When someone dies, i.e. leaves the physical body, his soul/Jivatma exists in the Pirtulok/spirit world, till it is time for the next birth. But in case the soul is still deeply attached to things related to that life, environment, relations, deep and especially negative emotions, or even its physical body (if it is buried, and not given in the fire then water properly);  then it becomes difficult for it to progress into its new existence. It cannot ‘sleep’. The first step into the pitrulok, is a period of rest. The soul is extremely tired with the efforts of the life it has lived, and recovers as it ‘sleeps’. During this ‘sleep’, its attractions to its previous life are dissolved as far as possible. After some time it wakes up, gets used to its astral existence, takes stock of its karmic balance and chooses its new place of birth.

But if it is still deeply attached to its previous life’s stuff, highly materialistic, emotionally attached, has deep cravings, addictions, etc, it refuses to enter the pitrulok and remains attached to some physical object in the Martyalok/physical world, a house, a tree, a person anything. It then becomes a ghost/pretatma. This is very inauspicious phase (paap yoni) and a step backwards as the soul tries to return to the environment of its previous life rather than moving onwards. Thus is gets stuck. It is already very tired after its ‘living’ phase, so its higher self tries to get it to move forward into the Pitrulok, but its misplaced desires is a barrier. It is quite confused, oppressed, frustrated, angry and sad.

These ghost souls are very rare but they are. An example, saw this on one of my clients. e.g. assume that someone was addicted to gambling and frequents a specific place where gamblers meet. After the soul left the body, it cannot not shake off its desire to gamble thus gets attached to this gambling place. Now it cannot participate in the gambling, so it watches the other living people and gets even more frustrated. So it then temporarily possess the bodies of the living and gets its thrills. The living person is not aware of this temporary possession, but he does realise that whenever he enters the gambling place now, he suddenly feels more excited and his desire to gamble is heightened, etc this is the effect of the ghost’s temporary possession. So places of low level desires, e.g. gambling, bars, red-light areas etc, have these ghosts mingling among the living.

When someone is possessed, however temporarily, the ghost uses his pran/vital energy. Thus you will see that such people lose weight, fall sick, become listless physically, emotionally unresponsive, skin becomes cold/clammy etc. The person’s electrical body goes into a shock and the burden of the parasite/ghost drains it. This drain is dangerous. I have written about haunted houses earlier, where my body’s interaction with a house at the electromagnetic levels told me that something was wrong. All our interactions are electromagnetic in nature.

This above phenomenon is thankfully quite rare. But living people often say they are being ‘haunted’ or ‘possessed’. There are a few other reasons for this. Most commonly, someone who is afraid, with a weak mind or with a hyper-active imagination, can imagine a ghost in every shadow. This imagination can get quite vivid and he is quite convinced. This is a sort of a self-hypnosis where the person for whatever reason projects ‘ghosts’ around him! The power of thought. To ‘cure’ this faulty thought process, there will have to be a equally vivid counter-idea put to him. Generally educated/rational people do not suffer like this, but this is quite common in backward areas. Now what to do if you think someone is ‘possessed’ or thinks he is possessed. If the person has created an auto-suggestion of being possessed, asking him what he wants, is a useful counter-suggestion. Most of the times it is as simple as alcohol or a cigarette or some food item. It is given with the strong instruction that he stops being possessed. And the person stops the self-hypnosis of his ‘possession’. Ensure that he gets a good diet, head/body massage with ayurvedic oils, plenty of sunlight and if possible a small vacation to refresh his mind. (Cleaning out the house and environment of negative energies also helps immensely.)

As always, small children must be protected from interactions with negative energies, thus they are not taken to places of where there is trauma, or morally wrong things happening, or graveyards/cemeteries, never take them at twilight or in the dark under trees or near water or near ruins etc. Children can see too much and also have limited strength of mind and body thus can be affected quite easily by ghosts draining their pran.

If the person has actually been possessed, (most likely temporarily possessed) by low level ghosts. he too will ask for something small related to the senses which can be given to him with the strict instructions that it will leave now. Generally these are souls of people who had a death-bed wish of eating something, travelling somewhere or meeting someone. Not actively malignant, just dejected and frustrated.

Then there are the benevolent ghosts, aged people from the family who are stuck because of their tremendous love for someone in the family. In such cases they may help by providing guidance in danger etc. It would be ideal if you can show them the way onward and push them on it, by performing a Tarpan/energy ritual for the deceased. Then there are the malevolent ghosts, people who died young, young mothers/expecting women, people addicted to bad habits etc. These have very strong and selfish desires and may want to drag their favourite person/person with similar tastes down with them to the pret yoni/ghost phase. Possession by these can be actually dangerous. Best engage a shaman/tantrik to deal with them.

Writing a bit on how tantriks work. The easiest is to catch a ghost soul, turn it into a slave which will do whatever is being asked. These are always unwilling and always ready to turn against their captor. Most tantriks, as their powers of control fail, come to a bad end as their slaves turn against them.

The second type of tantrik uses his own powers to create a ‘shadow’/chhaya from his own energy which goes away from him and does his work. This is like a robot, no separate consciousness of its own, but if the tantrik dies before he can dissolve his shadow, this shadow can continue existing especially in uninhabited places and seem to be ghost. This ‘ghost’ is something like a bio-particle. In my earlier post on haunted houses, I have written on the bio-particles of deceased persons adhering to stuff in empty houses, which when occupied by living persons again, become reanimated and appear as hauntings. It is easy to remove such residual bio-electricity. In these cases, a ghost soul is not involved.

The rarest things are when the person is possessed by a higher level entity (pishachya, vetal etc). This almost never happens, but then a tantrik/shaman will be needed if you ever come across this.

So the gist is, if you ever feel that you are being haunted or your client is being possessed, 90% of the time it will not be because of a real ghost soul. Of the remaining 10%, also 9% will be the low level spirits whom you can easily deal with either by giving it the small thing it desires and/or family doing the tarpan ritual. Strength physical, mental and emotional is essential if you are to resist these forces and help them move out into the Pitrulok where they now belong.