Shared Transformation Issue 7
Spirit Guides & Entities
by El Collie
At some point in the transformation process, we begin to get confirmation that we are not so alone here as we have been taught. As we enter altered states of consciousness, even the ordinary world becomes dynamically alive, and we may notice that it is permeated with powers and principalities: we suddenly find ourselves audience to unknown atmospheric forces or hierarchies of fantastic beings. As awareness expands, many of us experience various psychic entities through dreams, visions, voices, or other paranormal means. Some of us may have a vivid sense of the presence of our guardian angel or spiritual guides. It is not uncommon to also encounter spiritual masters or deities in these same ways.
Depending on one's level of psychic receptivity and upon the nature of the spirit involved, contact with beings from other dimensions (including departed loved ones) can be startling and obvious, as when a figure suddenly materializes in front of us, or subtle and easily rationalized away. The more tenuous contacts may at first escape our notice. Synchronistic sounds and sights from the environment, such as blinking lights or inexplicable noises, or even seemingly ordinary intrusions like the sudden call of a bird, a siren in the distance, and so on can actually be communication attempts from spirits. In Dreamtime & Inner Space, ethnopsychologist Holger Kalweit points out that ancient societies who lived close to nature found their spirit advisors "from the plant and animal kingdoms and from elementary phenomena such as lightning, thunder, rainstorms, the sun, the moon, various planets, and also from a great variety of nonmaterial entities." Spirits in the modern urban world can manifest through electronic equipment and other manmade things. Absurd as it may seem, some beings even use the telephone to try to make contact. Although they rarely are able to make themselves heard vocally in this way, they can make the phone ring (and it may seem that no one is on the other end of the line). I knew a woman who received such phantom calls (which the phone company was unable to trace) for several years.
During intense phases of my own Kundalini awakening, I received inward instruction and sometimes saw visions of spiritual teachers, including a Tibetan monk, a Native American shaman and a Zen master. I was taught disciplines and truths foreign to my chosen spiritual path. This is frequently reported by those in transformation. The deities and sacred icons that appear in dreams or visions may arise from a different culture or context than the religion one has embraced or been raised in. These helping figures may appear in human form, or they may be amorphous, often announcing their presence through emanations of light. For some, these masters and avatars appear only at times of greatest difficulty in the process. For others, inner guides and spiritual teachers may accompany most of the process, and may be accessible for years, or for the rest of one's life. The messages conveyed by such beings can be enigmatic and terse. One man repeatedly heard a voice proclaim: "The times will take care of themselves." This was frustrating to him, because he could not understand what it meant. Several years into her dramatic Kundalini awakening, a woman I'll call Rachael began receiving guidance from an entity that appeared to her as a nature sprite. Rachael was told to go out into her yard and dig in specified places, to precise depths. This went on daily for some weeks. Each of these expeditions unearthed some natural treasure, usually in the form of rocks or bones. One of these artifacts was a fist sized piece of polished jade! During this same period, the mischievous sprite, whom she called "Grumble", performed numerous poltergeist tricks which startled people who came to visit her. Objects in her house would mysteriously move or vanish altogether. Though some of her friends were alarmed by these paranormal antics, Rachael was never afraid. To the contrary, Grumble evoked her childlike delight, and often made her laugh. As with other aspects of awakening, contacts with beings from other planes are looked upon unfavorably by those who do not understand such things. Human spiritual advisors whose wisdom comes from religious dogma rather than through personal transformational experience may take a particularly dim view of visitations by strange spirits. Profound encounters with illuminating beings may be dismissed as delusion or hallucination. It can be especially disheartening when well intentioned family members or professionals insist upon medication or other treatment to terminate these experiences. (On the other hand, some people in transformation who are unprepared for such encounters find them so distracting or uncomfortable that they ask to be drugged.) In Rachael's case, her neighbors were so taken aback by her harmless digging rituals that they called the police to investigate. Some people -- doctors and laymen alike -- fervently believe that hearing voices or seeing beings is always a sign of mental aberration. The person in transformation may find himself labeled schizophrenic because of his mystical experiences. And of course, there are those who warn that all these visions and voices are the work of Satan. Rachael's friends tried to procure an exorcism, but she would have nothing to do with it. "Grumble is a part of me, " she explained years later. "If they were going to get rid of Grumble, they'd have to get rid of me, too." Which leads to the question: Do these beings exist in their own right or are they merely aspects of our private psyches? If we delete merely, the answer is: both. In a world where we have been conditioned to demand either/or distinctions, this answer can be difficult to accept. Yet for those of us experiencing a fuller range of awareness, it is obvious that the world is more complex and multileveled than the yes/no, right/wrong, "Just the facts, ma'am" scenario to which we've been expected to confine ourselves.
