Led astray by kundalini

“Vilseledd av en falsk ängel” by Louise Marianne Johansdotter is a very peculiar book, published by the Swedish New Age press Siljans Måsar. The author´s name is a pseudonym. In translation, the Swedish title means “Led astray by a false angel”. Johansdotter is clearly a New Age believer and has chosen to interpret her frightening experiences in that light. Usually, books of this type end with the author calling on the name of Jesus and converting to Christianity. Johansdotter chose to stay within the New Age fold.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, the author was a dabbler in things “metaphysical”, including telepathic contact with animals and channeling of spirit-guides. The latter proved her undoing, when an entity claiming to be the archangel Michael and always referred to as “St Michel” (in French) came through. Johansdotter soon began to experience delusions of grandeur, as St Michel promised her fame, fortune, success in love, and some kind of prophetic status. Sounds familiar? She would solve the Palme murder, among other things, and the truth was supposedly hidden in a house in Albania…or was it Iran? St Michel also turned her into a world-class exorcist and ghost hunter…but it seems the ghosts always remained after she had tried to exorcise them (if you don´t believe in ghosts, we are dealing with multiple levels of delusion here). The bad experiences started after the author had began to use a pendulum for purposes of divination and channeling. Somehow, this enabled St Michel to get control of her.

Ultimately, Johansdotter isolated herself completely from her friends and family, and one lone night in her house experienced what she claims to be an experience of rising kundalini. It felt like being literally burnt from inside out. Luckily, a friend had spare keys to her house and entered it, only to find the would-be prophetess in a state of complete exhaustion and panic. The author ended up in the mental asylum, not once but several times, and didn´t recover fully until a New Age exorcist somehow liberated her from “Michael”. Apparently, she was possessed by three demons! What makes the story so peculiar is, as already noticed, that Johansdotter never became a Christian, nor did it ever struck her to interpret her ordeal in secular terms. This no doubt explains why her work is published by a metaphysical press.

There are clinical names for these kinds of experiences. They are “schizophrenia” and “psychotic break”. In plain English, Louise Marianne Johansdotter was never led astray by a false angel at all. She was simply barking mad! But sure, I suppose you could always claim that the madness was ultimately caused by three demons with nothing else to do except annoying little old ladies in tennis shoes (and with pendulums)…

On a positive note, the book lacks the typical attempts by New Age believers to couch everything in “cosmic” terms as a “karmic learning experience” and therefore “ultimately good”, etc. It´s a rather straightforward story, with the author warning people to stay away from certain dangerous spiritual practices. That being said, Louise Marianne Johansdotter does feel near invulnerable after her bizarre experiences, which I suppose is a good outcome in a sense.