Love always wins

What dark spirits, autism, and LSD show us about the power of love

Love always wins, Midjourney

What can possibly be said about love that does not immediately fall into cliche, platitude, and boring dross? And yet . . .

I am consistently astounded by my experience of love’s power and profundity. The more I open my heart—to my own wounds, my work, my family, my clients, my friends—the more I see that we can never get close to exhausting the life-giving resource of love. The English language suffers by not having more words for love, although a million different words would still fail us.

But perhaps if I use words like 'dark spirits,' 'autism' and 'LSD,' I can find something new to say about love. So, I will use these words and many other words to tell you a story, in three parts, of what love is meaning to me now.

Part 1: Dark spirits need love too

“Love always wins,” I said to my client,¹ about an hour into one of the most intense and beautiful IFS sessions I’ve ever facilitated.

If anything wise comes out of my mouth in a session, it’s always coming from somewhere outside of my analytical, coaching parts. After I said it, I could feel my body relax and my managing parts surrender. Love always wins.

This client, with her eyes closed, was focusing internally on a young, vulnerable part of her who was carrying the memories, feelings, and beliefs associated with being sexually abused as a young child. But the part wasn’t just carrying these burdens, she was also holding onto something that looked to the client like an energetic cord connecting the part to what some cultures might call a dark spirit or demon. In IFS we call these dark entities “unattached burdens” or UBs.

Is this a good point to remind you that I have two PhDs? That before leaving academia, I published a dozen peer-reviewed articles and a book by a reputable university press? That I’ve never in my adult life, before being trained in IFS, experienced or believed in spirits or demons?

In addition to all of these facts, I’m also committed to epistemic humility—a realization that there is an infinite amount of things I cannot know. Among the things I cannot know is the ontological reality of parts and UBs. I can’t know about them in the same way as I can know about rocks, bread, or this computer. But I can know about them experientially as clients report entities in their systems that are not parts and do not have benevolent intentions toward them. It’s very rare, but this definitely happens. And these entities behave in very predictable ways.

I first learned about UBs from Bob Falconer, a therapist and senior IFS lead trainer who teaches courses and writes books about the further reaches of Internal Family Systems therapy. I’ve since learned more from other experienced IFS therapists—all normal, empirically-minded individuals, who nevertheless witness these things occasionally emerge in their sessions with clients.

No one knows exactly what UBs are or where they come from. But over time, the IFS community has learned how to help clients remove them with relative ease. When I worked with my first UB in a client, I noticed I had a young part of me that was scared of the demons and devils from the stories of my Baptist upbringing. I called it a Sunday school part. But the training I received, particularly from Falconer, helped this part calm down.

The first key to working with UBs, according to IFS trainers who’ve been doing this for years, is to know and act with complete confidence that they only have power in the face of fear, and they are powerless in the face of love. It sounds like a cliche teen fantasy movie, but it’s been true 100% of the time for me.

The second key is that UBs are not fundamentally bad, they will not be punished or go to hell, and if they’re willing to accept it, they can go to their true home, into the light. Falconer’s instructions are to tell the UB, after it’s been detached from the client: “We are not here to punish or judge you; we want to send you to a place where you can heal.”² He likens it to the Gospel parable of the prodigal son: no matter what the UB has done, it will be welcomed home.

Who knew that dealing with dark spirits could be so loving? It’s been surprising how easy it can sometimes be to help clients remove UBs.

Except there was nothing easy about this particular UB in my client. Her young part didn’t want to let go of the UB because it was the one thing in her life that was stable and on her side. Although it had been draining her of energy for decades, leaving this young part despondent and suicidal, she felt comfort in the UB’s steadfast presence.

At one point in the session, the young part said that if the UB had to go, she wanted to go with it. And another part of the client jumped in and agreed, wanting to push the young part out with the UB.

I felt stuck with her. This young part had been horrifically abused as a child, she wasn’t letting go of the UB and wanted to go with her.

I took a deep breath, relaxed into my heart space, and I heard the words: love always wins.

My felt sense was, I don’t have to rush anything. Nothing needs to be forced. Love. Always. Wins.

I said:³

I imagine that the young part feels like it can’t let go. And the knowing in Self is that this is all the natural, flowing, cosmic course of things. Like, we don't need to rush it. Love is always going to win. We don't need to rush. Love is always going to win.

