Paranormal Therapy

This chapter explores representations of angels and demons, ascended masters, heaven and hell, the dark night of the soul, wrongdoing, and the cosmic struggle between good and evil as depicted in the therapeutic afterlife genre. Framing humans as central actors in interdimensional conflicts, it analyzes how this genre addresses spiritual, moral, and ethical polarities through therapeutic frameworks and concepts such as the dark night of the soul, the shadow self, dark forces, and divine guidance. A major focus is the genre’s engagement with various forms of entity release therapy, known clinically as spirit release therapy or spirit releasement therapy, which includes techniques aimed at responding to afflictions caused by human and non-human entities through spirit attachment, infestation, and possession. These approaches mark a hybridization of spirituality and clinical intervention, recasting healing as a sacred process involving Otherworldly forces. The chapter also considers representations of paranormal trauma, including hauntings and poltergeists, as well as a divergence from traditional religious demonology. Studying the works of Baldwin, Fiore, Palmer, Sagan, Sanderson, and Tramont, as pioneers of paranormal therapy, the chapter illustrates how the therapeutic afterlife offers a postmaterialist and theocentric framework that redefines healing as an interaction between human and spirit worlds.