Spiritual Illnesses

 (Second and final part)

To correct spiritual problems implies re-educating the spirit; the treatment of their symptoms can bring an important immediate, but transitory, help or relief

Vampirism ⁽⁸⁾ 

The spiritual world is inhabited by a very large population of Spirits which according to information is four to five times greater than the 6 billion incarnated souls on our planet. As the vast majority of this population of Spirits must inhabit the vicinities of earthly environments, where human life flows, it is not strange that these Spirits are sharing with us all the good and bad conducts of our daily life. ⁽⁹⁾ 

We count on them as guides or protectors who inspire us constantly, but, in the majority of times, we attract them through vices and they imprison us through pleasure. There are millions of men involved with alcohol, cigarettes, illicit drugs, narcotics, uncontrolled food consumption and sexual abuse. For all these situations the doors of non-vigilance are wide open, allowing access by discarnate entities which go on to share with us the elixir of the mundane satisfactions of the flesh. 

In these detours of human conduct the mind of the person responsible aggregates fluidic elements around itself that will slowly go on to build “psychic miasmas” with extreme corrosive capacity to the organism that hosts it. The alcoholic, the drug addict or the one addicted to any substance builds for himself the germs that come to obstruct in him the functioning of the hepatic cells, the lung alveoli, the prostatic ducts, causing chronic lesions which medicine accounts as incurable cases. 

The addicted spiritual entities partake the pleasures of the vice that the incarnate being favours them and in time stimulate him to remain in the vice. There is a tremendous loss of energy by the person responsible for the vice in this association, hence the word vampirism being adequate to define this partnership. 

Obsession 

In the course of the incarnation God’s mercy allow us to enjoy opportunities which best suit us to stimulate our spiritual progress. The reunions or mismatches are, in a certain way, planned or attracted by ourselves for the due redemptions of commitments that we left behind or the facilities appear in order for us to accomplish the big promises we designed in the spiritual level. 

It is in this manner that parents and children get reunited as brothers and sisters, as friends, as partners in a joint venture in human activity. Husband and wife, who disrespected each other, now get readjusted as father and daughter, boss and subordinate or as distant relatives so that life makes it difficult for them to get closer to each other. Mothers, who despised their children, today go on from doctor’s consulting room to doctor’s consulting room on a pilgrimage where they parade difficulties having once again their own children. Life in one way or another is re-educating everyone. The obstacles which at first sight seem punishment or penalty bring in their medley of tests the possibility of recuperation of the physical or moral damages which we produced in the past. 

Frequently, we win or lose in the great struggle of human survival. None of us make this journey without having to take decisions, without having to express our wishes and without making our choices. It is here that time after time we antagonise over decisions, wishes and choices of those who consort close to us. 

In each existence we amass people who did not understand us, friends who abandon us from being antagonised with opinions different from ours, business partners who did not follow through their commitments to us, relatives or simply acquaintances who defamed our name. 

In many other occasions of the past, we already had opportunity to participate in large financial disputes, of crimes that earthly justice did not witness, of illegal abortions that were concealed and of betrayals that society repudiated or mocked. 

In the wake of these human afflictions we are, without exception, indebted and highly committed to other creatures, human and demanding as ourselves, who now are demanding other behaviours of us, demanding from us that we pay off the debts which we dodged in other times and also being very persistent in their domination, seeking to make difficult our quick ascension to the highest level of spirituality. 

Although today’s medical science still does not bring spiritual obsession, in which a creature exerts its domination on another, into its nosological records, this is by far the greatest evil of human pathology. 

In the basic written works of Spiritism, Allan Kardec clarifies that obsession becomes established in three areas of increasing submission: “simple obsession”, “fascination” and “subjugation”. Kardec’s classic texts and all the subsequent spiritist literature, especially Andre Luiz and his abnegated representatives, as Marlene Rossi Severino Nobre (Obsession and its masks), are more than enough to clarify us on this subject. 

Mediumship 

We intend to use this aforementioned denomination to discuss the settings of symptomatic manifestations presented by those who, incipiently, inaugurate their mediumship manifestations. ⁽¹⁰⁾ Frequently, mediumship for certain people, is manifested in a tranquil manner and it is so natural that the medium, almost always still a young person, does not even realise what he or she sees, what they perceive and listen of different, is spiritual communication and that only they are detecting such manifestations, as though seem to them to be shared by everybody. 

