UDV Spiritual Attacks Letter (4/7/22)
4/7/22
Kaleb Smith
PO Box 1132
Lucerne, CA 95458
(209) 454-627*
kalebr.smith@gmail.com
Hello!
At the request of Maestre S. of UDV Nucleo - *** ***, I, socio Kaleb Smith, am writing a description of the unusual phenomena that have occurred to me while attending sessions at our nucleo’s **** church location.
The Reddish-Hued Spirit
Some months ago, I drank the tea and sat in my chair, awaiting its effects to arise. Approximately an hour into the session, I began to feel a strange and disconcerting physical sensation in my body, distinct and unlike anything I’d felt during my many previous sessions. Much like the sudden TWITCH that is sometimes felt on the edge of sleep, where your leg will kick up in response to a half-dream, similar twitches began to occur - only they were all located in and around the musculature of my neck. The main difference being that these were many such twitches occurring at once, to an almost convulsive effect in my neck and right shoulder, sometimes extending further down my right arm. I was very disturbed by these strange sensations, occurring beyond my control, but paid attention to the subjective aspect of them. Specifically, the sense of losing consciousness many times in rapid succession, with the twitches, with an accompanying sensation of being PULLED or tugged backward, as if almost being pulled out of my body for short moments.
I tried to get some manner of control over this strange situation, by going to the bathroom and splashing my face with water, but as I sat back down, the pulling/twitching persisted. It was so unusual and unlike anything I’d felt in any of my years drinking with the UDV or during the year I spent in the Amazon, drinking tea there.
I was not going to mention this experience to anyone, just because of its strangeness. But, at the end of the session, while chatting with some folks sitting near me, my friend Hannah approached and asked if she could speak to me in private. She pulled me aside and said,
“Kaleb, I don’t know how to tell you about this as it is so strange, but…During the session, I looked over at you and I saw something attacking you. It was a reddish-hued figure standing behind you, as if on your back. It watched it as it was tugging and pulling on the back of your neck. I could not believe what I was seeing! So I would close my eyes and shake my head and look again... and it would still be there! Tugging and pulling on the back of your neck. At one point, it leaned in and its face became your face. It was scary to watch.”
I was very upset to hear this and didn’t have much to say or explain what she was describing, only that her observation was CONFIRMATION of the legitimacy of the strange tugging/pulling twitch sensation I was feeling at that time she was seeing the spiritual interaction. I should point out that, following the session, I became very sick, with internal bleeding, as well as some very intense and unusual misfortune, with a sudden flat tire, as well as something large, hitting the windshield of my car, cracking it all the way across. Perhaps these occurrences are unrelated coincidences, but worth mentioning, as my mind was racing, trying to understand how or why this all occurred after drinking the Vegetal.
My friend H stopped speaking to me. I called, wrote, and messaged her, asking for more details about the figure she had seen attack me, as I thought about it intensely in the weeks that followed, uneasy and afraid of what it was and what the experience meant. In sessions that followed, Hannah avoided eye contact and, as her new baby was now at session, she seemed almost to try to shield the infant or protect it from me as I walked by. This was heartbreaking to me, I admit, as I considered her a good friend before the incident and it felt as though, now, she associated me with some evil, as if I was bringing something unclean into the circle which she had to avoid and protect her loved ones from! Stigmatized is perhaps a better word for how I felt, but at the same time, I understood her reaction, as I, too, was afraid or whatever it was and hoped to avoid it and find protection, myself!
Being Forced From My Body
Some months later, I had been fasting to overcome an autoimmune condition I sometimes struggle with. I knew, too, that fasting would increase the intensity of the hypersensitivity induced by the Hoasca, which I felt may help me to more thoroughly “clean out” and purify my system, through to my core, which is part of the health and healing of the Tea, as I understood it.
