If you do something long enough you're given the opportunity to learn and progress, but first the situation must be acknowledged and concluded or the lesson is lost.

Several years ago a woman, I'll call her Pam, sent me a letter describing how a friend of hers had rid herself of TMJ with the help of a hypnotherapist in New Orleans. Pam explained how her friend had spoken to her hypnotherapist about a condition that Pam had, had for some time. Pam's condition had never gone away, despite having seen several doctors and specialists. The therapist suggested a procedure that he had just heard about. This "treatment" involved hypnosis and said that it may help some people with a physical illness that does not respond well to traditional treatments. The therapist felt it might be of some help in Pam's case. The therapy the doctor referred to is called Spirit Releasement Therapy.

Pam and her friend have had a long history with many doctors of different professions to help eliminate their respective health problems. By this time Pam had become very familiar with alternative medicine because of the reactions she had encountered with medications prescribed for her.

Pam listened attentively to her friend while she described this procedure. But still she had reservations about a procedure involving a hypnotized subject; undo influences, attached entities, and past lives. The idea that the client didn't even have to know about the therapy taking place and the client would not need to be present, was a real stretch of reality for Pam. The whole thing sounded too strange for her.

A few weeks after being introduced to Spirit Releasement, Pam's friend had received information about a hypnotherapy conference where I and my wife would be presenting. Pam and her friend did attend and become very interested in Spirit Releasement, the main focus of that day's discussion and demonstration. She researched the subject for several weeks after the conference. When she was convinced the procedure had some validity and could possibly help with the painful migraines she had, had for at least eight years, Pam wrote to me describing her medical history and asked for help.

Spirit Releasement is a therapy used to identify and then rid a person of undue influence that could be caused by a variety of attached entities; most often there could be an earthbound entity (aka ghosts) or possibly a dark entity (demonic in nature). Of course, at times no indication of undue influence is present. If this is the case other therapies are suggested. When indication has been noted, a vast array of entities have been found "attached" to a host. Most of these attachments mean no harm to any one, but nevertheless still have an effect on the well being of the host.

Some have called Spirit Releasement an exorcism, but this is incorrect. In an exorcism performed by a Roman Catholic priest all spirits found with a subject are considered demonic and will be "cast out in the name of Jesus". Or to put it another way "cast ye out" of this poor soul and allowed to enter someone else or even something else. An exorcism can take hours, days or even over the span of weeks before results are noticed. Spirit Releasement is used to identify the cause, understand the connection of the two souls, and resolve the connection to the benefit of both the host and the attachment. This procedure can take as long as three hours or more, but some cases can take as little as one hour. A few cases can require more than one session.

Only one Spirit Releasement session was done for Pam. The session started as normal. I induced a hypnotic state in my wife Ramona (aka hypnotized subject) in Kirksville, MO. I asked Ramona's higher self (the subconscious) if it was appropriate for us to do a spirit releasement on Pam. I received a yes. I gave instructions to Ramona about how to locate Pam. I used a date and time and the address of where Pam was the last time I talked to her on the phone. She was in Louisiana. After the Ramona, deeply hypnotized, had located Pam, I asked of Pam's higher self for permission to conduct the spirit releasement. Again I received a yes. From this point the hypnotized subject, in this case, Ramona, is channeling the responses of the entities we encounter.

After "scanning" Pam we found only one entity, a black man. Entities are normally attached to a part of the body, foot, heart. arm etc. This man we found attached at Pam's head. He gave the name of Josh.

When I was first learning the techniques of spirit releasement, the whole point of the procedure seemed to be finding them and sending the entities to the light. It was almost a get it done and move on, a production line mentality. After gaining experience and perfecting my technique, I became slightly bored and started to have discussions with the entities I would encounter during the releasement. There were times when I found it necessary to use therapies such as age regression and past life regression to resolve an issue of the attachment. A small portion of the time the treatments conducted on the attachment was for the benefit of the attachment alone. Many times the treatment was for the benefit of both host and attached entity. Some of the information retrieved from the entities indicated that many times the attachment had a past life connection with the host. This fact help to explain why we would find an entity with a particular host. This particular case would give indication that sometimes the connection can be very old and dangerous.

Once found, Josh was very angry, and wasted no time in letting me know what his feelings were toward Pam. He hated her with an intense passion and wanted nothing short of Pam's death. When asked why the hatred towards Pam, Josh explained that she killed him. As I later discovered, the death Josh spoke of had taken place before Pam's present lifetime, in a time when slavery was the norm in the southern United States. Josh explained that in his last lifetime he was a slave of Pam's, but Pam was a man in that lifetime. It seems that Josh had been rebellious. After years of hardship and beatings he finally tried to escape but was found only days later. To make his point and in the presents of all the other slaves, Josh's master (Pam in the previous life) shoved Josh's face down in the mud and stood on the back of Josh's head and warned the others never to run away. He stood on Josh's head until he was dead. Josh wanted revenge, so he concentrated all his effort towards Pam's head, hence the cause of the migraines.

I asked Josh if he had ever had contact with Pam's entity before his last life. He stated "I don't think so". The idea of a past life was completely alien to him; the only life he could remember was his last life as a black man. The temptation to regress Josh became very strong. At this point in my experience with hypnosis I was very familiar with age and past life regression on a person present with me, but not with an entity attached to a woman in Louisiana being channeled through a hypnotized subject in Missouri!

After regressing Josh through a fourth life he had encountered with Pam I asked Josh to look back in time and see how many lives he and Pam had experienced. He stated "it go back further than I care to see". This seemed to be the time to ask for forgiveness of Josh. Later I asked the same of Pam. I asked Josh if he understood what he and Pam had been doing to each other with the continual killing and revenge. Now he started to speak of Pam in a completely different tone, forgiveness followed by sincere regret and then words of love towards a person he wished only to help. The situation was resolved and had ended with the forgiveness given from both Pam and Josh. I had considered going back to the first "killing", but resolution seemed to be reached by both entities.

After resolving the issue between Pam and Josh I was ready to release Josh of his present situation. I asked Josh to go back to the scene of his death. There he saw the white light always present at the time of death. His mother was also in the light. After having josh confirming that this was indeed his "Ma", Josh went to the light, willingly.

Pam has been migraine free for over three years.

This isn't a sure cure for migraines, or any other physical or mental illness, but this procedure can help in some cases. Life is simpler than we may think and so interconnected.

Note: Views and tales written and expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers or staff of Ghost Magazine.