Possession and Ghost Syndromes

Classical Five-Element Acupuncture includes the study of possession and the Seven Dragons for Seven Devils protocol for treating demonic possession or what some Acupuncturists refer to as energetic blocks of emotional fixation. This is the rational explanation.

Others have a more irrational explanation. Spirit entities and paranormal encounters are often encountered and studied in Parapsychology. Spirit entities and possession treatments are as old as medicine itself. Even today, in our modern technological world, the Vatican still maintains a school for priests to deal with spirit entities and possession.

Treatment of possession is emphasized in Classical Five-Element Acupuncture because it does not allow the treatment of other ailments before the removal of this critical block, should it exist.

The study of possession and its acupuncture treatment protocol has lead me to the study of the thirteen ghost points and Classical Five-Element Acupuncture possession treatments and what I refer here to as Ghost Syndromes.

Ghost Syndromes are a group of symptoms that can be associated in the logical mind with mania, fright and schizophrenia. These syndromes however go beyond our understanding and categories within the DSM-IV or clinical psychological disorders. Quite often, the patient may be experiencing “spiritual emergence.”

A new category was recently added to the DSM-IV to both broaden the scope of psychological disorders and to openly acknowledge what is known as "spiritual emergence."

Spiritual emergence has been defined as "the movement of an individual to a more expanded way of being that involves enhanced emotional and psychosomatic health, greater freedom of personal choices, and a sense of deeper connection with other people, nature, and the cosmos. An important part of this development is an increasing awareness of the spiritual dimension in one's life and in the universal scheme of things."  (Grof & Grof, 1990)

When spiritual emergence is very rapid and dramatic this natural process can become a crisis, and spiritual emergence becomes spiritual emergency. This has also been called transpersonal crisis, acute psychosis with a positive outcome, positive disintegration and an extreme state. There is no sharp division between emergence and emergency. However distinguishing criteria include:

a) an 'emergency' generally has more depth and intensity

b) an 'emergence' is more fluid and less overwhelming and traumatic

c) during an 'emergency' it is very difficult to function in
everyday life

A spiritual emergency could also be defined as a critical and experientially difficult stage of a profound psychological transformation that involves one's entire being. This is a crisis point within the transformational process of spiritual emergence.

It may take the form of non-ordinary states of consciousness and may involve unusual thoughts, intense emotions, visions and other sensory changes, as well as various physical manifestations. These episodes can often revolve around spiritual themes.

The term spirituality should be reserved for situations that involve personal experiences of certain dimensions of reality that give one's life, and existence in general, a numinous quality. C.G. Jung used the word numinous to describe an experience that feels sacred, holy, or out of the ordinary (Grof & Grof, 1991).

The spiritual element of medicine often defies logical conclusions. It is important for the clinician to remain open to that which often defies logic and reason.