CHAPTER 8
TWO FLAMES INTO ONE:
THE ART OF DIVINE POSSESSION
The possession of anything begins in the mind.
–bruce lee
Possession. In the popular mind, it conjures images of demonic activity … tortured vessels and violent exorcisms … hooded figures and conspiratorial Satanic rituals. We think of movies like The Exorcist or TV shows like Supernatural in which dark forces hell-bent on causing pain and suffering violate the sovereignty of otherwise good people, causing them to commit horrendous, transgressive, and often violent acts, leaving them broken and in despair. Or perhaps one pictures frenzied dancing around a bonfire to the sound of drums, participants having ferocious seizures, speaking in tongues, and consorting with dark spirits for forbidden Voodoo rites. While these seem miles apart to the religiously diverse and the magically inclined, both scenarios are equally shocking to the larger culture—the Protestant Christian mindset that influences much of the religious thought and social interactions in the Western world. They are shocking because they touch a deep and primal fear, one that organized religions have tried to conquer for millennia but have ultimately failed: the fear of losing control.
No matter the imagery, there’s one thing that most people agree on: the person who is possessed is no longer themselves. They are not in control of their actions, and might not even be aware of them. I spoke previously about the teaching of a person being possessed by their Taka spirit and potentially committing acts that are contrary to their own nature without that person’s conscious knowledge. This is what most people think of when they think of possession: a malicious invasion from an outside spiritual force; a parasitic condition rendering the host tortured and helpless.
While this type of possession does exist (often mistaken for more common mental illnesses), it is certainly not the only form or the most common. In Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria, Brazilian Umbanda, and other forms of African Traditional Diasporic religions, practitioners are known to become possessed by the Lwa or Orisha. These are powerful spirits that are venerated and prayed to, and who may inhabit the bodies of their practitioners and engage in any number of activities, such as talking, singing, dancing, or drinking, all potentially without the knowledge of the “horse,” the human practitioner who has become a willing vessel through which the divine power of the spirit may incarnate and interact with the earthly plane.
But African religion is not the only one to have a history of such intimate encounters with spiritual entities. Altered consciousness and contact with deities is a hallmark of the Norse seiðr. Shinto and Buddhism each have a belief in spirit possession, as do Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, each with varying degrees of acceptance and/or fear. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks likewise believed in such phenomena.
These likely all draw from the older, foundational practices and worldview of what we might call transcultural shamanism, in which animism and trafficking with spirits was (and remains) a frequent and foundational occurrence. It is a common function for a priest or holy person to commune with the spirits in some form or another in order to obtain information otherwise unavailable and then bring it back for the betterment of the community.
When done correctly, divine possession is a beautiful and sensual experience. It is a loving embrace with a spirit in which we have made a conscious decision to allow ourselves to act as a vessel for a higher consciousness. It is akin to making love, and so it is understood that in this intimate state we are more vulnerable and permeable. Our own consciousness opens up like a flower, and we are naked before the spirit, a tender offering of presence and sensuality.
Divine possession is a symbiotic relationship. There are many benefits for both the spirit and the practitioner in the arrangement. For the spirit, it is the opportunity to become embodied and to further interact with this world, as well as to be fed—nourished by the wraith force raised and offered by the practitioner. For the practitioner, chief among these benefits is the embodied knowledge that comes from this connection. When a spirit or a deity inhabits our consciousness, we are privy to certain things: inspiration, wisdom, knowledge, power, healing. There is often a type of blessing that occurs—an outpouring of wraith force in some form, from the spirit to the practitioner, that benefits the practitioner.
There are also benefits for the community. Often possessory rituals involve some type of oracular divination in which members of the congregation are given advice or even personal readings. The spirit or deity is able to speak directly to the congregation, who are able to ask questions, receive insight, and participate in ritual acts together. This can be a very powerful form of magic that can touch many lives at once.
There are many stories of the practitioner who would engage in strange and even seemingly miraculous behavior while in the possessed state. Tales abound of individuals safely jumping off of roofs or walking through fire unharmed or drinking entire bottles of rum and not getting intoxicated. Often these practitioners will retain no memory of what transpired during the possessory state but are left with a sense of being blessed at having had the experience.
We have explored one aspect of the Witches’ intimate relationship with spirits when we did the work of enlisting the aid of our Demon to make them our ally. Witchcraft has a long and varied history when it comes to spirits, as well as with spirit possession, but front and center must be the idea of the Witches’ familiar. During the era of the English and Scottish Witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many details regarding the Witches’ familiar were recorded. Often, they were said to suckle from the “devil’s mark,” a mole or blemish that not only marked the person as a Witch, but also provided a physical (and even sexual) link to their familiar. One example comes from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in which Sarah Good was accused of having a familiar spirit in the form of a little yellow bird that would suckle from in between her fingers.
