness demons, etc. It reminds me a bit of Ramsey Duke's book "The Little Book of Demons" in which the author recommends personifying life's problems. Interestingly this is an approach taken by some contemporary psychotherapy techniques - notably Gestalt and Narrative Therapy. The idea is that our brains process social relationships better than abstract things, and also that by objectifying the phenomenon rather than identifying with it one is able to gain a different viewpoint.

In my experiences though, demons may be pragmatic metaphors, but may also be something beyond that. The one I encountered some 23 years ago was like nothing I've encountered before or since, though I've encountered numerous "spirits" in the meantime.

This is the thread to discuss such bizarre experiences or even more normative ones...

Creating a separate thread was a good idea. We might be off topic, but I think that mystics and yogis should be aware of possible dangers, as it's not all pink and chocolate out there.

When Chinese Ch'an masters speak about demonic states, they mainly refer to the 8th chapter of the Surangama Sutra:

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/surangama.pdf

In Buddhism also, demons are often pragmatic metaphors. However, during the last 20 years, I have seen a few cases of infestation and even possession by malevolent entities. If these cases are sometimes assimilated to schizophrenia, there are different.

Just to mention recent events, I was chatting with a senior Rinzai Zen practitioner on a French forum a few weeks ago. He told me that he had very strong kundalini experiences resulting from intense Powa practice under the direction of Lama Kalu Rinpoche in the late 70's. After a few months, he found himself haunted by a spirit. He really thought that he was going mad. Gradually he understood what it was and who it was, but the nightmare lasted for months. I have heard similar stories from Indian yogis. Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama (the kundalini yoga expert, parapsychologist and student of Satyananda Saraswati) considers that this may happen as a result of a strong activation of the lower chakras, attracting malevolent disincarnate beings feeding on the extra raw energy. This might be an explanation.

Whatever might by the case, if it should happen to any of us, it should be helpful to know how to react. Having read and heard that Australian metaphysical author Robert Bruce describing his own experiences; I feel that he is one of the few specialists who know what they are talking about. I would therefore recommend his book 'Practical Psychic Self-Defense: Understanding and Surviving Unseen Influences' as a first how-to manual to deal with such problem, just in case.

Alright, I'll share my story...
Twenty three some years ago, I had an extremely hardcore meditation practice that had lasted several years. I was driven to try to understand the nature of Reality, and was committed to examining it personally and drawing my own conclusions. I was considerably alienated to the point of being alexithymic and was borderline Aspergers - lived in my head. (This is one of the reasons I'm so vehemently opposed to Absolute Freedom). I had a great deal of existential angst. One day, I had an experience which I now believe was a fruition - and emerged from it with a sense of joy in the Oneness of all things. All of the sudden, I was not only intensely aware of my own feelings, but I could feel everyone else's too (this has never left by the way) - my mind had changed too - no longer was i identified with my thought processes - and in fact, while it had taken great effort in the past to stop thinking - all of the sudden, I could stop thinking at will, and remain like that for some time. There were other things too, more difficult to relate to, if you have never had the experience - the sense that everything really did have a spirit and that this sense was not a projection. My sense of self would merge with the activity at hand - now all these specialized senses evolved over a period of time as I struggled to repeat the first experience, but have more or less been in place since that time. I was able to have a comparable experience after about a month of literally meditating 6 hours a day, and then again in a few weeks - and finally was getting to the point where I was having them several times a day.

Meanwhile, I had been loosely ascribing to a Kundalini model and a Zen like model. I was getting the experience of energy blossoming into the back of my skull like cool tongues of flame where the brainstem enters. As I started to explore these sensations, I noticed that they had a kind of cognizance... Cont

