From a shamanic point of view, yes, in part. Addictions are possessions, though there are usually several issues at play: addiction always involves some soul-lossSoul-loss. The sending-away of parts of the self in order to survive: through shock or trauma, or (the chief modern cause) exiling our own parts to fit in. With Power-loss, one of the two root causes of shamanic illness. Read the full answer and Power-lossPower-loss. Disconnection from nature, the web of life and our place in it: like being unplugged from the national grid. One of the two root causes of shamanic illness, healed by reconnection (not by soul retrieval), beginning with the Power Animal bond. Read the full answer, and may involve wounded parts of the selfParts of the self. There are four parts of the self, the realm-corresponding members of the Inner Tribe: the Body and the middle-world self (both of the middle-world), the Soul (of the Lower-World) and the Spirit (of the Upper-World). The Aware Self, also called the Witness, is not a fifth part but a capacity: the awareness that can watch all four, with compassion and equanimity. Read the full answer and ancestral issues as well. Shamanic work aims at those underlying causes, and can almost always safely be used alongside medical treatments.
Does Therapeutic Shamanism see addiction as possession? #
Addictions and obsessions are exactly that: “Although most people do not think of these as being possessions, from a shamanic point of view that is exactly what they are.” In alcoholism or alcohol-dependency, people feel out of control over their decisions around drinking. “They decide in the morning that they are not going to drink today, and then later in the day, out comes the wine.”1
Partly, though there will usually be several different issues at play. Addiction “will always involve some soul-loss and power-loss. It may involve wounded parts of the self that need healing”, such as parts that have become self-destructive, or parts that are medicating in order to cope with feelings like anxiety or depression. “It may include inherited, ancestral issues. But whatever other factors are at play, the fact that the problem is centred around a particular substance usually means there is an element of being possessed by that substance too.”2
See What is possession, and what is de-possession?
Are the substances themselves bad? #
No. “Things like alcohol, tobacco and opium have strong spirits.” In their original shamanic cultures, shamans never used them recreationally, but for shamanic work and with great respect for their power. The problem comes when someone “riddled with soul-loss and power-loss” uses such a substance without understanding its power, and the spirit of the substance can overwhelm them. “This does not make such substances ‘bad’ of course. They are great teacher spirits. But they need to be used wisely and with respect.”3
Can things other than substances possess us? #
Yes. “Remember, from a shamanic point of view, everything is alive and conscious. Everything. That includes smartphones. They have a spirit. Smartphones in particular are designed to be addictive.” Television, video games, gambling, cosmetics, cars, clothes and medicines can all come to possess us, “in the sense of our becoming taken over by them and feeling that we lose control over our relationship with them.”4
Obsessions that look harmless, or even positive, such as healthy eating or going to the gym, are not necessarily a problem, and may have positive effects. Even then, though, they are still “a sign of an underlying issue”. That is not to say that “something like exercising is always an addiction. The issue is not the thing itself … The issue is about whether it starts to take us over.”5
Why is addiction so widespread? #
“Being taken over by such things does not happen if your soul is intact and your power is strong.” Addiction was not an issue in hunter-gatherer tribes, “at least, not until those tribes’ way of life started to fall apart by contact with our Taker cultureTaker culture. Daniel Quinn’s term for the totalitarian agricultural, owning, surplus-driven way of life that takes everything and leaves nothing, and calls itself ‘civilisation’. Cultural, not innate, which is why it can be changed. Used interchangeably with ‘Fallen culture’. Read the full answer”. Today, “addiction is intrinsic to Taker culture. It is even what gives it its name: the desire to take everything and leave nothing, the uncontrollable desire to consume to excess.”
“The epidemic of addiction (possession) around us is the result of our domesticationDomestication. The process by which, in domesticating other species, we domesticated ourselves. When dated precisely, Domestication begins with the Neolithic era, before the Fall proper, which begins with the first city-state cultures around 4000 BCE. What rewilding works to undo. More about this and the Fall, and our turning our back on shamanism.” Because shamanism understands the underlying causes of this social epidemic, and has practical ways to address them, “shamanism holds the cure.”6
See What is wétiko, and what is co-wétiko? and What are Taker and Leaver cultures?
Is addiction also an entanglement? #
Often, yes. “In something like an addiction, it is both something we are energetically entangled with, and something that is inside of us that is controlling and influencing our choices and behaviour against our will.” The addiction is something we chose to entangle with, and is also something that is now possessing us. “Not all entanglementsEntanglement. An unhealthy energetic tie hooking us into another person, a role, an object or a family story; released by disentanglement. More about this are possession though.”7
What helps? #
The aim is the underlying causes. Whatever other practices are needed along the way, “whether that is depossessionDe-possession. The healing for a full entity takeover: persuading or compelling the possessing entity out, then disposing of it, and always addressing the underlying soul-loss and Power-loss that let it in. More about this, extractionExtraction. Drawing a foreign body (an intrusion) out of a person and packing the hole with something healthy. The iron rule: only ever foreign bodies, never a part of the self: extracting a genuine part of self creates soul-loss. More about this, disentangling, or anything else”, the end goal of shamanic healing “should be to address the underlying soul-loss and power-loss.” When a substance spirit is involved, the approach is respectful: such spirits “do not want to possess us”, and “need to be apologised to, thanked, and then asked to leave.”8
Shamanic work for oneself can help. Journeying for yourself “can often be of great help and benefit if you suffer with things like depression, anxiety, addictions”, as long as you still have a reasonably good grip on ordinary reality. And shamanism “can almost always safely be used alongside medical treatments”, because “shamans are generally pragmatists and fully understand the need for medical treatments too.”9
