Intrusions

Hi Mouse,

Well, obviously you've posted this in the Shamanism forum, so I expect the best person to answer is going to be our resident expert on Shamanism.... Crowan; certainly if you're just looking for a shamanistic perspective on your question.

From other perspectives, people may say that we cause our own attachments to such things, through the way we believe in things and (re)enforce ideas. In Buddhist terms attachments are believed to come from past lives as well as our current life and are created through learned behaviours or karma in 'payment' for something we have done. Mind therapists would say that such things are created by learned behaviour from our parents, teachers and peers. Spiritual believers would say that such things are because we have not had psychic protection or grounded ourselves etc. when being in contact with others who have negative energies and suchlike.

And how you actually deal with these depends on what perspective you are looking at it from... Spiritual answer being some sort of healing technique, Mind therapy being some re-framing or unlearning of beliefs/though patterns, Buddhism being mindfulness and meditation, and I suspect Shamanism being some form of soul retrieval (though Crowan can clarify for us).

I look forward to the experts advice. 🙂

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Could I ask some questions on what are known in shamanism as intrusions? (which I understand to be thought patterns, energies or beings which are attached somewhere they do not belong).
I am wondering how they come to be attached in the first place and why someone would pick up a particular type (nature spirits for example). Also, when they are removed, is it common to fall into a big depression?

Hi. I’ll do my best to not overcomplicate this. In shamanism everything has a spirit, so ‘energies’ and ‘thought patterns’ are both spirit beings. We can give power to those things that we give attention to, so ‘thought patterns’ and repressed emotions can both become so ‘real’ that a spirit inhabit them. The important point here is that we can communicate and negotiate with them. An intrusion is anything that is somewhere that it doesn’t belong.

Intrusions can become attached for several reasons. The least common but often suspected (which says a lot about how our society has taught us to think) is the deliberately sent intrusion. This is rare.

Most intrusions have wandered in having got lost. They find someone who can provide them with the food they need (energy in the form of emotions, often) and stay because they cannot find their way home.

There are a few types that are picked up by particular people. For example, the depressed and alienated teenager who hangs out in graveyards or cemeteries – or the groups of teenagers who drink and take drugs in graveyards/cemeteries – can easily pick up lost body spirits or even the souls of the dead. The intrusion is seeking help and the teenagers are often wide open.

A similar situation is found when people ‘commune with nature’. If the person is giving out signals to the spirits that they know what they are doing (maybe rattling, drumming, journeying out of doors or standing with a staff and declaiming) then displaced land spirits will often attach themselves. Their reasoning is that this person is a ‘spirit-talker’ and can therefore help them. Unfortunately, the person can rarely help because s/he doesn’t know how to, or even that it is happening.

The practice of using nature spirits as the binding in a spell is not common here. However it is in other parts of the world and, as these things are often generational, intrusions can be still be in second or third generations after immigration – by which time, all understanding of who to go to for help can have been lost. Because, in western Europe, this kind of thing hasn’t been done for much longer, any generational spell induced intrusions will have been in the family for much longer.

Almost all intrusions are as much in need of help as is the person who has the intrusion. Both will be helped by an extraction.

If they are removed competently there should be no problems. But carelessly removed intrusions can cause further harm to the person with the intrusion, to the intrusion itself, to the person doing the intrusion and - sometimes – to the surrounding area. I have come across some ‘ghosts’ that turned out to be intrusions removed from a person but not taken to where they belong – a common side-effect of exorcism. And harm can ensue if the gap left by an extracted intrusion is not filled.

It is more likely that depression will result from an intrusion rather than from its removal but, since it is always the spiritual aspect of the problem (in this case, the spiritual aspect of depression) that is being dealt with, each individual case may well be different. Could you give me more details?

Hi Mouse,

Well, obviously you've posted this in the Shamanism forum, so I expect the best person to answer is going to be our resident expert on Shamanism.... Crowan; certainly if you're just looking for a shamanistic perspective on your question.

From other perspectives, people may say that we cause our own attachments to such things, through the way we believe in things and (re)enforce ideas. In Buddhist terms attachments are believed to come from past lives as well as our current life and are created through learned behaviours or karma in 'payment' for something we have done. Mind therapists would say that such things are created by learned behaviour from our parents, teachers and peers. Spiritual believers would say that such things are because we have not had psychic protection or grounded ourselves etc. when being in contact with others who have negative energies and suchlike.

