The Fear of the Dark, Demons and Evil

The Journey to Self-Realization · Episode 13: The Fear of the Dark, Demons and Evil: Illusion or Reality? The Nature of Fear: When the Darkness Within You Takes Shape

As a child, Amina was shown exorcism horror films by her stepfather, who told her she had a demon inside her too. Until two years ago she had never slept a whole night with the light off. Then one night, stuck in a dream with a demon, she remembered a conversation with her teacher, looked at the being and said: “But you’re not real.” And it disappeared.

In this thirteenth episode, Amina and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about the fear of the dark, demons and evil. They explore how fear and belief can build what feels like a living being out of the collective consciousness, why protection only makes us weaker, and what really lies behind haunted houses, poltergeists and possession. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

Amina’s fear of the dark since childhood, and how a basic fear steered every choice she made
Fear-driven shamanism, and why protection only makes us weaker, like children growing up in a sterile home
Why there are no evil metaphysical beings, and how the dogmatic religions built a control mechanism around hell and demons
The golem: how belief and fear build seemingly intelligent beings from the collective consciousness
The dream where Amina said “But you’re not real”, and why a reference experience matters more than belief
Voodoo, black magic and psychosomatics, and why no one has power over you unless you give it to them
Houses with negative energies, the dead who linger in the Bardo, poltergeists and exorcism
The only evil on this planet, taking a break from the news and social media, and a life without fear

This podcast is for you if you:

Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Today’s topic: evil, demons and the nature of fear

Pål-Esben: A warm welcome to a new episode, Amina.

Amina: Thank you so much. I’m so looking forward to this, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: This is going to be exciting, because in the coming episodes we’re going to go deeper into the subject matter. We began to touch on it in earlier episodes, and now we’re going to move into a very taboo and highly charged subject that creates a lot of fear in many people. We’re going to talk about evil: what evil really is. We’ll talk about demons, evil forces and all these things that so many people are afraid of, and we’ll show that this is definitely nothing to be afraid of.

But it wasn’t like that at the start, Amina, when you began your process. How did you relate to these subjects, and how did they affect your life?

Amina’s background: imprinted with fear since childhood

Amina: We touched on it briefly in episode 1. Part of my background when it comes to evil and negative energies goes back to when I was a child and had a stepfather who frightened me terribly. He put on exorcism horror films, that is, films about little girls who were possessed by demons, and said that I had a demon inside me too: “If you’re not a good girl, you’ll go to hell.” I was put in a dark room, and he would come in wearing different masks and frighten me. That was a real imprint, one I’ve carried with me through my whole life, and it was reinforced when I went into different religions. I’ve been through Christianity, and I’ve been through Islam, with all this about heaven and hell: if you don’t do as you should, things will go badly for you. Fear and anxiety and the fear of the dark have marked my whole life.

It’s no more than two years since I slept a whole night with the light off for the first time in my whole life. I’ve always imagined beings in the dark. And when I went into the spiritual and alternative world, I was handed the idea that demons exist, that there’s darkness out there, and that there are evil forces that can get into us and take over our bodies. And that reinforced the foundation I already had around this fear. Of course I also understood that we are all one, and that in a way everything turns out fine, but also that while we’re here on earth, we can be affected by demons and negative energies, and that others can give you the evil eye, things like that. And I couldn’t quite make sense of this. We live on earth, and you learn that we have darkness and we have light and we need both, and that we need to accept our own darkness. But I couldn’t quite get a handle on what darkness really is, either. Am I supposed to accept demons inside me? Am I supposed to accept the darkness inside me? What’s going on here? So that’s a bit of the background, which meant that even though I went into spirituality, I wasn’t freed from demons, negative energies and things like that.

And it was one of the first things I came across, in one of the first rituals I went through at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School. I’ve written a bit about fear in my Book of Shadows, and I’d like to read a little from it here today. What I discovered was that I look at life through the lenses of fear. So that, in short, is the background here.

Pål-Esben: Can you tell us a bit about how it affected your life? You told us just now that you slept with the light on right up until two years ago, when you started your primordial shamanic process of development. How did these patterns and experiences, and the perspective you saw and experienced life from, affect your life as a human being, as a mother, as a friend, in every area of your life?

When fear steers every choice

Amina: Of course it permeated everything I did, through every relationship. With the fear of death and the fear in general, there has always been a basic fear there, through everything I’ve done, and I never understood that it was about the fear of demons. I understood that more and more in my process of development, my primordial shamanic process of development. It also meant that I’ve had a lot of these protection programmes of mine, where I’ve been self-destructive in relationships, towards myself, as a mum, because I’ve been very much driven by fear. The choices I’ve made have been driven by fear without me seeing it. And it’s as invisible as it gets. And when I say invisible, I mean that I’m more aware today of what was going on back then than I was at the time. So today I see that this is what has permeated all my choices, but I didn’t understand that back then. Back then I thought they were two different things: I’m afraid of the dark over here, but the choices I make are on the other side, and they’re not the same thing. But now I see that there’s a basic fear here that runs through everything I do, everything I think, and the way I look at life.

That’s also what has given me such a strong fear of death. Good heavens, I’ve called 113, the emergency number, so many times that if I’d really been in trouble, nobody would have come. They’d probably just have sent a taxi instead of an ambulance. Because it has been so deeply rooted in me.

