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What is Compassionate Depossession?

Compassionate Depossession lovingly clears a possessing spirit whose energy and consciousness are overshadowing your own. It works even when the possessing spirit is unwilling to continue crossing into the Light.
"It always works, and it is always a blessing."​

Statue of an angel representing a compassionate psychopomp, compassionate depossession, and spiritual transition.

What is Compassionate Depossession?​

Compassionate Depossession is an effective and loving healing method that clears a possessing spirit and its overshadowing influences from your personal energy field, your family, and your home. 

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Compassionate Depossession is not violent, nor is it frightening; in my experience, it is one of the most beautiful forms of shamanic healing that I do.

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I have been studying the art of Compassionate Depossession with Betsy Bergstrom since 2010.
I am a graduate of both of her teacher training programs, and I am one of her teaching assistants. We learn more and more about the art and practice of Compassionate Depossession each year. 

 

Because of the transformation that takes place for the possessing spirit during Compassionate Depossession, this ensures that the possessing spirit can not come back. It's a one-way trip.​

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Read more about spirit possession and what possession illness can look like

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How Does Compassionate Depossession Work And What Does it Look Like?

Compassionate Depossession is accomplished by very powerful heart-centered, Divine Beings of

Transition. They have been lovingly doing this work for countless millennia.

My job is to create the right and beautiful circumstances in which the transition can occur. I do this so that everyone is healthier at the end of the day.


During compassionate depossession, we have a conversation with the Being, developing a rapport with the possessing spirit.

Through conversation, we discover their ideal next destination. We invite psychopomp Beings to open the required thresholds with the help and guidance of the threshold guardians.

With the help of the Psychopomp Beings and the Healing Spirits, the being transforms.

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Every being is made of Light of the Creator, and to that Light we all return. This natural transition is our destiny; Light calls to Light. We invite Divine Source Radiance to assist in filling the Being with perfect Divine Radiance, during which they begin to transform and remember who they truly are.

As they transform, they are drawn to the threshold and cleared from the client. 


We invite the Helping Spirits to assist us in clearing any remnants, saturations, imprints, and intentions that the being may have left behind. ​

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a blurred image of a person representing possession illness and what spirit possession could look like

What is Spirit Possession?

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You are made of energy; most of your 'matter' is empty space.


Because of this, another being's energies can become entangled and enmeshed in your energy field.

This is called possession; the state of having another being's consciousness and energies in or overlaying your energy field.

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Spirit Possession is common. It is a natural un-desirable phenomenon that happens to ordinary people like you and me all over the world, all the time.


Here is a fascinating article about possession by human and non-human spirits after the 2011 tsunamis in Japan from the London Review of Books.
 

A being who becomes entangled in your energy field can overshadow your behavior, actions, thoughts, and memories. When this is happening, you don't feel like yourself. You don't feel like these emotions, thoughts, or behaviors belong to you. This is known as possession illness.

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Typically, for the possessing spirit(but not always), something went wrong when they died; they did not cross at the appropriate time.

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A possessing spirit may have attached to you or to someone you know for merely the comfort and benefits that a living body provides, and most commonly for the life force that you are providing.

It is often this simple, and is not sinister. And ... both you and the possessing spirit are suffering because of this.

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Some Signs and Symptoms of Possession Illness

If you have an attached possessing being, you might notice any or all of the following signs of possession and possession sickness: 

 

  • You have low energy levels for no reason

  • You have character shifts or mood swings, especially when you are tired or caught off guard

  • You have inner voice(s) speaking to you

  • You find yourself abusing drugs and/or alcohol

  • You have impulsive behavior that is out of character

  • You have memory problems or memories that aren't yours

  • You have poor concentration and fogginess

  • You have a definite sense of there being a 'before' and 'after', of things having changed at some point for you, maybe suddenly

  • You have had sudden anxiety or depression that has not responded to traditional treatment

  • You experience a sudden onset of physical problems with no obvious cause; i.e. changes in your vision or hearing

  • You are experiencing physical discomfort that has no discoverable cause and/or for which no traditional treatment can shift

  • You are experiencing paranormal and/or poltergeist phenomena: moving objects, unexplained noises, and electrical devices turning on and off without you present

  • You may be having an emotional and/or physical reaction to reading this list

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One example of possession sickness I have seen in my own practice is a client who came to me saying that he thought he had acquired someone else's memories: he would see a movie or go to a place that he *knew* he'd never seen or been to, and yet he had memories of. We were able to clear this being in a beautiful and loving way, simultaneously clearing the effects this being had been exerting in his life. 

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Compassionate Depossession Case Studies from my Private Practice

Encountering Different Kinds of Beings in the Course of Compassionate Depossession

Possession happens all over the world. People can be possessed by all manner of different Beings. Here are a few case studies about those Beings and the Compassionate Depossession cases I encounter in my practice.
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Case Studies of Compassionate Depossession;  Personal Experience 2010, DODGEVILLE, WI

My first startling, memorable experience of this healing method happened in my very first compassionate depossession training with Betsy Bergstrom in March of 2010. 

