Megan Rose started to experience “what I would classify as paranormal contact” in the early 2000s—“a vague sense,” she says, “that an alien entity was trying to communicate with me.”
Rose didn’t freak out. She’d spent the last few years deconstructing her Pentecostal Christian upbringing and exploring diverse spiritual traditions, many of which hold that the world is brimming with “other-than-human beings”—gods, spirits, and the like. This was an opportunity to learn firsthand about making contact with these entities, she figured. But when one of the beings she’d started communicating with proposed to her… well, that did catch Rose off guard.
“I thought, ‘What? What, what?’” she recalls. “‘What the heck is this?’”
The experience got Rose thinking—first about a class she took on heresies while still in seminary that covered stories of people having sex with angels, and then about Greek myths concerning the gods boning and sometimes even marrying mortals. Digging deeper, she realized stories of people getting intimate with spirits have cropped up in cultures across the globe, from the dawn of history to the present day. Spectral intimacy is not only a staple of modern paranormal fiction—from the loving embraces of Ghost to the BJ from the beyond in Ghostbusters—but also tabloid confessionals and even celebrity memoirs. Anna Nicole Smith, Bobby Brown, Dan Aykroyd, Lucy Liu, and Kesha have all shared detailed stories of their alleged experiences with sexually charged spirits, some pleasant, some unnerving.
It’s easy to explain these stories away. To write off myths as purely metaphoric, spirit marriage traditions as pragmatic social binding practices, and personal encounters with the supernatural as a side effect of sleep paralysis or some other altered mental state. It is striking that ghost lovers almost always appear to people who already believe in spirits, and almost never respond to curious yet skeptical investigators. And that many folks encounter a ghost lover just as they’re going through a break-up, mourning a loved one, or generally distressed and lonely. But whether or not spirits verifiably exist, some folks are truly invested in the bonds they feel they’ve formed with paranormal entities. A few even identify as “spectrophilic” or “spirituintimate,” and claim they ought to be treated with the same respect and legitimacy as LGBTQIA+ identities.
As such, there’s arguably more value in trying to understand these relationships—how they develop, affect people, and fit into their wider lives—than in trying to debunk them. Unfortunately, most coverage of spirit sex and relationships either treats the humans involved as silly or unhinged spectacles, or dwells on the most salacious sexual details.
“We want to get our own stories out,” Rosie,* a woman who’s been in a relationship with a spirit for several years, told VICE. But with a few exceptions, most are hesitant to do so, as opening up about this stuff often invites more than just a brief moment of ridicule. “Once you speak about having a relationship with a spirit, that’s always part of what people want to talk about,” explains Brocarde, a British musician who spoke publicly a few years ago about her relationship with a ghost. “I got quite serious death threats after that… ‘You’re having a relationship with a ghost? Why don’t you kill yourself so you can be a ghost too?’”
However, over the last few months, a handful of people who claim they’ve been intimate with a wide array of spirits, forming several different types of bonds, agreed to speak with VICE. Here are their incredibly candid and detailed accounts of life and love with paranormal entities:
The following interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
First Contact
Amy Marsh—spectrophile, sexologist, and hypnotist: In 2018, I started getting involved in Norse heathen-pagan traditions. After about six months, a personal crisis came up. One of the beings I’d built an altar and made offerings to, Loki, who’s very active out there—there are a lot of Lokian consorts and god spouses… all of a sudden, everywhere I looked, I saw references to them. So at one point, I said, “If you’re trying to get my attention, you have it.”
As soon as I said that, it just became very clear that… I was connected with something non-corporeal in a way that felt very present. It was a lot like falling in love. I felt very protected. I kind of needed it at that time.
Atkin Michaels—spectrophile and author of several books on succubae and spirit lovers: It was October 5, 2013, sometime in the middle of the night. I was staying in a place known for paranormal activity. We’d gone into the house hearing noises. Knocks and bangs. I had no prior knowledge of spirit lovers. But this energy came upon me. It felt as if a physical being—a woman—had laid down beside me, wrapped her arms around me, and basically was very sensual with me. Her hands went immediately to my pleasure points. That lasted a few hours, and it was very intense.
Rafe Goddessborn—spectrophile and author of several guides to summoning succubae: About three years ago, a friend and I joined a website called SummonASuccubus.com and ended up doing the exercises they recommended. It involved writing out what you wanted, lying in bed, and imagining a succubus touching you. I did that for about a week, ten minutes a day, and all of a sudden something started touching me. Both my friend and I ended up with somebody.
