{"id":655,"date":"2009-06-23T15:00:05","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T19:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=655"},"modified":"2009-06-23T15:00:05","modified_gmt":"2009-06-23T19:00:05","slug":"drawing-down-the-spirits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=655","title":{"rendered":"Drawing Down the Spirits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are you ready to have your mind blown?  Seriously, are you looking for a book that will force you to confront and\/or reevaluate your thoughts on the very prospect of God or Gods themselves?  Then you must, I repeat must, get your hands on a copy of &#8220;Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession&#8221; by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera.<\/p>\n<p>Where to begin?  First, I like the authors&#8217; honesty and straight forward nature.  There are ample texts out there that study the phenomena of spirit possession, the cultures that practice it, etc.  Most of it is written from a perspective of trying to dissect it, to figure out why practitioners believe it&#8217;s happening and what&#8217;s really going on.  This makes for intriguing reading.  The authors here make it clear that this is not that kind of book.<\/p>\n<p><em>The metaphysical preconceptions underlying this book are quite simple.  The authors believe that possession is a real phenomenon; we also see the spirit world(s) as a real place, and that at least some instances of possession involve the displacement of the horse&#8217;s ego by an outside entity.  We acknowledge scientific method as a useful tool, but we do not limit ourselves to this method, nor do we believe it can explain all possessions. <\/em> <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/2009\/04\/21\/a-new-science-of-the-paranormal\/\"target=\"_blank\">(These guys would get along with LeShan and his theories on the study of the paranormal.)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So with that out on the table by page 34, you might be inclined to think that &#8220;Drawing Down the Spirits&#8221; is going to become an odd how-to book, or a long winded retelling of first hand experiences.  Boy howdy would you be wrong!<\/p>\n<p>The book opens with a fantastically well written, in depth look at the history of spirit possession.  This involves a retelling of the history of Spiritualism, Edgar Cayce, Madame Blavastky and Theosophy, and JZ Knight and Ramtha.  This all leads into a geographical history lesson in spirit possession that covers Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania.  I would gladly have purchased this book for the historical overview alone.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/drawing-down-the-spirits.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"142\" height=\"212\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-659\" \/>What follows is a compelling look at everything from what constitutes a genuine possession to cosmologies to safety tips to seriously, anything and everything you could ever want to know about spirit possession.  Really, anything.<\/p>\n<p>This book presents itself to the reader as a practical look at the phenomenon of spirit possession, and it is, but what really appealed to me was that it is impossible to read &#8220;Drawing Down the Spirits&#8221; and not spend some time thinking about your thoughts and relationships with God and\/or Gods.  Hidden within this informative, straight forward text, is a philosophical discourse that is fascinating.  Once you open this book, you&#8217;ll find it hard to put down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you ready to have your mind blown?  Seriously, are you looking for a book that will force you to confront and\/or reevaluate your thoughts on the very prospect of God or Gods themselves?  Then you must, I repeat must, get your hands on a copy of &#8220;Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession&#8221; by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}