The fight against an obsessive spirit

In the fight against an obsessive Spirit, the knowledge brought by the Spiritist Doctrine, as it truly is, is crucial. Without the false ideas that reign over the current spiritist movement, we can reach the root causes and the method to combat the obsessive Spirits, through our own awareness.

Text obtained from part of the article Obsedados e Subjugados, from the Revista Espírita of 1858. Subtitles and highlights from us.

Excitement and vanity of the medium

Whether out of enthusiasm, or out of fascination with the Spirits, or out of self-love, in general the psychographic medium is led to believe that the Spirits that communicate with him are superior, and the more so, the more the Spirits, seeing their propensity, do not They stop adorning themselves with pompous titles, as necessary. Depending on the circumstances, they take the names of saints, sages, angels, the Virgin Mary herself, and play their role as actors, ridiculously dressing up in the clothes of the people they represent. Take away their mask and they become what they were: ridiculous. This is what one must know how to do, both with Spirits and with men.

Of blind and unreflective belief In the superiority of the Spirits that communicate, there is only one step to trust in their words, just as it happens among men. If they manage to inspire this confidence, they feed it through sophistry and the most specious reasoning, before which we often bow our heads. Gross Spirits are less dangerous: we recognize them immediately and they inspire nothing but repugnance. The most fearsome, in your world, as in ours, are the hypocritical Spirits: they always speak sweetly; flatter inclinations; They are sweet, sly, lavish in affectionate expressions and protests of dedication. You have to be really strong to resist such seductions.

Read too: Curse and Spiritism.

You will ask: Where is the danger if the Spirits are impalpable? The danger lies in the harmful advice they give, appearing to be benevolent, and in the ridiculous, untimely or disastrous attitudes that lead us to undertake. We have already seen some that made certain people travel from region to region in search of fantastic things, at the risk of compromising their health, fortune and life itself. We saw them dictate, with the appearance of gravity, the most ridiculous things and the strangest maxims.

Considering that it is appropriate to give an example alongside theory, we will relate the story of a person we know who was under the control of a similar fascination.

A young obsessed medium

Mr. F…, a well-educated young man, with a thorough education, with a gentle and benevolent character, but a little weak and indecisive, became a psychographic medium very quickly. The obsessive Spirit that took hold of him and did not give him rest, wrote incessantly. If a pen or pencil fell into his hand, he would take it in a convulsive movement and fill pages and pages in a few minutes. In the absence of an instrument, he would simulate writing with his finger, wherever he found himself: on the street, on walls, on doors, etc. Among other things, this was dictated to him: “Man is made up of three things: man, the bad Spirit and the good Spirit. You all have your bad Spirit, which is linked to the body by material ties. To expel the bad Spirit it is necessary to break these bonds, which means that the body must be weakened. When this is sufficiently weakened, the bond breaks and the bad Spirit leaves, leaving only the good one.”

As a result of this beautiful theory, they made him fast for five consecutive days and watch at night. When he was exhausted, they said to him: “Now the thing is done and the bond is broken. Your evil Spirit is gone: only we are left, in whom you must believe without reservation.” And he, persuaded that his evil Spirit had fled, blindly believed all his words. The subjugation had reached the point where if he had been told to throw himself into the water or head for the antipodes, he would have done so. When they wanted to force him to do something that was repugnant to him, he was dragged by an invisible force.

We give a small sample of his morals; From there you can judge the rest:

Absurdities of an obsessive Spirit that even uses the name of Jesus

“To have better communications it is first necessary to pray and fast for several days, some more, some less. Fasting weakens the bonds that exist between the ego and a particular demon attached to each to be human. This demon is linked to each person by the envelope that unites body and soul. This covering weakens due to lack of food and allows the Spirits to tear out that demon. Then Jesus descends into the heart of the possessed person, instead of the evil Spirit. This state of possessing Jesus in oneself is the only way to reach all truth and many other things.

When the creature managed to replace the devil with Jesus, it still does not possess the truth. To have it, you need to believe. God does not give the truth to those who doubt: it would be doing something useless and God does nothing in vain. As most new mediums doubt what they say and write, good Spirits, unwillingly, by God's formal order, they are obliged to lie and have no choice but to lie until the medium is convinced; but as soon as he believes one of these lies, the high spirits rush to reveal to him the secrets of heaven: the whole truth dissipates in an instant that cloud of errors with which they had been forced to envelop their protege.

…

We would fill a volume with all the nonsense that was dictated to him and the circumstances that followed. Among other things, they made him design a building of such dimensions that the sheets of paper, glued together, reached the height of two floors.

Note that in all this there is nothing coarse or banal. It is a series of sophistical reasonings linked together with the appearance of logic. There is indeed an infernal art in the means employed to deceive him, and if it had been possible for us to relate all these manifestations, one would have seen to what extent the cunning was carried and with what skill they used honeyed words.

A good Spirit sought to help

The obsessive Spirit who played the main role in this business gave the name François Dillois, when he was not covering himself with the mask of a respectable name. Later we learned what this Dillois had been like in life, and then nothing surprised us in his language. But in the midst of all this nonsense it was easy to recognize a good Spirit who was fighting, making from time to time hear some good words denying the other's absurdities. There was an obvious fight, but the fight was unequal. The young man was so subdued that the voice of reason was powerless over him. The Spirit of his father, notably, made him write the following words: “Yes, my son, courage! You suffer a harsh test, which will be for your good in the future. Unfortunately, at the moment, I can do nothing to free you, and it costs me a lot. Go see Allan Kardec; listen to him, and he will save you.”

The boy's will and Kardec's help

Indeed, Mr. F… came to look for me and, to begin with, I recognized without difficulty the pernicious influence he was under, whether in words or through certain material signs that experience makes known, and that cannot deceive us. He came back several times. I used all my willpower to call the good Spirits through you; all my rhetoric to prove to him that I was a victim of detestable Spirits; that what he wrote made no sense, as well as being deeply immoral. For this charity work I teamed up with a colleague, Mr. T… and little by little we got him to write sensible things. He became averse to that bad temper, willingly repelling it every time it tried to manifest itself, and slowly the good Spirits triumphed.

To change his ideas, he followed the advice of the Spirits, to give himself to a rough job, that did not leave him time to listen to bad suggestions.

The obsessing Spirit himself, Dillois, ended up confessing that he was defeated and expressed the desire to progress in a new existence. He confessed the evil he had tried to do and showed evidence of repentance. The fight was long and painful and offered the observer truly curious particularities. Today Mr. F. feels free and happy. It's as if he had laid down a burden. He has regained his joy and thanks us for the service we provided him.