Spirit Releasement: Guiding the Earthbound Dead

Spirit releasement is a modern occult and spiritual practice intended to remove or release an alleged discarnate presence believed to be attached to a person, place or situation. It is closely related to exorcism, depossession and older traditions of spirit removal, but its philosophy is usually very different from the aggressive confrontation associated with classical religious exorcism. Instead of assuming that every unwanted presence is an evil being that must be commanded to leave, spirit releasement often begins with a far stranger possibility: the disturbing entity may simply be one of the dead who has become lost, confused, frightened or incapable of abandoning the world it once knew.

Within this worldview, hauntings and certain forms of alleged spirit attachment can occur because consciousness survives bodily death but does not always move immediately into another state of existence. A person who dies violently, unexpectedly or while consumed by powerful emotions may, according to practitioners, remain bound to a location, another person or the circumstances surrounding death. Grief, rage, guilt, obsession, fear and unfinished business are frequently described as the chains that hold such spirits close to the living.

Spirit releasement attempts to break those chains through communication rather than force.

Spirit Releasement and Exorcism

The distinction between spirit releasement and exorcism is important. Traditional exorcism often operates within an established religious system in which divine authority is invoked against a hostile possessing entity. Prayers, sacred names, commands, holy objects and prescribed rituals may be used to drive the intruder away.

Spirit releasement generally takes a less confrontational approach. The practitioner attempts to communicate with the alleged presence and determine who or what it believes itself to be, how it became attached and why it remains. If the entity is understood to be the spirit of a deceased human being, the practitioner may attempt to convince it that its physical life has ended and that remaining attached to the earthly world is no longer necessary.

This process is sometimes called depossession, although terminology varies between practitioners. Unlike formal religious exorcism, it is frequently performed by mediums, regression therapists, spiritual healers or paranormal practitioners rather than clergy. Nevertheless, many versions still contain profoundly spiritual elements, including prayer, spirit guides, angels, deceased relatives and the appearance or visualisation of a brilliant light representing passage into another state of existence.

Ancient Roots of a Modern Practice

The term may be modern, but the underlying belief is ancient. Cultures throughout the world have developed traditions in which spirits, ghosts, demons or other invisible beings are believed capable of influencing the living. Shamans, priests, healers, sorcerers and mediums have consequently developed methods intended to remove, appease, negotiate with or redirect these forces.

The Western form now called spirit releasement developed particularly strongly from Spiritualism, psychical investigation and later regression therapy. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Spiritualists believed that confused or morally degraded spirits could attach themselves to living people and influence behaviour, emotions or health.

Rather than viewing every such spirit as demonic, Spiritualist practitioners sometimes regarded them as human personalities continuing after death and still burdened by the ignorance, addictions or emotional problems they had possessed during life.

This idea created the foundation for the modern releasement model because the unwanted spirit ceased to be merely an enemy and became something that might itself require help.

Carl Wickland and the Restless Dead

One of the most important predecessors of modern spirit releasement was the American physician Carl A. Wickland, whose work became famous through his 1924 book Thirty Years Among the Dead.

Wickland believed that many people suffering from unusual psychological disturbances were being influenced by confused spirits of deceased individuals. Working with his wife Anna Wickland, who acted as a medium, he claimed to communicate with these entities and explain to them that they had died.

In Wickland’s interpretation, some spirits remained close to the physical world because they had not understood the transition of death. Others continued to pursue old addictions, desires or emotional attachments through living people.

His approach was therefore less concerned with defeating spirits than educating them. Once the alleged entity understood its condition, it could supposedly be persuaded to leave the living person and continue into the spirit world.

This concept would reappear almost unchanged in later spirit releasement therapy.

Edith Fiore and Spirit Depossession

The modern movement was strongly influenced by Edith Fiore, a psychologist who became known for her work with past-life regression. During regression sessions, Fiore began interpreting certain experiences not as memories belonging to her clients but as memories belonging to deceased personalities supposedly attached to them.

Her book The Unquiet Dead, published in 1987, presented spirit attachment as a possible explanation for a wide range of problems within her spiritual framework. Fiore described communicating with alleged entities through clients and persuading them to recognise their death and move towards a higher spiritual state.

The method was deliberately different from the violent imagery surrounding exorcism. The spirit was approached as a conscious being possessing its own history, confusion and emotional wounds.

This concept became one of the central principles of later spirit releasement practice.

William Baldwin and Spirit Releasement Therapy

William J. Baldwin became the figure most strongly associated with the formal development of Spirit Releasement Therapy, commonly abbreviated SRT. Originally trained as a dentist, Baldwin became increasingly involved with hypnosis, past-life regression and spirit attachment during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

After encountering Edith Fiore’s ideas, he developed his own extensive system for identifying and communicating with alleged attached entities. His Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual, published in 1991, became one of the most influential texts within the modern movement.

Baldwin’s system expanded far beyond ordinary human ghosts. His writings classified possible attachments as deceased human spirits, hostile spiritual intelligences, thought forms and even extraterrestrial entities. These categories belong to Baldwin’s own metaphysical worldview and are not established by scientific evidence, but they became highly influential among later practitioners.

The Center for Human Relations, operated by Baldwin and his wife Judith, taught these ideas internationally, helping transform spirit releasement from scattered mediumistic practice into a recognisable modern spiritual therapy.

The Earthbound Spirit

At the heart of spirit releasement lies the idea of the earthbound dead.

According to practitioners, death does not automatically guarantee that a consciousness understands what has happened to it. Someone killed unexpectedly may continue behaving as though life has not ended. Another spirit may recognise its death but refuse to leave because it remains obsessed with a person, home, possession or injustice.