Fear-driven shamanism: when protection reinforces the anxiety

Pål-Esben: A pretty extreme setting. And the problem, especially in the esoteric, alternative world, is that when you already have fear, the fear is easily reinforced, since people often talk about how you have to go out and learn to protect yourself. There are evil forces, and there are all these beings you need to protect yourself against, and there are many, many methods of protection. They really just fan the flames of the anxiety, and they often make the person even more afraid, even more paralysed. Because no protection will solve this problem. No technique or method of protection will solve it, and in this episode we’ll explain why that is, exactly what this is about, and how you can set yourself free from this irrational fear of what doesn’t exist, but which can be created by you yourself.

So I’m looking forward to that: killing off a few of the myths about this that are out there. Because I react strongly when people who are open and searching come into this alternative world and are met with this regime of fear and taught protection. And especially within shamanism too, where it’s all about protection and more protection and evil spirits, and people sending energy at you and so on. That’s what I call fear-driven shamanism. I react very strongly to that, to what it does to people who already have challenges and problems.

And we in our tradition are the exact opposite, because we work with what we call the Path of the Heart. In earlier episodes we talked about the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, that is, heart-based shamanism, where it isn’t about protecting yourself, but about how we find light in ourselves. And the more light we manage to kindle in ourselves, the less room there is for our own darkness. And that will ultimately be the conclusion when we’re finished today. So let’s now go into a bit more detail and talk about what this really is, how it’s created, and whether it’s completely irrational or something that exists.

Book of Shadows: the lenses of fear

So perhaps you could start by reading a little from your Book of Shadows? And if you, dear listener, don’t know what a Book of Shadows is: it’s a book we use in our tradition to describe and write down our experiences. From the moment we start a process of development, we write down what we experience, our challenges and how we solve them. And you’ve kept this diary, which we call the Book of Shadows, since day 1. So over to you, Amina.

Amina: Thank you so much. I’m going to read a little from 28 February 2023: “I got an image that made me jump. I felt I was ahead of what was being conveyed through the ritual. The image that came up was of a woman being burned at the stake. I felt anxiety and got chest pains. In the one second I had the image, it felt like an eternity, as if I’d been away for a long time and come back. After the ritual the pain in my chest stayed for a long time.”

And now I’m going to read a short excerpt from another ritual I did after that: “It took a long time before I got out of the garden, as if I were stuck in the darkness and in this troll. I greeted the ego and the fear, accepted it and said that I’m busy now, but I’ll deal with this later. At last I got to see my shamanic guide, which was the wolf, and how he led me to my shamanic studies, and how I’d had contact with him as a child. The wolf, who was supposed to be safe, suddenly became very scary. Beings from the dark came and wanted to ruin the moment. The wolf became creepy, but he asked me to remember who I was. A beetle-like being stayed in front of my eyes all the way back from the ritual.”

And I remember that: I got terribly frightened. I thought: “What on earth am I doing now? What is this Yggdrasil Shamanic School? Am I really going to get into this?” I mean, I got really frightened. And then it says here on the next page: “I’m left with a lot of fear, dread and anxiety. I sent an email to Pål-Esben. He said that what I’m experiencing isn’t abnormal. Many people who have experienced extreme things connected to death in previous lives, torture and so on, can experience similar fear. It’s easy to heal, he said, and it will in turn set free more of my talents. He also said that everything I experience in my shamanic Othala, that is, the place where we have our home and from which we make our shamanic journeys, is connected to the divine, but that some of the unpleasant beings are seen through my own lenses of fear. This is connected to karma, fear and trauma. The fear must be healed.”

What I did next was that I got some advice and tips from you about different rituals I could do to face these things in myself, to let go of them, to let go of these bonds. And here I see in my Book of Shadows that I used a unique primordial shamanic method to cut these connections. I also got a greater understanding of why I carry this with me today, and of things connected to the life I’ve been through. Because we’re very focused on practical steps, it has also been important here to look at what I can do alongside the energetic work. It isn’t as if I just did a ritual and then everything was fine. I’ve had to make some new choices on this path as well. But this is right at the beginning, the first fear I came across. I don’t come across the same thing any more. So the lenses of fear are very interesting.

What are these beings? The metaphysical existence

Pål-Esben: Yes. You’ve told us that you were very traumatised in this life through your upbringing, through how your parents treated you. You told us about your stepfather, and about how you’ve been imprinted by the biggest religions, which also talk about demons, hell and evil. Then you reach a point where you start a primordial shamanic process of development, where you actually see the whole of life from a perspective connected to fear. You call it the lenses, or the spectacles, you see and experience life through. The challenge is that if you’re then met by a guide or teacher who fans the flames of this, things can go really badly, because then the fear will get stronger and stronger. So the question is this: what is this fear? Because you really did experience these beings; to keep it simple, let’s call them what you call demons. You actually experienced it: you saw them, you felt them, you were scared to death. So what is this, then? Was it your imagination, or was it something more?

That’s what I’ll try to dissect here now, so that it becomes clear to you as a listener what this is really about, and what the reality around these things is. Let’s look at the metaphysical. We have our material existence: our body, our senses, this pen here, for example. That’s connected to the material existence. And around the material existence you have an energetic existence, that is, what I call the metaphysical existence, the non-physical existences. And in it there are many different kinds of beings, which we call metaphysical beings, and which don’t have a physical body. These beings are known throughout history as angels, power animals, gods and so on. To put it simply, we can call them beings of light. And none of these beings, these real, intelligent, actual beings such as beings of light, are evil or there to ruin things for us.

