The Shamanic Healing Way (continuing): intrusions

Diseases and disorders caused by intrusions

Illnesses related to intrusions include inflammations and fevers, skin diseases, viral and bacterial diseases, rheumas, headache, fibromas, cysts, lymphomas, other tumors, cancer.
As I've said, misfortune is often due to intrusions or soul loss or both.
Intrusions, especially in the chest or the head, may cause emotional disorders too. Intrusions in the head cause mental tension, headache, negative thinking, delusions. In most cases, though, mental and emotional disorders are caused by entities more complex than intrusions (demons). The illness which arises depends on the intrusion's power as well as on the victim. So the disease will develop in the most vulnerable part of the body, where a soul weakening (soul loss) has left a void behind.

Amazzonia
An Amazonian shaman shooting a dart with a blowgun. The victim will have to call on another skillful shaman to extract the magic intrusion.

So the illness is "friendly" on a deeper lever, because it makes us aware of an imbalance we didn't know about.
For instance, being abandoned by a parent may cause a soul loss affecting lungs and skin. So future intrusions will cause lung and skin diseases.
An extraction will heal the disease, but the person will be prone to further illnesses - they'll often begin to suffer from a dermatitis as soon as their lungs heal. The problem won't be solved until a soul retrieval restores the energy balance.

Intrusion removal

Shamans can remove the extraneous energies by luring them into a trap, as people do to flies with honey (q.v. intrusion capture). Otherwise they can extract them directly. I'll describe both methods in the section on Healing techniques.




Bonds between sick people and intrusions

What makes it difficult to remove an intrusion is the emotional bond between a person and his/her disease. They just don't want to let go of it.
Shamans experience intrusions being extracted and appearing back after awhile, as if they regenerate.
This is untrue, of course, as untrue was the spontaneous generation in biology. Dirty places do not produce bugs, but bugs are attracted by dirty places.

Intrusions often fill an inner void, a hole a soul loss left behind. This makes an emotional bond between the intrusion and the person, who will miss it and call it back.

More on intrusions

In some cases the intrusion's return may look unavoidable: I happened to treat a man suffering from a permanent ankle injury due to the previous surgical removal of two bone pieces. This damage caused inflammation and pain.
An extraction relieved the problem for awhile, but inflammation and intrusions eventually turned up back.
Actually this is another case of a bond between person and illness: he was used to a self-image according to which his ankle was impaired and such attitude would draw the intrusions back.
Retrieving the ankle's soul (namely the ankle's life essence containing the functionality of it) may help, but the client is requested not to resist and to let go of his mind models.
Such stiff models are less well-grounded than they look: wild animals can stand severe damages to junctions without inflammation or pain! That's why extractions are far more effective on children and animals!


Demon extraction

Some intrusions, having a more mental nature, are less simple entities inducing compulsive behaviors.
Such entities, which I call demons, affect the consciousness, hence they lie midway between intrusions and possessions. I'll discuss them when it comes to possessions.