Evil spirits are a fact of life

In my culture, the prehistoric Danish sorcerer is called an aandemaner, witch literally means ‘spirit invoker’. Aandemaneri (spirit invoking) is considered an art.
More often than not, the aandemaner invokes the spirits, so they come to the place where he or she is. Occasionally the aandemaner will trance travel to other locations and practice his art there.
Most of these other locations are in places, the modern shaman might call, the physical world; and some of these other locations are in, what the modern shaman might call, the non-physical world, spirit world, dream world, parallel world, un-ordinary reality etc. As I am both a modern shaman and an aandemaner, I use both terminologies, witch sometimes creates confusion.

I suppose one might say, that modern shamanism is based on information and explanations, that can be processed intellectually; and aandemaner art is based on magic, that can not be processed intellectually, and therefore can not be explained.
Modern shamanism can be taught verbally in the classroom by human teachers; whereas aandemaner art ‘happens to you’, when you spend extended periods of time alone I nature, and ‘things’ rub of on you (if you let them). Of course, some of the ‘rubbing of’ can be described – but not the magic.

I should like to emphasize, that everything I say, is only an expression of my personal experiences, opinions and thoughts. I do not claim to be right about anything. And tomorrow, you may here me say quite the opposite of what I am saying today.
In my tradition, shamanism is very much about learning to use your mind in many different ways for many different purposes; and thus become able to reach many different kinds of conclusions. In my kind of shamanism, contradictions are quite normal and considered to be useful.

In my tradition, it is an axiom that bad things are caused by evil spirits, and good things are caused by good spirits. Many shamanic traditions seem to agree on this.

What is an evil spirit?

Let me start by temporarily defining a good spirit, as a spirit entity that has more spirit power than it needs; and an evil spirit, as a spirit entity that has less spirit power that it needs. Everything and everyone needs spirit power. A soul without spirit power is like a car without gas. It can’t function.

A common shamanic way of using one’s mind is to personify every’thing’. You experience every’thing’ as people/persons. A tree is a person; a bear is a person etc. In many shamanic cultures people may regard these persons as relatives. Mother Earth; Brother Bear etc. When applying your mind in this particular shamanic way, there are no ‘things’. Everyone is a person. Everyone has/is soul. Everyone needs spirit power. It doesn’t matter whether you are a plant, a star, or an animal – and it doesn’t matter whether you have a physical body or not. A ghost is a person who has a ghost body. A dream is a person who has a dream body. Ghosts and dreams are people who have/are soul and need spirit power.

From a modern shamanic perspective, one might say, there are two sources of spirit power: nature (physical), and the spirit world (dream world, non-ordinary reality etc.) - and it is the spirits who facilitate the spirit power. Therefore, you need to get to know some spirits and develop good relations with them. To develop a healthy relationship with someone else, you need to negotiate the relationship, so it becomes satisfactory to both parties. This requires spiritual social skills. One of the shaman’s most important functions is to teach his people these spiritual social skills, so their souls can be filled with spirit power – the more the better. It is desirable to be a spiritually strong person.
People, who do not have sufficiently healthy spiritual relationships with spirits, can not access enough spirit power. It is undesirable to de a spiritually weak person. And what do people who suffer form spirit power deficiency do? They steal from others!

An evil spirit is a spirit entity who feeds of someone else’s spirit power!

How do they operate?

Evil spirits possess people and steel spirit power from them. They ‘make’ their host steel spirit power from others, so they may have more to steel from their host.
I imagine most people have experienced being in a room with a person, who is extremely attention craving, and who sucks the energy out of everyone else.
However, this does not necessarily mean, that the person is an evil person. More likely than not, he is possessed by an evil spirit, who is ‘making’ him behave this way.
It cannot be emphasized strongly enough, that every adult person is responsible for his own demons. It may not be his fault he got them in the first place, but it is his responsibility to get rid of them - with or without help from others.
There is no acceptable excuse for behaving anti-spiritually to other people. But of course, his demon will try to persuade him otherwise.

I get a lot of ‘recovering’ addicts in my shamanic practice. These days, it is common knowledge, that addiction may also be defined as a spiritual disease. Even doctors and psychologists (more of less reluctantly) are beginning to accept this. A person who is possessed by a gambling devil (evil spirit), is being ‘made’ to do bad things against his will, by an evil spirit, who is stronger than he is – and the addict experiences powerlessness. Addicts steal a lot of power from other people.
Fortunately, not all evil spirits are as powerful as the gambling devil. They come in all shapes and sizes. The most common one is probably the ‘little selfishness’ demon. Don’t we all have one of those?

It is not within the scope of this article to describe how shamans and aandemaner sorcerers actually exorcise evil spirits, although it’s the most important part of their healing work.
However, afterwards the client must learn the necessary spiritual social skills, and develop relations with a good spirit (higher power) who is stronger than his demon.

About the author:

During a vision in October of 1989, John Russell-Møller (born 1946) was apprenticed to be a Danish aandemaner (sorcerer) by two spirit aandemaners, and they have been his mentors ever since. He spent 7 years training as a modern shaman and 10 years training to become an aandemaner. Since 1992 John has had a private shaman practise in Copenhagen, Denmark. In the summer he practises in the Swedish part of Sápmi (Lapland) in the Giron (Kiruna) area, 100 miles north of the Artic Circle.