Compassionate Depossession work is a way to assist someone who believes they have come under the influence of an intruding entity. It is not channeled work as with shamanic extractions. I learned this work as well as Curse Unraveling from Betsy Bergstrom, a leading internationally known teacher in this field for well over a decade. You can learn more about her at her website: http://betsybergstrom.com. I will only briefly discuss this work as it can be highly complicated to perform and I am not at liberty to explain it in detail.
According to Betsy, “possession” occurs more naturally than one might be aware of and most of these experiences occur with benign beings that overshadow rather than fully possess a person. Therefore, I choose to use the term “overshadowing” rather then possession. These beings work to influence the host body to comply to
their will. Most times these entities don’t understand what has happened to them and may not even be aware that they have died, especially if their death was traumatic. They become “wandering beings” or “suffering beings” that navigate toward the light and energy of living people because that’s the energy they were used to in life. People in physical form can become hosts for wandering beings who simply want to continue living; to have their needs met.
Overshadowing can cause the host body to have soul loss in the form of a variety of illnesses and include many of the symptoms spoken about in Part 1 of this article. To highlight a few here the host could experience: phobias, depression, substance abuse, “bad luck” or suicidal thoughts.
Gail’s Story
Recently, I worked with a young woman I will call Gail who believes that a wandering being has taken over parts of her life. Gail says this entity feels dark and dangerous to her.
My role is to begin where the client is emotionally and to work to alleviate any suffering for both parties. As in shamanic extraction work, the entity that has taken residence in the host body will ultimately be free to attain its best possible outcome only if it allows itself to be released. Therefore, with Compassionate Depossession work, I again have a primary and secondary client.
In working with Gail, I talked with the entity and began to discover some of its weaknesses. The weaknesses in turn became tools Gail can use to feel empowered again. Of course, it is up to her whether or not she chooses to use these tools. It is never to the advantage of either party, no matter the situation, to allow another person or being to have power over us. It is wise to continue to work towards regaining empowerment so that both parties are released from the struggle of overshadowing. It is also up to Gail as to whether or not she continues to work with me to release the suffering being.
While Compassionate Depossession work honors both the primary client and the suffering being, exorcism is much more combative in nature and does not take the suffering being into consideration. The big question for me is, where do wandering spirits go after an exorcism when they haven’t been listened to, honored or assisted in any way? My guess is that they simply wander until they find another host body to overshadow or control. In case you were wondering, in Betsy Bergstrom’s experience, the percentage of what is called “demonic possession” is quite small.
As with shamanic extraction, Compassionate Depossession work is a one-way ticket in that the suffering being is worked with until it is ready and willing to leave the host body of its own volition. By the time the process is completed, there is no chance that it would choose to come back.
Soul Retrieval, on the other hand, is all about coming back and we will now begin the detailed discussion about the sacred process of bringing back parts of a fragmented soul.
Soul Retrievals
Many people come to me seeking to retrieve parts of their soul. Usually by the time this is requested, the person has noticed that something within them is missing. They don’t feel whole and come expressly to regain the sense of wholeness they once had.
In Sandra Ingerman’s book, “Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self,” she shares a checklist of Soul Loss Symptoms (23). I invite you to read over it and see if any of these apply to you.
- Do you ever have a difficult time staying “present” in your body? Do you sometimes feel as if you’re outside your body observing it as you would a movie?
- Do you ever feel numb, apathetic, or deadened?
- Do you suffer from chronic depression?
- Do you have problems with your immune system and have trouble resisting illness?
- Were you chronically ill as a child?
- Do you have gaps in your memory of your life after age five? Do you sense that you may have blacked out significant traumas in your life?
- Do you struggle with addictions to, for example, alcohol, drugs, food, sex, or gambling?
- Do you find yourself looking to external things to fill up an internal void or emptiness?
- Have you had difficulty moving on with your life after a divorce or the death of a loved one?
- Do you suffer from multiple personality syndrome?
Have you answered yes to any of these questions? If so, you may choose to have a Soul Retrieval.
Similarly to how we sometimes pick up energies or entities from traumatic events, we can also lose parts of ourselves during those same events. For instance, if at the moment of an auto accident our soul feels threatened, a piece of it may flee the physical body to protect itself.
When a client contacts me specifically for a Soul Retrieval, I strongly recommend that they first go through Shamanic Extraction work in order to clear the physical and spiritual body vessel of past energies that have been taken on. Just as we prepare a clean environment for a guest that will be coming to our home, a soul fragment may be more likely to return to a body that is as free as possible of anything that could cause challenges for its return.
When I perform a Soul Retrieval, I am not channeling. Instead, I invite, Crow, one of my spirit allies who works with me for this purpose, to come and aid me in searching for any parts that are ready and willing to return to my client. Fragments will not return unless they are truly ready and willing.
Where do Soul Fragments go?
Crow leads me to the soul fragments wherever they may be within one of the non-ordinary worlds: the Upper World of the divine, the Middle World where the elementals reside, or the Lower World where Ancestors, Power Animals and Spirit Guides exist. If a fragment has become locked in the energy of the incident that caused it to leave, it could possibly be found be in the Middle World, the one most like our everyday ordinary world. Soul Fragments will most likely go where they feel the safest after a traumatic experience occurs.
To me, Soul Fragments look like the person from whom they have separated. If the soul part was younger when they separated from the client, I either look for a piece of jewelry that my client is presently wearing or if there is no other clue, I will ask the soul fragment if they are a part of my client that has separated. I have never had a being show up during a soul retrieval that wasn’t a separated soul part of the client I am working with. And, the fact that they show themselves to me in the first place is a good indication that they are ready to return.
Sometimes I find soul parts in a house where they used to live, under a bridge or even in a cave or out in nature. Again, they tend to go where they feel safe or to where they think they need to be or to a place where they are naturally drawn.
Surprisingly, one time Crow took me to the Upper World where I met a soul fragment that informed me that it had chosen, just before birth, not to come into this lifetime with my client. It had seen what the client was going to encounter in life and wasn’t ready to be a part of that challenge, so it stayed behind. This soul part looked exactly like the client I was working with, which also surprised me. It was as if it had grown up along with my client! I shared that the person was now doing her work, which had shifted the energy of the situation for the better. Seeing that the client had changed the energy of her life and desired to be whole, the soul fragment chose to enter the client’s body for the first time.
Next up in Part 4, we will complete the discussion on Soul Retrieval by taking you through the entire process of that modality. I will then tell you about a way in which you can purposefully put aside a part of your soul so that you can focus on a task you need to accomplish without the distraction of that part. This technique is called Hiding the Soul.
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