Substituted Souls

The following is a submission for this site and should in no way be taken as something that the owner of this site believes or speculates about.

"I'm glad you did not tell us this story, it is definitely fake!"

(He used to be such a nice young man, why such a change?)

The reason I am making this submission has to do with my little brother. Nothing has happened to him, and yet, he is gone. I see him all the time, but it is not him. It has not been him for a very long time. Sometimes I wonder if I am still the same person. Is it all madness or have I happened by the most terrible secret of all?

Many years ago I read a report about it. I tried to find it to refresh my memory, but it has long been lost or destroyed. The whole business upset me terribly. The very thought of it was madness and I could not reconcile it with my deep-seated Christian faith. The report contended that spirits or souls in the ether were seeking to substitute themselves for the souls normally animating human bodies. They desperately wanted to feel and escape the limbo state of helplessness that summarized their existence. The author of the report cited drastic personality changes in others as his first inference that something peculiar was happening.

My first thought was that this paralleled demonic possession; however, there were interesting differences. While the human soul and personality is suppressed by a demonic spirit in possession, it is still present although usually asleep during moments of demonic emergence. This other phenomena substituted the human soul entirely, thrusting it out in the the vacuum left by the invader. The memories of the prior occupant would quickly become that of the usurping spirit. After a short while, the new spirit animating the body would even largely forget its prior disembodied status and assume fully its new mode of existence.

The researcher found, with backing from high sources, that the best time to query the invader was shortly after it took acquisition. Sometimes the subjects proved affected my life trauma and emotional distress. Personality aberrations were not the result of spiritual invasion but regular human problems. However, a select few, with no contact with one another, started painting a cohesive picture of a slow but comprehensive takeover.

While we were oblivious to their existence, they were very much aware of ours. They watch us all the time. They know only two sensations, cold and another that is hard to put into words. They were perpetually envious of our ability to move and manipulate things. These spiritual things find themselves utterly helpless. Their immobility is akin to a person being locked so tightly in a box that he cannot move. Of course, for them, there is no body to move. Even the cold they feel has less to do with temperature as it does with energy. They find that sources of heat and especially power sources in vogue today, provide an intersection between our world and theirs. As we surround ourselves with cell phones, computers, even light bulbs, we are creating a pathway for them to mentally traverse. It also provides a portal for the discarded souls of prior owners. These souls in turn, although among the most helpless, begin to plot their return to the world of men.

It has also been suggested that the body is vulnerable to foreign invasion during "out-of-body" experiences. People have experienced these in certain forms of meditation and in near death events.

Are the interlopers the souls of the dead? One researcher seemed to think so. He argued that because certain residual memories were retained, this spiritual invasion was often confused with the eastern fallacy of reincarnation. In days past, the energy required for transfer would have come through fire, static electricity, and lightening. What was rare has become readily available in contemporary society, signally a wholesale invasion of our dimension.

It was only at the end of his life that he remarked that he had been duped. He claimed that the replacement spirits were not human souls at all. Tests, which he never explained, revealed that the human psyche was too weak to make such a transfer. Rather, he contended that the invaders were carrying residual memories from previous victims. As their hosts died, the process started all over again. He theorized that human souls were relegated to the worst possible hell-- unable to stop or warn others about the psychic invasion.

Friends noticed that the doctor had a radical personality change after an accident with a shorted plug to a lamp. He gave up his studies, divorced his wife, and went into early retirement.

My response to the postulate of this submission is that, as the author suspects, it is incompatible with the Christian faith as we know it. Therefore, while it makes for a scary post, it is my opinion that it CANNOT be true. Changes in personality may be do to many factors, particularly physical or emotional trauma. We may not like to face it, but people also change. The Scriptures and the rituals of the Church admit to demonic influence and even possession; but, the substitution of such entities for the human soul is ridiculous. Hypnotic regression and hypnosis only reveal what the mind, conscious or unconscious believes, regardless of the actual truth value. People can be very much deceived. Fantasy lives can seek to make an impact upon real life. Further, demonic spirits are regarded by tradition as perpetual liars. They can pretend to be dead loved ones or even benevolent saints like Our Lady. The test is simple. If it affirms Christian faith and morals, it can be trusted. Otherwise, it is the evil one in disquise. In any case, while we might ask the intercession of a saint, seeking two-way dialogue with the dead is a forbidden form of communication. That is why the superstitious practice of mediums is condemned by the Church. It might only be play-acting; but why take the terrible chance that some dark spirit might take us up on our invitation for communication? Our fellowship is with Christ, not with demons. Catholic faith would grant that we should pray for the dead, just as the Jews once did in ancient Palestine. But, that is where our intervention should end. What the author here is suggesting is just an occult version of the science fiction theme found in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. People are just people. We are corporeal-spiritual composites; that is at the core of human personhood. It is with death that the soul and body is separated. Christ has promised us a share in his resurrected and glorified state. The dead will rise.