These sensations at the back of my skull were my first experience of what I know now are "formations" - I called them "thought tendrils" back then. Initially I saw this as a long lost emotional part of myself... Now I'm not sure when I first became aware of the entity, and I'm not sure when the experience of the entity became identified with the kundalini sensations - but eventually they did become identical. The entity I encountered communicated entirely through formations - initially it seemed very friendly - seductive I would say now. It communicated that it was a manifestation of "The Source", and told me that it could teach me certain things, if I would merge my identity with it's. I'm thinking that's when it set up shop in the kundalini system. So now I'm kind of thinking that it may have been some kind of intrapsychic parasite... As I got to know this thing, there are several things I can say definitively about it - it was sentient, somewhat intelligent (though I'm not clear that it had human level intelligence) - but had a distinctly non-mammalian intelligence. It did not use language. It seemed to coalesce it's identity with everything else it experienced - it had a kind of "swarm intelligence" or hive mind intelligence - and it was self organizing and self generating. These latter qualities make it much different from any other spiritual entity I've encountered - those (even the ones generally called "demons") can be sometimes nasty and brutish -but they seem to have only quasi-existence and have "borrowed consciousness". At any rate, the thing became more and more demanding in certain ways - wanting me to merge with it more and more - though it did teach me certain things about the uses of formations. It actually demanded that I worship it at one point - which I refused. Cont

I also began to get some collateral feedback that there was something wrong. (This is going to sound weird, as if it doesn't already...) I was communing with the spirit of this huge oak tree one day (remember, I was playing with a completely different reality in which things seemed literally alive) and I got some very seriously negative feelings from the tree - hatred, actually. I eventually figured out that it had something to do with the entity.

So anyway, the thing waited until I was extremely vulnerable, and attacked. It wanted to take over my body. It actually did so for about 30 seconds - it moved my hands like pincers - didn't seem to know how to work opposable thumbs. It wanted to destroy my consciousness, and replace it with it's own. And the things it wanted to do with my body were unspeakably horrible - it wanted to kill. It became very clear that it had been paving the way for this, and that my "soul" and life was at stake - as well as some things outside myself that I valued. I knew it was it, or me. I stayed up all night battling the thing, and eventually destroyed it through something akin to suppression and by completely turning off the kundalini and stuffing it back down. This last part took a few months - and I was very afraid the entity might re-emerge if I let that flow.

Since that time I haven't cycled or had another fruition again. The other effects, including the resolution of the existential dilemma have been permanent though. I recently "turned on" the kundalini sensation again though, and it doesn't seem as though *that* is an involuted entity - so now I think that it (the kundalini system) might have been hijacked by the thing. Even other magicians find this story bizarre - and I'm sure most psychiatrists would have thought I was psychotic (and might have been right - I certainly would have met criteria). I do too, frankly.

This is a very interesting story. Thank you for sharing these intimate experiences. From what I can tell, you had a genuine strong kundalini experience and certainly fruition. When things got wrong, your energetic system must have been hijacked by something very nasty. Of course, psychiatrists don't know anything about this. I have seen psychotic patients, but what you are describing has nothing to do with that.

This nasty thing was not like a goetic spirits, you agree. It was real beyond doubt. It first tried to seduce you because it could not take over your body without some form of consent from your side. It then tried to take control of your nervous system, starting by your hands, making you make strange movements, etc., then gradually tried to completely take over, using you to commit criminal acts. This is the typical possession scenario. And in your case, it must have been a very strong entity.

I will try to find an interesting radio interview in mp3 format describing a very similar event - you might find it interesting. I have personally seen two cases of possession and I can tell you that it was pretty much like in a Hollywood movie.

No - not at all like Goetic spirits. I eat those for lunch. It was super nasty and nearly destroyed me. Of course, at the time I had very little experience with any kinds of spirits or magick in general, or I might have brought a little more into the fight. I was familiar with witchcraft and shamanism, and had read Carlos Castaneda - in fact thought it might be an "ally".

For the record though, I never committed any criminal acts at it's behest, and it only had control of my body for seconds before I came back gangbusters. I *did* whip it's ass - though that is easily the toughest fight I've ever been in, and it nearly killed me - literally. I actually think it had been re-wiring my brain for weeks to months before that. I remember I spent a lot of time repressing the kudalini and reactivating verbal and neocortical functioning so that it could not come back in through a back door. Vicious, alien thing... I've never been able to find any literature on a demonic entity like that - but interestingly I just found this which bizarrely parallels: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_from_Shaggai Hmnnn... Maybe there is something to the idea of the Necronomicon being an "astral book."