The religions’ control mechanism

It’s something that has been imprinted over the last two or three thousand years through the biggest religions, which have claimed that if you don’t do this and that, you’ll end up in hell. If you’re of the Catholic faith, you first have to go through purgatory, and only if you qualify there do you get into heaven. Pretty interesting stuff. And it’s no wonder people are afraid of all these invisible things, when we’ve gone through so many thousands of years with so much imprinting and so much fear around it. Fallen angels, demons, evil and all that. And all of that is nonsense. It’s something invented by human beings in order to have control over other human beings, that is, over large groups of people. So religion as we know it today, the biggest religions, especially the dogmatic religions such as Christianity and Islam, is a perfectly designed, intelligently designed mechanism for controlling other people. And this has nothing to do with the believers: those who believe in God, those who believe in Allah, can be very good people. It’s the institutions I’m talking about, the dogmatic institutions, which have raised this world on fear of something that doesn’t exist.

And it’s pretty brilliant, this invention of hell and demons and fallen angels and the whole thing. Because fallen angels aren’t what people think they are. They’re something else entirely, but that’s a completely different story. It has nothing to do with negative things. But when you’ve been raised on these things, it’s no wonder you’re afraid. It’s no wonder you begin to feel it and believe it. And when you feel and believe things enough, they can actually manifest for us. But what manifests is definitely not what people think: intelligent beings, demons. It’s something we manifest ourselves through our own fear.

The golem: how fear builds its own beings

And I’ll explain exactly how this happens. In Jewish mythology there’s something called a golem. This is a being created out of a lifeless substance, which can be clay, earth or dust, through a ritual, so that it comes to life. And when a human being who is imprinted by religion and by fear, and who has been raised on this, believes in it enough, that creates this golem. Or to put it better: it creates this being, which isn’t a being, but something created out of clay and dust, that is, out of our own belief system, which is also deeply anchored in our collective consciousness. So the very clay of this golem, of this lifeless creature, the building materials, is taken from the collective consciousness. And the collective consciousness of humanity is massively governed by fear, through all the imprints of the last thousands of years. So when a human being, like you in this case, has this belief system, and really believes in evil, believes in the demons and really believes in all this, then those feelings, your belief system, which has massive power, can take this clay or this dust from the collective consciousness. And then a golem like this manifests: a lifeless figure that has no intelligence, but is simply created through your fear and your belief system. And it can manifest inside your own energy system, and it can manifest in front of you, so that you experience it as an intelligent, frightening, malevolent being. It’s something created by you yourself, with your emotions and with the building materials from the collective consciousness, and it manifests for you in that moment.

So when you saw these demons, when you dreamed, or during the day, or whenever you experienced them, it was something that had arisen and built itself up out of you: your belief system, your fear, your anxiety. And that’s also the reason why it’s so easy to let go of them, why it’s so easy to heal these things. Because it isn’t about external beings coming in to get you. It’s about a belief system, your own emotions, your own fear, which has manifested something that looks like a being in front of you. That’s what you’ve experienced, and nothing else.

The closer to the light, the stronger the shadows

Amina: Images just came into my head while you were talking. Because what I experienced back then was that the closer I came to my own light, the stronger these demons became. I saw them more clearly, they had their very own personality, and thoughts and ideas that I just… That just isn’t me. It was as if the closer I came to myself and my light, the more it was reinforced.

Pål-Esben: Is this about these parts of ourselves not wanting to let go? That they don’t want to die out: is that what it’s really about? After all, we’re talking about imprints of belief systems here that are so anchored in us, so cemented in us. That’s not only in this life, but also through all the epigenetic imprints that come with our ancestral line, our biological ancestral line, over thousands of years, and which imprint us too. It’s called epigenetic karma. And all of that is there.

So when you then start a process to be able to let go of these things, when you become clearer and sharper and begin to remove the layers of fog… Because the challenge at the start was that everything was one big fog for you, and inside that fog there was a lot of fear. Suddenly a being jumped out of this fog, then it disappeared into the fog again, and then a new being came. That’s fog too. And when you begin your process of development, you gradually begin, with the help of your guide, to try to clear things up and get this fog to lift. In this case I was your guide. And then at the start you may actually see this more clearly. Because you need to see it more clearly. That doesn’t mean you need to identify with it, but you need to see it more clearly in order gradually to acknowledge that this isn’t something external, but something that actually comes from within.

And first we have to reach the point where you acknowledge that this is something created by your unconscious mind, through your imprints, through your fear, through your epigenetic karma. Until we get that far and can acknowledge it, there’s no way to get rid of this. And that’s the reason why at the start it can feel a bit intense for some people, since you then begin to touch it actively, directly. Before you met me, you had run from it and fled from it. You fled from it because it was the enemy; it was scary stuff. My task was to help you confront this, to face these things. Because there’s nothing to fear. But you can experience it. And what you say you experienced were intelligent, dangerous beings that had their own personality, their own character and their own way of speaking… You can even hear them talking in different voices. But it’s all created by you yourself, by your own system of imprints, the fear system and your own emotions, and the building materials are taken from the collective consciousness.

And that’s also why, when we started working with this, you were very sceptical at first, when I said that no, these beings don’t exist. You didn’t believe me much at the start, did you?

Amina: No, I didn’t. And then I thought: “I do think he says a lot of smart things, and there’s a lot of knowledge and wisdom here, so maybe I should let go and open up a little to the idea that it might be a bit different.” Because even though in a way I was clinging on to that belief system and having those intense experiences, there was something deep inside me that said it can’t be like that. That’s just not how it can be.