There are several schools of metaphysics that claim that any event or relationship, worldly or otherwise, is simultaneously a counterpart or enactment of one's inner qualities and conflicts. This is the principle of: As above, so below. There are theories of psychology that espouse similar interconnections, regarding both subjective and objective experiences as meaningful expressions of the individual's mental and emotional development. I.e., what we see (or pay most attention to), or what we get ourselves involved in, is in some way a reflection of our personal psychological state. In this sense, everything in our experience can be both real and representational. Things actually happen, yet the way we experience these things also reveals something about ourselves. This is different from declaring paranormal or magical phenomena "imaginary" and therefore valueless. To me, the most peculiar thing is not that some of us have met with inhabitants from other planes, but that in the history of the world, only fairly recent Western thought has insisted upon such a sterile materialist and so-called rationalist belief system that it excludes most of what has been central to life in nearly every other culture. In our modern paradigm, everything that cannot be "proven" by limited mechanistic means is expelled from the realm of possibility. But this rather arrogant infatuation with our technologies and the purportedly foolproof scientific method is beginning to wear thin, even amidst the scientific community. Quantum physics has discovered the phenomenal world to be more elusive and elastic than we had dreamed. Perhaps instead of asking if spirits are real, we should be asking if the Western model of reality is real. And instead of asking if our experiences are real, we should be asking ourselves if they are significant.
Throughout the world, institutional Christianity has played a heavy role in repressing all but its own select pantheon of heavenly saints and angels as spiritually valid. But at least the church recognizes and grants approval to spirit contacts when they come in the form of apparitions of the Virgin Mary or visitations by Jesus Christ. Mystics have always been somewhat of an embarrassment to whatever religion has borne them because they frequently encounter all nature of supernatural beings, regardless of their particular tradition's doctrine about such things. In his global study of shamanism, Kalweit mentions several cases in which shamanic initiates from aboriginal cultures found themselves in spontaneous contact with spirits known only to their ancestors. Because Christian missionaries had long ago stripped the tribespeople of their native traditions, these newly developing shamans felt wary and resistant to the unfamiliar spirit guides. The spirit entities caused lots of trouble for them until they finally relented and accepted these beings as valid messengers from the Beyond. In one case, a Native American man had a vision in which Jesus told him to stop following the white man's religion.
While many spirit visitations are benign, some are not. Saints such as the remarkable healer, Padre Pio, although blessed by spiritual protectors, are often besieged by painful encounters with denizens of the underworld throughout their lives. I know from personal experience that unevolved entities do exist, and some can be destructive. Some of these entities resemble human figures, others seem protoplasmic. Some appear as nebulous forces such as sudden strong winds, eruptions that may shake the house, shadows, etc. I encountered one malefic entity that exuded a putrefying stench. I somehow intuitively knew that this entity was an astral vampire. Years later, when I retold this incident to a man who was a long time student of the occult, he informed me that esoteric lore describes vampires as always having the foul odor of rotting carrion. Other, more playful astral beings may resemble children or animals. Some make sounds. I encountered one friendly being that made a staccato noise like a Geiger counter. This critter was not visible to me, but I could track it's whereabouts in my house by hearing its crackling noises. It would jump from one area to the next at lightning speed: I would hear it in the far end of the house, then a second later, it would be right behind me. It was a very considerate spirit; the first time it made its audio appearance right next to my face, I told it that it was scaring me and asked it to please back off a bit. Thereafter, it always kept a respectful distance from me. It was my uninvited guest for several weeks, until a friend who also heard it became worried and wanted to do a ceremonial magic rite to banish it. I wasn't sure about the necessity of banishing, but to humor my friend, I agreed. Either my friend's spell worked or the crackling entity didn't want to hang around where it wasn't wanted. Either way, that was the last I heard of it.
