Hierarchy of Spirits

This next bit of documentation is also taken from 'Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits And Haunted Places, by Brad Steiger.  As you've likely already noticed that a lot of material on this blog refers to this book.  It is an amazing non-fiction book, only it's more than that.  It's like the bible on supernatural phenomenons.  It is a book I highly recommend if you are into further educating yourself on the subject.

     Dr. Wilson Van Dusen is a psychologist whose books include 'The Presence Of Other Worlds'(1994), 'Testimony To The Invisible:  Essays on Swendenburg' (1995), and 'Beauty, Wonder, And The Mystical World(1999).
 
     Dr. Wilson Van Dusen believed that the lives of human beings are dependent on a relationship with the hierarchy of spirits.  As a psychologist in a state mental hospital, he set out to document his patient's hallucinations.  Although he noted similarities between all the descriptions by his mental patients and the views of another scholar, Swedenburg's(1688-1772, an 18th Century intellectukal colossus and Renaissance man, who wrote 150 books in 17 sciences.  Some described him as a Swedish mystic who claimed to have communication with Angels, Demons, and other inhabitants of the unseen world), discussions of the relationships between humans and spirits.

     Wilson Van Dusen was able to deal with individuals suffering from hallucinations, schizophrenia, alcoholism, brain damamge, and senility.  He found he could communicate with the hallucinations his patients experienced, and discovered that some patients were embarassed by what they heard or saw.  On other instances, the hallucinations were reluctant to interact with Van Dusen, seemingly frightened of him.  Once reassuring the patient and the hallucination, he attempted to establish a relationship with both his patient and the hallucination.

     Van Dusen advised his patients to give a description of what the voices answered or what was seen, treating the hallucinations as reality because that was what they were to the patient.

     His findings, word for word from Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, And Haunted Places:

     'On numerous occasions, Van Dusen found that he was engaged in conversations with hallucinations and that the dialogue was far above the patients level of comprehension.  He found this to be especially true when he contracted the higher orders of hallucinations, which he discovered to contain and exist in a symbolical depth beyond the patients normal understanding.  The psychologist also learned that in most cases the hallucinations had come upon the patients very suddenly.  A consistent finding was that the patients believed that they had somehow established contact with another world, dimension, or order of beings.

     Van Dusen soon learned that all of his patients objected to the term hallucination.  Each had coined his own term, such as the Other Order, the Eavesdroppers, and so forth.  The voices the patients heard were completely audible and human languages and on occasion would assume the qualities of someone known to the patient in an attempt to deceive them.  Such pranks and the shouting of vile and obscene messages and threats were the work of the lower order of entities.

     Members of the lower order suggested lewd acts and encouraged the patient to indulge in them - then they would scold the patient for having even considered such thoughts.  These beings sought to find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably.  According to Van Dusen, "They invade every nook and cranny of privacy, work on every weakness and credibility, claim awesome powers, lie, make promises, and then undermine the patients' will.  They never have a personal identity, though they accept most names or identitiess given them."  Van Dusen found the lower order consistently anti religious and some actively obstructed the patient's religious practices.  Occasionally they would refer to themselves as demons and speak of hell.

     The higher order of hallucinations stood in direct contrast to such demonic manifestations, but Van Dusen found that they made up only a fifth or less of the patient's experiences.  The higher order respects the patient's  freedom and does not work against his will.  While the lower order prattles on endlessly, the higher order seldom speaks.  Van Dusen also discovered that the higher order is much more likely to be symbolic, religious, supportive, genuinely instructive, and communicate directly with the inner feelings of the patient.  In general the higher order is richer than the patient's normal experience.'

     Van Dusen wondered whether the hallucinations of his patients were 'detached pieces of the unconscious,' as his colleagues would suggest, and that the phenomenon of spiritual possession 'might not simply be two ways of describing the same process.  Are they really spirits or pieces of one's own unconscious?'

     Van Dusen was quoted as saying: "Humans contend that we have free will, but in actuality, we could be freely poised between good and evil, and under the influence of cosmic forces most of us don't even believe exist.  The decisions made by human beings, believing that they are exercising their free will may actually be resultant of other forces.