In Haitian Vodou the Spirit world is like a mirror of the physical world. It is another way of referencing microcosm and macrocosm.
"Pa manje nan men moun" - "Do not eat from people" is critical to understanding how to avoid parasitic energy, from others and in yourself and your spiritual court. This is saying to create, cultivate, or gather your own nourishment/ energy/ food. Create or work for your own. Do not take from others. This goes further spiritually into love, self-worth, and validation. Do not sustain yourself by leeching from others. Do not try to make other people feel empty so you can feel full. Find another way.
In nature on a microbial level there are "autotroph microbes" who make their own nutrients and energy; there are "obligate or facultative predatory microbes." Facultative means that the microorganism has the ability to switch between different modes of nutrient acquisition. They are able to grow either as free-living organisms, consuming nutrients from their environment, or as predators, preying on other microorganisms. Obligate means that the microorganism must use one means of acquiring nutrients for it's entire life cycle or it dies. There are obligate and facultative varieties of autotrophs, predators, and parasites.
If the physical world mirrors the invisible worlds then it follows that there are spirits of these categories as well, and perhaps even an archetype or collective consciousness. We see larger physical manifestations of these categories in nature. Many animals such as herbivores or prey animals do not engage in predatory or parasitic action to obtain nourishment.
We generally think of nature in terms of "strong eat the weak" and either predator or prey. This is a false dichotomy in my humble opinion, because we overlook the third means of obtaining nourishment and energy; the parasitic means. It does not just eat from or prey on others; it colonizes and takes over the prey from the inside out. The parasite is an enemy to both predator and prey. A little of all nature is in us all unfortunately, which includes parasitic energy.
My personal upg (unverified personal gnosis) is spiritually we are susceptible to something like parasitic worms, or something like a mind virus. We get infected and this spirit hijacks our mental and spiritual machinery.
I don't think this phenomena is often a specific spirit or energy vampire seperate from the body, but more like the spirit version of cordyceps... driving from inside in a different way than possession operates. It is more like a parasitic infection than a mount.
It's important to note that {my guess} is that the spiritual parasites are very "alien," in a general sense of being alien, and are responsible for a persons behaviors... The spirit of the human is dormant or "tied up" outside their body, still tethered.
It took a lot of networking and digging to find information on parasitic (or vampiric) spirits, related to living spirit traditions.
We will find that the spiritual manifestations of the parasite archetype have identical or extremely similar mechanical behavior patterns: -person to person, even across cultures, same behavioral mechanations and repetition compulsions
-are generally hidden in plain sight under the behavioral surface
-Intense societal impression management
-avoid/ dodge acknowledgement -Behave in a repetitive compulsory way, like a broken record
-and wreak absolute havoc in peoples heads in a spiritual, psychological, and inter-relational context .
The mechanations of spiritual parasites are emotionally infectious and spread like a virus through our inner voice, especially our inner critic voice. A virus is actually a parasite as we can see here:
"All viruses are obligate parasites; that is, they lack metabolic machinery of their own to generate energy or to synthesize proteins (process nourishment), so they depend on host cells (victims) to carry out these vital functions."
"Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that can exist as potentially active but inert entities outside of cells.
"... all virus infections have some features in common. These include an entry phase, an intracellular phase consisting of multiplication, integration, or latency formation, a virus release phase, and usually some sort of host responses to the presence of a virus infection."
"Viruses are small and relatively simple microbes that cannot grow outside of living cells, that is, they are obligate intracellular parasites.
A virus cannot grow outside a living cell, hence why spiritually this virus is attracted to Life, and feeds on Life.
A virus enters a cell by attaching to a specific receptor on the cell membrane specific to the virus. The virus then uses these receptors to gain entry into the cell. Once inside the cell, the virus hijacks the cell's machinery and uses it to replicate itself. Eventually the virus takes over the cell's normal functions. I am proposing that this is also how spiritual parasitic energies work on us.
The receptor is a deep rooted childhood pain, insidious trauma, or some other neglect or abuse in early childhood which creates an emptiness; a dead space. It is like a vacant room in our head which attracts squatters. It could be many small traumas over time, or one serious trauma. The trauma interferes with the childs development of their individual sense of Self, personality, balanced perceptions of reality, attachment to and perceptions of Love. These are the items meant to occupy that empty room.
When a child is raised by people theoretically infected or who generally behave in a parasitic style, they do not allow the child to become his or her own authentic Self. The adults force their own personality, likes, dislikes, and beliefs on the child as if making an identical copy. This exacerbates the emptiness. A false Self is created instead of an authentic Self.
The viral entities seek out deep pain, deep wounds, spiritual voids, psyche fractures or whatever, and fly in as if the person were a house with all the windows and doors open, attach to the wound, feed it and fill the psychological empty space, but varies depending on the type of root wound in my opinion.