I've only encountered one magician who has encountered one other magician who has encountered similar entities - my friend, Andrieh Vitimus, author of "Hands-On Chaos Magick". He calls them "servants of oblivion." He agrees that they are a completely different species from "normal" spirits. He claims the normal banishings won't work, and one has to find ways to channel energies associated with order on a Cosmic scale to hurt them.

Oh - one thing I forgot to mention - it had a distinctly feminine quality to it. I'm not sure why I thought it was important to mention that, but I thought I would. That was one scary *****! It was twisted in a way it's difficult to describe: highly involuted.

The other bit is that it had no redeeming qualities that I can think of. I'm willing to deal with say, Goetic demons, or Qlippothic entities, though I don't much like them, and prefer to work with the lwa. They have an "honor"of sorts - they will stick to the letter of an agreement anyway - though they may try to find a loophole to really screw you. There would be absolutely no negotiating with an entity like this... I have in the past actually become physically ill when thinking about the idea of encountering it again in some form - and it's made me terrified of reactivating kundalini until recently.

So how often is something like this mistaken for insanity? The dogmatic skeptic in me says "hogwash" to your story, David, but I'm not about to completely dismiss anything just because the stories I grew up with differ.

"
So how often is something like this mistaken for insanity? The dogmatic skeptic in me says "hogwash" to your story, David, but I'm not about to completely dismiss anything just because the stories I grew up with differ.

"

I would have committed me - or at least prescribed anti-psychotic medication. I would think, quite often if it presented that this would be "misdiagnosed." I've personally authorized the use of forced medication for people who claimed they were possessed (of course, I performed a banishing on their behalf just to make sure - of course, if Vitimus is right , and it was the same kind of "spirit" it might not have worked). At the time, I knew better than to tell a psychiatrist about it. We psychiatrists have a tough time differentiating spiritual experiences from madness anyway - I also knew better than to tell a psychiatrist that I suspected that I might have become enlightened too (and eventually just blew off the possibility).

I totally understand and respect your skepticism, Chris. It's correct for you to question my sanity and the nature of the experience - God knows I have. Just FYI - I did see a psychiatrist as a youth for psychotherapy, including that time period - and was diagnosed with ADHD - innattentive type (though my problem is more along the lines of hyperfocusing - on the wrong things) and because I wasn't making A's in everything despite my IQ score, and also related to feelings I had about a car accident I was in where my best friend was seriously injured. I have never, by anyone, been diagnosed with psychosis. In fact, the psychiatrist I saw asked me to join his practice when he found out I had become a psychiatrist and moved back to town... so I'm not crazy by the usual definitions.

David, that was just my way of saying I reserve judgment -- but I am certainly not judging you. Far from it. I have no idea if what happened to you is real or imagined but from here you certainly seem to be well grounded. I did some time on the couch myself, but as a teen and young adult. I had issues similar to yours as in in high school my grades did not match my potential as defined by all the adults in my life. In my case it was because certain recreational activities (ahem) were far more interesting than the stuff I was supposed to be paying attention to. Expectations are a *****

"

So how often is something like this mistaken for insanity? The dogmatic skeptic in me says "hogwash" to your story, David, but I'm not about to completely dismiss anything just because the stories I grew up with differ.

"

As a point of clarification, all I meant by "hyperfocusing on the wrong things" was that I have a very hard time focusing on things I'm not interested in - but give me a book I like, I won't put it down and you can yell at me from three feet away and I won't look up. So an example might be say, posting on forums instead of doing my work.

The point about the psychiatrist is that presumably he wouldn't have wanted me to join his practice if he thought I was seriously disturbed. My wife, also a psychiatrist, has joked about me being "slightly psychotic" though - particularly when I talk about the magick stuff. Insofar as whether spirits are real... well, often it seems useful to act like they are.