I felt overwhelmed by heat during the peak of the Vegetal’s effect and felt I needed to get some fresh air before I suffocated. I stood up and walked towards the door which would lead to the bathroom hallway and the courtyard outside. As I walked before the congregation, I felt something overtake me, as if I was being thrust out of my body. I could not see anything but white light, blinded by light, and my footsteps became disconnected from my control. There, in front of the entire congregation, I lost consciousness and crumpled to the floor. Maestre M and others quickly came to my aid as I was apparently “dead to the world” for several moments. I had no recollection of the incident and did not remember falling down at all. I went outside to cool off and clear my head, I meditated with slow intentioned breaths to calm my sensitivity and quivering sensation in my chest, before finally returning to my seat for the shamadas.
It was Brother E, who I had spoken to several times politely, but did not know as well as I would have liked, who this time had observed a figure attack me as I walked by him. He apparently saw this spirit jump onto my back at the moment I lost control of my body and crumpled to the ground. E was apparently not comfortable sharing what he saw with me directly, but instead shared his disturbing observation with several other socios, who then discussed me and their fears, without me knowing. It was only weeks later that I heard what was being said about me secondhand and realized that these spiritual attacks were happening during my UDV sessions and that other people were able to observe and confirm the physical reality of this entity as I felt it attack me.
It Followed Me Home
In the months that followed, paranormal experiences similar to what began at the church continued at home. I became very anxious and divided about the idea of attending session with my dear friends. Part of this hesitancy came with following my doctor’s orders to avoid attending church, due to the unique COVID-19 risks he said faced, as I was taking a powerful steroid drug, Prednisone, which severely weakened my immune system. But, in addition to this, I felt a mounting anxiety that, if I were to drink the tea again, this entity may attack me a 3rd time.
Over the period of a month, I would find myself waking up from sleep with an intense “battle” occurring with something in my bedroom. I would awake pointing at its location in the room, often the area of the closet, and, from sleep, I would be attempting to defend myself or shoo it away from me using my breath, as I’d seen Shipibo shaman in the Upper Amazon do to banish spirits from the ceremony space. “SHHHHHH-WHEEW!! SHUH!” clearing it out using a rattle towards the door of the hut. Coming to from the dream state, I would feel confused, thinking “What in the hell am I doing?” Yet, these peculiar, tense, and adversarial moments of waking in the morning occurred dozens of times, I did not really pay it much mind, only noting that my attention was always directed at some unwanted entity in the corner of the room.
Yet, weeks into these interactions, it seemed as if this entity got BOLDER over time. Instead of staying in the corner, it began to approach the bed while I was awake. Approximately 30 seconds after turning off the lights and laying down, I would feel the weight of something sitting at the foot of the bed, at my feet. This was accompanied by a peculiar vibratory sensation in my feet, as well as, again, the peculiar twitching sensation that I first felt during that disturbing session with Hannah months before.
From the sinking in of the mattress at the foot of the bed, I then feel this entity climb further into bed with me - I can hear the shifting of the sheet against the mattress and feel its weight sinking gradually near my legs, torso, and up until it is, again, right behind me, as it had been during that session. Laying on my right side on the edge of my Queen-sized bed, I feel the distinct sensation of the mattress now sinking in directly behind me. From that point, the entity begins to “spoon” me, wrapping me up, I feel the pressure around my arms as I am constrained, gradually more and more, as I edge towards a sort of paralysis. Feeling it stir, feeling its physical presence, feeling even the sensation of its rate of breathing, is rib cage pressing against the small of my back, rising and falling much faster than my own breathing. It is SO terrifying, I had no idea what to do other than sit up and try to distract myself, fighting sleep.
Most disturbing is the sexual nature of these intrusive nighttime interactions. In addition to feeling it wrap me up, I would gradually begin to feel the pressure of the being's pelvis as he presses it into me, forcefully squeezing and penetrating me from behind. The pins and needles sensation felt in my rectum is very difficult to talk about, but it often becomes painful, as I break away and jump out of bed, unsure how to deal with what I could only describe as a spiritual sexual assault.
