Margaret De Wys - Ecstatic Healing: A Journey into the Shamanic World of Spirit Possession and Miraculous Medicine

Mediumship

One doesnt discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

ANDRE GIDE

THE NECKLACE

September 1993, Rhinebeck, New York

It began with a string of beads, large, rounded, wooden beads painted white. The string was perhaps two feet in lengtha simple, unadorned necklace without a clasp.

My friend Susan had invited me to a gathering at her house. Her homes architectural originality, like the majority of the houses in her shady hamlet, was created in the late nineteenth century. I walked into the octagonal backroom, a recent addition about forty feet in diameter. Red, blue, and yellow concentric circles were painted on the floor. This diagram was used for vajra dance, a Tibetan practice performed to harmonize the individual by integrating the body, the voice, and the mind in contemplation. Vajra means both thunderbolt and diamond. My friends were Tibetan Buddhists and traveled in circles of spiritually like-minded people. There were fifteen other people there, most of whom I knew well. None of us really knew why we were there or what was going to happen.

Everything twinkledthe glass windows, the polished wood floors, the Tibetan bronze statues placed in a circle around the room. Candlelight illuminated the space. I removed my shoes and walked over to the only person I didnt know, a tall, middle-aged man who introduced himself as Brad. He was massive, bear-like but not at all fat. His hair was long and unruly, and he wore a kind of Hawaiian shirt and sweater combo over khakis. His smile lit up the roomI was immediately struck by his charisma.

Brad asked us to arrange ourselves in a circle. On one side of the circle was a makeshift altar. He turned to it and began moving rattles, stones, and feathers.

Please dont touch any of these private artifacts, he said. Woo-woo time, I thought.

Im not much of a group participant. I dont do workshops. Rituals and mystical experimentation en masse always put me in a rebellious mood. I saw in my companions a longing to believe in something transcendent. For my Buddhist friends the universe was populated with bodhisattvas, celestial deities who assisted and inspired them. What grace, what luck for them, I thought. I didnt believe Id ever be able to follow any form of religion.

Brad began moving among us singing softly, praying, and laying his hands on some. Hed touch one person gently on the crown of the head, another at the shoulders, or pass his hand down along an arm. I received a blessing and want to share what Ive learned, he said. He began singing primal syllablesoooos and eeees and ahhhs. His voice was loud and penetrating, sounding almost like Native American chanting. It created a force in the room. The atmosphere sizzled. From the altar Brad carefully lifted a white bead necklace.

He approached one of the group members and invited him to touch the necklace, thenstill singinghe moved to the next person, and around the circle, one by one. About ten people handled it. I smelled a kind of woodsy fragrance coming from Brad as he sidled over to me with the necklace. I reached out and touched it.

Suddenly my head jerked. My hands started shaking, then my arms, my torso, my legs. I lurched erratically as if electrocuted. I tried to break free, but the necklace held me. I felt as if a lightning bolt was inside me, and I was fused to it. I couldnt break away. Grunts and low growls erupted from deep in my gut and turned into howls. I spun around, still locked on to the necklace Brad and I held. I felt I was being consumed by a powerful, mysterious force. I felt no pain. My mind was blank.