Client:

There's another part that's like “Not for me.” It's showing me that I forget about love, and then my temper comes out and this thing gets stronger.

Justin:

Yeah, it makes sense Your system has done the very best it could. All these parts have done the very very best they could and yet here you are and love is still here. Anchoring back into the breath. What do you notice now?

Client:

I feel like she's telling me like she wants to be done. Like she wants me to just let her go because she didn't get to be a kid and she's not ready. And then I have another part that comes in and it's like “Being a kid sucks anyway.”

Justin:

Yeah, but not for her. It's so true. She didn't get to be a kid. Let's let her feel the grief, the sorrow, and the love here.

Client:

The face [the Unattached Burden] is getting mad.

Justin:

Yeah. So the entity will get upset as it feels its power reducing. So you can just expect that. And just notice it out in front of you⁴ in the golden light. One-hundred percent, it cannot hurt you.

Client:

It's like sending black into her.

Justin:

Yeah. You can let her know that if she allows in more of your self-energy, that it will send the black back out. And that when she's ready, she can just remove that cord, let it go, and there will be no more of the blackness and the entity there.

Client:

She said it feels too easy to trust.

Justin:

Yeah, I know. But she can give it a try for herself. It's amazing how easy it is.

Client:

Yeah, I don't know if it's her or another part that's just like you're going to be shattered when it's not true.

Justin:

Well, I can promise her and I can promise your parts. that it is true, that when she's ready to let go, it's actually really easy. It's almost shocking. Because the truth is that she belongs to you. She doesn't belong to the entity. And so it's actually really easy. But she has to want to let go.

Client:

It's like she's saying, if she comes with me, she has to grow up.

Justin:

Let her know that she doesn't have to. She can stay [young] for as long as she wants, and she'll get to play and just be a regular kid with you.

Client:

Yeah, I have a part that comes in.

Justin:

What does that one say?

Client:

We do not play.

Justin:

Well, maybe that part won't, but if the [young one] wants to, it'll get to do whatever it wants.

Client:

Well, that's mind-blowing. I'm not even kidding.

Justin:

Yeah, yeah, that's the power of Self. It's true.

Client:

Okay, she let go.

There was still a lot of repair work for the client to do with that young part. There were other UBs in her system as well. But we didn’t have to rush anything. Love always wins.

Part 2: Love beyond words

I heard of the Telepathy Tapes from

Tom Morgan

, a former Wall Street trader-turned-Substack-writer/podcaster. He said it had changed his mind about “psi” abilities like telepathy, mediumship, and such. Even having met Tom and followed his work for a few years, I was hesitant to spend any amount of time on a podcast about telepathy. But when I saw that it had overtaken Joe Rogan’s podcast for a short time on Spotify, I decided to give it a listen if only to avoid missing out on the zeitgeist.

The Telepathy Tapes is produced by its host Ky Dickens, a documentary filmmaker whose work explored a range of pretty normal themes like caregiving, Chicago’s role in American consumer culture, and plane crash survivors. But Ky takes a turn with this project by earnestly examining the possibility that non-speaking autistic children, teens, and young adults demonstrate “psi” abilities like telepathy once they’re taught how to communicate through methods like Spelling to Communicate (S2C) and the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM). It’s hard enough to believe that these non-speaking kids have such abilities, but add in the fact that the lead accrediting agency for speech therapists who work with such kids, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, sharply condemns methods like S2C and RPM.

The deck was stacked against Ky before I listened to the first episode.

And my skepticism lasted into the second. But by the third, I was hooked. Not only does Ky seem like an honest broker who’s just as curious and fascinated by what’s happening as the listener, but the consistency of the stories from families around the world is stunning. In the fourth episode, Ky talks to the families of two non-speaking autistic teenagers, John Paul and Lily, who fall in love . . . telepathically. You’ll have to hear it to believe it.

You can now number me among the believers. Unless this talented, seemingly level-headed documentary filmmaker hired many dozens of actors to play parents, kids, researchers, therapists, teachers, and pastors, then what Ky has put together is nothing less than groundbreaking for our understanding of mind, consciousness, the universe . . . and love.

What becomes clear throughout the episodes is that some⁵ non-speaking autistic children, teens, and adults experience their minds as porous and fluid in a way that allows them to connect to the minds of others close by and far away. One teen communicates telepathically with a writer a thousand miles away. Many of the children and teens meet telepathically in a non-material place they call “The Hill.” And they all seem to have access to a deeper spiritual undercurrent of consciousness.