The turning point: “But you’re not real”

I struggled a lot for a while, especially when we went into the bigger meditation processes, where we were going into the silence. That was when I really, really got shaken up by it. Because then the nightmares came, lots and lots of nightmares. I’ve also struggled a lot with lucid dreaming through my life, where I’ve been stuck, where I couldn’t get out, where I’ve been held fast by demons, that is, by these parts of myself. A turning point came here, and it was after a conversation we’d had about identity, what we identify with, belief systems, things like that. And what happened then was that in a dream I met a demon and was stuck with this demon. From time to time all my life I’ve struggled with getting stuck in dreams, where I couldn’t get out, where I screamed and shrieked and nobody heard me, where in a way I was conscious, but couldn’t get out of it, even though it was a dream. But anyway, there was one night when I was stuck in a situation like that, and these demons came, and it was absolutely awful. And here you can see that when you begin to change, and begin to take in new information, and the belief system begins to change, what happens in your inner life and in your dreams also begins to change. So what I said then to this being… At first I began to get really frightened, and then, in that dream, I remembered the conversation we’d had together, and I looked at this being and said: “But you’re not real.” And at that moment, oh, I’m getting goosebumps all over now, at that moment it just disappeared. It was gone, because I didn’t believe in it any more. And that’s where the real process of freeing myself from that belief system happened.

Reference experience: don’t believe, experience

Pål-Esben: OK, it was only then that you really began to believe me. Because it was only then that you got a relevant reference experience. In our tradition we say that you shouldn’t believe anything at all, but find your own experiences that show what the truth is. And here you got the first real reference experience that what I said was true. And then the real process of development around these things can start. But it’s important not to misunderstand this, because it isn’t as simple as just closing your eyes and saying that this doesn’t exist. It’s a process of development you have to go through. It isn’t done just like that. It’s a process you need to go through, and it’s what has brought you to where you are today, no longer steered by this anxiety in your life. It would be a misunderstanding to think that now it’s just about saying, “No, these things don’t exist, and then my fear will be gone.” It isn’t that simple. It’s a path you need to walk, but with a suitable therapist, teacher, mentor or guide, it doesn’t need to take many weeks before it begins to loosen its grip, more and more.

What you often notice in the alternative world is that things are supposed to be so easy: that you just have to think positively, or just not think about it, or manifest in the right way, that you just have to flip that switch and change the way you think. And yes, you do have to, but it isn’t as easy as that. And that also makes people think: “Oops, this doesn’t work,” because here you’re really going into depth. And in the process you’ve been through with me, we’ve done quite a lot of work.

The courage to face the fear

And it has taken a lot of courage. Because if you as a listener haven’t experienced the kind of anxiety Amina is talking about: this is extreme. It’s so extreme that it steers pretty much your whole life. And confronting these things also takes courage. At the start it isn’t that easy to engage with these things. It takes a fair amount of courage just to get started with it at all.

Amina: Yes, absolutely. For my part, I’ve probably drawn it from the same courage that has got me through everything I’ve been through. That strength, that “oh, I’m going to manage this”. But it definitely hasn’t just been easy, not at all. It really hasn’t.

Pål-Esben: And it’s almost impossible to solve these things on your own. Then you need a professional mentor, therapist, whatever it is you have, who can really take the practical steps with you and guide you, step by step, through what needs to be done to free yourself from this irrational anxiety, which feels very real. So we mustn’t underestimate this. If you experience these things, and you experience that some evil being is nearby, inside your energy system, or inside your body, or hanging around outside, it’s a real experience. But it has nothing to do with reality. It’s something our unconscious and subconscious mind has created through imprinting, through fear, with the bricks and building blocks from the collective consciousness.

The paradox of protection: the sterile home

And that’s really very good news, because then it’s possible to solve this. Then you don’t depend on learning the most perfect ways to protect yourself, which actually work in exactly the opposite way to what you’d think. Because protecting yourself is the worst thing you can do if you want to solve the kind of problem we’re talking about. Why? Well, I usually use the example of children who grow up in sterile homes. We know from modern research that the kids who grow up in sterile homes often have big problems with their immune system and are often ill all the time. Children who grow up in the opposite of sterile homes, for example on a farm and so on, get their immune system triggered and trained continuously as children, and that means they’re ill much less often as adults. So the challenge with every form of protection is that you make yourself weaker and weaker all the time, so that things get worse and worse, and you depend on finding stronger protection methods. And when they don’t work so well, you go on the next course and learn even stronger protection methods. And that has the exact opposite effect, because it just makes you weaker and weaker.

The art here is to make sure you learn what it takes. We talk about how we spread this light within ourselves, and that also includes how we heal the foundation of our fear, the foundation of these complex imprints. And that’s one of the things we do through a primordial shamanic process of development.

But the way this can be experienced is also very real. So if you as a listener experience these things, and you feel there’s a being standing in front of you sinking its teeth into you, and it’s unpleasant, I respect that experience, because that experience is real. But it isn’t a real being. It’s something that has arisen from you, with your subconscious and your imprints, in combination with the building blocks from the collective consciousness. And over two decades I’ve worked with many thousands of people, and it’s the same every time. If they reach the point you reached, and are willing to look at these things… Some aren’t even willing to look at it, because they say, “That’s just how it is, and I need protection,” and then I can’t help them. But in your case you said: “OK, I’m scared to death of it, but I trust you enough to be willing to start discussing this subject.” Then it’s up to the guide how we ease our way through this, so that it doesn’t become too much. Because if it becomes too much in too short a time, you grind to a complete halt. Then all the fear comes up, and all the ego’s guardian programmes begin to kick in. So we need to tread very carefully here at the start, as we did then.