For the benefit of people not used to thinking in terms of "spirits", let me frame things and provide a bit of theory: First of all, here in the West, we are taught that anthropomorphizing things distorts our view of them (though there seems to be no real evidence - that is to say, why should the universe *not* be human shaped?), and generally to objectify phenomenon while either rejecting the reality of, or psychologizing "subjectively" experienced phenomenon. In my view this cultural predjudice does not lead to more rational analysis and assessment, and it greatly contributes to our sense of separation from reality. It is itself a distortion.

Now seeing things in terms of spirits is a certain framework with it's own internal logic that works quite well should you entertain it. If you think about it, in a trivial sense, everything has a spirit. There is "school spirit", there is a "spirit of the times", and to extend this, there is a "spirit of celebration", there is a "spirit of Autumn." Everything and every activity in this sense has a spirit. If you begin to look at things in terms of this trivial sense of everything having a spirit, and noticing what this spirit is, you begin to catch a glimpse of "the spirit realm." You begin to see that spirits exist on different levels of scale - your body has "animating spirits", also your own mind (these are often responsible for your sense of self) - there are spirits of nature and then there is the Spirit of Nature, etc. You can, in a sense, interact with these spirits - the company you work for has a certain spirit, and it behooves you to act 'in the spirit' of it. There are techniques, such as Carl Jung's active imagination technique, that can allow you to interact with them more. I've done quite well with the stock market by treating the market this way, and simply asking what it would do...

Back to "Spiritology 101". At any rate, it turns out that there are some practical advantages to viewing things this way - talking to your plants etc., some of which are not credible unless you try it for a bit.

Now generally in Magick, we recognize four basic kinds of spirits: servitors, eidolons, egregores, and godforms. It should be noted that in CMT, spirits are projections of the magician's Kia - or life force if you prefer. You can therefore, create spirits. Servitors are this basic kind of entity - one gets an idea for a spirit fit to perform a certain task, create a sigil for it, and invests a great deal of emotional and concentrative energy into it (until one can literally feel it's presence) and voila! One has created a spirit. If one is very good, one can even put oneself in such a concentrative state that one "evokes the spirit to visible appearance" - essentially this cannot be differentiated from a hallucination, which is not at all to admit that it *is* a hallucination- but it really hardly matters either way to the magician. It can be looked on as an intense form of self programming - though most people who do this will tell you that there is probably something more to it. The effects can not always be well explained by the psychological model - namely the entities sometimes seem to take on a life of their own, and there are occasionally paranormal effects.

Servitors are the basic entity for a single task one creates before being re-absorbed. Eidolons are more flexible totem spirits that have a range of general activity. Egregores are spirits that form from the collective investment of belief and emotional energy of a group of people - so one's "team spirit", as well as the lwa could be looked on that way. Godforms are very powerful egregores. There is some thought that the spirits can evolve all the way to godforms by having more and more people give energy to them...

There are a few special cases - ghosts for instance. In most cases, these are more the imprints of highly emotional events and are linked to a particular place and time rather than a being. There *may* be some actual sentient beings who are deceased, but they are relatively infrequently encountered, and it is not clear to me that these also do not have an egregoric quality - that is, they may be generated by the ghost hunters! Poltergeists are sort of like unconscious servitors. Godforms and "Demons" seem to feed upon the emotional energies of mankind, and express themselves through the actions of humanity. A good representation of this by Alex Gray is here: www.zaporacle.com/textpattern/images/52.jpg

So here's the thing about most spirits - they don't really seem to exist *apart* from our consciousness - they may take on a life of their own, rather like characters in a story which we write, but they never seem to be fully independent. They don't *think* apart from interacting with us - they sort of borrow our consciousness to do that. I might fully invoke Mercury, but if I (David) don't know how to do differential equations, I'll bet dollars to dimes that Mercury isn't going to be able to solve those kinds of math problems while I'm the host. In a certain way, spirits *are* ideas, they don't generate a stream of ideas. That's where the entity that I encountered was different - it had a stream of mentation, alien though it was, which it communicated - and it did seem to have independent existence, though I can't prove that.

Thanks for that, Chris - I didn't see that till now.