When seen through the lens of the poetic, we can see this as an example of the Witch offering wraith force to the familiar spirit. This is an act of communion that strengthens both parties and brings them closer into alignment with each other. Some practices involve this spirit temporarily inhabiting the body of the Witch in order to be nourished or otherwise empowered.
In Wicca, the rite of Drawing Down the Moon is specifically a possessory rite in which the High Priestess acts as a channel for the Goddess to speak to the participants in the circle. She becomes the Goddess incarnate. Recognizing that there are different degrees to possession, this event might take any number of forms, from the priestess merely reciting a piece of inspiring poetry (perhaps lightly feeling the presence of the Goddess with her), feeling inspired and allowing the deity presence to guide her actions in the circle, to full-on possession in which she is transported beyond herself and might (or might not) be a conscious witness to what transpires in the circle.
In some modern Witchcraft traditions, there is a practice known as “aspecting,” which is aligned to our topic here. It has been suggested that it is the same practice as possession, just one that uses a different terminology, one that does not have the potential negative baggage that “possession” often brings with it. This is laudable, certainly, but in a religion in which poetry matters, the words we choose each carry different vibrational tones, and those tones subtly influence the flow of wraith force, which affects the magical working. To my ear and spirit, “aspecting” seems lighter, more mental … less embodied. While possession seems … full … rich … deep … and visceral. To me, they exist on the same spectrum, but are not identical. Both of these experiences (and all their variants, alongside and in between) are potential tools in our bag of Witches’ tricks, regardless of the terms we choose.
It may be helpful to our study if we map out this spectrum, starting from the lightest and moving gradually into the heaviest forms. Teachers from the Reclaiming Tradition (which finds its roots in Faery/Feri) have done a lot of work around aspecting and trance work and have offered up the following list of four stages or “levels” of this work. I present it here in a slightly edited form.51
1) Enhancement. This is the lightest stage and is when the priest/ess experiences a heightened awareness of their surroundings and sensations become more intensified. The priest/ess may experience a sense of the spirit’s presence but retain full control of their actions and thoughts.
2) Inspiration. This stage involves the priest/ess feeling the spirit presence but still retaining full control. At this stage language may become more poetic and the priest/ess may speak on topics which they previously had no knowledge of.
3) Integration. This is the level that most people think of as “aspecting.” This involves the spirit speaking through the priest/ess, and/or engaging in actions through the physical vessel. Often people report feeling as if they are somewhat “displaced,” or “pushed to the side” during the process, though they are still able to retain control of their actions, if need be. The priest/ess may retain their memories intact, or they may find them to be fuzzy afterward.
4) Possession. This is the level in which people are able to do things that they otherwise could not, such as displaying great feats of strength or endurance or offering healing to the vessel or other participants. Often people will report having little or no memory of the experience, though those more skilled in this work will retain their consciousness and memories nearly intact.
When people speak of “full possession,” they are often referring to level four and will assume that this means that the priest/ess will not be conscious of whatever events transpire during the experience. This is likely because at this stage it is far more difficult for the average experiencer to remain present during the experience, giving the false impression that this level of intensity must be accompanied by the loss of the individual’s consciousness during the event. Even among some Faery initiates, this myth plays out where participants will be trained to expect a full loss of consciousness, and this is seen as a mark of intensity for the rite. To this I must offer a differing opinion.
Several initiates who worked closely with the Andersons have reported to me that Victor taught the importance of being “double-headed” in this work. This refers to a type of “dual-consciousness” in which the deity or spirit is fully present while the consciousness of the priest/ess is also fully present. This is the true “full possession,” as anything short of this is not fulfilling the fullest potential. (For how can a possession be “full” if one of the parts is missing?) This is the goal of all possessory work in the BlueRose line. We strive to retain our individual consciousness while in full concert with the spirit. In this we are able to get the full benefits of the experience.
One such difficulty with possession work is that if practiced in such a way so that one’s consciousness “exits the building,” so to speak, then we run the risk of engaging in behavior that is unsafe or unsavory while in the possessed state. I have seen trained priests and priestesses engage in some pretty shady behavior, only to blame it on the spirit they were supposedly carrying. Brandishing of knives, being careless with fire, and making unwanted sexual advances toward other participants are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what some people will claim is the fault of the spirit. This is, needless to say, sloppy Witchcraft at best, and outright fraud at worst. And in a tradition that likes to think of itself as a sort of “Witchcraft elite,” it does nothing but undermine that assertion.
Even practiced and knowledgeable practitioners may, from time to time, experience possessions in which they do not retain their full memories. This can be for any number of reasons: the practitioner might be tired or in need of food; or they might be emotionally unsettled for a reason unconnected to the working; or the “astrological weather” might be such that it makes the working more difficult; or the information discussed during the event was private and not for the ears of the priest/ess, etc.
