Possession Revisited

Alma 34:34 Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.

In light of this verse, I want to revisit the idea of possession, since, from a certain perspective, this might not be such a bad thing. It may not necessarily be bad for our bodies to be possessed.

For starters, our bodies are already possessed in the sense that they have spirits inside of them. As long as we're alive, there will always be at least one spirit in our bodies: ours. In fact, having spirits inside them is what separates a live body from a dead one. If our bodies weren't possessed by our own spirits, they'd be dead.

Yet, even when we consider spirits other than our own, it might not always be bad to have them around. There are other spirits in existence than the ones who followed Lucifer. There are good spirits, too, including the Holy Spirit, whom many of us wish to have as a constant companion. We want to have the Holy Spirit and the other good spirits around because they can help us defend ourselves against the evil spirits.

Now, I don't know whether or not any of those good spirits ever share our bodies, or whether they just float around outside, but even if they enter our bodies, that wouldn't give them any control over us. God doesn't take away our agency, and I'm willing to bet that His spirits won't either.

So, a certain amount of possession is essential for our physical survival, and having more good spirits around us might help with our spiritual survival as well, and since good spirits don't take control of our bodies and might not even enter them, there's no downside. So, maybe possession isn't as horrible as I had thought; it all depends on which spirits are doing the possessing.