COMMUNICATING WITH SPIRITS – ONE OF MY FIRST EXPERIENCES

I had always wondered while growing up and seeing people becoming possessed, what really went on during the time they are in custody of spirits? The world of spirits always fascinated me and I eventually knew why when I began to trod the path of a practitioner. While attending Zion church, I secretly criticized people who claimed they were in spirit. I was the proverbial doubtful Thomas, still am, I suppose.

There was a time when I felt detached from almost everything. I did not realize my feeling of detachment then, I recognized the feeling as being numb, this was when I was in training, “spiritual school,” being initiated into spirituality by non – physical elders, read here. The numbness that I felt was my way of dealing with a new or renewed life, what Jesus of Christianity must have meant when he said that “we must be born again.” I remember the first time I became possessed by spirit and it happened in church one night, a spiritual church.

The mother of the church was new in the area at the time and my junior sister, some of my friends, and myself used to visit the church at nights. The church had vibes to it, and as Jamaicans we thought it was a revival church – but it was not. The woman was Jamaican but she was spiritual baptist, not revival. Although she never declared herself, we were young people and if we thought this and this was what brought us to the church, she kept her mouth shut so we would not be turned off, but because we were not used to these kind of churches, we did not know the difference, we simply went because of the vibes.

One night I was there, it was in the wee hours of the morning when the church got hot, we had been singing, clapping, and dancing and the energy was strong, everyone was having a great time, and the heat in the church increased. I went to the bathroom and upon my return, I bumped into someone. I looked up to say sorry but saw no one. However, I knew I had just walked into someone who had a 24 pack (great abs). In my mind I thought “weird…” But I continued drying my hands and walked back to my seat, still slightly puzzled by my encounter. 

But when the hour of 3am arrived, something changed.

I began to feel hot and sweaty, my ears began to ring and I felt as if the place was spinning. I sat down and the whole church was on their feet, stamping, and singing, all was in a frenzy, yet it was too much for me. I wanted to leave… I wanted to run. I did run that night. I found myself out of my seat and running around the woman’s seal on the ground which was beautifully dressed with flowers, candles, milk, perfume and other things.

*Wait* Let me pause here: I should tell you that the next morning, I discovered that beneath that seal was the work the Mother of the church had done to bind the members to her ‘make-shift’ church, which was located in the back of her botanica shop. I did not know this on that night, but the spirit did, and so as I ran around that seal, the Mother panicked.

While I ran around her seal, I felt as if I was standing in a corner way off watching myself, wanting to become apart of my body again, wanting to get back in. I wanted it all to end, but I had no idea how to end it. I saw it all happen while I stood there in a corner watching my physical body run around this woman’s seal. As I ran, I had picked up one of her many flags (a black one), plucked the fabric away from the stick, and wrapped it around my face. I was aware I was no longer apart of my physical body, but could not control my actions. What I was doing and how I was thinking were two different things, and I wanted to stop. The “hot gal, easy fi shame” me wanted to stop this running around bit and remove the black cloth from my face.

But while in spirit, I began to teach. I taught the church what Spiritual Baptists call Daption, which is a way how they, when in spirit, communicate or invoke their spirits. It was a long night for me and afterwards, when I was released from possession I was exhausted. I went home and slept. In my sleep I saw many spirits, they came up to me, all were smiling and happy with me. They gave me flowers, candles, sweets, all sorts of things. They gave me seals and their insignias upon which to call and command them. They told me to get up and write, I did, and what was written on the paper when I was finished, I could not understand. I saw strange words and drawings but in my spirit I felt good. I felt as if I was looking at a map of my life. What was there was not only strange drawings which seemed like another language, but seals. It was to be years after that one of those seals assisted me into finding my way financially to Africa for my initiation and also one of those seals that pointed the way to this blog, spirits are divine! A doorway had opened up that night, a passage through a dimly lit corridor. That night I had gotten a glimpse of who I was to become.

The mother of the church hid from us the true nature of her church and of who she was (which would have made no difference to me and my friends back then at all, we only wanted to be apart of a spiritual church, the drumming reminded us of Stone love dance. Jamaicans oonuh know Stone love sweet, big up oonuh self Kilimanjaro). We attended because we loved the vibes and wanted to serve God (back then Christianity had a strong hold on my mind, but I cannot be blamed, all I knew then was Jesus and de blood, lol), but my spirit came through and began to teach that which is apart of the Spiritual Baptist church; their way of invoking, their voice of command with spirit.

That night I was embarrassed. I thought about my friends teasing me later and I wanted desperately to get back into my body. I was pure thought, no form. My form or body was making a spectacle of herself, or so I thought. While I ran around I heard myself making certain sounds I was unfamiliar with. It was during this that the woman (who was devious) shouted to the congregation that they should follow what I did or the sounds I made, because I was teaching them daption. In Zion revival we call these sounds although made differently, groaning. They invoke spirits to come, it can slightly be viewed like a spiritual language, but not by speech but guttural, coming from deep within,so it vibrates as it goes out. The Mother had no choice than to reveal herself and I had communicated with spirits of another realm who I did not know but who knew me, and it was to be the doorway of a great adventure, one that I am still on.

The Mother of that church was wicked but I never knew. She did many things to me and she became one of my greatest enemies and one of my most powerful teachers (you can find her in the posts Attachment and That Wicked Witch.)  She was sent or chosen by me most likely to lead me to my path, to assist in opening the doors for me. She did well and I thank her, although she has made her transition. This goes to show that the road to goodness is a hard and rocky one. The sun is extremely hot and the nights are bitterly cold. There are many times, even today, I have had to talk someone off a ledge. People who have the hardest life, once they can weather the storm, they will come out great, but you must teach from your experiences. Goodness does not come easy, but there are those who will want to take the easy way out, o ma se ooo (what a pity), because they do not understand that light can not exist without darkness, yet they can never meet. It is the ebb and flow of life. Once we can understand this, then and only then will we begin to realize what this game of life really is.

Communication with spirit is crucial, we must honour them. Spirits can communicate with you in many different ways. For example, most often they’ll communicate through nature, especially animals. The other day I was driving, I stopped at a particular location and saw several birds gather in front of my vehicle. As I drove away slowly, the birds seemed to just walk and not fly away. Minutes later, a large black crow made its sounds and landed atop a light post beside my vehicle. He crowed a few times and then flew away. That morning as I started the car to drive away, for some reason the engine felt like a heartbeat, but not a healthy one, and so I mentioned this to little Obara.

Well later this day, I loaned my vehicle to someone, and I later received a phone call that they had crashed into a concrete wall with such an impact that it destroyed the wall into pieces and deployed the airbag. Although the wall was completely destroyed, it was only a scratch the vehicle received and the driver was okay.

I received the sign of this incident prior to it happening. From the unusual sound of the vehicle, which worried me, but never happened again since that morning. To the birds in front of the car. To the large black crow who perched atop the light post as if trying to get me to take notice of him, and I did. I will one day do a post of signs of nature and what they’re telling us.

I love you all,

Obara Meji