At this point I feel compelled to share a personal story. Years ago, I was invited to take part in a ritual that was being led by another line, adjacent to my own lineage. The material we each worked with was fairly close in style (as is the majority of Faery in its “home” of the San Francisco Bay Area), and so it was relatively easy for me to simply join into their ritual structure, following their lead, as it were. I was asked to carry Dian y Glas, while the person who invited me was to carry Nimuë.
I consider myself a priest of the Blue God and had done possessory work with him and other deities prior, so I was no stranger to this type of work. I had struck what I believed to be a nice balance in my practice. It had been quite a while since I had experienced any difficulty while doing this type of work and so I felt pretty confident about it. Before the rite began, one of the attendants asked me if I needed a “tender”—someone to tend to my needs, such as helping me get back into my body and grounded after the rite, as well as helping with whatever physical things I may need as a result of being in the deep trance state (food, water, etc.). I replied politely in the negative and probably said something to the effect of “No need; in our line, we were trained to be self-sufficient.” And with that, she left me to my ritual preparations.
The rite began and all was well. When the time came for the Blue God to be invoked, I felt him come through me with the usual sensations; a light, buzzy feeling and a sense of sensual confidence. While the ritual was taking place, the Blue God was blessing the participants, by using my peacock feather wand, lightly caressing their faces and speaking to each person in the circle. This was where things started to go sideways. It was around this point that I remember that my consciousness was not in the circle. My experience was that I was thirty to fifty feet above the rite, bathing in the fog that was rolling in across the tops of the redwood trees. It was quite pleasant, and I slowly started to realize that I had been in this state for at least several minutes. At about the moment that I fully realized that I was no longer paying attention to the ritual, my consciousness abruptly snapped back into my physical body where I was shocked to find that the wand I was holding had become entangled in one of the participant’s hair and was quite stuck. I suddenly was standing in a group of people with everyone looking at me. I was embarrassed and started to gently untangle the wand from their hair. As soon as it was free, the Blue God was back running the show, and I was off to the side (my usual “position” when doing possession) and the rite continued as intended. At the climax of the rite there was a pole that we had wrapped with ribbons to represent different energies of which we were letting go. Nimuë and Dian y Glas picked up the pole and threw it out of the circle as the final act of magic. I remember that as soon as the pole left our hands I collapsed. I fell down on the ground with a thud, like a sack of potatoes—and just as graceful. (I will say that it was the most relaxing experience of falling down I have ever had.) At seeing me fall, the woman who had offered to be my assistant came over to me to make sure that I was fully back in my body. She asked me to repeat my name, which I did, as proof that it was really me whom she was talking to and not the deity. I was fine, thankfully. Just a bruised ego. But I left that circle a little wiser than I had entered.
What I was able to surmise is that there is an effect present in group ritual in which we can get “caught in the wake” of certain practices and energies. It was the custom of that lineage to do possession in the manner in which the priest/ess is not consciously aware of their surroundings, believing this to be “proof” of the intensity of the experience. And me with my Piscean nature just “went with the flow” of things and I ended up in the treetops instead. Next time I would make sure to have an assistant, if I were to practice possession with others who do it differently, and I would work harder to stay grounded and present.
Possession can be a powerful experience for the coven as well as the priest/ess who is carrying the spirit or deity. In terms of group involvement, it can provide an opportunity for an oracular experience, the spirit or deity offering advice or giving members information that is relevant to their lives. Or it can be the focus of a spell or rite, with the spirit offering power and direction for our magic. If the priest/ess is grounded and double-headed for the experience, then they will be privy to what transpires during the rite, which means that they will have benefitted from whatever wisdom was shared, as opposed to the single-headed priest/ess having to be “filled in” afterward by another participant.
Another benefit for the priest/ess who is being possessed is the possibility of receiving a deep healing or blessing from the spirit in question. Again, I share a personal story. This is actually a story of one of the most powerful possessory experiences I have ever had. This was many years ago at one of the “Feri Camps” that a few other initiate-teachers and myself offered. These were private retreats in which we experienced Faery magic and ritual in a shared, communal space with teachers from different lines who represented different perspectives and practices. For this camp, which was themed around Samhain, we were working with the concepts of death and destruction. I was tasked with carrying the Arddu while my friend Karina was to carry Ana. We were outside the ritual area, mentally preparing for the rite, but I was concerned because the day before I had badly twisted my ankle. It was quite swollen and I could hardly put any weight on it without severe pain. I even needed assistance just to walk from one place to another. But the show must go on, as they say, and so I figured I would just do my best and see what came of it. I hobbled over to the preparation area where Karina and I began our invocations.
From the get-go, I knew that this was going to be a powerful experience. Karina and I both began to speak in poetry, each of us speaking a line, only to be answered with a rhyming line from the other. I remember part of my mind being quite amazed at what was transpiring, as I had never had that happen to that degree before. It was uncanny. By the time the ritual participants invoked Ana and the Arddu (thus giving us our cue to enter the space and let the deities do their thing), we were so entranced that it felt like we were floating. I also was no longer experiencing the physical pain from my injury. I was still present, but I was off to the side, so to speak. A normal state for this type of work.