Violent death is considered particularly significant because the emotional shock surrounding it is believed capable of fixing consciousness to the place where death occurred.

This interpretation appears frequently in haunting cases. An apparition may repeatedly walk the same corridor, return to the same bedroom or reenact the same final moments without appearing aware that decades have passed. Paranormal investigators sometimes call this residual activity, while spirit releasement practitioners may interpret similar phenomena as evidence of consciousness trapped within unresolved circumstances.

Discovering the Spirit’s Story

A spirit releasement session usually begins by attempting to establish communication with the alleged presence. The practitioner may work directly with a person experiencing the attachment, through a medium or, in some traditions, from a distance.

The entity is questioned about its identity, memories and circumstances. Practitioners may ask how it died, why it remains, what it fears and what prevents it from leaving.

Within the belief system, discovering this story can itself weaken the attachment. A spirit that believed it was still alive may suddenly be confronted with the possibility that decades or centuries have passed. A presence obsessed with revenge may be persuaded that those responsible are long dead, while another attached through grief may be encouraged to recognise that the person it loved no longer requires its constant presence.

The process can therefore resemble counselling directed towards the dead.

Moving Into the Light

The most recognisable moment in spirit releasement is the appearance of the Light.

Practitioners commonly describe a brilliant white or golden light opening before the earthbound spirit once it agrees to depart. The entity is encouraged to move towards it, where another world or level of existence is believed to await.

Helping spirits may also appear during the process. These can include angels, spirit guides, deceased relatives, old friends or even beloved animals that the supposed earthbound spirit knew during life.

Their role is to reassure the departing consciousness that it will not enter the unknown alone.

This imagery has become deeply embedded in modern mediumistic culture. The spirit does not vanish into nothingness but is received, accompanied and transferred from the earthly condition into another state.

Spirit Releasement in Haunted Places

The practice is also used in haunted locations.

A medium or psychic investigator may enter a building, attempt to identify the presence responsible for apparitions or disturbances and then communicate with it. Rather than simply ordering the ghost to leave, the practitioner tries to discover why it remains attached to the site.

One famous modern example involved the alleged haunting of Coutts & Co. in London during the early 1990s. Psychic investigator Eddie Burks claimed to contact an embittered Elizabethan spirit later associated with Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Burks believed that the spirit remained earthbound because of anger surrounding his execution for treason and that once the dead man released this bitterness, a luminous female presence appeared to escort him away.

Whether Burks actually communicated with Howard cannot be established, but the case illustrates the philosophy of spirit releasement perfectly. The ghost was not attacked or banished because Burks believed the problem was not evil but unresolved emotion.

Remote Releasement

Some practitioners claim that physical presence is unnecessary and that spirit releasement can be performed at a distance.

In remote spirit releasement, a medium or practitioner attempts to establish psychic contact with an alleged attachment affecting a person or location elsewhere. The same process of identification, dialogue and persuasion is then carried out without direct physical contact.

This idea follows naturally from mediumistic belief because consciousness and spirit are understood as existing outside ordinary physical limitations. If communication with the dead is possible at all within that worldview, geographical distance is not necessarily considered an obstacle.

Remote releasement remains a spiritual claim rather than a scientifically demonstrated phenomenon.

After the Releasement

Practitioners frequently report that clients feel unusually light, peaceful or emotionally relieved after a session. Paranormal investigators may similarly claim that unexplained activity in a location decreases after an alleged spirit has been released.

Some practitioners recommend spiritual protection afterwards, including prayer, visualisation, meditation or other methods intended to prevent new attachments.

Such claims should be understood within the spiritual framework in which the practice operates. Spirit Releasement Therapy has not been scientifically established as proof that discarnate entities attach themselves to living people, and experiences interpreted as possession or attachment can overlap with recognised psychological and medical conditions.

For that reason, spirit releasement should never be used as a substitute for appropriate medical or mental-health care when someone is experiencing serious psychological or physical symptoms. Even William Baldwin acknowledged that his methods did not scientifically prove survival after death, reincarnation or spirit possession.

The Mystery Behind Spirit Releasement

Spirit releasement occupies an unusual place between exorcism, mediumship, paranormal investigation and spiritual healing. Its central idea is strangely compassionate: the entity causing a haunting may itself be trapped.

Within this worldview, not every ghost rattling a door or following a living person is malicious. Some may be frightened, traumatised or unable to understand that their earthly existence has ended. Others may remain because hatred, love, guilt or obsession has become stronger than death itself.

The practitioner therefore enters a dangerous threshold between worlds and attempts to resolve what death failed to finish.

Whether these encounters represent genuine communication with discarnate consciousness, altered states of mind, psychological symbolism or something still unexplained remains one of the great questions surrounding modern spirit work. What cannot be denied is that the practice continues an ancient human conviction that death does not always sever every bond and that sometimes the living may have to help the dead complete the journey.

Stop Watching the Door and Learn What Lies Beyond It

If you are satisfied with frightening yourself with ghost stories while knowing nothing about spirit communication, attachment, exorcism, mediumship or the occult traditions created to deal with the dead, then remain a spectator and keep pretending curiosity is the same thing as knowledge. Enter the Occult World Mystery School and begin studying the forces, rituals and systems that serious occultists use to understand the unseen world rather than consuming watered-down paranormal entertainment. Learn how hauntings are interpreted, how spiritual protection is constructed, how ritual authority works and why traditions of communication with the dead have survived across cultures for thousands of years. The unknown does not become less powerful because you refuse to understand it, so stop standing outside the darkness and begin learning how those who work with occult power actually enter it.