THE REALITY OF NEGATIVE ENERGY & NEGATIVE ENTITIES
*
The "New Age" movement has once again made it fashionable to
be involved in occult practices.  There have been other
periods in recent history when this has been the case, most
notably *fin de siecle* Europe (IE the 1890's) and more
recently the late Sixties "Age of Aquarius" which faded into
the "Me" decade and its plethora of self-help, "Human
Potential" organizations.  This era did not truly die. The
"Me" decade became the age of the Yuppie, and the "New Age"
emerged from the human potential movement and handed
everyone out a crystal.
The main problem with the neo-Aquarian movement is that the
whole concept of evil is so blithely scoffed at.  "There's
no such thing as evil," says the New Ager, "there is only
imbalance."  This is a refrain you hear all the time, not
just from the practitioners, but from so-called channeled
entities.  In this essay, I wish to show you that there is
something very dangerous in channeling, something which has
been ignored to the peril of not only the channelers, but
those who consult them.
In the 1890s, when mediumship was quite a fad, somebody
estimated that only 25% of the mediums were actually
contacting spirits.  Fully 75% were charlatans, who used
elaborate and not-so-elaborate means to fake contacts with
spirits at seances.  The famous magician Harry Houdini drew
large crowds to seminars he conducted to show people just
how the flim-flam artists conducted their phony seances.
There is evidence that much of the people who are
self-described channels are doing the same thing. "Ramtha",
the famous "channeled being of light", was shown to be a
fake on national television when 60 Minutes did an expose on
the former housewife in Oregon who "channels" him at $300.00
a session.
This, however, leaves 25% of authentic channelers, if you
use the old figures, which I suspect to be pretty true now
as it was in the Turn of the Century.  And just as Dion
Fortune, one of the foremost occultists to come out of the
Order of the Golden Dawn, had warned about the mediums of
her day, I must sound anew a very important warning:
CHANNELING IS DANGEROUS, not only to the channel, but to
those who consult them as well.
Most channelled entities come from a facet of reality that
is woven, warp and woof, into the reality our physical
senses can penetrate.  This realm is known to the Native
American as well as the Ancient Norse as the Middle World.
(Mitgard) These entities from here are people who once had
bodies but have died and for some reason have become lost
on their way to the "West".(the realm of the dead)  They
crave the sensations of embodiment, and so they roam, trying
to find a living person they can possess for this purpose.
Channels "invite" these entities into themselves in their
quest for knowledge.  And these entities are more than
willing to give them whatever "knowledge" they sense within
the conscious and subconscious dreams and hopes of their
living host, and create whatever personality they sense
their host would like, be it the personality of a starship
captain from Planet Zed, or an cranky ancient Egyptian
priest.  These "earthbounds" are only as dangerous as their
embodied personalities were.  Unfortunately, those humans
that wind up "earthbound" were usually mentally disturbed in
life, and this mental disharmony can cause mental damage to
even the most adjusted person who opens themselves up to
them.
Even more dangerous is the fact that entities who never HAVE
had bodies and can truly be called "evil spirits" also make
themselves available to the potential channel.  These
entities have been known since time immemorial as "demons,"
"devils," "pretas,"(Sanskrit: Hungry Ones), "kwaidan,"
(Japanese: Unquiet Spirits) "asuras," (Indo-persian:
Not-gods) "djinni" (Arabic: Demon) and "gan'n"(Teneh
Athapascan: Evil Spirit(of the mountains).  In all cultures
that have practiced magic(k), these spirits were actively
guarded against. It is a relatively recent occurence that
some magicians and Wiccans have abandoned the warding
practices that have been used for millenia for protection
against them.  The magick circle, unlike what Gerald Gardner
has claimed, is to keep these negative entities OUT, not to
keep the good magick in until it is cast, which although a
nice thought, is totally erroneous.
My next posts will deal with how to protect yourself, and how
a Power Animal or the Inner Teacher or Inner Shaman differs
from an outside entity.


NEGATIVE ENTITIES PART 2
*
The most basic protection is the magick circle. Those
magicians or Wiccans who work without a circle are worse off
than an aerialist who does his trapeze act without a net.
If you fall down, you bite the dust REAL HARD. The circle is
a line drawn in the dust of matter that says to beings of
evil to stay clear under pain of intervention by the forces
of Good.
If you cannot draw a circle in the earth or with chalk or
with a line of corn meal or (better) cattail pollen (called
Hod'nt'n by the Teneh), you should smudge the area where a
ceremonial or a healing will take place, or use one of the
good banishing rituals in MAGICK8.TXT, or if all else fails
or if you cannot do anything else without drawing too much
attention (like in a public place) visualize yourself
encased in a shimmering globe of white or violet light, or
wrapped in white or violet smoke or fog.
Under no circumstances should you feel or show fear. Fear is
a way these entities can get to you.  Affirmations against
fear are a good way to combat these feelings.  I like the
"litany against fear" from the Frank Herbert S-F classic
"Dune."  The book is a work of fiction, but the actual
litany sounds like it was taken from an old Wiccan Book of
Shadows.
"I will not fear.  Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the
little death that brings total annihilation.  I will face my
fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me, and
when it is gone I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will
remain."
