As part of my shamanic healing practice of compassionate depossession, I rely on assistance from the helping spirits.
Their loving energy holds the container of sacred space and calls the suffering being fully into the session for the release to be complete.
The angels fill the room with light and compassion and shine love directly into the heart of the suffering being, reminding them of their divine nature and melting their resistance.
Mother Mary lends her support for the suffering beings who want to go to the light of the Upper World. Mother Earth helps the suffering beings who choose to cross to the light of the Lower World.
Other of my helping spirits release the cords, suffering, painful memories, and heavy attachments that have kept the suffering being here in the Middle World.
(Human souls are meant to cross to the light at death or shortly after death. Betsy Bergstrom, the healer I learned compassion deposition from, considers any death in which the soul crosses to the light a successful death. Staying here in the Middle World after death ensures that the suffering being continues to experience the pain and suffering of their lifetime.)
When the suffering being is ready to lift out of the host’s body and energy field, I call to the psychopomp beings.
Divine compassionate beings called “psychopomps” help the soul make its journey to the afterlife. The word psychopomp comes from two Greek root words. Psycho = soul. Pomp = transport.
Many spiritual traditions have a concept of psychopomp beings. Birds and animals can be psychopomps. Two examples are vulture and crow. Angels can also be psychopomps.
In Greek mythology, Charon is the ferry man who carries souls across the River Styx to the afterlife. In Egyptian mythology, the jackal-headed god Anubis is a psychopomp. From the Norse tradition, the Valkyries carried the souls of dead soldiers from the battlefield to the afterlife. In Christianity, Jesus and Mother Mary are also psychopomps.
A being called the Grim Reaper appears across many cultures – often depicted as a skeletal form wearing a black hooded cloak. Although some of these psychopomp beings may appear frightening, they are divine beings of light with a sacred purpose. They do not cause death, and they do not take someone before their rightful time. They merely assist the process and help with the transport.
Not all psychopomps have a recognizable form. Some are nameless faceless beings. As someone is approaching death, they might appear in the room waiting to help the soul as it lifts out of the physical body. In later stages of death, the dying person may see or sense these beings in the room and begin talking or reaching out to them.
Places where death occurs routinely such as hospitals, hospice facilities, and nursing homes may have resident psychopomp beings.
Having an understanding of what happens in death from the framework of our spiritual tradition can help us support others in their dying process and make our own transition smooth when the time comes.
A colleague who also does compassionate depossession famously says that when he dies he is going to run, not walk, to the light.
We all come from the light, and we are meant to return home to the light at our death.
This work is real, and it matters.
August 3, 2022