Entering into the ritual area, Ana was seated atop a large chair, raised and in front of a large fireplace, giving an ominous appearance. Arddu, by contrast, was among the participants and was tasked with speaking with them and potentially bringing some of them up to have an audience with Ana, based on the wishes of the deity.
I remember speaking with several of the participants (but for the most part do not remember what was said to them, as that was private, between the deity and the individual). I also remember that in one case it was I and not the deity who chose not to bring a certain person up to have an audience with Ana, proving to myself that—even though this experience felt very deep, I was still in control … when I wanted to be. Another thing I remember is that the Arddu wanted to dance.
Now I enjoy dancing as much as the next club queen, but I have never been one for causing a spectacle on the dance floor. I remember beginning to dance … and dance hard. Arddu was stomping his feet … like a bull … and becoming quite exaggerated in his movements … my movements. After a minute or two it stuck me that I still wasn’t feeling any physical pain.
I continued to watch my body dance around the room and figured that I would probably pay for it the next day, but for then it was an exhilarating delight. The Arddu continued his work for the group, bringing people up to see Ana and also prompting the group to release their fears, which the Arddu transformed. When the ritual ended, and the deity had left my body, I was both exhausted and exhilarated. Food and drink were given to us (for possession is hungry work), along with a small amount of chocolate.
There were two major revelations that I had about possession from that experience. One is that I learned that possession can be addictive; as soon as I was out of the state, I had the feeling that I wanted to do it all again—to have that power inside me once more. The experience was extremely pleasurable, and I felt elated and relaxed, the same state of afterglow that is most often associated with sex. Really good sex, at that.
The other revelation was that I had been completely and miraculously healed. There was no swelling, no bruising, and no pain at all. I could put my full weight on it, when only a couple of hours prior it was painful and difficult to put any at all. I was stunned. After I ate I figured that it was probably the endorphins from the possession state that were acting as a sort of natural pain killer and, again, that I would likely pay the price the next day. But the next day the results were the same. And so it remained. I had been healed by the Arddu, and not in some abstract or even emotional sense. This was tangible. Physical. It was the real deal.
As we prepare ourselves for the practical work of learning possession in the Faery Tradition, it should be understood that we must speak first and foremost about self-possession. Before we can even entertain the notion of inviting another consciousness into our being, we must first be clean and clear within ourselves and aligned in our three souls. We must have a strong and healthy relationship with all three souls, be able to feel and move energy, have a fairly good handle on our shadow demons, and be able to receive clear guidance from our own holy daemon.
Speaking on the subject of full possession, Victor Anderson said, “if your godself (or in Vodou we call maître tête) gives permission for a spirit to work with you and through you, then you go into a kind of sleep and you take part in it, but you never give up your individuality. You are never conquered, you are never screwed over by something. You remain yourself. In Hawaiian, we call it noho, which means “to sit.” But it cannot happen if your personal god forbids it.”52
But lest we relax our attention and begin to think that we can let our guard down, we should remember that there are real dangers to doing this work, and not just the “mundane” ones that I described earlier. Victor warned of spirits that could break the personality of the practitioner, or could otherwise infect them with cruel and terrible ideas.
The trick to avoiding this is a series of no-nonsense rules and practices, chief among them the ability to remain aligned with our holy daemon. This alone will go far toward guiding the process and offering us protection. Another is knowing with whom you are working. We do not do possession with just any spirit. We must build a relationship over time … build trust. Otherwise, these “alien beings” could touch deep, unconscious aspects of our psyches to use against us, quite possibly without our conscious knowledge.
Preparing the Vessel
Before we jump right in to invoking a spirit into our body/psyche/soul-structure, we must make sure that our vessel is a sound one. If we have been maintaining a robust and regular spiritual and magical practice, then we will have encountered our shadow demons and have (hopefully) worked to champion them. This is the number one concern with doing this type of work, as inviting a spirit inside ourselves empowers those parts of ourselves that are hidden, deep, and unconscious. In the presence of a spirit or a deity, those hidden parts can become endowed with greater intensity, potentially causing us (and those around us) some level of difficulty and perhaps even harm.
Assuming that we have done our shadow work and are ready to take this next step, we should ask ourselves: Why? Why do we want to do possession? Is it to impress our covenmates or teachers? Is it to receive some hidden knowledge from the spirit? Is it so that we can experience the spirit or deity in a more intimate, embodied way? Or perhaps we want to prove to ourselves that magic is real and losing oneself in an act of ecstatic Witchcraft would fit the bill? Once our intentions are clear, then we can begin the real work toward preparing ourselves to carry a higher consciousness in this way.
If we have been doing our regular work then we have already come a long way toward this preparation. If you are able to go into trance and remain lucid and focused for the duration, then this is a good indicator that you might be ready to take things to the next level, so to speak.