These psi abilities appear to have something to do with how the autistic non-speakers report being disconnected from their bodies. Once they have the opportunity to spell, they report feeling out of control in their bodies, or, as Akil in episode 2 reported, not even knowing they had a body. When Akil realized he had a body he wrote: “But the body in my mind doesn’t move.”

The non-speakers in Telepathy Tapes seem to have clear and beautiful minds that are trapped in disconnected bodies. Almost like how other senses become heightened in the cases of blindness or deafness, being disconnected from the sensory apparatus of the body has heightened the ability of non-speakers’ minds.

What we learn from them once they are able to communicate in our clunky, time-consuming verbal ways is often profoundly and beautifully spiritual. When they spell, their wording is often poetic. My first exposure to the charming flow of non-speakers’ communication is in the Netflix short documentary, Makayla’s Voice, about a non-speaking teen who uses a letter board to communicate her graceful prose. Like the teens in the Telepathy Tapes, her mind-disconnected-from-the-body sees more than we do:

I see how the autistic mind mirrors the soul in a cosmic way. It sees colors in sounds. Music in the wind. My soul sees what others cannot. Truth, honesty, and love are colors surrounding the heart. I literally see that. It’s music, silent like me.

The kids in the Telepathy Tapes are eerily similar. One of the teachers in episode 7 says, “There's a lightness to [their communication]. There's often love infused with it."

Indeed, I’d go further to say that love is the central message these kids are communicating. In episode 9, one of the stars of the season, John Paul, dies unexpectedly. After discovering his body, his mom Libby calls the mom of Houston, his best friend. After the call, Houston’s mom runs up stairs to tell him.

And I honestly wasn't even thinking anything at the time because I was in shock and I was just, like, trying to think it untrue. And the very first thing he spelled was, ‘John Paul is finally free.’ And I never told him. I never said a word. The next thing he spelled was, John Paul said, ‘I, son of God, am home. Make your whole life about love.’

At John Paul’s funeral, Houston wrote a eulogy, arduously typing letter by letter. It begins:

Entire reason for being on earth is to love. Love is God and God is love. Nothing else matters but love.

Near the end of the end of episode 9, John Paul’s girlfriend Lily was asked if she had any words about heaven, the afterlife, or God. She told Ky:

The religions of the world try to point us to God and to a more complete understanding of our souls and how we are made to love more and more like no human can, but to love like God loves.

And all this would barely make the top 10 most amazing, beautiful, and profound moments in the series.

In the final episode, Ky sends out a request to all the families that have either been in the show or have connected with her during this time, asking what the non-speakers would like the world to know.

And of course, it’s all about love.

As one speech therapist reports back to Ky, a common theme for telepathic engagement by non-speakers is love. They regularly tell her, “I only go in if there's love and acceptance and kindness." Summarizing all of the messages she received, Ky says, “Most important to every non-speaker that I've ever had the privilege of knowing is a message of love."

From Anthony:

Currently, most humans do not have free access as we do. Each frequency is attuned to love. Love is eternal. Everything else is an evolution caused by separation. Great change occurs when we join our souls as one. The highest human power is love. Spiritual evolution occurs when hearts are aligned in mass to create loving vibrations during all circumstances at all times. Planetary upgrade is needed now. Future humans must be driven by loving kindness. Love purely, love openly, without conditions. Love soulfully. Feel God in every person. Kindness is the best way to evolve.

Andrew:

I am here to show others a different way of being, one just of love and of living from that place.

Nick:

I'm awaked love in the new earth of the future, and now is the time to gravely grow our knowledge and future. . . Awaked love is the ability to see deeper than before into the way that things really are. Now is the time for awaked love to open the hearts of those who deserve understanding, and I'm yearning to awaken you further to more spiritual ways.

Jackson:

Every soul's true nature is love, but the human mind gets distorted and they forget. Compassion will help them realize they are worthy of being loved, even when mistakes have been made. The compassion that we offer can change everything, even if you never speak it, but hold it in your heart for everyone.

Daniel:

I feel the soul of humanity because it is love. It is openness that brought them to hear my words. And I cannot be more honored and humbled to be of service to those that hear me.

And we of course can end with John Paul and Houston, best friends forever.

John Paul:

We value love more than valuables. Love is all that is important. We need to try to always love so this universe will survive.