Scientifically we say viruses, "lack metabolic machinery of their own to generate energy or synthesize proteins." In spirituality and magic we say, "lacks ability to connect to Divine love, Divine Source, the Universe etc." In psychology they say, "lacks healthy attachment to love in childhood" or "anxious avoidant attachment style."
Across science, psychology, and spirituality the mechanics, root or receptor is similar, and a "permeated cell wall" is similar to a wound, like a gaping hole where a tooth was pulled; a hijacked machinery; a missing Source love (mother is God in the eyes of a child); a missing Source energy connection.
This results in a person who is unable to generate their own source of energetic or spiritual nourishment. The person externalizes their worth, because inside is empty. They require external validation and adulation, always proverbially needing to drink from others cups, because there's a hole in the bottom of their own. The person does not only prey on others to sustain theirself, but permeates and replicates in those they drink from like a virus, like a vampire feeding on blood and sometimes exchanging blood to make a "pet." It's a complex lengthy set of compulsary repeating behavior... being dead inside, denying it, over-compensating, grasping at fantasy, sucking Life out of others, and using that to try and feel alive theirself, always ultimately failing and then repeating to try again to revive the dead inner Self/inner child.
Through history these spiritual energies or entities have been called many things, "vampires, witches, loup garou, qayin, or wetiko." Parasite is most accurate in my opinion, because of the way this force of nature changes appearances, the way it breaks down a persons invisible barriers, and the way it infects peoples minds. My Ougan would refer to this force of nature as "evil bitch fleas," if a spirit could be like an infestation of fleas, operating like a collective consciousness, and changing form like a dark cloud.
"Wetiko" has a perfect description. "Wetiko" is a term used in some Indigenous American spiritual traditions to describe a kind of psychic virus or parasitic entity that feeds off of human fear, anger, and confusion. The concept of wetiko is said to have originated with the Cree people of Canada, and has since been adopted and adapted by other Indigenous American communities.
According to the wetiko teachings, the parasite is a kind of psychic virus that operates through the human mind, often in a subtle and insidious manner. The parasite is said to feed off of negative emotions such as fear, anger, and confusion, and to use these emotions to manipulate and control human behavior. The wetiko parasite is also said to be contagious, and can spread from person to person through social and cultural systems that reinforce negative emotions and behaviors.
In some Indigenous American traditions, the concept of wetiko is seen as a way of understanding the effects of colonization, genocide, and other forms of violence and oppression on Indigenous peoples. The wetiko teachings suggest that these forms of violence are not only physical, but also spiritual, and that they have created a kind of collective trauma that perpetuates the spread of the parasite.
While the concept of wetiko is not universally accepted across all Indigenous American spiritual traditions, it has been embraced by many people as a way of understanding and addressing the impact of colonization and other forms of violence on Indigenous communities.
Why do people avoid studying and discussing parasites and parasitic behavior?
This is our (and natures) cringe de la cringe, our gross, our shame, our icky and our creepy nightmare. This is the profoundly gross, dead rotting archetype of nature. Personally, I have a terrible time looking at images of a tapeworm for example. It gives me heebie jeebies. A virus or a parasite illicits similar heebie jeebies when put under a microscope, but we need the microscope. It is so much more convienient spiritually and psychologically to avoid the microscope and pretend the parasites are not there. I believe facing and accepting the same type of Spirits and facing the result of someone being hijacked by it create similar intense urges around denial and avoidance. Again, these parasite energies threaten predator and prey types alike. There is no shame in accepting it's presence. It's just gross. We can all be gross together.
It is important to also note the facultative parasite. Some do not always choose to prey on people. In nature there are also types of parasitic energy which acts as a medicine to humans, like cordyceps. It is a terrifying parasitic fungus to invertebrates, and an excellent medicine to humans. Similarly, I believe it is possible for some parasitic spirits to be beneficial, but I have nothing beyond the rough idea.
The most concerning inspiration for this series of blogs is the predatory parasitic personalities within religion and spirituality. Mental health professionals, especially in the field of addiction studies, but also with other types of disorders or survivors of abuse looking to heal, are often recommended to seek out a higher power. The poor person works so hard to heal one parasitic infection of the mind, and then sometimes walks right into another; a religious or spiritual group with a parasitic predatory personality at the top feeding on everyone.
It does not take a full fledged cult anymore for this to exist. People will lose their sense of Self and sense of individual Spirit in plain site, because the cell permeation has become so subtle and when the mental machinery is taken over it is a slow takeover, until one day a family wakes up and realizes they do not know mom anymore, or dad anymore, or a child anymore. The unique individual personality of the loved one slowly diminished right under the families noses, and it was not apparent until the person is gone. The wheel is turning but the hamster died... Something new is there... The proverbial "DNA material" from the parasite that permeated their head.
If we study the patterns of parasitic energy, behavior and patterns we can prevent this in ourselves and avoid the energy in others.
It is difficult to distinguish a predatory personality style from a parasitic personality style, and difficult to identify the parasitic patterns across religions and traditions. That will be the blogs to follow.
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