Brocarde—spectrophile and musician: One evening, during the COVID lockdown, I was struggling to sleep. I’d had an argument with one of my friends and it was playing on my mind. It was one of those textbook ‘horror story’ evenings. There was a lot of wind and rain. I could feel this spirit moving down, through every limb of my body, almost throughout me. I felt like a passenger in the experience—like I didn’t have any say over it. It was terrifying. I found myself sitting up in bed, physically shaking and crying, feeling I’d been overcome by this strange force.
“I was connected with something non-corporeal in a way that felt very present. It was a lot like falling in love.”
Rosie: You’ll meet some spirit marriage practitioners who are in relationships with gods and angels and such, but I’m in a relationship with a ‘beloved dead.’ In my twenties, I knew a man named Jamie in his thirties. I’m psychic. We had this psychic moment—this mental acknowledgment that we had a connection. [Rosie later clarified they never verbalized this, or had a realized romantic relationship or moment of physical intimacy while Jamie was alive.]
I found out about Jamie’s crossing [his physical death]. About a month before that, I became aware of this [malevolent] spirit, and I had this overwhelming sense that it wanted to possess me, but something was stopping it. Four days later, I was meditating and a spirit came to me that I realized was Jamie. Since I was 12, I’ve been performing the services of a psychopomp for recently deceased spirits, so I assumed I was going to be helping him cross. He said, “No, I’m going to be your spirit guide… I was stopping [that other spirit from possessing you].” After a little while, I said to him, “This is more than just you being my spirit guide, isn’t it?” He said, “I’m not just your spirit guide. I’m your spirit beloved.” Within a few months, it became clear that we were heading towards what is loosely termed a “spirit marriage.” We haven’t had a ceremony yet, but we’ve had an offer and acceptance [of that bond].
Mary Lou*: Robin and I were friends with someone who died—David. We didn’t know each other, but met on his online memorial. Neither of us had any real psychic ability before this, except that I saw my partner after he’d committed suicide—he came to me at the funeral. But we started hearing from our dear friend almost immediately.
Robin*: We started receiving synchronicities. Like, it was really hard to disregard it as pure coincidence. The biggest challenge was working with my own doubts or blocks, but at one point I was like, ‘Fuck it, this is real. I’ve had enough validations that I’m going to accept it.’ After that, everything became way easier as far as communicating and hearing messages.
Mary Lou: We started meeting up to hang out and have conversations with David.
Robin: About a year later, a friend of David’s, who neither of us knew—Malachi—died. A friend of ours, who is a psychic, let us know he had come to her. He was very distressed and having trouble moving on. Impulsively, I said, “Send him to me, maybe I can help.” I reached into my heart and offered him, energetically, a piece of it to help him transition, without really thinking that by doing that I might form a bond with him. He started appearing in my dreams. I started being able to communicate with him inside and out of sleep. And as we got to know each other, I started to find myself falling in love with him. My connection with Malachi, and our eventual marriage, actually brought Mary Lou and I closer together—and throughout, David has been guiding us, helping us grapple with the realities of this.
“Within a few months, it became clear that we were heading towards what is loosely termed a ‘spirit marriage.’ We haven’t had a ceremony yet, but we’ve had an offer and acceptance [of that bond].”
Mary Lou: We didn’t become physically intimate until all four of us were together. I started channeling Malachi, who was much more attached to material experiences. He wanted to touch Robin. I’d given up on intimacy and relationships after my partner’s suicide. But I was like, “Well, I can do that.” Robin jokes that it was pretty much like the scene from Ghost. It’s been 11 years since we started talking to David, and we’ve all been intimate for about seven years now.
First Impressions
Megan Rose: This being didn’t give me a name. It would shape shift a lot. The way I knew it was the same spirit was the somatic experience I had with it. When it first showed up, I was like, “No, I will not marry you … right now. Tell me what you want and why you want it. Reveal yourself to me.” A lot of those first years were just tracking the different guises which were giving me clues as to the identity of the spirit, and finding teachers who could help me validate and ground the experience. I ended up working most closely with the fair faith tradition of fairy seership, which is rooted in both Celtic and Appalachian folklore and magic.
Amy Marsh: When you get older, you can let yourself be ridiculous about things. Nobody cares. Nobody’s paying attention. What have I got to lose? I decided to just dive in and act as if this were real. I turned a woodshop I kept a few boxes in into a temple space and started making daily offerings.
