... Episode 7 of What's Arising

In this podcast, I talk about evil arising. Is evil more prevalent in our world today? Has the collective consciousness somehow been 'possessed' by evil entities? Is shadow arising?

I share some personal experiences with encountering and releasing entity possession and contrast entity possession with Shadow. Although shadow can feel or look like evil, it is different and dealt with entirely different from possession.

Learn about Shadow Integration Work: https://www.wisdomways.net/shadowintegration/

Transcript

Welcome to What’s Arising?

There is something uncomfortable, or perhaps unknown, about this particular podcast for me. I suspect it will reveal some things about my journey, and also reveal how much I do not know.

This episode is about the idea of evil — and also about the paranormal, possession, shadow, and some strange experiences I have had along the way.

I had no plan to do a podcast on evil today. But last night I woke up in the middle of the night from an intense dream.

In the dream, there was someone I knew to be a good person. And yet, I was sure they had stolen money from my wallet. Then they stole from me again. I woke up, went back to sleep, and the dream seemed to continue.

In the next part of the dream, I found myself removing an evil spirit from this person.

The person was not acting in their normal way. As far as I knew, they were not dishonest. Yet in the dream, their behaviour was dishonest. It was almost unbelievable.

That dream had me contemplating possession, evil, and what it means when someone acts in ways that seem disconnected from their deeper nature.

When we look out into the world right now, we can see tremendous good happening. Generally, I do see tremendous good. And yet we are also witnessing a level of hate, disturbance, and what many might call evil.

Of course, this has always been present in the world. But right now, it feels rampant in the news and collective experience. There seems to be an almost insane quality to it — a kind of possession in parts of the collective.

People are hating the haters. Racists are hating others. People are hating racists. Different groups are projecting hate and fear onto each other.

There is such disturbance in our way of being.

So is this a rise of evil?

Is it possession?

Is it shadow?

I am not new to the idea of possession. In the dream, I was doing something I might occasionally do if I were releasing an entity from someone, although not exactly in the way I did it in the dream.

I have experienced releasing entities from many different people. They used to show up in my workshops at times and cause disturbances. I would not necessarily call these energies evil. They were entities or attachments that seemed to be affecting people or the space.

Sometimes, in a workshop, nothing would work. The whole format would fall apart. I would think, “What is going on here? Why is nothing working the way it is supposed to?”

Then I would begin questioning and sensing what was present. Sometimes I discovered that some kind of entity or disruptive energy had entered the space. I would do a process to clear it, and then everything would return to normal.

I would often use those moments as teaching opportunities for students, since I was teaching belief change and other advanced processes.

There were also times when I worked with people at a distance.

On one occasion, there was a man in Africa who was having a very difficult time and had been placed in a psychiatric centre. One of my students knew him and asked whether I could help him by working at a distance.

I said that if we had time at the end of the workshop, we could work with him together and use it as a teaching moment.

So that is what we did.

For about fifteen or twenty minutes, we inquired into what might be happening for this man. According to his friend, he had been fine only a few weeks before but was now deeply disturbed. As we worked, we sensed an entity attachment or possession, and I used my process to release it.

The next day, or perhaps the following day, we received feedback. The man’s brother had visited him in the hospital. For the first time in weeks, he had gotten up early. His colour was better. He felt much better. He ate a full breakfast, which he had not been doing.

The man later described that around midnight he had experienced an internal struggle, almost like a battle between light and dark. It had been terrifying, as though he were fighting some kind of energy. He eventually fell asleep exhausted, and in the morning he felt better.

That was the exact time we had been working with him, adjusted for the time difference from Canada.

A week or so later, we heard that the psychologist or psychiatrist had released him and said, “Whatever you are doing, keep it up, because this is an amazing recovery.”

I have had many experiences like that.

Sometimes people would become sick in workshops, more than one person at a time. I would wonder whether it was food poisoning or something else. Then we would discover some kind of entity attachment. Once it was released, the nausea or symptoms would often clear very quickly.

So now I am contemplating: What is the nature of evil?

I have not worked with people who levitated, spoke in strange languages, or twisted their heads around like in The Exorcist. I have not dealt with that level of possession. My experience has mostly been with lighter forms of entity attachment or energetic disturbance.

I have also never been particularly fearful of these energies. Usually I just sense that something is going on and ask, “How can this be released? What needs to happen here?”

Often, the belief or sense I have is that the entity itself wants release. It wants help. So I work compassionately but firmly to allow it to go where it needs to go.

Then I work with the person who had the attachment to close or heal the opening — the belief, wound, trauma, or energetic gap that allowed the attachment to happen in the first place.

What creates an entry point?

Drug abuse, deep trauma, intense anger, emotional wounds, or other openings may create attachment points. A pain body of anger, fear, or grief may allow an energy to attach itself.

When working with an entity, it is not enough to simply remove it. We also need to heal or close the place where it attached.

I realize this may sound strange if you are not used to this kind of language or experience.

Some friends of mine have a clearer sense of dark energies. I do not usually perceive them in that way. I mostly notice a disturbance and try to help someone with whatever disturbance is present. I have learned some skills to compassionately help release what is there.

I have also helped people who seemed to have something like a sticky, muddy, evil-feeling energy attached to them, sometimes picked up from a house or space they were clearing.

One strange experience happened many years ago when I strongly felt I needed to go to Europe. I did not know why, but the knowing was clear. When I get that kind of signal, I usually follow it.