Believing in yourself: holding your own space

Amina: Yes, I had to take a longer break from meditation until I’d come back into myself a bit again. And for me this also represents believing in myself. When I began to come more out of this fear, or out of meeting these beings, I still found that when I went into meditation, they could suddenly pop up from time to time. But I was able to handle it better than before. What I found very interesting, though, was one of the rituals I did with you, together with my fellow students. We were sort of led down into meditation in this ritual, and I experienced nothing scary that time. Everything went fine; I felt safe. And that made me reflect afterwards, and I talked to you about it: why didn’t any beings turn up during that ritual, when if I do it myself, I’m terrified, and then they come? And then we talked about how a big part of it is that I don’t have faith in myself, faith that I don’t need protection. I have more faith that someone else can hold this space for me, and that it’s safe. So that was also an opening for me to have more faith in myself: that in a way I can hold myself, and I don’t need anyone else. And that’s all well and good; perhaps you need that a little at the beginning, too. But it was good for me to see it that way: if these beings really exist, then they must also exist when someone else is the one holding the space for me. So that was also a big aha moment for me.

Pål-Esben: Yes, and an important one. Because when you don’t feel safe… In the setting you were in, you did feel safe; you surrendered, since at that point you trusted me enough to be able to surrender to the process. You felt a sense of safety. And when you got home, to yourself, at that time you still weren’t quite secure in yourself: “When I sit here now and calm down, and it goes quiet, and if these things turn up again, I find it so unpleasant…” Then you’re in a real fix. But it’s also something you gradually work your way through with a bit of help, and in time you gained this trust in yourself, so that you don’t need others in order to feel safe. Pretty cool. It’s called self-empowerment.

Amina: Yes, really. It’s about taking your power back.

Can others send us negative energies?

But when it comes to the idea that others can send us negative energies, how does that fit into this picture?

Pål-Esben: Yes. Look, let’s start on the most banal level. You’re sitting in a room, and there are three people sitting there who are extremely negative and destructive. You come into this room, and you feel that the whole atmosphere is unpleasant. Our heart radiates an electromagnetic field, which is modified and reshaped by our thoughts and feelings, so that it extends up to two or three metres away from us. And when you sit within two or three metres of a person who is incredibly negative, the music their heart radiates, the electromagnetic field, that is, the physiological radiation, becomes part of your electromagnetic field. It modifies the heart rate variability of your own heart, and it means that unpleasant emotions and feelings can arise in you. But that’s how it works on the very coarsest level, and it’s something everyone knows: when you find yourself among very negative people, you often become negative and depressed yourself.

But that isn’t what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about how much power other people have to influence us at a distance: how we feel, think and experience life. And here we come to the subject of black magic, for example, where you hear that certain black magicians have learned how to control other people. And up here in Norway we have these things too. What I believe is that it’s harder to prove that there’s anything real in other people being able to have power over you, however much they’ve learned about energetic things. We find this in voodoo, for example. Where are these countries, the best-known country that practises voodoo, Amina?

Amina: Mexico, Spain… I don’t know. One of the islands in the Caribbean.

Voodoo, black magic and the power of psychosomatics

Pål-Esben: One of the islands in the Caribbean, with the greatest density of voodoo and hoodoo priests. An island nation, that is. Now the name has slipped my mind; I just can’t think of it right now. Very well known. The thing is, if an inhabitant of that island wakes up in the morning, opens their door and sees a goat’s head hanging on it, which is, for example, a sign that one of the voodoo priests has cast black magic on this person, then this person can literally fall ill and die. But that comes through a psychosomatic reaction, through being raised in a culture that believes these voodoo priests have this fantastic power over other people. It’s a psychosomatic reaction that comes through a strong belief system. Because if these voodoo priests in Haiti, for example, had had such gigantic power, then surely some rich people in this world would have hired one of them to kill politicians like Putin and Trump and Obama, or whoever it might be that they don’t like. They’d have paid a voodoo priest like that a few thousand euros and said: “I don’t like that person, so kindly kill them.” And history shows that it doesn’t work like that. They have absolutely no power, as long as people aren’t imprinted with the belief system that gives them power. Because if they’d had power, they’d be ruling the world as it is today. Then Haiti would have been the country ruling this world. They’d have ruled it with fear: “If you don’t do as we say, you’ll die.” And of course this is bullshit; there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of. The problem is if you have a belief system that believes a person has power over you, physically, energetically and in other ways. Then you have a problem. Because if you then experience or hear that someone or other has sent negative energies or black magic, you’ll say: “Good God, now that person has sent negative energies at me, black magic. What do I do now?” And then suddenly you begin to say: “I feel so bad, I feel weak, good God, now I feel ill.” And then you can experience the discomfort, but it comes as a psychosomatic reaction.

Self-responsibility: nobody has power over you unless you give it

Over more than two decades I’ve come across many people who have been furious with me for saying this. Because your task is to strengthen the light within yourself. I’ve come across many who say: “That person did this to me; that’s why I feel so bad. Can you do something to that person? Can’t you protect me against that person?” And of course all of that is nonsense. Because what this person needs is to understand that no one has power over us unless we ourselves give them that power. But for us to be able to change this, we also have to be willing to take self-responsibility for our own life, instead of blaming someone else: “So-and-so is throwing negative energy at me, and that’s why my life is rubbish.” Self-responsibility means that I take responsibility for my own life, I take responsibility for how I feel and think, and I take responsibility for my actions. Others can do whatever they like, but I take responsibility for myself. And then the process of freeing yourself from these things can start. It’s as simple as that.

Now take an exceptionally well-trained black magician, of the kind we might find in India, in Mexico and a couple of other places, where there’s a small handful who are truly exceptionally trained. At best they can project a stream of energy into a person, so that suppressed parts of the personality come up to the surface, and that’s unpleasant. But it takes pretty extreme abilities, and of course it brings a great deal of karma for those who practise it. But that isn’t a problem either. Because if someone projects energy into a split-off part of you, or a suppressed part of your personality, and it comes up to the surface, well, then you also have the opportunity to begin healing it, since you’ve become aware of it.