Demonic beings are easily distinguishable from spirit guides and deities. Demons appear grotesque or feel ominous in some way. I have experienced a cold draft or chill when such entities are present. I believe this is because these beings are energy-draining. Spirits from higher planes radiate rather than absorb energy from us. Frequently these higher beings are seen surrounded by light, or as luminous clouds. The strangest dark entity I ever came across personally was some kind of astral mollusk that awoke me in the night. It came sailing at me from out of nowhere and forcefully (and it seemed, intentionally) collided with my neck. It made a squishing sound on impact, and I actually felt a very cold, wet, slimy sensation of the thing's body slathered against my skin. Instinctively, I tried to grab it off me, but when I reached for it, my hand felt nothing. Puzzled, I fell back asleep. The next day, I awoke with a severe sore throat that lasted for about a week. If these entities speak to us, another tip off is the content of the messages. The lower entities are crude and nasty in what they say. They may "advise" us to do harm to ourselves or to others. Regardless of who these entities claim to be, and whether they communicate to us through a voice, automatic writing, or other apparently supernatural means, Roberto Assagioli advises us to always examine them "with much discrimination and sound judgment, and without being influenced by their uncommon origin or by any claim of their alleged transmitter." In his book Psychosynthesis, Assagioli goes on to warn that "No validity should be attributed to messages containing definite orders and commanding blind obedience, and to those tending to exalt the personality of the recipient." Higher beings never instruct us to do anything dangerous or hurtful. Our spiritual guides may be quite strict and demanding, and they may ask us to risk ourselves in new ways. But they never push us toward debasement or perversion. Nature spirits, or devas, are a class unto themselves. They are deeply distrustful of mankind, and may be sullen or angry, but are not inherently malicious. In The Astral Body, A.E. Powell says that "They will also sometimes masquerade in thought-forms that men have made, and think it a great joke to flourish horns, to lash a forked tail, and to breathe out flame as they rush about." However, Powell (a theosophist whose source of information was secondhand reports from other psychics) is mistaken in so many of his commentaries that I question this one as well. I suspect that these "thought-form devils" were, in fact, appearances of fauns.
Robert Ogilvie Crombie (a.k.a. "Roc") of the Findhorn community says that his first encounter with a faun came after he had been meditating under a beech tree. He felt his identity merge with that of the tree; then the faun appeared. The faun was greatly startled to realize Roc had noticed it.
"I don't believe it," it told him. "Humans can't see us."
Roc replied, "Oh, yes. Some of us can."
(from The Findhorn Garden)
He later encountered the king of the fauns, the nature god Pan, who grilled him to test his prejudices: "Did not the early church take me as a model for the devil? Look at my cloven hooves, my shaggy legs, and the horns on my forehead." To which Roc responded, "The church turned all pagan gods and spirits into devils, fiends, and imps." (from The Magic of Findhorn) The first time I clearly saw one of these earth elementals was after my Kundalini arose. One afternoon, I glanced out the window to my backyard garden and saw a figure of what looked like a stocky, greenish colored nine year old child perched high in the walnut tree. I looked away, then realized this was extremely odd. I immediately looked again, and the "child" was gone. Those with a tenacious Western mindset may find this anecdote silly and inconsequential. We are socially programmed to weigh everything from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. Unless the green elemental endowed me with impressive powers or gave me information which was to my advantage in my everyday life, what good was it? One might as well ask what good is seeing a rainbow? For those of us who have been permitted glimpses into other worlds, the priviledge of perceiving these wondrous beings is good enough. Some authorities claim that malevolent entities or voices are never experienced during a Kundalini awakening, but I know this is erroneous. For those who have only had contact with the illumined beings (or with none at all), the idea that spirituality is protection against lesser entities may be reassuring. But such assumptions are hurtful to those whose experience includes these negative contacts. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that spiritual awakening may encompass high as well as low encounters. I would be more concerned about the absence of encounters with higher entities than the presence of demonic beings for those who have been opened to such realms. Yet even here, generalizations can be damaging. If the individual is stable and able to deal with her experiences, regardless of their nature, I wouldn't worry. Please don't be horrified by the idea of demonic entities. These beings don't flock in legion to individuals with expanded consciousness. Nor does the perceiving of such an entity mean that something diabolical is happening to us. Like spiritual guides, these lower beings coexist with human life, even though few people are conscious of this. At a point in her own awakening, Irina Tweedie was able to see dark shapes attached to people or following them around. In her book Daughter of Fire, she tells about how she also saw Devas and angelic spirits glowing and dancing about. We live amidst many types of consciousness in both the organic and psychic realms.
