And another one:
I wanted to respond to the statements:
He talks of "dark souls" that are warring against the light, violating other souls, to use them and harness them.
But he also equates a "soul" with light. So "dark soul" is a dark light... juxtaposed opposites... a contradiction?
Thank you for the question. It is a very important one. In my book, the term 'dark soul' is described in more depth. First, though, about terms—I know that the term 'dark soul' is not the best because of the very contradiction you point out. The terms in Soul-Centered Healing developed out of a clinical framework as I encountered one new phenomenon after another. The terms were functional at the time that they were first being encountered so that Gerod and I could talk the same language. There are certainly terms I would revise now, but that’s another issue. Technically, 'dark souls' refers to souls who dwell in darkness where there is no Light. As souls of Light, they still seek the Light energy. This is one of the major reasons 'dark souls' seek to intrude on humans—Light energy. Gerod described we humans as "stepped-down Light energy”and safer than direct contact with the Light.
I am including some excerpts from my book, 'Soul-Centered Healing: A Psychologist’s Extraordinary Journey into the Realms of Sub-Personalities, Spirits, and Past Lives.' They are not meant to define the term. They are segments that I hope give a better sense of what the term 'dark souls' means. Some of these excerpts are Gerod speaking, and some are my own words. Since I’m not very sure about formatting on a forum, I will preface Gerod’s words with a “G’ and mine with a “T.”
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G. The evil spirits that you encountered were at one time earthbound souls, but they also became tinged with the evil that slowly dragged them down into the darkness. It is their choice. When you read of the cases of very severe examples of possession, those evil spirits, they are souls. They were at one time a human person that lived on earth or a being from some other reality but they are a soul that has crossed that line because it is what for some reason appeals to their sense of being.
T. Low-lying spirits were difficult enough to understand and know how to talk to, but evil spirits and forces were far outside my range. I did not know how to think about them. I had no idea who or what they were, or what they were up to. With clients where these kinds of spirits were present, I did not know if I was dealing with isolated incidents of spirit harassment or whether there was a larger design
The contact with evil spirits threatened the cozy arrangement in my mind between the earthbound realm, and what Gerod called the “spirit realm of Light.” Evil spirits did not fit either of these categories. I didn’t know where they fit. The contact with evil spirits put me in touch with another realm well beyond my comfort zone. I began to realize that in my work with earthbound spirits, I had been operating in only a small corner of the universe.
By engaging these spirits, I entered further into the unknown. I started out trying to usher earthbound spirits to the Light, and before I knew it, I was dealing with dimensions and beings, of which I knew nothing. In the coming months, with other clients, I would encounter more spirits like these. Every time I worked with one, it seemed to lead deeper into that unknown. I could no longer be certain with any given client who or what I might encounter. (113-114 soul-centered healing )
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T. Talking to Gerod about darkness and evil was another of those cases, as with the terms ego and ego-states, where Gerod and I used the same terms, but we were not meaning the same thing. We both, for example, used the terms dark or evil to describe those harassing and intruding spirits that I found with certain clients. Gerod, however, also used the term darkness as something in itself, a reality or dimension separate from the existence of spirits. Evil spirits dwell in darkness, but spirits are not the darkness itself. Darkness was not a soul, but a primal energy and force operating, like the Light, at every level of reality. Souls could exist in that energy and consciousness, but it was a very different existence from souls in the Light.
Personally and clinically, the idea of darkness as an existing reality or force was outside my framework of thinking. When it came to evil, my focus from a clinical point of view was on evil spirits, not dark- ness. It was only gradually that I came to hear the distinction Gerod was making between darkness and evil and began to address it in my work with clients and in talks with Gerod. There were three clinical phenomena in particular that I was encountering with clients where darkness was a central issue.
Intruding and harassing spirits were the first phenomena that opened up this whole question of darkness and evil. These spirits were the kind I talked about in Chapter Six. Gerod was the first one to name them. He called them “evil spirits.” He pointed to the distinction be- tween earthbound spirits and evil spirits early in our dialogues when the whole issue of spirit involvement was still new to me. According to Gerod, these were not just earthbound spirits—lost, confused, or mischievous—trying to hang on to the physical reality. They were spirits who were intentionally intruding upon or threatening the client with whom I was working, and they seemed to know very clearly what they were doing. The more I learned about them, the more I came to understand that although they existed in darkness, the darkness itself was something different.