This simple exercise is usually taught to Faery students early in their training as a sort of relaxation exercise but is later revisited as a means to prepare them for the eventual work of possession. This should be repeated until you are able to achieve the desired shift in consciousness in the span of a couple breaths. You may continue to move forward with the other work as you work toward this.
Open the Way. Feel your body and allow yourself to fully relax. Imagine that you are floating in peaceful darkness. With every breath, you rise and fall as if on the ocean waves. With every breath, you are lulled deeper into trance. Breathe deep.
Imagine that your whole body is becoming empty and hollow as you continue to float effortlessly on the waves of your breath.
With your eyes closed, remember the flame of the Star Goddess candle before you. Imagine it is like a star in an otherwise dark and empty expanse. Breathe deep, and imagine this light is coming closer to you. Imagine breathing it in … and this light flows into your hands. Imagine that your hands become full of this light … they are bright, and warm, and relaxed. With your next exhale, imagine that your hands and this light melt away, and you say:
My hands are the Mother’s hands.
Breathe deep. And breathe this light down into your feet. Feel them becoming full, and warm, and relaxed. With your exhale, they melt away and you say:
My feet are the Mother’s feet.
Breathe deep, and continue this practice, filling and melting your arms, legs, belly, chest, back, buttocks, sex, shoulders, neck, throat, and head, each time affirming the particular area of the body as being identified with the Mother.
When you have done every area of your body that you can think of, breathe this light into your whole body all at once and allow the entirety of your body to melt away as you say:
My body is the Mother’s body.
Continue to repeat this as you breathe, slow and deep. Feel how your body is an extension of the Great Mother, who nourishes and sustains us all. Notice whatever insights may arise for you. When you are ready, open your eyes and imagine coming back into your own body. Wiggle your fingers and your toes. Stretch. End your session as you would normally. If you are having trouble coming back, make sure to look at your reflection in a mirror and say your full name three times. Touch a piece of iron or hematite. Get something to eat. Take a shower. Record your experiences in your journal.
Contracts, Boundaries, and Responsibility
Once we feel we are ready to embark on possession, we need to establish some ground rules. First, it is a good idea to only do this work with spirits with whom you are intimately familiar. Think of possession as a type of sex. Are you going to have unprotected sex with someone you just met? Without trust? Considering that there is no such thing as a “possessory condom,” this makes our preliminary work with a spirit or deity essential to our safety. Some spirits just don’t “smell” right. Trust your intuition. If anything feels off, then that might be a good indicator that their energy is not right for you. Or at least not right for this particular moment.
In the Faery Tradition, individual covens or lineages tend to form their practices around varied deity forms, making these the most common spirits worked with in terms of possessory training. In this, Faery is wide open: “All gods are Faery gods,” which is to say, whichever gods or goddesses with whom you already work are just as valid as any other. If you have a preexisting working relationship with a deity, and you have a desire to work with that deity in a more intimate way than your current practice offers, then your choice is clear. But for those who may not have a particular deity or spirit with whom they work, this requires us to make some choices.
The first choice to make is whether or not you actually wish to engage in this work. Reading about it is one thing. But practicing it is quite another. And due to the intimate and sexual nature of this work, it would be inappropriate to simply jump into it with your eyes closed. Choosing just any spirit or deity for this work because possession sounds cool and you need a partner is really no different than a virgin hooking up with a stranger at a party because they wanted to “get it over with.” Possession should be a beautiful experience, and with the proper care and preparation it can be just that. But if undertaken lightly and with no foresight, it can be a traumatic experience akin to any physical-world encounter that we may feel fits the sexual analogy.
Another thing to keep in mind is that this work is not for everyone. Even some Faery initiates do not work with possession. If you are not personally called to this work, then I would suggest simply reading about it and leaving it alone until such time as you may be inspired to use these techniques with a particular spirit of whom you are fond.
When this work is being taught in a coven, class, or one-on-one setting, there are experienced people present for real-time reactions. Even in long distance sessions over the phone or webcam, there is the opportunity to interject should something drift and miss the mark. Alas, here in book form we do not have that luxury, which is to say that you do not have that luxury. What is that luxury, you might ask? That of a tether, a life vest, a safety net. You will have to be all of these things for yourself, which means you have to be smart. You have to know your own mind. If you suffer from severe mental illness or have serious trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality, then this probably is not the work for you. If you are depressed or suffering from anxiety, then this may not be the work for you.
You also have to take precautions. Make sure that your area is safe. My advice would be to pay extra caution to clothing or jewelry items that may get caught on candleholders or robe sleeves that get burned in candle flames. If you are in an altered state of awareness, then you may not realize right away if your robe sleeve has caught fire, so better to nix the robe and go sleeveless. (I just might be making an argument for going skyclad for safety purposes!) You may also wish to have a fire extinguisher at the ready and make sure that there are no objects that can be easily disturbed should you begin moving or dancing.
