We recently heard of a case where an eight year-old girl’s aunt died of lung cancer and since the young girl was so close to her aunt, she told everyone to call her by her aunt’s name, insisted that her aunt’s clothes were hers, and began stealing her father’s cigarettes (her aunt died of lung cancer from smoking). At 33, the girl, now a woman, still likes to go by her deceased aunt’s name. She asked us if it’s possible she could be a medium for her deceased aunt. We told her the following.

What you are likely experiencing is called spirit possession or attachment. Instead of going to “the Light” when she died, your Aunt (her soul) chose to stick around. Souls choose to stay for various reasons, such as to watch over loved ones, because they’re afraid of “hell” (especially common with those personalities who were very religious), or to feed addictions.

Though she probably means well, at the very least, your Aunt is draining your energy. We recommend reading “The Unquiet Dead” by Dr. Edith Fiore. This is an excellent book on the subject and an interesting read. You’ll be surprised to learn how common possession is. In the back of the book is a great script we’ve used many times to gently send lost souls to “the Light.”

Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation floating around out there about this ghostly topic. A certain very well-known psychic who, for years has been making the rounds on TV talk shows, claims that there is “…no such thing” as possession.

Her simple, dismissive statement about this serious and often misunderstood subject is an injustice to the ground-breaking work done by researchers like Dr. Edith Fiore, Irene Hickman, Dr. William J. Baldwin, Dr. Shakuntala Modi, and others.

Moral of the story: Unless a seer is an expert in the area they comment on, it’s best to be careful about what you accept from them as truth. Even the best psychics do not have all the answers and are unable to provide absolute truth 100% of the time because they, like everyone else, sometimes have trouble putting aside their human “filters.” Everyone has their own unique fears and defenses, along with their own unique personal belief systems.

Possession, though not nearly as dramatic as the exaggerated scenes in the Hollywood movie The Exorcist, is very real and common. However, most attachments are just lost souls, like hitch-hikers, and simply need to be directed “home.”

Copyright © 2004 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo