The impact of ghosts on physical, emotional, and psycho-spiritual well being source back thousands of years ago to the shamanistic roots of Chinese medicine. From the shamanistic perspective, disease can be caused by one of three things. Wind refers to external factors that we cannot control, such as weather patterns and environmental conditions. Qi refers to internal factors that we can control, such as thought patterns and emotional conditioning. The third category, Gui refers to ghosts, which in modern scientific parlance is called parasitism— a non-mutual relationship between species, where one species— the parasite— benefits at the expense of the other— the host. Ghost possession translates to sharing your body with anything that derives power and life force from your body, leaving you drained, sick, weak, or not feeling like yourself.

In everyday life, we experience so many things that hold us back from freedom, joy, and unity. A “ghost” is a wandering spirit that is fixated on a past memory or a longing for a desired outcome in the imagined future. This ghost is the part of us that is unable to live within the present moment and haunts us through its unwillingness to let go. Ghost possession is a psycho-spiritual state that obscures the authentic self. It is the state of losing touch with ourselves when our beings are temporarily ruled inhabited by visiting pain-bodies manifesting as addiction, obsession, doubt, anxiety, worry, rage, or fear.

In Chinese Medicine, we always approach the body, mind, and spirit as inseparable, integral parts of a whole being. In the physical realm, parasites are a broad category of invasive creatures that take the form of insects, worms, viruses, bacteria, spirochetes, and “bad” gut flora.  In the psycho-emotional realm, parasites can be seen as a formless version of invasive creatures, such as repetitive thoughts, conditioned emotional reactions, habituated behaviors, pain-bodies, and distorted belief structures. Whether these parasites have physical form or are formless, they all prey upon their host, draining their life force and stifling their potential as a mechanism to make themselves stronger, bigger, and more powerful.

Tonight is the night to honor Samhain— to welcome in the harvest and usher in the dark half of the year. As the barriers between the material world and the spirit world become more permeable, it is the best night of the year to acknowledge the ghosts around you and within you, see what is possessing you, and set yourself free from all the things that haunt you. The underlying philosophy of shamanistic medicine is intentionality— the practice of directing consciousness into psycho-spiritual development through the use of intuition and plant medicines. Rituals are an integral part of the medicine itself, as healing relates to performing an invocation designed to illuminate consciousness. Channel your inner shaman and send your ghosts off in a compassionate farewell ritual— burn incense, light a candle, take an epsom salt bath with lots of essential oils and settle down with your true self for a nice, warm affirming cup of tea. Happy Halloween!!