If you must invoke a spirit, even if it's identified as an
angel, DO NOT invoke it without being well situated in a
GREATER THEURGIC CIRCLE.  This is well documented in books
on high magick, and I will not detail it here.  Invocations
are truly risky business, not the province of dabblers.
This kind of working is something I encourage you not to
attempt, and do not do myself, even though I have been
active in the occult for years.  Unless you are especially
adept and power-FULL, this is something extremely prone to
backfiring on you.  I also believe that the practice of
automatic writing and ouija is far too risky to be fooled
with, as well as direct consultation of spirits for
divination.  Symbolic divination like Tarot and casting
runes should be done after protecting yourself as I have
detailed above.
And most importantly, stay well away from the rituals that
allow discarnates to possess a person who desires to become
a channel.  You will quite possibly put your mental health
and even your soul in grave peril if you do this.  It is my
belief that Aleister Crowley, who was a giant in occult
philosophy up to the point where he seemingly went crazy and
dissipated himself in debauchery and drug abuse, was pushed
over the edge by his contact with Aiwass, a discarnate
entity whom he allowed to possess him.  It may not have been
the only thing that did it, but it was certainly one of the
major elements in his fall.
I will conclude this series in the next post.
NEGATIVE ENTITIES PT.3
Any path that teaches you to disengage your rational mind is
extremely dangerous.  Logic and rationality are very
important, and are a gift from Usen'.  Anything that
shortcircuits the faculties of intellect and critical
thought is very dangerous. "Turn off your mind/Relax and
float downstream..."* is a tempting proposition, but also a
dangerous one.  This not only opens you up for possible
possession, but also to domination from fellow human beings
too.  Read the text files archived in MINDWASH.ARC for
further information on cults and how they use mind control
techniques.  I believe I can speak from experience on the
subject of thought control, for I have survived both
Scientology and Born-Again Christianity and can attest to
the fact that the things Dick Sutphen talks about in the
file are totally true.
The alpha state, which can be extremely perilous when used
in mind control, is also the state that the shaman uses in
their travels through Non-Ordinary Reality. The difference
is that shamanic training teaches an individual how to
enter the Shamanic State of Consciousness in an aware
manner, and to maintain total control of yourself within it.
One practice that is useful in cultivating this ability is
lucid (aware) dreaming.  Brett Hallett, a student of the
Cherokee Medicine Path, gave me this method to retain
awareness in the Dreamtime:
Look at your hands or your feet while you are in the
dream.  If you can, looking at your reflection in a shiny
surface like water, or a mirror, or highly polished stone is
even better.  It takes exertion of Will to do this but it
does work very well.
Another helpful thing to use when learning lucid dreaming
techniques is affirmations.  One good one is this. "I will
remain aware and in control in the Dreamtime. When I wake
up, I will remember all that I see. So shall it be." Go to
sleep with this either on your mind or on your lips.
Another practice that cultivates awareness in the Alpha
state are the Harner shamanic exercises.  The book "The Way
Of The Shaman" details a few of Dr. Harner's methods, and so
does the text file SHAMAN.TXT.
In summation, there are some very important things to
remember regarding any sort of occult practice and the
reality of negative entities.
1.) Do NOT open yourself to entities other than your Power
Animal, which is your "lower" self, which doesn't
necessarily mean inferior but just more instinctual and a
source of the primal power that makes a shaman do things;
and your Inner Shaman (Inner Teacher, Inner Wizard) which is
also known as the Guardian Angel, which is the
personification of your "higher" or spiritual self.  One can
have several Power Animals (the more you get, the higher the
level of shamanic power) but only ONE Inner Shaman.  The
Inner Shaman must be gotten through the journey to the Upper
World, and no other way.  A Power Animal can be dreamt
about, or seen in glimpses of the Non-Ordinary Reality one
sometimes gets after some training, but unless you take the
Upper World journey and meet your Inner Shaman there, there
is a good chance this entity identifying itself as your
Teacher is in truth an earthbound or worse.
2.)Any spiritual discipline which teaches you to reject
rational thought and/or refers to logical, critical thought
as "maya" or illusion is dangerous, especially when it is
also taught that one must give allegiance to a "spiritual
master" or a group.
3.) Do NOT try channeling even in a dabbling sort of way, or
even consult a channel. The information a fake channeler
will give you is entirely useless, and your'e throwing money
away on a fraud anyway.  The information an authentic
channeled entitiy may give you will be untrustworthy, and
possibly even HARMFUL.
4.) Learn a way of warding yourself from attack or
possession by earthbounds or gan'n. Do NOT show fear or
even THINK fearful thoughts when confronted by malevolent
entities.
5.) Practice lucid dreaming and travel in the Upper and
Lower Worlds.
6.) Do NOT allow yourself under any circumstances to be
hypnotized.
I hope this series has been thought-provoking and helpful,
and perhaps even sanity-saving for you. Books with further
information that I recommend are Psychic Self-Defense, by
Dion Fortune, and The Way Of The Shaman, by Michael Harner.
Enju!
Michelle Chihacou Klein-Hass
Shaman's Soup BBS