And finally, if you feel you have trouble coming back, or are experiencing any other sort of mental, spiritual, or psychic disturbance during one of your sessions, perform the Banishing rite and then focus on self-care, such as grounding work. Eat some food (whole grains and proteins are good—avoid alcohol and a lot of sugar). Stretch your muscles. Go outside and feel your feet on the soil. Take a shower. Have a cup of tea. Turn on your favorite song. Watch a favorite sitcom on TV. Do something mundane.
JOURNALING: A Pact with a Spirit
When engaging our chosen spirit, we must first decide on the details of our contract. This journaling exercise will give us a magical space in which to explore the boundaries that are necessary toward establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship with the spirit with whom we have chosen to become more intimate. If done properly, it need only be done once per spirit, unless you later decide you wish to change the details of your agreement, in which case you will need to engage in a new negotiation.
Items needed:
A pen
Your journal
A candle of your choosing to represent the spirit with whom you will be working
Open the Way and then journal for five to ten minutes on the following questions: How long will you wish to be in the possessory state? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? An hour or more? What is it that you wish to accomplish by having the spirit move through you? (Provide healing? Help writing an invocation? Something else?) What are some things that you DO NOT wish to do while in the possessory state? (Like engage in unsafe activities, violence, unwanted sexual behavior, etc.) State your boundaries. Be specific.
Once finished, rewrite this into a simple list of rules that will be a contract with the spirit. We will use this contract in our later work. You may wish to embellish it with the sigil of your spirit and any other symbols that you feel are pertinent. “Sign” it by making a mark on it with some of your body fluid. Empower it in the way in which you would normally charge a sigil, making sure to include the presence of the spirit and feeling their blessing and consent. (Honestly, if the spirit does not want to consent then nothing will happen and you will have wasted your time.)
Alternatively, you may create a sigil of the contract itself (perhaps along with your spirit’s sigil) and use that instead of the “longhand” version for use in later ritual workings. It makes for an easier (and far more Witchy-feeling) tool during the ritual. End as normal.
In keeping with the tradition of the Hidden Kingdom, this exercise is inspired by one given in the fantasy novels of the late Robert Jordan in his series The Wheel of Time. I highly recommended this series to my Faery students, as it gives some incredibly lucid descriptions of the use of magic through an elemental lens.
Open the Way. Imagine yourself in the form of a new rosebud. With petals tightly bound, held together by the outer green sepals. Imagine that the rosebud is growing … and now blooming … silken petals in vibrant color unfolding. Imagine the distinctive scent of the rose as you expand into full bloom. Feel your energy body unfolding with the petals. Feel the ecstatic joy of being this flower … your delicate petals extended outward in exuberant celebration. Feel this for a moment.
Now, imagine that there is a divine light emanating from the heavens. Warm … like golden sun. Feel this sunlight warming your petals. Imagine this light shining through your petals. Notice what it feels like. Now, imagine that you can hear this light. What does it sound like? What does it smell like? Taste like? Does it inspire any thoughts or emotions?
After you have done this for a few minutes, call your power back from your Star Goddess candle and end as normal. Write down your experiences in your journal.
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Once you have familiarized yourself with the basics of this exercise, you can feel free to use imagery that is specific to whatever spirit or deity with whom you wish to work. For example, if working with the goddess Hecate, we might imagine ourselves as a garlic flower, instead, to keep with her symbolic associations.
EXERCISE: The Candle of Possession
This is a simple exercise used in order to strengthen both your ability to invoke a spirit into your body and also to establish a strong boundary. It should be repeated periodically over the course of your magical career, but especially in the days prior to engaging a formal ritual possession with a spirit or deity.
Items needed:
A candle representing the chosen spirit or deity
Your spirit contract or empowered sigil for the contract
Open the Way. In your aligned state, open yourself up to the presence of your spirit or deity. Perform an invocation to them and light their candle. As you focus on the candle flame, imagine that the presence of your spirit is slowly growing within you. You may wish to chant, sing, or hum in order to help build this presence. Or, you may wish to simply chant their name over and over in a rhythm. You may imagine their presence like a light that fills you from your feet all the way up to your crown. When you feel that this presence is reaching a peak, take a deep breath and imagine collecting all of this power and consolidating it into a single breath. With your exhale, send this power into the flame of the spirit candle. Feel it move out from you and how this presence is no longer inside you. Say a prayer of thanks and extinguish the candle. Take three breaths of silence and then repeat the whole process from start to finish. Do this at least three to five times. End as normal. Record your experiences in your journal.
Once we have been able to touch the presence of our desired spirit, we can begin to gradually take them into our body/mind/soul structure. This exercise can be used to help build our skill in pulling them inside as well as give us an easy means of letting them go afterward. Like the previous exercise, this should be repeated periodically so as to keep us skilled in its use, but especially prior to any ritual working in which possession is a part.