And how you actually deal with these depends on what perspective you are looking at it from... Spiritual answer being some sort of healing technique, Mind therapy being some re-framing or unlearning of beliefs/though patterns, Buddhism being mindfulness and meditation, and I suspect Shamanism being some form of soul retrieval (though Crowan can clarify for us).

I look forward to the experts advice. 🙂

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Hi Giles,

Yes, there is the idea that the world is 'taught' to us, i.e. there is the world as it is, mysterious, unknowable, and then there is the version that is imparted to us by parents, teachers etc. as you say, so we take on the good and the bad through this but it only has its own 'reality' (this is much deeper than I am clumsily articulating here of course!) so it should be possible to change this... I agree that the idea of 'intrusions' depends on the perspective you are coming from. And yes, I was hoping that Crowan would spot this one 🙂

Hi. I’ll do my best to not overcomplicate this. In shamanism everything has a spirit, so ‘energies’ and ‘thought patterns’ are both spirit beings. We can give power to those things that we give attention to, so ‘thought patterns’ and repressed emotions can both become so ‘real’ that a spirit inhabit them. The important point here is that we can communicate and negotiate with them. An intrusion is anything that is somewhere that it doesn’t belong.

Intrusions can become attached for several reasons. The least common but often suspected (which says a lot about how our society has taught us to think) is the deliberately sent intrusion. This is rare.

Most intrusions have wandered in having got lost. They find someone who can provide them with the food they need (energy in the form of emotions, often) and stay because they cannot find their way home.

There are a few types that are picked up by particular people. For example, the depressed and alienated teenager who hangs out in graveyards or cemeteries – or the groups of teenagers who drink and take drugs in graveyards/cemeteries – can easily pick up lost body spirits or even the souls of the dead. The intrusion is seeking help and the teenagers are often wide open.

A similar situation is found when people ‘commune with nature’. If the person is giving out signals to the spirits that they know what they are doing (maybe rattling, drumming, journeying out of doors or standing with a staff and declaiming) then displaced land spirits will often attach themselves. Their reasoning is that this person is a ‘spirit-talker’ and can therefore help them. Unfortunately, the person can rarely help because s/he doesn’t know how to, or even that it is happening.

The practice of using nature spirits as the binding in a spell is not common here. However it is in other parts of the world and, as these things are often generational, intrusions can be still be in second or third generations after immigration – by which time, all understanding of who to go to for help can have been lost. Because, in western Europe, this kind of thing hasn’t been done for much longer, any generational spell induced intrusions will have been in the family for much longer.

Almost all intrusions are as much in need of help as is the person who has the intrusion. Both will be helped by an extraction.

If they are removed competently there should be no problems. But carelessly removed intrusions can cause further harm to the person with the intrusion, to the intrusion itself, to the person doing the intrusion and - sometimes – to the surrounding area. I have come across some ‘ghosts’ that turned out to be intrusions removed from a person but not taken to where they belong – a common side-effect of exorcism. And harm can ensue if the gap left by an extracted intrusion is not filled.

It is more likely that depression will result from an intrusion rather than from its removal but, since it is always the spiritual aspect of the problem (in this case, the spiritual aspect of depression) that is being dealt with, each individual case may well be different. Could you give me more details?

Hi Crowan,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to this one. As you know, I am still learning 🙂

It is probably best if I do not go into too much more detail here (I will discuss with the shamanic practitioner who has been helping me). I have just been a little worried and perhaps as a consequence have been over thinking things.

I was wondering if removing intrusions could result in a feeling of emptiness, or whether the removal could enable you to feel your own energy more keenly, i.e. you might become aware of deeper problems or just what you have lost from having your energy impeded for a long time.