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Something was up, and I was in the 'client' seat in a pod of four of us in a live training. One person was 'practitioner', and the other two people were 'backups'. All three were mesa carriers in the Andean tradition. As the work progressed, I had the sensation that the Being was quite large and also very non-human. In my mind's eye, I kept seeing a Being made of stones, moss, and sticks. "Oh! A lovely Nature Being!" said Betsy as she came by. 

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Since the Being was a Nature Being, they did not go into the Light as some do. Instead, in the final moments of separation, a silvery tube opened up in front of me at an angle slightly to my left. I observed the Being sort of zooming down this tunnel to come to rest at a big mountain in the far distance. I was profoundly disoriented after this Being departed, and I remember at dinner, which was served right after this session, that what was on my plate did not look like food at all. I remember looking at my utensils with bewilderment as if I'd never seen anything like them before. 

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Later that night, I returned to the working room and repositioned the chair that I'd been in when this all occurred. I made note of the angle of the silvery tube, writing it down in my journal. I knew the cardinal directions in which the building was situated from a compass that I had in my backpack. When I looked up maps online and applied the angle from where we were, the direction I was facing, due South, the 'silvery tunnel' pointed straight at Mt. Mitchell, the highest point East of the Mississippi, and to whose peak I'd been taken as a 6-week-old newborn baby by my parents. Clearly, the Nature Being had connected with me then, and in the years growing up in the shadow of those mountains.

 

This experience was instrumental in propelling me to study Andean Cosmology and to get to know the Apus, the Beings who make their homes in the mountains of the world.  

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Case Studies of Compassionate Depossession;  Personal Experience #2, 2013, Rochester, NY

In preparation for Betsy's first Teacher Training, I had to take several compassionate depossession trainings. One of these happened in Rochester, NY, a city we'd lived in when I was 3 and mom and dad were in graduate school at the Eastman School of Music. 
 

At this compassionate depossession training, Betsy encouraged us to have a turn in the client seat, even if we didn't think anything was 'up'. I had had feelings of activation earlier in the training, but on this day, things were quiet. I decided to give it a go anyway and just see what would happen.

 

I sat in the client seat, and the practitioner who'd chosen to work with me sat opposite. In those days, backups would gravitate around the room and find their own places. One young man whom I hadn't really spoken with kept coming by. He finally said, "I'm not sure where to be, but I keep getting drawn here." I said, "I think that means that you belong with us," and smiled. He sat down.

As the session progressed, it was clear that the possessing Being was a deceased Jewish man who had connected with me as a child. Often in these cases, the one who is possessed is just the warm, safe place for a wandering soul to be, and this seemed to be the case. As he woke up to his situation, it was clear that he had long known where he was and what was up. In his belief system, he didn't feel worthy of passing on to the 'next thing' because he had not had the proper kind of rites and prayers. 

The practitioner was struggling a bit, and then I piped up, "The Being needs a minyan and needs the proper prayers, and he needs to have the lineage recited." The young backup man, who hadn't known where to land, immediately spoke up and said that he knew all of that. We invited a spirit minyan, and the young backup began saying the prayers for the dead in Hebrew. This simple thing was what was needed to help the Jewish Being to depart and go with a joyful heart. It was one of the most joyous, ecstatic experiences that I've had the honor to be a part of. 

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Case Studies of Compassionate Depossession Client "S", 2016

"S" was a friend and colleague who attended shamanic drumming circles and trainings when I lived and worked in Huntsville, AL. He called me one day and said, "I think I need your help." I asked him what he thought was up, and he said, "I have memories that are not mine. I have memories of places I've never been, and of films I've never seen, and of people I've never met." I told him to come in, and we would take a look together to see what was going on.
 

As I did my diagnostic work, "S" told me that he was connected to a person in his neighboring town who dabbled in the occult and who "did things" to others for her own amusement. "S" told me that he had had a minor run-in with her, and that could have been when this all began. When he had been at her house, he reported that he would see what looked like smoke moving around out of the corner of his eye. 

 

As we moved into the compassionate depossession session itself, we made contact with two different Beings: a Djinn, which the woman had bound as a servant, and a deceased human being who was connected to the Djinn and who had just been dragged along. "S" said that the woman bragged about sending this Djinn out to spy and to report back.

 

We were able to release and re-home both the Djinn and the deceased human being. "S" later reported that the odd memories ceased. We attributed those to the deceased human being who had been overshadowing him as part of this double possession. 
 

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Case Studies of Compassionate Depossession: Various Clients with Accompanying Djinn, 2014-2017

During this period, I had several military folk as clients who were returning from the Middle East after tours of duty. Interestingly, many of these clients had Djinn who were accompanying them.

 

In some cases, these were outright possessing spirits, and in others, the Djinn were loosely connected to their energy fields and had sort of come along for the ride. In Djinn lore, there is the concept of Djinn and humans becoming companions and friends. There are many Djinn nations and tribes, and not all are kindly disposed to humans. Some are. 
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