And in these two decades I’ve never done anything to protect myself. And I can tell you this: there are people who have tried to send the dead after me, or whatever it is they send and get up to, but it’s nothing at all. I do absolutely nothing to protect myself. I’m perhaps the one who sticks his neck out the most. So those who disagree with me, and who are irritated and furious with me because I talk about fear-driven shamanism as opposed to heart-based shamanism: several of them have tried their tricks, but it’s all just smoke. Nothing takes hold. Nothing. That’s because our task isn’t to learn how to protect ourselves, but to learn how to kindle this light within ourselves. It’s like a dark room: where the darkness is, you experience things as dark and dim. But you just have to flip the light switch, and then it’s light, and then no darkness can exist. And that’s what we’ve been through: from coming from a place where it was so dark, so desperate, to flipping the light switch. It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually we’ve turned the dimmer up more and more, and that’s why today you’re in a completely different place from where you were when you started.

Giving away your power

Amina: Yes. This is a subject I’m passionate about: fear and anxiety and the fear of death and the fear of demons and evil forces and evil energies, and giving away your power. And there’s something very empowering about being where I am today, where I never blame anyone for what I feel or how I’m doing. At the beginning you may think it’s impossible to think that way, because you can often feel a bit like a victim, or feel that it’s someone else’s fault. But when you really get into this self-responsibility, that I’m responsible for myself, and that nobody can really do anything to me unless I allow it, it’s such a good feeling. Yes, talk about empowerment.

Houses with negative energies: the karma of the room

But when you talk about negative energies, another question comes up. Something I often hear about is people who perhaps come into a house and say: “There’s an evil spirit here; there are some negative energies here.” People might talk to this spirit, feel it, guide it out into the light and so on. Sometimes it comes back, other times it doesn’t. Sometimes you hear that it’s a human being who haunts the place, other times that it’s a demon that’s stuck. What’s going on here, Pål-Esben?

Pål-Esben: Apart from what you said about demons, this is real. What is stuck here? There are mainly two things that can be stuck. Now we’re talking about a house, a room, a garden, a property; let’s stick to a flat or a house. You come into this house, this flat, and you experience this uneasy feeling. You may get goosebumps, or one side of your body may feel ice-cold. That’s something real. And this discomfort can come from two things. One is the energetic vibration of the room, you could say the karma of the room, or the energetic imprint of the room, which is imprinted by the people who live in the house and the people who have lived there. If, for example, you’ve had a house where people have quarrelled and fought for years, these emotions, which are really energy, and these energy patterns, will fill the room and become part of the room, part of the walls, part of the energy system of the room and of the house. And when you come into these rooms, you’ll feel it at once: you feel tired straight away, and you feel this is something unpleasant. So it comes directly from someone having lived there, and it can be trauma, murder, deaths, quarrelling, whatever it is. And for a shaman this is very easy to clean up, since you just run through a shamanic cleansing ritual, and then it’s gone, if it’s done the right way.

Bardo: the dead who won’t move on

The other is if you feel there’s something moving inside the room. You might come over to a spot in the room that’s ice-cold, for example over in a corner. Perhaps you hear footsteps, the floor creaking upstairs, doors and windows banging at night, things like that. And that’s connected to the Bardo. Perhaps we’ll talk about the Bardo in an episode of its own: what happens just before we die, what happens just after we die, and how the process of incarnation itself works. But what happens when a human being dies is that they cross over to what is called the intermediate realm, which in the Tibetan Book of the Dead is called the Bardo. It’s the realm between the material existence and what’s called the realm of the dead, or our next incarnation. This intermediate realm is really a place of regeneration before we move on, where we gather experiences, and where we make peace with what we have and haven’t done in an incarnation, in a life, before we move on. There we still have a deep contact with the earth and the people and the place we come from. And here it can happen that some who come into the Bardo bring such strong energy with them that they’re bound, for example, very strongly to a house, to a room or to certain people. That may have happened because they died through a trauma. So they won’t move on, but cling to a house, a property, a room. And then we say the place is haunted, as it’s called, by dead people who are creating problems in our house. And that is absolutely real. But it’s about dead people, not angels, beings of light and the like. They’re people; we’re talking about people all the time here, it’s just that they’re dead and aren’t willing to move on. And what we do then is as you say: you get someone who’s qualified for it, a qualified shaman whom you hire. The shaman makes contact with the dead who are hanging around in this room, and through a gentle process helps them understand that they’re in the wrong place, and helps them move on to where they belong. I’m in favour of a heart-based approach here too: instead of coming in with the sledgehammer and throwing them out, you do it in a way that lets them go in peace, so that they don’t need to come back. If you throw them out without going through a process like that, they often come back again. That’s the difference between a skilled shaman and one who isn’t quite so skilled.

Amina: That’s very interesting, and I think it may be important for many people to hear this perspective, because you often think that either it’s a demon or it’s a human being. Yes, it can be a dead person who’s still there, but it can also be about energy in motion, an emotion, that is, something that stays in the walls, whether it’s because of quarrelling, a lot of desperation or a lot of destructiveness. Could you say that it can take on an identity of its own like that, just as my inner demon took on an identity in me?