Again, I can't speak for shamanism, but with other therapies then yes, those things can be common.
When I first experienced EFT, for example, I treated a phobia, but was then left with a really odd 'empty' feeling when I tried to think back to how I had felt with the phobia. In that case, the solution was to treat the empty feeling, and then there was no feeling of emptiness after that. 😉

Likewise, and with many other therapies, it's very common for someone to present an issue that is just the surface of something, and by treating that, it opens up other issues that were buried beneath it. In some therapies they call it 'peeling the onion'. The answer is to a) be aware that this is likely to happen before you start a treatement, and b) be ready to treat the underlying issues as they arise. Of course, if you can already identify and get to the root cause of the underlying issue and treat that directly first off, then the rest should naturally disappear anyway, or as is common with something like Freeway CER (which works similar to EFT, but somewhat different in this respect), you can treat a recently apparent issue, and it can propagate all the way back to the root cause and deal with the unerlying things as well.

I imagine the same sort of thing applies to shamanic practices. (awaits Crowan's reply with baited breath.... :D)

All Love and Reiki Hugs

Hi Giles,

Yes, maybe that is what is happening. All I know is I feel very down, I guess 'this too shall pass' as they say.

When I first experienced EFT, for example, I treated a phobia, but was then left with a really odd 'empty' feeling when I tried to think back to how I had felt with the phobia. In that case, the solution was to treat the empty feeling, and then there was no feeling of emptiness after that.

With EFT you would treat a phobia. However, with shamanism, you would be treating the spiritual cause that is behind the phobia. Therefore, what is being removed is not the phobia, but the intrusion that is causing the problem that the phobia is a symptom of.

If a shamanic healer removes an intrusion, s/he should not leave a space (which could cause a sense of emptiness) because s/he would usually bring back whatever was missing that had allowed the intrusion in in the first place – a power retrieval and/or a soul retrieval.

Therefore, Mouse, since you are clearly still feeling depressed, I would suggest that you talk to your practitioner about it. It could be that the spirits needed to clear other stuff out of the way before they could tackle the main problem. Sometimes smaller intrusions need to go before larger ones and often a ‘keystone’ soul part will need to come back before others can.

I would still recommend shamanic counselling to you. I think you would gain enormously from it.

With EFT you would treat a phobia. However, with shamanism, you would be treating the spiritual cause that is behind the phobia. Therefore, what is being removed is not the phobia, but the intrusion that is causing the problem that the phobia is a symptom of.

Well, strictly speaking, the phobia is a disruption of the energy/meridian system, caused by a connection being made between the memory/thought and the phyiscal being, that is not flowing correctly in energetic terms, so I guess if you equate this disruption to your intrusion, and the treatment of EFT working to clear the disruption, then they're both doing pretty much the same thing... just using different terminology, beliefs and understandings. 😉
EFT is only treating the phobia, inasmuch as it's working on the underlying disruption, and whether that disruption is considered spiritual or not I guess comes down to personal belief. The way you describe it seems to suggest that EFT is treating the symptom and not the cause, but that's not how I understand EFT and meridian therapies to work.

If a shamanic healer removes an intrusion, s/he should not leave a space (which could cause a sense of emptiness) because s/he would usually bring back whatever was missing that had allowed the intrusion in in the first place – a power retrieval and/or a soul retrieval.

That's an interesting concept... so, from a shamanic understanding, where have these things gone and why did they leave in the first place, or indeed what would displace them?

🙂

All Love and Reiki Hugs

I would still recommend shamanic counselling to you. I think you would gain enormously from it.

I think we are moving onto this next. On my own, I have started to journey to ask for healing.

First, Giles, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you – life has become very busy and slightly extraordinary. Yesterday I mended the bolt on a five-bar-gate and today we unpacked our new wood chipper and tried it out on rather a lot of brash. It’s a steep learning curve and great fun, but doesn’t leave a lot of time!

so, from a shamanic understanding, where have these things gone and why did they leave in the first place, or indeed what would displace them?

This is the type of question that I wrote a book to try to answer, but I’ll try to keep it concise.
Soul parts leave essentially because they cannot cope with whatever is going on. Often this is a sudden major trauma – maybe a car crash or falling and breaking a leg – or it can be something on-going, such as abuse.
A classic is the sense of abandonment in a young child that is being discussed at the moment on the Mental and Emotional Forum. Another is the soul loss that occurs in two to three year olds when they first realise that they cannot do whatever they want, that there are restrictions in life.
The part that goes is the part that can least cope with the situation, the part that would possibly die if it did not go.
You ask what would displace a soul part – it is not usually this way around. Usually an intrusion will come in because a soul part has already gone.