Where to begin David? This is an incredible story of your unwavering effort to overcome a significant challenge (PTSD) over the years. The quest involves searching for answers, asking for help, receiving help from various sources, self-examination, and connecting to the spiritual sources of healing. PTSD doesn't normally disappear with one ritual and I would suggest that your efforts over the years and any of the good things you've done for others culminated in the inspiration you received to do the ritual that night (possibly coinciding with an important astrological transit...the planets also represented in the sephirot). Incredibly you were guided to take spiritual matters into your own hands and make good things happen.
There's much I would love to unpack with you regarding ritual, intention, preparation and creating a protective field to invite wanted energies while keeping harmful ones out. From my own experience of a spiritual crucifixion that expanded my consciousness I will say that it's likely you were very spiritually 'open' after your healing experience and required extra protection during your post-healing integration period to venture into a world that is largely unprotected. These entities feed off emotional energy such as fear, disgust, hate, despair etc. They attach to those who are holding more light too only when that person is vulnerable and too open.
Demonic possession is much harder to exorcise than entities and tends to require more than an invocation of protective forces to break the bond. I agree with Oren - it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them. Dealing with a dubbuk is more difficult than dealing with an entity masquerading as dead Aunt Betty.
I think it's wise that you're continuing to invoke and honour the benevolent forces will continue to build your protection and support healing/purification. Working with the tools of the physical and non-physical world can go a long way to expanding our consciousness, purifying our mind, and alleviating the pains that manifest as mental health issues and physical illness.
I hope readers can receive your message about the importance of considering non-physical influences of health and that not every influence is going to have a neat and tidy explanation. Sometimes it just is.
Thank you for sharing your experiences - the good and bad - that illustrated the complexity of spiritual work and its potential in our lives.
As we yids say - Kol Hakavod for the return of good mental health and may your practice and investigation into the depths of the mysteries be fruitful, healing, and enlightening.
I find it interesting that something akin to demonic possession shows up repeatedly across many unrelated healing disciplines; see overview here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us (The author tries hard to figure out a rationalistic explanation for the phenomenon, but he discusses the cases dispassionately.) My wife is currently studying Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and the founder of that method, Dr. Upledger (a Western-trained surgeon), reports having encountered hostile entities (and other, more benevolent entities) during his work. (Tangentially, this essay by Eric S. Raymond might be interesting: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html)
I am tentatively willing to call the entities "demons," given the discussions in the Talmud etc., though the English word carries a lot of baggage.
(One comment about the Tree of Life is that a lot of the discussions of it in Western magickal traditions are superficial. I would not say that Malkhuth represents "the earth and the physical world," or at least not that alone. One can cautiously draw a limited analogy to Yin and Yang, in the sense that these two attributes are not static, but are relational and dynamic; Thing A can be Yin in relationship to Thing B, but Yang in relationship to Thing C. Similarly, the sefirot describe not merely spiritual locations, but relational processes. I am no Kabbalist, but I've done enough reading to wince at most Western discussions of the sefirot.)
Thanks Oren! Yes, I certainly understand how/why Orthodox Jews would wince at how we western occultists have appropriated the Tree of Life over the centuries! :) I know that there's much more to it than this more superficial approach. And I plan to dig into it more in the coming years.
Where to begin David? This is an incredible story of your unwavering effort to overcome a significant challenge (PTSD) over the years. The quest involves searching for answers, asking for help, receiving help from various sources, self-examination, and connecting to the spiritual sources of healing. PTSD doesn't normally disappear with one ritual and I would suggest that your efforts over the years and any of the good things you've done for others culminated in the inspiration you received to do the ritual that night (possibly coinciding with an important astrological transit...the planets also represented in the sephirot). Incredibly you were guided to take spiritual matters into your own hands and make good things happen.
There's much I would love to unpack with you regarding ritual, intention, preparation and creating a protective field to invite wanted energies while keeping harmful ones out. From my own experience of a spiritual crucifixion that expanded my consciousness I will say that it's likely you were very spiritually 'open' after your healing experience and required extra protection during your post-healing integration period to venture into a world that is largely unprotected. These entities feed off emotional energy such as fear, disgust, hate, despair etc. They attach to those who are holding more light too only when that person is vulnerable and too open.
Demonic possession is much harder to exorcise than entities and tends to require more than an invocation of protective forces to break the bond. I agree with Oren - it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them. Dealing with a dubbuk is more difficult than dealing with an entity masquerading as dead Aunt Betty.
I think it's wise that you're continuing to invoke and honour the benevolent forces will continue to build your protection and support healing/purification. Working with the tools of the physical and non-physical world can go a long way to expanding our consciousness, purifying our mind, and alleviating the pains that manifest as mental health issues and physical illness.
I hope readers can receive your message about the importance of considering non-physical influences of health and that not every influence is going to have a neat and tidy explanation. Sometimes it just is.
Thank you for sharing your experiences - the good and bad - that illustrated the complexity of spiritual work and its potential in our lives.
As we yids say - Kol Hakavod for the return of good mental health and may your practice and investigation into the depths of the mysteries be fruitful, healing, and enlightening.
I find it interesting that something akin to demonic possession shows up repeatedly across many unrelated healing disciplines; see overview here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us (The author tries hard to figure out a rationalistic explanation for the phenomenon, but he discusses the cases dispassionately.) My wife is currently studying Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and the founder of that method, Dr. Upledger (a Western-trained surgeon), reports having encountered hostile entities (and other, more benevolent entities) during his work. (Tangentially, this essay by Eric S. Raymond might be interesting: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html)
I am tentatively willing to call the entities "demons," given the discussions in the Talmud etc., though the English word carries a lot of baggage.
(One comment about the Tree of Life is that a lot of the discussions of it in Western magickal traditions are superficial. I would not say that Malkhuth represents "the earth and the physical world," or at least not that alone. One can cautiously draw a limited analogy to Yin and Yang, in the sense that these two attributes are not static, but are relational and dynamic; Thing A can be Yin in relationship to Thing B, but Yang in relationship to Thing C. Similarly, the sefirot describe not merely spiritual locations, but relational processes. I am no Kabbalist, but I've done enough reading to wince at most Western discussions of the sefirot.)
Thanks Oren! Yes, I certainly understand how/why Orthodox Jews would wince at how we western occultists have appropriated the Tree of Life over the centuries! :) I know that there's much more to it than this more superficial approach. And I plan to dig into it more in the coming years.
That sounds like such good news! I hope that your cured state endures.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Happy three years anniversary, David! 🎉 Also, I must say, this was a fascinating article to read. There's a lot to unpack here.