This is Chapter 88 from my new book(s), Entheogenic Fitness Training, Vol. 1 and Entheogenic Fitness Training, Vol. 2.
88. Possession
Depends on: Superheroic Dose, Thespianize, Visualization, Eidolons, Service, Make-Belief
Operationalizes: Access Source
Possession is an advanced form of archetypal training. Instead of merely embodying qualities like celestial wonder or heartbroken rejection, you’re inviting a representative godform to work through you. It is imaginal exercise as invocation; theurgency,* performed.
Psychospiritual Electrocution
As established in the Fundamentals stage, in Phonomancer™, Emotion = Energy = Spirit. This is a hypothesis based on observation: when your felt emotion grows strong enough, it becomes an experience of energy in the body—almost like electrocution.
As that energy intensifies, the experience becomes awesome, awe-ful, overwhelming. In EFT, we connect this to Jung’s concept of archetypes. Archetypes are, at one level, patterns of human behavior that are represented in the unconscious as images. But these images carry emotional charge.
In a very real sense, archetypes are emotions, emotions as the God/dess experiences them: aspects of Her being. And though there is a vast array of emotions we can experience through visual imagery and narrative enactment, ultimately, they are all versions of love or fear.
We need to experience love and fear in as many varieties as possible, because that’s how we come to know the Source of Being, and how we learn to recognize the feeling that contains both—that condition of the Holy MA’s existence: the eternal FUCK YEAH!.
Mythopoetically, these varieties of numinous love and fear are the gods and goddesses we invite to possess us.
CAVEAT
Possession is VERY CHALLENGING AND NOT WITHOUT RISK.
- Don’t even attempt it until you’re being mentored by a Master Phonomancer.
- You must be discerning. You must be honest—with yourself, and with the God/dess.
- And you must keep your wits about you. Even when you’re attempting something as wonderfully, archaically sacred as embodying the Divine to bless others, Resistance can make a move and twist everything up.
- If something feels wrong, bail out. Shake your head. Stamp your feet. Find your ass with both hands.
When you’re mapping out new territory in the human exploration of the Divine Mystery, discretion is the better part of valor.
How to Be Possessed
In Phonomancer™, Possession is the result of intentional, coordinated action between your spirit (your Level Two, Player self) and your soul (your anima—but also your very own personal scale model of the God/dess, who is your companion in life).
Together, these form a remarkable artifact of spiritual technology we call a syzygic reactor.* Its activation is symbolized by the Δ on the Phonomancer’s chest spawning a second, inverted Δ to form what is called in Judaism the Shield of David, and in Christianity the “creator’s star.”
The syzygic reactor is a receiver for the energies of KA—the Root Node of Being, the archetypal Self, and the Divine Child of Godhead. This is the force that animates the sacred image you hold in imagination.
Before you attempt Possession, you must be intimately familiar with the archetypal force you want to embody. Study Their eidolon. Talk to Them. Establish a relationship, which means establishing a mental model of who They are, a model you will now seek to improve by imaginally inhabiting Their subjective experience.
- Set your intention
- Alter your consciousness
- Enter Focal Relaxation
- Make-belief you are the eidolon by embodying the emotion encoded in the archetype within a cognitive frame of "I AM (the target godform)"
- Seek Fascination
- Don’t freak out if you get exactly what you asked for
As you perform Possession, you must remain relaxed despite the tremendously weird things you may be feeling and seeing in visionary space. This delicate balance is sustained through entheogenic fitness. And though it may be difficult—especially at this stage—to hold for more than a minute or two, like every other practice in this manual, your performance will improve with time and effort.
Types of Possession
In EFT, we work with two forms of Possession: traditional and bespoke.
Traditional
Possession has been successfully performed with traditional religious figures as diverse as
- Sophia, God’s Wisdom
- Cernunnos, the Horned God
- The Devil
- Jesus Christ
- Santa Muerte
- Mary, Our Lady of Sorrow
- Michael the Archangel
This is not appropriation, any more than a painter choosing cerulean is stealing from Picasso’s “Blue Period.” These are images of archetypes. They don’t belong to anyone.
The cool thing about working with traditional figures is that they function like psychic batteries: they’ve absorbed the love and devotion of millions of believers. If you align yourself with those believers in your imagination, you become part of a vast field of resonant belief—one that dwarfs what a few hundred people can create in an EntheoGymᵀᴹ.
Personally, I love the feeling that I’m connecting with millions of Mexican grandmas when I serve as a vehicle for Santa Muerte.
The Thunder: Perfect Mind
Phonomancer™’s 75-minute “introductory class” entheotrainment, The Discotheque at the End of the Universe, opens with “The Thunder: Perfect Mind.” It’s a poem written from the perspective of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, discovered among the Christian Gnostic texts unearthed at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1947.
Approach this text as an actor. Don’t just memorize the words, create a character who will speak them. Feel what’s behind the language: the attitude, the absolute authority, the depthless Intelligence that is Sophia.
Then, when it’s time to seek Possession, lose yourself in that character. Be more Method than Robert De Niro!