Other times the phenomena are presented in an abundant way and the beginner is taken by fear and insecurity, mainly for not knowing what it is and, therefore, they become retracted for perceiving that they are different from the others with whom they consort with. 

In other occasions, we have mediumship tormented by perturbing Spirits, and the medium, without having any protection which can help him/her, is found around a series of human psychopathologic sets. Frequently crises such as panic attacks, hysteria or somatoform manifestations express themselves as pains, paralysis, anaesthesias, “swelling” of limbs, constant insomnia, and uncontrollable somnolence. 

 A great majority of them have a small amount of psychosomatic symptoms and feel influenced or in the company of spiritual entities. ⁽¹¹⁾ There are mediums with aptitudes which are still very timid and which are in a phase of learning and domain of their potentialities. It is an early seed that needs to be cultivated in order to blossom. 

Karmic diseases 

Always through our intemperance we disregard care of our body and in time, through gratuitous aggressiveness, we strike the psychological or physical balance of our fellow being, we are imprinting these mis-adjustments in the cells of the spiritual body that serves us. 

It is thus in human pathology, cases of “lupus” which compromise arteries, of “pemphigus” which burns the skin, of “inflammations” which deform the heart or brain, “of “multiple sclerosis” which immobilises people in bed or of dementia which compromise lucidity and withdraw us from society. 

We need to understand that these and all other manifestations of disease must not be taken in account as punishments or chastisements. Spiritism teaches that these and all other difficulties that we face are opportunities of redemption, which were frequently chosen by ourselves in order to accelerate our progress and leverage us from the rearguard that sometimes keep us distant from those who await us further ahead. 

More than the cure of diseases, Tibetan medicine, millennia ago, taught that doctor and patients must seek the opportunity for enlightenment. The ailments through pain and the limitations that diseases bring make possible clarification for us, if we predispose ourselves to seek it. More important than to accept suffering in a passive and little productive resignation, it is necessary to overcome any limitation or rebellion, in order for us to promote spiritual growth through this inner and individual discovery. 

Treatment of spiritual diseases 

To correct spiritual problems implies re-educating the Spirit. The symptomatic treatments can bring an immediate help or an important, but transitory, relief.

To frequent the spiritist centres in search of alleviation through magnetic laying on of hands healing, through the magnetised water with revitalising fluids, or to enjoy some moments of healthy harmony with spirituality, only repeats the superficial searches that the majority of people make in any doctor’s clinic or place of cure of others religious institutions which promise quick cures. 

To work to get to know and treat spiritual disease requires an inner reform that demands effort, discipline and dedication. 

In this sense, the doctor is not there to control the disease of those who seek him, but he must commit to playing the role of a safe leader, with an attitude consistent with that which he proposes to the patient. 

The number one postulate in this treatment must be, therefore, a code of moral conduct, which the doctor or any other therapist must take. 

Allan Kardec’s advices are of great sensibility: 

 “...Dominate your animal passions; feed neither hatred, nor envy, nor jealousy, nor pride; do not let yourself be dominated by selfishness; purify yourself, nurture good feelings; do good; do not connect to the things of this world importance that they do not deserve”. ⁽¹²⁾ 

We have adopted simple conduct in our work environment which up to now seems to have had great repercussion in the treatment: 

From the waiting room, we create an environment where the patient already starts to realise that our work is committed with spirituality. Without any ostentation of vulgar mysticism or superstitious beliefs, in the waiting room, the patient reads an invitation to participate in our meeting of “dialogue with the Gospel” carried out in the morning. Amongst other messages that the patient can take with him for a longer reading, we provide “book of short prayers” where names and addresses can be written down and referred for “vibrations” in the days of Gospel reading, which is always preceded and finished with meditation and prayer. 

The cases of obsession and other pathologies, in which more serious interferences from spiritual entities are suspected, must be mandatorily referred to spiritist centres that are adequately prepared to deal with these dramas. 

Notes:

8 - This term is suggested by André Luiz. Please see Missionaries of the Light.

9 - The Spirits’ Book. See questions 456, 457 and 459.

10 -The Mediums’ Book. Chapter 18. “Difficulties and Dangers of Mediumship”.

11 -The Spirits’ Book.  “ Spirits’ occult influence on our thoughts and actions”. Questions 459 to 472.

12 -The Spirits’ Book. Question 257. Allan Kardec’s writing on: “Theoretic Explanation of the Nature of Sensation in Spirits.” Page 165 to 170.