Houston:

Love and helping others has to be more important than serving yourself. My job on Earth is to make all the Earth hear that God is love, so great as love, that no one will have any need to fear when they sink into its depths. Neurotypicals believe, I've seen. When you've seen what I've seen, there is no doubt.

Part 3: Tripping into love

Chris Bache is perhaps the bravest explorer you’ve never heard of. Most days between 1978 and 2011, he served as an unassuming professor of philosophy and religion at a small, out-of-the-way state university in Ohio. But several times a year, between 1979 and 1999, he would, as the kids say, “trip balls.” With his sober wife (who was also a therapist) watching over him, he would take an enormous⁶ but very precise amount of LSD and blast off into the nether regions of consciousness.

His initial motivation came from his work as a professor and his interest in consciousness research. He wanted to explore the philosophical and cosmological insights that could emerge from systematic psychedelic work in a controlled setting. LSD entered society in the 1940s and 50s as a therapeutic drug, turned into a recreational drug in the 60s and fell into the margins of drug culture by the late 70s, when Bache begins his personal trials.

Bache was not part of a psychedelic renaissance or some “psychonaut” scene like what’s emerged since Michael Pollan’s culture-shifting book and Netflix documentary How to Change Your Mind. He was an earnest and honest professor at an unheralded state university who took his professional academic interests seriously. He taught courses on world religions, the psychology of religion, and comparative mysticism.

And he wanted to venture into the mind of the universe.

He kept detailed notes on each of his 73 high-dose LSD sessions, which ended in 1999. They began with personal “clearing,” as he put it. The early sessions focused on his life patterns, his personal identity, and what he saw as preparatory work for the grueling journeys that lay ahead.

The sessions eventually opened up to what he described as collective or species-level consciousness, where he encountered the collective pain and trauma of humanity. These experiences often involved witnessing and feeling deep suffering on a mass scale. In later phases, his sessions became increasingly cosmic in nature, involving what he described as encounters with various levels of universal consciousness and intelligence.

In his book, the levels don’t appear to unfold in an orderly way, yielding insights that move from one stage to the next. The insights are aplenty, from the two sessions where he experienced what it was like to be women—many different women from different time, ages, classes, and epochs—to the evolutionary potential of humanity. But it isn’t until the final chapter that he summarizes the key insights of his 20-year adventure into the deepest levels of consciousness.

Another twenty years removed from his final LSD session, he says, an interviewer asked him: “What was the most important thing you learned from all your sessions?” Bache couldn’t choose one and instead gave her a list so that she could choose for herself.

1. The universe is the manifest body of a divine being of unimaginable intelligence, compassion, clarity and power

2. That we are all aspects of this being never separated from it for a moment

3. That we are growing ever more aware of this connection

4. That physical reality emerges out of light and returns to light continuously

5. That light is our essential nature and our destiny

6. That all life moves as one

7. That reincarnation is true

8. That there is a deep logic and significance to the circumstances of our lives

9. That everything we do contributes to the evolution of the whole

10. That our awareness continues in an ocean of time and a sea of bliss when we die

11. That humanity is driving toward an evolutionary breakthrough that will change us and life on this planet at the deepest level

12. That we are loved beyond measure

I find the list to be a mind-blowing, heart-opening confirmation that love always wins. And it always wins because it’s at the very heart of the universe.

We can relax.

We’re not in trouble.

It might be really hard and painful right now.

But Love. Always. Wins.

1. I received permission from this client to share this story.

2. Falconer, Robert. The Others Within Us: Internal Family Systems, Porous Mind, and Spirit Possession (p. 110). Great Mystery Press. Kindle Edition.

3. I have a transcript of our session, which I received permission from the client to use here. I edited lightly for clarity and to protect the identity of the client.

4. The IFS protocol for removing UBs includes guiding the client to surround the UB in a loving light of Self-energy and bring that ball of light containing the UB out in front at a conversational distance. At this point, the therapist asks the client to notice any chords or tubes leading back into the client’s body. Those chords will show which parts are still holding onto the UB. In this case, the client’s young, abused part was still holding on.

5. How many? I don’t recall Ky exploring the question of whether all non-speakers have this ability or only a select few. Hopefully we’ll get some answers in season 2!

6. He reports taking between 500 and 600 micrograms of LSD, whereas the “normal” trip will be around 100.