This has occurred nearly every night since early March of 2022, and I have reached out to so many shamanic and New Age type practitioners, desperate for help. I’ve tried smudging the apartment with sage, adamant deep prayer, calling on Jesus and the angels to be with me, to guard and protect me. I’ve tried meditation. I’ve tried shouting at the being directly, telling him, “You are not welcome here! You must leave now! You are GONE!” Or even pleading with it, “What do you want from me? Why are you doing this to me? Why me?”
I purchased a Spirit Box, a device often seen in paranormal investigation TV shows, which utilizes an antenna and white noise, switching frequencies every 200 milliseconds, creating a medium which it is said the discarnate can influence to communicate. I asked the same questions, recording the white noise in the room, hoping I could get some insight into how I could appease this intrusive sexual entity so that it may leave me alone. While doing this, part of me was afraid that inviting and providing a means for spirit to communicate may, instead, ENCOURAGE its activity, in the same way I’ve been told the communication device of the Ouija board apparently can do. But I was desperate to find anything that may end the nightly torments.
There are so many details of the entity I’ve observed and felt over these many weeks of nightly interactions, I hesitate to go into all of them here, in the interest of the reader’s time. It often feels similar to a huge dog, like a large black lab, jumping up into the bed. It does not feel human, in other words, more bestial and slightly smaller in its frame, based on the felt width of its rib cage and the rest of its body pressed up against me. As it spoons me, the whole bed sometimes begins to shake - sometimes with enough force to audibly hit the wall again and again. Laying there, feeling and hearing all of this, I am essentially frozen with fear and awe.
In one instance, feeling it wrap me up tight from behind, I turned onto my back to try to break free. This seemed to startle the being and the whole bed JOLTED as it jumped over me, the weight felt on my right side, on the edge of the mattress, as it was then at my bedside. It would then get in my face, the silhouette of its head visible before me, the subtle auditory effects of having a figure directly in front of your face. It would often then jostle me or, if laying on my back, would press itself onto my chest or the front of my shoulders. This “pressing” weight could even be felt on the comforter that was up around my neck, as it sank down from the entity’s weight.
Reading as much as I could about “incubus/succubus attacks,” “the old hag” on the chest, psychological literature on “night paralysis hallucination,” as they call it, “the night mare,” I learned that every culture I explored had a name for this entity, the sexual being that attacks, paralyzes, and violates us in our sleep. In ancient Persia, the name for this entity translates to “pressure.” In my own ancestral heritage, the Finnish shamans had a name for the night rapist spirit which translates to “squeezing” or “pressing.” All of these ancient cultural beliefs I discovered were perfectly describing my own experience of being squeezed, spooned, and pressed upon during the nightly sexual violation. Finally, in the ayahuasca traditions of the Upper Amazon Basin that stretch back over a 1,000 years, Quechua speakers in Canelos or along the Napo, as well as contemporary mestizo shamans, refer to Hoasca as the “Vine of Spirits,” as it is known to attract the attention of spirits, which may then interact with the drinker. The Bajo Urubamba often translate this word for Hoasca as sogademuerto, based on their experience of the Tea attracting a specific malicious spirit they call a “Bone Demon,” which seeks to hurt or kill people through violent sexual intercourse and spiritual rape
Learning that this is a, perhaps, rare but culturally universal experience helped me immensely: I was not alone. Finding that the Amazon had a whole belief system devoted to this sexually assaultive entity known to attack certain vulnerable people who drink ayahuasca was also, strangely, a relief. I felt I was beginning to understand how the hypersensitive state I experience during my sessions with the Vegetal could extend into the realm of spirit. That feeling of becoming open, and all the beautiful perceptions of self and nature that come with that open sensitive state, could also make me vulnerable to spirit. This vulnerability is part of the fear I have of drinking the Vegetal, and becoming sensitive and spiritually open again. As much as I treasure and revere my relationship with the sacred and mysterious Vegetal tea, I don’t want to do anything to encourage these spiritual attacks to continue or worsen. I hope that fear makes sense and is not seen as disrespectful.
Thank you for any guidance or advice you may be able to give for my situation.
With Light, Peace, and Love,
-Kaleb Smith
Socio, UDV Nucleo ****