Close your eyes. Let your mind open to the inrush of images the substantia is inspiring—and in that moment, be the God/dess. Act the role by making your posture regal and your voice more resonant. Imagine the Person speaking these words, and be Them.
Your perceptual space will open wide. You may see imaginal representations of cosmic spaces and heavens. You’ll feel energy rushing through your limbs—and perhaps see the Holy Fire licking at your upraised arms and hands.
Bespoke
Possession can also be applied to psychological archetypes, pop stars (or popartchetypes), and custom-made gods and goddesses who represent specific emotional states.
Archetypes
When performing to TOOL’s “46 & 2,” I ask my unconscious: Show me what I don’t want to know about myself. Then I imagine a Boötes Void* filled with everything humanity pretends it is not—and I gradually allow that darkness to fill me, until I become a three-dimensional, dancing Jungian Shadow.
This exercise inevitably brings up recent episodes where my behavior didn’t reflect the person I’d prefer to imagine I am. But it always goes further. The imagery in my mind becomes obviously symbolic. And at that point, I believe I’m actually integrating archetypal Shadow energy—and in so doing, perhaps even reducing the amount of ambient Resistance that’s pushing humanity toward cataclysm.
Is that actually true?
I know what my tertiary process thinking tells me.
What yours tells you—that’s between you and the God/dess.
Pop Stars
For me, pop culture figures have come to symbolize archetypes.
- David Bowie is the Magician
- Debbie Harry is Persephone, icy Queen of the Underworld
- Rihanna is Gaia, Mother Earth
- Prince is the Divine Child
These associations stem from my emotional reactions when using certain songs of theirs for phonomancy. Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” feels potent; Blondie’s “Atomic” feels like arrival, or return; Rihanna’s “Umbrella” promises shelter; Prince’s “Baby I’m a Star” is a strutting, audacious epiphany.
To begin working with these popartchetypes, to invoke and experience their energy, simply do your best impression of the artist. This invites into your psyche the archetypal energy they represent.
The music videos will show them in performance. Imitate their moves. Imagine you’re wearing their clothes. Sing, or lip-sync, just like me when I was a second-grader courting Princess Leia.
Personal Gods
Personifying emotional states can provoke outrageous responses from the unconscious.
For instance, Robyn’s song “Dancing on My Own” invites you into a narrative space of heartbroken jealousy. By singing and dancing along while imagining yourself in the situation the lyrics describe, you can activate powerful emotional complexes tied to your own past.
To represent these feelings, I’ve created my own goddess: Distressa, Goddess of Romantic Rejection.
As the song plays, I call on Her. As the emotion takes hold, I make-belief that I am Her and She is me. The more effort I put into it, the stronger the feelings become—until finally, it feels like I’m being torn apart by grief.
It’s wild. It’s disturbing. But it’s also gorgeous and deeply cathartic. When it’s over, and Distressa has departed, I feel cleaned out. Healed.
Field Effects
You don’t practice Possession for kicks. This is serious business.
To employ this Element in ceremony is to serve as a hot-blooded superconductor for archetypal energies. Your intention must be to bathe the crowd with this energy, and in doing so, bless them.
How effective this is depends on the resonant belief in the ceremonial space, and on how willing cadets and participants are to make-belief. If they see you go into ecstasy, understand what you’re doing, and are open to the experience, then—especially if in an altered state—they will feel it.
This is the phonomantic version of darshan: the sacred seeing in a person or image the living presence of a particular frequency of the Divine.
Possession and EFT
Possession brings together the theatrical techniques of Thespianize, the cognitive framework of Make-Belief, and the practiced visualization of Imaginal Exercise. It enables the channeling of divine energies through carefully prepared Eidolons of godforms, typically while on a Superheroic Dose, in a context of Resonant Belief.
Building on Archetypal Training, but taking it further into the direct embodiment of deity, Possession transforms individual practice into Service as the Phonomancer acts as a living conduit for divine energy, offered for the benefit of others in ceremony.
It will require, and thus benefit, the exertion of all your Antifragility, Executive Function, and Gnosis.
Assignment
Begin with personal gods. This is really just an extension of the archetypal training you’ve been doing since Combat Operations. Now, instead of inhabiting an established fictional character, you’re making your own—one that the God/dess can step into as a costume, so She can speak with your voice and gesture with your limbs.
Next: popartchetypes. Choose a musical performer who deeply moves you and clearly represents archetypal energy. Study their performances, movements, and mannerisms. Practice embodying them while listening to their music—first while sober, then with small doses of substantia.
Keep detailed notes in your journal about these experiments. What worked? What didn’t? When did you feel genuine connection versus mere mimicry? Pay special attention to any moments when you felt energy moving through you or experienced a shift in consciousness.
Only after you’ve gained competence with popartchetypes, and have found a mentor, should you consider working with traditional godforms. Your mentor will help determine when you’re ready, and guide you through your first attempts at true Possession in ceremony.
Remember: Possession is not mere performance art. It’s sacred.
Approach every attempt with a clear intent to serve others by channeling divine energy. If you’re doing it for any other reason, wait until your motivation aligns with Service.
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