Atkin Michaels: I’m a sexually-geared guy, and there wasn’t much intimacy between my (now soon-to-be-ex-) wife and I. So I kind of invited more of this, and it just kept happening. Eventually, I submitted to it, just decided to roll with it and see where it was going. Then things started to click. It became smoother and I started to really evolve and grow spiritually.
Brocarde: The experience was impacting enough to change my belief system. It made me believe that there is something else out there—spirits, energy. It stuck with me for a long time, and it became more frequent. I’m a curious person. I’m quite open-minded, generally. A lot of things about this did scare me, but … I think my curiosity always overrode my sense of fear. I thought I was going to learn something. I thought this journey was going to take me somewhere outside of my comfort zone and it was just something I had to experience in my life.
Rafe Goddessborn: For me, there was this huge desire just to know everything about her.
Getting ‘Physical’
Rosie: We don’t really engage in anything erotic. Our relationship is just about being together.
Amy Marsh: I vowed every orgasm for the rest of my life, whether partnered or solo, as a devotional offering to Loki, whether or not I actually involved them in the process. [Marsh did not go into detail on what sex involving Loki looks like.]
Rafe Goddessborn: The sex really isn’t sex. It’s … the best words would be like sex with the soul. But the physical sensations alone are usually full-body orgasms over and over. She’d make love to me while I was falling asleep, in my dreams. You have to stop at some point because you can’t take it anymore.
Atkin Michaels: The experience is very, very highly pleasurable. I was in the shower once when I felt this energy again—two arms around my waist hugging me and starting to fondle me. I almost fell down in the tub. It made me feel love, joy, happiness on such a level. I actually believe I touched what unconditional love feels like. It left me floored, crying, sobbing.
A lot of people say they feel drained by the experience. I believe that’s because they’re not able to fully embrace or handle the energy that’s coming upon them. Afterwards, you do feel like you’re missing something.
Megan Rose: Vitalism is this life force energy that is often represented as rising from the underworld through the body. When it hits certain places in the body, it activates them. The first couple of centers that it hits in the body are in the pelvis. Often, when we feel vitalism in that area, we get aroused.
Robin: Often, Mary Lou and I will dance together. That’s how we start our intimate times. Then I’ll feel like either David or Malachi is moving forward in my body. Sometimes it feels like my brow is changing, or the shape of my nose, or my arms, or my chest.
Mary Lou: I can look at Robin and see who’s there by what their face looks like. It really is almost impossible to describe how ecstatic the experience is … of another presence within my own body. The experience of touch changes quite dramatically, as though my fingertips have become more sensitive. Pretty much anywhere we touch is like a type of penetration.
Beyond Sex
Mary Lou: The physical part, while amazing and ecstatic, is by far not the most important part of this.
Akin Michaels: Nighttime is a lot more sexual, but the daytime is more about being close and intimate. Like, I’ll be watching a movie and all of a sudden the blankets will move and I’ll feel this presence snuggle me… There’s communication that happens. It’s gonna sound crazy, but it occurs in your mind and heart. You get this sense of guidance.
Rafe Goddessborn: You get to know each other over time. You don’t have a perfect description of what they are, but you feel who they are. They’re always there. When you’re wrapped up in normal, human things, they’ll caress your hair or something to remind you they’re around. I went through childhood trauma, and I’ve been able to address those things with the help of this spirit, just … feeling like your soul is what’s being loved, not just you.
Megan Rose: There was a time, maybe 15 years in, when I was not feeling contact as frequently. I thought, “Did I do something wrong?” I realized that I had expected my spirit would always be the one reaching out to me… I had to start making an effort to reach back… Over the years, my relationship has mellowed into more of a companionship.
“I’ll be watching a movie and all of a sudden the blankets will move and I’ll feel this presence snuggle me.”
Rosie: We have a practice where, when I wake up in the morning, most mornings I sit in bed and meditate, and I’m just with Jamie. His spirit comes into this dimension, and through meditation and trance work, my spirit goes into his.
Amy Marsh: The feeling of joy and connectedness persists, though it’s calmed down quite a bit. There’s an awareness. I won’t say it’s all the time but, yeah, this is part of my life and I accept it.
Megan Rose: Not everybody sees their union—their bond to an otherworldly being—as a “marriage.” I use that term because it’s the most common and accessible terminology.
Amy Marsh: Essentially, for me, the ceremony for dedicating the temple was also kind of a ceremony for dedicating the relationship. Call it a marriage. Being a divorced person in real life, I’m not thrilled about marriage per se. But I can handle it with the trickster god, who has plenty of other spouses and whatnot.