Hello Haquan:

I'm surprised you have not heard from other magicians who have encountered this type of very powerful demon. I encountered an malevolent entity very much more powerful than me (which was a real shock) about 12 years ago. It took me two years to recover. I did check myself into a psychiatric institution for observation but they booted me out in a couple of days for being too sane or too crazy in the wrong way. 18 months of Serzone later I was somewhat recovered. But in all honesty it took me another 5 years to fully recover and get back along my way. A very good friend of mine, the man who introduced me to chaos magick had a quite similar experience, pretty much as I did, at the end of a very intense series of workings. It took him an equivalent amount of time to recover. The CMT classification of servitors, eidolons, egregores and godforms collapses a bit in the face of personal experience of these very nasty entities. Mine was quite embodied, had a name even (which I really won't mention), good manners (!) and appeared not because I had summoned him but because I was trying a working against one of his vessels (vassals?). Really, I'd never met anything like him before, or thankfully, since. As far as I can tell he wasn't part of my psyche at all. He wasn't interested in destroying me. He was just warning me off. I got the message.

~ Mark

"Hello Haquan:

I'm surprised you have not heard from other magicians who have encountered this type of very powerful demon. I encountered an malevolent entity very much more powerful than me Mine was quite embodied, had a name even (which I really won't mention), good manners (!) and appeared not because I had summoned him but because I was trying a working against one of his vessels (vassals?). Really, I'd never met anything like him before, or thankfully, since. As far as I can tell he wasn't part of my psyche at all. He wasn't interested in destroying me. He was just warning me off. I got the message.

~ Mark"

Hi Mark,
Thanks for sharing that. I find it quite interesting. I've encountered magicians who have had run-ins with malevolent entities - just none have been insectoid or hive mind intelligences. Did you find any similarities in what I've described in terms of the manner of consciousness between your entity and mine? That is, did you feel that it's consciousness was non-human, non-mammalian, and specifically either insectoid, hive mind like, or with a "swarm intelligence"? If not, how would you describe it's consciousness? You said it was embodied - do you mean that you saw it physically? It sounds like yours used language, yes? Out of curiosity, does it's name match any in any of the lore? Mine wouldn't give a specific name - pretended (I think) not to understand - though I nicknamed it "The Acid Queen". Incidentally, I forgot to mention that mine became associated with a powerful humming in the back of my head.

So to sum up my questions: In what ways do you think our experiences were alike, and in what ways were they different? So you think the thing appeared because you were cursing someone who served it? Did you learn anything about handling such entities?

It seems that banishing is not sufficient against a powerful demon. By quite embodied, I assume that Mark meant that it has a strong etheric quality, which is somehow necessary if it is to interact with someone nervous system. I can't find the podcast, but Robert Bruce went through something very similar to what you are describing, Haquan (almost word for word, even if it stated for other reasons). He realized that the magnetic field generated by strong running water could affect the demon's ability to attach itself to his energy body. What he did was basically to spend a few days alone over an underground river. After about 48 hours of such Australian 'hot spring spa treatment', the entity was forced to give up. Any thought or experience about this?

If I pretend to be someone brand new to spirituality and I encounter this web site what would you three say to me to relieve my fears that by engaging in a spiritual practice I might be infected by one of these nasty spirits? Or do the spirits come after you no matter what?

Hi Haquan:

You asked if the entitiy I encountered was a hive mind. Only to the extent that I believe it to be the standing wave at the front of a collective energy. I don't know if entities like this are opportunistic or form as the result of very bad thinking by large groups of people. In my case I was targeting a murderous s.o.b. who had killed many people and tormented many more. I later found out that he and his crew were involved in the occult so perhaps the demon was summoned by them. Regardless, it was not my fight. I interjected myself in a process it was no business of mine. Said s.o.b must have lost his protection because he was assassinated a couple of years later. For me it was a valuable lesson in humility and the limits of my skill.