I don't want to prescribe all-purpose ways of dealing with disturbing entities because I doubt there is such thing as correct protocol in these matters -- or if there is, I don't have the wisdom to offer it. The classical admonition to psychics is to avoid apparently unfriendly entities by simply ignoring them. If they can't be ignored, telling them to go away may be sufficient. One woman who is psychically awakened says that whenever she senses such entities in the vicinity, she mentally warns them, "Don't even think about it." This scares them off. If the beings seem persistent or troublesome, a more forceful approach may be required. In his story of his own transformation, Joy's Way, W. Brugh Joy tells of bellowing "Get out!" at a threatening entity. (It did.) I've found in my own experience (which isn't vast -- I've only had a few dozen strong contacts with malign beings) that even the most frightening or evil-appearing entities respond favorably to honesty and genuine appreciation of their powers. High or low, I am truly awed by these beings and I don't hesitate to communicate this to them. I don't try to flatter a hideous apparition by pretending that I find it beautiful; rather, I compliment it on its unsurpassed, magnificent ugliness. Horrible entities not only know that they are horrible; they generally enjoy being horrible. At any rate, their characteristics are not their fault; this is just their nature, the way they were made to be. (And like everyone else, they want to be respected for exactly who they are.) In my personal experience, there has always been a reason for the appearance of entities, no matter how unevolved or frightening they may seem. They are invariably messengers of some kind, and if I am attentive, I almost always get a sense of what it is they want from me or what they've come to reveal to me. After I receive the message, I thank the being for coming to me. If it is a disturbing entity, I then tell it to "return to your rightful place in the universe" and reassure it (demons have fears too) that the light will guide it home and it will be safe. I have on occasion felt the presence of beings (not necessarily malevolent) who were trying to use me as a channel. I have no interest in mediumship, and I mentally make this clear to them. I tell them that I won't voluntarily be an instrument they can speak through, but if they have something they want to say, I'm willing to hear it directly. Then I can decide whether or not I want to convey their message to others. (So far, this stipulation has always caused them to retreat.) Calling upon God, Jesus, spirit guides or a beloved guru for help is also a good way to deal with threatening entities.
For those who have never before realized how ineffable and innumerable are the inhabitants
of the universe, becoming aware of entities from other realms may be initially alarming. It may be especially
difficult to accept these experiences as something more than fantasy when you alone have witnessed them. I've
been fortunate in having plenty of validation in this regard. Throughout my life, though I've never made any attempt
to conjure or otherwise solicit these metapsychic beings, I've had so many interactions with them that I am convinced
of their reality. Also, quite a number of my encounters with spirits have occurred in the presence of one or more
other people, who also saw, heard, or felt the entity. Beyond this, many of us have experienced the entire idea
of internal and external as a dualistic illusion. Spatial location and origin loses relevance at more encompassing
levels of awareness, as does the concern over how much we are creating and how much we are simply participating
in any of our life events. Whether the spirits ultimately come from inner space, outer space, or somewhere beyond
our comprehension seems to be missing the point. What is more important to me is the opportunity for heart and
soul communion with these magical beings, and through this, my reconnection to the majesty of existence.
-- El Collie