Open the Way. Perform the Candle of Possession for your chosen spirit. Focus on your spirit and imagine that there is a silver thread that connects you to them. This thread flows into your holy daemon, down into your fetch, and up into your talker. Take a few moments to really feel this thread. When you are ready, imagine slowly pulling this thread so that your chosen spirit is drawn closer and closer to you with every slow, deep breath. When you are finally able to pull the spirit in through your daemon/crown, pay attention to what this feels like. Feel this spirit being pulled into your daemon, fetch, and finally your talker. Feel how your souls have created a space to hold this spirt within yourself, guided and protected by your holy daemon.
When you are ready to draw things to a close, take a breath and imagine letting go of the thread, which has the effect akin to letting go of a helium balloon. On your exhale release your connection … relax your body. End your session as you would normally and—as always—record your experiences in your journal.
Now we will take this to the next level. This exercise is about allowing our talker to be more active during the process while still focusing on the spirit/deity.
Items needed:
A pen
Your journal
Open the Way. Perform the Candle of Possession and then Pulling the Thread. When you feel the spirit/deity’s presence within you, take hold of your pen and just allow it to flow over the page. Don’t worry at first about forming words or complete sentences; just allow whatever to come through. You may find that you are drawing or doodling. That’s fine; just allow the presence to guide your hand. You may find that you want to draw certain shapes … or that certain words are coming through. Try not to think about them in the moment. Do this for at least five minutes. Then read over what you wrote; what the spirit wrote. Does it make sense? If not, do you notice any patterns, such as repeated words or letters or even shapes or symbols? End as you would normally.
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This begins the work of engaging the talker in this process. I would recommend that you repeat this exercise several times over the course of a month to really get things going before you attempt the next one.
Dealing with the Censor
For a majority of people doing this work, the main obstacle will be self-doubt. Like so much in life, this demon, more than most, causes good people to fail, sometimes before they even begin. Confidence is a powerful antidote, but like courage not being the absence of fear, confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is a belief. And that belief is deeply rooted in trust.
It might sound like a pretty tall order to ask you to simply have faith in yourself, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And either you will or you won’t. And it’s really pretty much that simple. Either you will make the decision to have confidence in your capacity to learn to do this work … to talk to spirits … to enlist their aid … or you won’t. You must simply decide that you are more powerful than you know or have known. You will choose to believe in your higher self, your holy daemon, that it is guiding you, and wants to protect you. And that will be that. You don’t need to place your faith in anything else … not in me, not in the Faery Tradition, not in Witchcraft … just in yourself. You do not need to be a perfect being to make this happen. You are flawed, as we are all flawed. But the Blue God is your holy daemon, and he is the child of the Mother, just as you are the child of the Mother. The spark of divinity is within you. You only need learn to kindle it into a fire.
We are charged with building our inner flame, our holy fire. And when our very human doubts will undoubtedly arise, we will greet them head-on. We will look at them square in the eye and allow them to wash over and through us, like our fears. And then we will tell it where to go and what to do. And it will assist us in building our fire. When it arises and we notice, we will take our power back from it and we will use that power to redouble our efforts to strengthen our practice.
Litany Against Doubt
The demon doubt that rises here
Shall fuel the building of my fire
Until my fire is burning bright
And then my demon tends the fire.
Let your doubt point you in the right direction. Feel your doubt. And then … do it anyway. Let go … say what wants to be said…
EXERCISE: Speaking with Their Voice
Similar to Automatic Writing, this exercise is about engaging talker in this work and strengthening that connection.
Items needed:
A recording device or app
Open the Way. If you will be recording your session, begin recording now. Perform the Candle of Possession and then Pulling the Thread. When you feel the spirit/deity’s presence within you, take a moment to really identify what their presence feels like. Check in with your body and your emotions. Making these sensations a focal-point, begin to hum softly, imagining this sound strengthening your connection to the spirit and helping them to move through you and into your voice. You may be inspired to sing or to form words, but don’t force it … just allow whatever comes through to come through. Spend at least five to ten minutes with this and then end as normal.
As an alternative, you may wish to have a poem or invocation prepared. In this case, recite this instead of humming. You may find that you are inspired to go off script but even if not, just focus on the sensation of the spirit while you vocalize. Even if you just default back into humming, singing, chanting, etc. you will have engaged and potentially honed your skill a bit. As always, repetition is necessary for a skillful practice. So practice, practice, practice! This should be repeated at least until you have achieved some moderate successes with it. If after several weeks of concerted effort you have still not had success, then you may move on, resolving to make another series of attempts at a later time.
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If you have a good session then your recording can be useful in helping you learn to retain more and more of the experience intact, as well as allow us to have the information of whatever transpired immediately at our fingertips. Often, we will forget certain parts of a session, only to have it all come back when we hear the recording in our own (sometimes somewhat altered) voice. I find this especially useful when the spirit is offering poetry or song but even sometimes when just offering observations or other commentary.