Poltergeists: when a qualified shaman is needed

Pål-Esben: Yes. So we mustn’t underestimate our own belief system, our beliefs, what we stand for, what’s connected to our imprinting, and how much power it has over us. We mustn’t underestimate that. So I have empathy for people who experience this and truly believe it’s reality. I have empathy for that. But the good news is that it’s incredibly uncomplicated to let go of this, so that you get well again. And to take this a bit further: the most powerful cases are when we come to those who are lingering in the Bardo, that is, when we get into poltergeist activity and these things. Then it can get a bit more complex, because there is poltergeist activity where tables and chairs can move through the room and so on. But it’s always connected to a human being who is dead and who has a deep connection, typically to one of the people living in the house. And then you need a very qualified shaman, or someone similar, who knows what they’re doing, to get it stopped. Because that can be challenging: in a setting with the most complex poltergeist activity, you can actually get hurt. Then you need to know what you’re doing: how to paralyse them first, then make contact with them, and then, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, whatever it turns out to be, make sure they’re sent on to the light. Handling poltergeist activity is a completely different category of difficulty for a shaman. But I’ve actually very rarely come across extreme cases. Usually it’s just the floor creaking a bit and the doors banging a bit, and that’s harmless stuff. But when tables and chairs and glass vases begin to fly through the air, then you have to be a bit careful. But that sort of thing is very rare. I think I’ve only experienced it a couple of times.

Demonic possession and exorcism

Amina: Yes, this is getting very exciting. And it’s fun that I’m sitting here today able to talk about these things, which are actually scary, and say that this is exciting. Because now I’m starting to think about how what’s called demonic possession has actually been documented. Among other things, there’s that film I had to watch when I was seven years old, with the girl who got a demon inside her. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but such episodes have apparently really happened to people. Is that also about a part of yourself that’s really just playing out its role?

Pål-Esben: Correct. There are no demons. So this is also a game played by religious institutions. And it’s something that in the most extreme cases can seem very, very real, but it’s exactly the same thing we’re talking about. And the more fear-oriented a person is, and the more of these especially religious fear imprints a person has, in combination with perhaps some traumas connected to these things, the more insanely powerful this can become. You have to see that the power that lives in a human being is really beyond belief. Take a mother whose child is hit by a car and ends up under the wheel: the mother is then capable of lifting this car, weighing a tonne or two, so that the child gets out. That has been shown too; it’s something real. So then we can imagine the power that lives in us when it’s channelled through and with fear. Remember, this isn’t something a person decides to do. This is something that happens in the unconscious and the subconscious, in relation to the collective consciousness, our imprinting and so on. So it’s exactly the same.

And then of course it’s very impressive if you manage to take a part like that out through exorcism, as you find in the Catholic Church. Good trick, that. In reality you’re removing something that doesn’t exist, but that exists only in the system, in the consciousness and subconscious of this person. And it’s fed by what is at times massive energy from this person’s fear system and emotional system. So this golem is created, this being made of the lifeless substance, the clay, the dust from the collective consciousness. And it can be experienced and felt and seen externally, by people observing, as something very real. But there are no malevolent metaphysical beings. I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, and I’ve never met any, never heard of any, never had any make themselves known to me. Never, never, never. And none of the qualified shamans I deal with have ever experienced these things either, and they’re people who have been at it for many more decades than me. Never. It’s something created by us human beings.

The only evil: the evil that lives in human beings

So when, for example, a shaman down in South America talks about demons, it’s often a misinterpretation and a mistranslation. When Europeans, for example, come back from a shaman retreat where the shaman talked about demons and so on, they think these are external beings. But what the shamans are talking about are the demons that live in human beings. That’s the only evil that exists in this biosphere we live in, on this planet. It’s the evil that lives in human beings. And that evil comes through the choices people make, and how they choose to act with their resources. There’s no other evil in this part of the universe we live in. In other parts of our universe there are areas where other forms of evil exist, but that has nothing to do with this quadrant of our galaxy that we live in. So where we live, in our solar system, and especially here on the planet we live on, the only evil that exists is what lives in human beings. And we see that, too, in how we humans are destroying our planet: we wage war on each other, we spread fear to each other, we destroy each other. Imagine what the whole world would have looked like if we’d had a society and a world that was heart-based and heart-led in its behaviour, rather than ego-led and fear-led. Then we would truly have been living in paradise. It is paradise on earth, it has been paradise, and hopefully one day we’ll get to the point where humanity gradually understands that where we’re heading now leads to nothing good.

And that’s also one of my passions, which drives me in what I do: trying to be at least a small counterweight to the madness in this world, where we’re fed fear and anxiety all the time by social media, the news and the people we meet. You go completely loopy, totally cuckoo, from following the news and social media today. And I see so much anxiety in people who come to me, and it’s mainly connected to the wrong use of social media and the wrong use of the news. That’s one of the first things I start with when I work with people struggling with anxiety and fear: a break from social media and a break from the news, so that they can begin to calm the system down. And it’s fascinating to see what happens to a person when they begin to take a break from this for a few weeks.

A media break: calming the fear system

Amina: Yes, I can vouch for that. There are periods when I go several days without being on social media and Messenger and Instagram and things like that. And it’s recharging, really. I think it’s fun to be there and interact with others, but I also think it’s really important to take a break. So I really recognise myself in that. And that also brings you to what you let influence you, and how it can support the belief system you have, either positively or negatively. And going back a little to what you were talking about: a believer goes to a priest and says, “Hi, I have a demon inside me,” and the priest says, “I can help you take it out, my dear believer.” And then you sprinkle a little holy water, and then it’s all fine. That just confirms the belief system. The same with me, when I was at a hypnosis session where I met this demon, and we saw it and carried it out into the light and things like that. Yet another confirmation. So it’s just about being a bit open to asking yourself: am I seeking confirmation of the destructive belief system I have, or am I opening up to set myself free? Could it be something else, could it be something more, whether it’s about the demon theme or other kinds of themes in your life?

