Summoning Ghosts


Below are excerpts from Wanda Pratnicka's book
"Possessed by Ghosts - Exorcisms in 21st Century" 

There are people who summon ghosts just for recreation. It's a way of filling some spare time or of spending an evening with friends. I see many victims of spiritualist séances. These people don't realize that they're playing with matches in a barn full of straw. When they start their game it doesn't even enter their heads that it may have tragic consequences. It can happen that when they are affected it is often too late because the "barn" has burned down, and they, who have been "burned" will be tending to their wounds for a long time, even till the end. This can happen to anyone regardless of age, gender or education. I know that children, too, play these games, inspired by stories or some film. It can be that the summoning of ghosts is taught by some television program - I have come across this personally. I was horrified while I was watching it because I know what harm it will bring to those viewers who may want to try summoning ghosts themselves. The producers of such programs concentrate only on one side of the coin. They try to rouse the greatest possible emotional response in their audience. Maybe they don't take into account the consequences of their broadcast, in other words the misfortune which those imitating it will experience.

I'm not asking for sensitive subjects to be ignored. But they have to be done wisely. There can be no surprise that bombs go off if one passes on the recipe for making them. That is not a metaphor. I know from my own practice of many instances where all the participants of a séance, after summoning ghosts, fainted they were so electrified, like they'd been struck by lightning. If things had ended there they'd have been very grateful because they'd only been properly frightened. More often than not, however, it doesn't end there. In one army unit after the summoning of ghosts half the brigade ended up in the military hospital. Then some of the soldiers were taken to a psychiatric hospital where many of them are still being treated, five years on. In another place, meanwhile, during a lesson of religion a priest was asked about ghosts and was so enthused by the subject that he taught the children to summon them. The consequences of this "game" were similar to those affecting the soldiers. Their results have lasted till today even though all the children have long grown up.(...) 

Someone who summons ghosts for a game isn't concerned about their peace so there's no question of respect. That's why a ghost will approach a medium differently than it will a person who's just wanting entertainment. If someone plays games at the ghost's expense then ghosts, too, can harm people by playing games. And we're not talking here about a little lesson but about serious consequences which can last throughout someone's life. I'm not writing this to frighten anyone but just to show the results stemming from an ignorance of the deeper aspects of this game. Judging by the numbers coming to me we're talking here about a quite considerable amount of victims who didn't know what they were doing while they were summoning ghosts. The consequences of such experiments are lamentable regardless of the age of the games' participants.(...) 

I've even had parents of children that are a few years old coming to me.(...) Sometimes these games end in hospital, even psychiatric ones. To a large extent the consequences are dependent on which ghost has taken control of the child. If the child has been possessed by a drug addict's ghost, the child will suddenly start taking an interest in drugs. Despite our most determined efforts there will be no way of freeing the child from the habit. I'm not going to analyze all the possibilities here now. It's enough for me to say that the child may start to steal, curse even if it never had done before, start fights, drink alcohol, attack its parents with a knife in its hands to kill them, suddenly fall ill, start to fear everything, stammer, get allergies etc. Every sudden change may be a sign that ghosts have hooked up to our child. The same applies to adults.(...) 

Please don't imagine that adults are safer when it comes to summoning ghosts.(...) The ghosts may not possess them immediately but may remain in the house where the spiritualist séance was carried out. Then a family member, without suspecting anything, may be possessed. It's a bit like cigarette smoke which, though we don't smoke, we inhale. It can happen that the person summoning ghosts may do it just the once and become possessed or may do it several times and not be visited. Only the umpteenth time they may notice that there is something bad happening to them or someone in their circle of friends. Some will then start to look for help, others delude themselves with the hope that it will go away by itself. But it rarely does. At the very beginning the visitation may be almost imperceptible especially if the ghost is of an agreeable disposition, but once the channel has been opened other ghosts can enter till there can be so many of them that a person can't cope. It's like a wasp in the meadow. When there is just one, the likelihood of being stung is not very high. But when we draw one out of its nest we won't be able to get away from it and, in addition, the entire nest may come out, enraged, and then it is far more difficult to deal with them. We won't have anywhere to hide and they will attack us all at once.(...) 

To come back to ghosts. The conviction that when a person dies they suddenly have access to all sorts of possibilities that the living haven't must be brought into doubt. It is not true that ghosts know everything because "everything can be seen from up there". If that's what you think then you are in error. A person doesn't change at all after death. A person remains the same with the same faults and virtues, the same fears and emotions, the same limited knowledge and ignorance. And in all this we don't take into account the viciousness of ghosts or replies given just for a joke. For ghosts adore playing with people's naiveté.(...)