Unlike with the earthbound, these spirits wanted nothing to do with the Light or receiving help from spirit guides, no matter how safe it could be. When they were identified, they refused to cooperate and, on the contrary, would often deliberately try to block or interfere with the healing process, especially through blocking the communication signals. They also consistently refused to voluntarily leave a client or cease their harassment. Their attitude was, “make me.” They weren’t leaving unless forced to, and most believed that neither my client nor I had the power to do that.
In that first year and half of working with Gerod, I had a number of cases that involved these kinds of hostile and aggressive spirits. As I became more proficient at recognizing and working with earthbound spirits, I also became more adept at distinguishing them from these dark spirits. Dealing with them, however, as opposed to earthbound spirits, required a shift in tactics. Unlike with earthbound spirits, I was not communicating with entities who would welcome our assistance and were looking for a way out of their predicament. Chapter: Darkness and Evil (pg. 200-201)
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G. These evil spirits that you met with were souls, but at one time they also became tinged with the evil that slowly dragged them down into the darkness. It is their choice. When you read of the cases of very severe examples of possession, those evil spirits are souls. They were at one time a human person that lived on earth, or a being from some other reality, but they are a soul that has crossed that line because it is what for some reason appeals to their sense of being.
T. As Gerod talked about evil spirits, I continued to hear the distinction between the darkness and the souls in darkness. According to Gerod, the souls in darkness cannot reincarnate. They exist in some state or dimension of consciousness outside time and space. Also, according to Gerod, these souls in darkness—some of them at least—could maintain a constant presence with someone, or they could make periodic contact at different times in a person’s life. Even more troubling, he was saying that these souls, from their vantage point in the darkness, could have access to a soul once it incarnates, and that it could even have access to a soul over lifetimes. Chapter: Darkness and Evil (pg. 202-203)
T. I continued talking to Gerod about souls aligned with darkness and as the questions became more specific, so too did the questions about darkness. In one of those dialogues, Gerod became more explicit about the distinction between darkness and the dark souls. I asked him again about those souls, as humans, who had lived an evil life. I was still trying to understand this idea of souls who, at the time of death, do not go to the Light, but continue to exist. Gerod said these souls “become very aligned with that darkness.” Chapter: Darkness and Evil (pg. 205)
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This is the last excerpt:
T. The dialogues with Gerod brought into focus the idea of darkness as an energy and force, separate from souls. Making this distinction, I also began to focus more clearly on those souls who existed and operated in darkness. Specifically, I was concerned about those spirits whom I described as intentionally harassing, intruding on, or acting toward a client in threatening or destructive ways. These kinds of spirits had been an issue all along and they were very much a part of these long discussions with Gerod about darkness.
Gerod’s attitude toward these spirits was always one of deep com- passion. He viewed them as souls, as beings of Light who had become cut off from the Divine and the Light of their own souls, some to a greater extent than others. He saw them as souls who through fear or rage or pain or confusion had become entangled in the consciousness of darkness. Gerod saw their disconnection from the Light as these souls’ deepest pain. No matter how hateful, ruthless, or conniving these spirits might be, Gerod saw their feelings and actions as born out of their pain and confusion.
Gerod talked about these discarnate souls caught in darkness, but he also talked about souls incarnated here on earth that can be ensnared or caught up in darkness. Unlike with darkness itself, these incarnate souls “do not seek to obliterate Light in a universal way, but they seek to gain power and control in their physical reality.”
This also is where Gerod made the distinction between souls in darkness who were evil, and those souls who were lost in it, or hiding in it, or had become prey to the evil souls and demonic powers that exist in darkness. Chapter: Darkness and Evil (pg. 215-216)
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This response is probably more than you bargained for. It's more than I expected to say. However, it is an important issue, i.e. that all souls are/possess the Light essence and they always have the free choice to return home to the Light. Concerning ‘dark souls,’ Gerod said that choice may not happen easily because of the pain these souls would have to confront within themselves.