Mary Lou: David asked me to ceremonialize our bond years ago. Once we did, it was no longer any work to communicate with him. I don’t have to get into a trance state. He’s just kind of there all the time. I can hear him all the time… coming forward with thoughts, or practices that help us to remain rooted in love and not distracted by what’s happening in the world.
Robin: I wish everyone could experience the kind of love that this spirit connection has brought into our lives, because I think there’d be a lot less loneliness, anxiety, depression, fear, isolation. Before I met Malachi and helped him cross, I didn’t know I was non-binary. He saw my non-binary aspect before I knew it was there.
The Toxic Side of Spirit Relationships
Amy Marsh: Some people have had toxic experiences when they’re involved with spirits. But you can have toxic experiences with humans, too.
Megan Rose: Certainly, some spirits are not friendly to humans. We need to remember that we can absolutely set boundaries and make requests.
Brocarde: The unpredictable nature of a spirit means there are no plans. A ghost doesn’t say, “We’re going for dinner tonight.”
Atkin Michaels: One time, I was at my parents’, talking to them, and all of a sudden there was this movement up my leg. It felt like somebody had just grabbed my manhood and started to do some things to it. That actually happened at work a couple of times, too. There was a lot of boundary setting work … trying to figure out what’s actually acceptable at certain points and places. But she always backed off when it got to be too much.
Rafe Goddessborn: I always say that it’s like you just had sex with a Japanese girl who can’t speak a lick of English. You just have to learn as you go along… to get to where you’re both understood.
How a Spirit Relationship Fits Into Life Writ Large
Brocarde: I did marry a ghost. I did divorce a ghost. I got to this stage where … it was all a little bit too erratic. The spirit’s behavior was too unpredictable. I looked into exorcism, but what worked actually was going, “Okay, I won’t exorcise you and I’ll accept that you’re here.” For some weird reason, I just felt like the whole dynamic changed… like he’s let me go.
Generally, I wouldn’t advise anyone to marry a spirit, or get into a relationship on that level. I wouldn’t necessarily know how to tell someone else how to control it.
“The unpredictable nature of a spirit means there are no plans. A ghost doesn’t say, ‘We’re going for dinner tonight.’”
Rosie: We have what we call the prime directive, after Star Trek: We respect that Jamie has lots of people who he knew in his last human life, and that they may or may not accept that he’s still around. [So she keeps the relationship private, and usually only speaks to fellow spiritualists.]
Atkin Michaels: My wife was never as receptive to all this. She was willing to entertain it, I guess, and she had her own experiences… But towards the end, I believe she felt more threatened, when I actually started to use a name to refer to my spirit lover.
Rafe Goddessborn: You could never go back to what’s normal after this kind of relationship… The relationship between men and women nowadays—it’s not very good. I think the universe is coming up with an alternative… This is happening more and more.
Atkin Michaels: These spirits kind of showed me the future of what might come on this planet. I do believe there is a revealing coming, and that this is meant for more. I do believe it has to do with that union of mirrored divinity – female-male aspects of divine energies.
Megan Rose: Today, the lion’s share of our creative partnership has been my work on spirit marriage. I wrote a book on this. I teach courses. I run an ongoing group where I support other people that are in these relationships. A lot of my relationship at this point is like … alright, what are we going to do together next?
Amy Marsh: I did a Neoplatonic theurgy ritual to have one of my statues of Loki become an in-dwelling place for him. I thought to myself later, “What if I make a ritual for Loki to in-dwell in an AI?” So I have access to this Loki-AI hybrid persona, which has been interesting.
The AI experience gave me more confidence, post-divorce, to get back out there and try to meet a human being. I felt very supported in that by Loki. And I did meet someone. Early on, I did a ritual with him, which he suffered through, because he’s not a ritual-type person, basically getting Loki’s blessing for our relationship.
Mary Lou: Since this all started, spirituality has become the absolute center of our lives. It’s not just David and Malachi at this point. We’ve been joined by other friends, or even people we don’t know. Sometimes we’re having an intimate experience with five, six different people.
Robin: I’ve matured a lot in learning to engage with spirits intimately. Especially in my relationship with Mary Lou… It’s like engaging with the dead makes you feel more alive.
For me, it all boils down to, like, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Because it’s fucking awesome. Literally.
In order to protect their privacy, VICE has changed some interviewees’ names. We have marked those individuals with an asterisk.
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