I did have another experience with this type of collective energy as a result of an large (35+ magicians) international internet mediated dream working I coordinated, an attack to free demons we hypothesized had been trapped by LRH in the formation of the CO$. I'm sure you know of LRH's early days with Jack Parsons. The working was great fun and deemed a success and I thought little more of it until I found myself accidentally driving through Clearwater, Florida, the HQ of the CO$ and I felt as though I was being attacked. The sensation was quite peculiar, as if I was being bitten by hundreds of buzzing insects, combined with the distinct sensations of an anxiety attack. We headed out of town as fast as possible and the sensation diminished rapidly. I have the log of the working, if you're interested, Haquan. I don't know if you were involved, Alex, or if it it was before or after your time with the zees.

~ Mark

"
If I pretend to be someone brand new to spirituality and I encounter this web site what would you three say to me to relieve my fears that by engaging in a spiritual practice I might be infected by one of these nasty spirits? Or do the spirits come after you no matter what?

"

Chris, while the Chan handbook says that encountering demons is unavoidable, and ultimately helpful - the kinds of things Mark and I encountered are pretty rare, I think. Having an experienced teacher would afford some protection, theoretically. The Chan handbook says keep meditating and they can't harm you - but don't give in to them either. I'm thinking that one most likely encounters demons in the trivial sense - the pain during meditation demon, etc. The kind of thing I describe is probably 1 out of 100,000 - so the benefit well outweighs the risk.

Alex, which Robert Bruce is this? That's amazing! I'm not sure how I might have figured out that strong running water would detach it - there is that old wives tale about spirits not being able to cross over water - but I always conceived of them as non-local. The only thing I could think to do to get rid of it was to "snuff it out" of my consciousness, which is what I did.
Cont

No need to worry, such cases are very rare and unlikely to happen to anyone involved with Samatha or Vipassana practice.

Our friends practicing Tantra or Magick are more likely to contact strange entities, but they are usually well equipped to deal with potential problems.

I just read something about Tantra which might be a clue - "According to Tantra, "being-consciousness-bliss" or Satchidananda has the power of both self-evolution and self-involution. Prakriti or "reality" evolves into a multiplicity of creatures and things, yet at the same time always remains pure consciousness, pure being, and pure bliss. In this process of evolution, Maya (illusion) veils Reality and separates it into opposites, such as conscious and unconscious Evolution, or the "outgoing current," is only half of the functioning of Maya. Involution, or the "return current," takes the jiva back towards the source, or the root of Reality, revealing the infinite. Tantra is understood to teach the method of changing the "outgoing current" into the "return current," transforming the fetters created by Maya into that which "releases" or "liberates." This view underscores two maxims of Tantra: "One must rise by that by which one falls," and "the very poison that kills becomes the elixir of life when used by the wise."

You also see a lot of stuff in Alchemy like that last line, and about dragons, etc. Do you think that "riding the involutionary current back to the Source" equates to the Suffering Door? Perhaps in some routes to enlightenment strong involutionary currents are being generated - which could attract or even create involutionary entities. Involution is not an issue at the level of Cosmic Unity, but after that... And I *was* trying to figure out how to harness the fruitions - paying a lot of attention to the liminal states when I was just emerging... There's some interesting theory about evolutionary and involutionary energies on Bob Campbell's site www.cosmic-mindreach.com

Thanks for the feedback, Mark!

@haquan:

R. Bruce: the author of Astral Dynamics. In a radio interview he explained that he was trying to exorcise a young boy possessed by a nasty demon (horrible story). He could not drive it away and decided to ask it to possess him instead of the child, assuming that he would be able to get rid of it later on. The rest of the story is exactly what you have described, almost word for word. I forgot the details, but I think that while crossing a water course, he suddenly realized that the demon was losing his grip. It has to do with the fact that such nasties need a strong etheric body to interact with someone nervous system, even if their spirit is non local. This etheric body seems to react to the electromagnetic current generated by running water. You may e-mail him for the details.

Hi Mark:

Interesting scary stories. If it was 12 years ago, it was more of less when I was with the zees, probably a few months after, since I remeber discussing Dzogchen, Descartes or ZOS while you where still in New Orleans (unless mistaken), but you had not yet mentioned these events.
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