So I went traveling through Europe. I thought something interesting would happen there because I felt I was supposed to go. But nothing particularly interesting happened.

On the way home, as I was getting onto the plane, I thought, “God, I expected something interesting to happen on this trip. At least let me meet someone interesting on the plane.”

Be careful what you ask for.

When I boarded the plane, there was a woman sitting in my assigned seat. I told her, “You are in my seat. Would you like to move?”

She said, “I am just in the seat behind. If you do not mind, you can sit there.”

That was fine with me, so I sat in her seat.

Then a man walked onto the plane. As soon as I saw him, something in my mind said, “I do not like that man.”

That was very unusual for me. I would not normally have that kind of reaction just from looking at someone.

Then he sat down beside me.

He started talking to me, and it became one of the strangest conversations I have ever had with a stranger. I knew he was the one I was supposed to meet on that trip.

That relationship continued for some months.

When we arrived in Calgary, he did not have a ride home. He lived in the country, so I offered to drive him home with his luggage. As we were driving, whatever energy was in him — whatever seemed to possess him — became so intense that I finally pulled over on the highway.

I told him, “You need to be quiet right now. If you want to get home, sit in silence and I will take you home. But I do not have the stamina to deal with this right now.”

I was tired from the long trip.

He was quiet, and I drove him home. But I left that experience shaking my head. It felt as though there was some arrangement, something I was meant to be with. Yet in that particular case, I was never able to release whatever entity or energy seemed to be attached to him.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Why talk about possession, shadow, and evil?

Frankly, I do not fully know what evil is.

It appears in this dream of life that we call reality. There seem to be pools of goodness and what we might call evil.

I do a lot of work with shadow, and I think people often mistake shadow for evil. They see an energy in themselves that they do not like, so they push it away, suppress it, or project it onto others.

That projection — especially when it becomes collective — may be perceived as evil.

We have many of these projections in life. We go to war against parts, energies, or people we perceive as dark or wrong, even though light and dark are both part of the whole experience of life.

When we push something away, go to war against it, or divide ourselves from it, it becomes the enemy.

As long as we are fighting an enemy that belongs to our wholeness, we can never win that war.

If we hate any part of ourselves — anger, corruption, dishonesty, fraud, lying, weakness, or anything else — then we may perceive that part as evil in the world.

For example, if we hate the liar, or if it is not safe to lie within ourselves, we may reduce our own capacity and project that energy outward. In shadow work, the way to release the “evil” in that case is not to destroy it, but to move toward it, feel it, understand it, bring it back with love, and integrate it.

Then it ceases to exist as evil.

It becomes part of us — perhaps even an advisor, friend, or missing capacity.

These shadows often come out of early trauma and the splitting of parts of self. I do not see those parts as evil or possession. But they may feel that way before they are integrated.

When we integrate them, we feel more whole and more joyful. We stop being triggered in the same way. The war is over. We no longer need to go to war with those energies.

Then we can work with those same energies in the outer world differently. Instead of projecting anger and hate, we can show up with love, compassion, clarity, and boundaries.

With shadow, we go toward the energy rather than trying to fight it or get rid of it.

But possession, as I mentioned earlier, feels different to me.

In my experience, possession or entity attachment is not about embracing and integrating the energy. It is about releasing it, delivering it, or removing it from the person or space. Some Christian traditions might call this deliverance. The Catholic tradition might call it exorcism.

Again, I have not worked with extreme forms of exorcism. But with the kinds of entity attachments I have encountered, the work is compassionate and firm. The entity is released from the person, the attachment point is healed, and the person or space is sealed or strengthened.

So I wonder about the collective right now.

There is certainly collective shadow arising. We are projecting evil onto different people and groups, back and forth between tribes. We are projecting hate and fear onto others.

One way to help resolve the collective shadow is to work with our own shadow so that we are not adding more energy to that collective wave.

If we cannot stand racists, for example, we can go within and work with the racist, judgmental, hating, angry, or corrupt parts within ourselves. That does not mean we approve of harmful behaviour. It means we stop feeding the collective wave with our own unintegrated charge.

When we do this, we can become more at peace with what is happening in the world. My sense is that if more of us do this, we may help still the collective wave.

And even if we make no difference collectively — though I believe we do — we become more still within ourselves. From that grounded place, we can serve through our gifts, talents, and capacities.

Each of us has capacities that become more available when we are clearer within. As we discover our gifts and purpose, we can make meaningful contributions as individuals and communities during this time of transition.

But I still wonder about possession.

There seems to be something extreme happening in the world right now. Do you feel that some people, or perhaps groups of people, are possessed? Some conspiracy theories would say there are entities occupying human beings.

I do not know.

It is simply a question on my mind.

There seems to be something in the dream of life that we call evil, and perhaps we are meant to contend with it in some way.

What might the purpose of evil be?

If we work with it, become aware of it, experience what it brings up in ourselves, say no when needed, forgive ourselves and others, and release what no longer belongs, perhaps evil draws us toward greater wholeness and light.

Perhaps it is one of the mechanisms that turns a rough stone into a diamond.

Maybe evil is part of the grindstone that pushes us evolutionarily toward our perfection — while, paradoxically, we are already perfect wherever we are.

I do not know.

Let me know what you think about evil, the source of evil, possession, shadow, and your own experiences.

This is a strange topic that I found myself drawn into today. It is not so strange for me, perhaps, but it may be strange for you.

I am curious what you think.

Thank you for joining me in What’s Arising?

This was honestly what was arising today.