A life without fear

Pål-Esben: I completely agree. Because our life can be lived without fear, without anxiety, without this unrest. And you’re proof of that, many of your fellow students are proof of it, and many others are proof that it really is possible to live in the world we live in today without being filled with anxiety and fear. But it takes a bit of courage to let go of this. As long as you do things to protect your fear, which means you aren’t willing to look at what we’re talking about here… Perhaps you as a listener, sitting there now, are extremely irritated and angry about what we’re talking about. Well, that’s OK too. Then you have a protection system protecting the status quo, and that’s OK as well. But you can also choose to begin letting go of it: letting go of the anxiety and the fear and the unrest, and instead using your resources to fill your life with meaning and happiness and joyfulness, which is at least what I’m about here. You don’t need to live your life with fear and limitation. You can also live your life with excitement, meaning and joyfulness. And we’re not talking about living with joyfulness from morning to night every day, but about a life in general where you’re content, where you feel this calm, where you feel you’re in the right place, and where you feel this bubbling up inside you over the meaning of the life you’re living, whatever happens in life, and whether or not people agree with what you think. It’s possible. And that’s where the primordial shamanic process of development leads, for those who have the courage and the will and the commitment and the authenticity to begin living these things out. So I just want to congratulate you on that, Amina. I’m so incredibly proud of what you’ve achieved in this short time, and of how, with this alone, you’ve transcended your life to such a degree.

Amina: Thank you so, so much. And I have to say that I feel extremely lucky that I met you as a teacher and guide. I could easily have ended up in another shamanic community, or another spiritual community, that fed this whole business of demons. Then I’d have had some lovely, fear-oriented lives ahead of me. So I feel extremely lucky, and I’m very, very grateful for the way you’ve helped me and guided me: guided me back to myself. Really. And it’s great that I’m now doing exactly the same myself, with my own students. I find that so joyful. Because helping people out of this irrational fear of theirs, which sets life back so much and holds life back so much, is a gift. And you just need to find yourself a suitable guide.

Pål-Esben: And you’re quite right about this. I picture the scenario where you’d found a teacher, a guide, who had just reinforced the fear you had, and who had said to you: “Amina, you need to learn protection. I’ll teach you very powerful ways to protect yourself.” Then things wouldn’t be looking so good for you today, I’m convinced of that. Then you’d have been even further inside your hamster wheel of fear, and that would have been particularly unfortunate. So I’m very glad you plucked up your courage and wanted to face these demons we’ve talked about, and to begin to see what this is really about. Perhaps you could round off now: how do you feel today, Amina, when it comes to anxiety and fear of demons?

“I’m free of anxiety and fear around demons”

Amina: I’m free of anxiety and fear around demons. But if I have a bad day, if I’ve been ill, if there’s been a lot to do, a lot of stress, I can feel the old belief system smouldering. But I don’t believe in it. It’s more like an old cassette player that I can hear crackling a little, an echo of it, but I can carry it in a completely different way. I don’t sink down into that dark place, I don’t believe it’s real, things like that. But I also acknowledge that I’ve carried this with me for 32 years, soon 33. You shouldn’t think that when you’re going to free yourself from an autopilot, or a way of being… If you’re free, you’re free, and in a way you can be that too, but you’ll always be vulnerable to your old autopilot. So, no, I won’t draw any parallels here, but I just want to say how much it means to be able to hear that echo in a completely different way from how I did before. It means a lot to be able to have contact with my own light, to feel the silence, and to carry it in a way that says: OK, this is part of my story, and I don’t need to carry it with me into the future, because the only thing that exists is right now. And the more life I give to the old, the more it also comes into the future. So I’m so glad of that gift: that I can see my old autopilot in that way, and have contact with inner harmony, joy and peace, and get in touch with parts of myself that are hard to put into words, that I didn’t know existed, and that we’ll certainly talk more about in another episode.

Closing: take a look at your own belief system

Pål-Esben: We have lots of exciting things in store in the coming episodes. We’ve warmed up here with a somewhat complex subject, and we feel we’ve got there reasonably well. But if you as a listener have questions, or suggestions for topics you’d like us to take up in this podcast, we’d really appreciate it. Just go to our website. The address is the Norwegian name of the podcast, “Reisen til Selvrealisering”, written as one word: reisentilselvrealisering.no. You can reach us there, or wherever else you can get hold of us. Because in time we’d like you to be able to take part in our podcast too, so that we can get more in touch with you as a listener. Because we’re doing this to inspire you. We’re doing this to give hope, and to show that there is a solution to the challenges we humans have. That’s our intention, at least, Amina. Do you have any words of wisdom to wrap up today?

Amina: Yes, I do. I’d like to inspire you, dear listener, to take a look at your own belief system. Where do you come across a limiting belief system in yourself, whether it’s about demons or other things? Where are you stuck in fear, in an imprint or a belief system that perhaps was never really yours? I’d like to invite you to explore that belief system: can I see it in a different way? Could it be a programme that’s just stuck on repeat? And I’d invite you to dive a little into what may be a bit uncomfortable, what you perhaps don’t want to look at, what lies in the darkness, so that in time you can also experience what the darkness is really about.

Pål-Esben: Yes, and there’s no shame in seeking help either. Because when we deal with subjects like these, we’re often very subjective, and they’re challenging to deal with on our own, so seek qualified help. We hope we’ve done as good a job as we can today. And we never really know what we’re going to talk about: we decide five minutes before we start, and nothing is scripted, so we take it as it comes. That’s also the reason why we sometimes miss the mark a little, and why I don’t always quite know what I’m saying, but that’s just how it is; that’s just how we are. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.