Returning the Center
The skills that we are seeking in this work do not come easily to many. For a few, this will all already be second nature, or these exercises may awaken something or help you connect the dots, and you will be able to do this work easily on your own. For the rest of us, we will need to put in many hours of practice, training our minds and our spirits exactly how we wish them to work together, in concert with our holy daemon. This is all an experiment, of sorts, in human consciousness—an experiment that has been going on for at least 100,000 years. And in all experiments, there is the chance that something may go awry. Since we are working with opening up our consciousness, it is a good idea to remember our foundational skills of grounding and alignment. If you feel at any time that you are having trouble coming back or that you are having thoughts that are disturbing or you feel are not your own, stop this work immediately and revisit your basic grounding practices. Remember all the usual tricks: touching a piece of iron, tasting salt, drinking water, eating protein, eating a small amount of chocolate, taking a shower, etc. If all else fails, call a friend, turn on the TV, and watch something light.
Summoning the Bones
Since one of the specific benefits of the possessory experience is that of oracular divination, we are going to combine possession with one of the most primal forms of traditional divination short of reading entrails. That is, throwing the bones.
There is something so very Witchy about throwing the bones. Beyond just the act of throwing a tangible object and seeing where and how it falls, to know that this object you now hold was once part of a living creature that had its own consciousness, not all that unlike our own, reminds us of the fragility of life and acts as a point of connection between these two worlds.
Some specialty shops carry animal bones for purchase and you can make quite a collection from teeth, vertebrae, and the odd baculum or rib. Each of them can carry a different meaning for you, based on the type of animal and the specific type of bone, and over time you will have created a divination set unique to you.
Because they are bone, they are associated with the dead. It is quite easy to draw in the spirits of the dead when using actual bone, making their use hard to argue against.
Almost immediately I can hear my vegan friends in protest, but hear me out! In the Craft we honor the forces of life and death. The bones of an animal carry the spiritual essence of that animal whether we like it or not. I am not advocating the killing of animals (though I personally have no problem with it if done quickly and for food, as I am a definite omnivore), and I can see no greater way to honor the spirit of the animal than to use its remains to help re-sacralize the spiritual relationship between humankind and the rest of the animal kingdom. But if that is not enough to convince you, then you will be happy to know that I have thought of you and present a vegan alternative: crystals, stones, and wood. These can all be seen as the “bones” of the mineral and plant kingdoms, and you can even add to this list certain manufactured items, such as jewelry, or other charms, chosen for their symbolic nature.
In fact, even if you are going to be using actual animal bones as part of your divination set, it would be wise to add items from these other categories as well. You will want a system that is well rounded, with pieces that represent both positive and negative qualities, as well as certain archetypal energies. For more on how to create a divinatory throwing system using bones and other curios (and how to effectively use it), see Michele Jackson’s excellent book, Bones, Shell, and Curios.
DIVINATION: Throwing the Bones
This is a simple method for performing an oracular divination while in the possessed state.
Items needed:
A personal collection of bones, shells, crystals, pieces of wood, jewelry, and other curios that you will use to form your personal set
A cloth on which to throw the items
A pouch or bowl in which to hold the items before throwing
A recording device or app
Prepare the items in the pouch or bowl. Lay out the throwing cloth.
Open the Way. Start your recording. Perform whatever additional exercises or techniques you feel are necessary to effectively call your chosen spirit or deity into the possessory state. While in this state, toss the items onto the cloth and observe how they land. Some may fall near each other or even touch. Others might be far away. Allow the spirit to speak about this. What do you feel? Allow the voice to come through. Allow the spirit-sight to draw different associations, new conclusions. Allow the spirit to give the reading; you are just providing the vessel.
After a few to several minutes, thank the spirit as you would normally and end your session. You may journal your experiences now, and again after listening to your recording at a later date. Make sure you are fully grounded before driving or performing other dangerous tasks.
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If you take the time to work with these (or similar) exercises, then you will find that it is much easier than you may think in order to have these types of ecstatic experiences. If you are performing these alone, remember to take extra precautions for your physical safety, and if you start to feel like you are experiencing depression, anxiety, or bouts of “missing time,” discontinue the practice, perform the Waters of Purity rite, and practice grounding techniques instead.
51. This is based on the work of Robin LaSirena, “Aspecting in the Service of Deity,” Reclaiming Quarterly 86 (2002): 22–23, 56–58, accessed July 26, 2017, http://reclaimingquarterly.org/86/RQ86-18-Theme-Aspecting.pdf. Here slightly edited by me, I place the poetic speech element in the second category instead of the first.
52. Transcribed from a recording of a talk given by Victor at PantheaCon, 1996, in San Jose, CA. Spelling and punctuation are my own.