There have been instances where a demon will take possession of the person and while the demon is in control, the person will not sleep and his/her eyes will have a blank look. The person will not blink.

I wish to explain here what I mean by "dat-see". Spiritual beings live in another dimension and they do not live in the same physical bodies as humans. They exist in spirit form. This is what the Burmese call “dat”. Dat comes from the word “datu” which means element. The four primary elements or datus are Earth, Fire, Water, Fire and Air. In Pali they are called Pahtawi, Tezo, Arbaw, Wayaw. Here we are not talking about the actual fire or water but the characteristics of fire and water. A dat is defined as something which is true to its own nature. Each element has its own characteristics and will act according to its nature.

Spirit is the air element. This means that the basic characteristic is motion. Spiritual beings have a certain vibration depending upon which plane the spirit belongs to.

Weizzars live in the spiritual realm but originally they were just human beings like you and I.  However, because of their search for truth and knowledge they acquired certain supernormal powers.  To attain supernormal powers is not easy. A person who wishes to become a weizzar need to get initiation from a weizzar. The path of the weizzar begins with keeping the precepts. First he must try to keep the five precepts. Then he has to develop his powers of concentration by doing samahta meditation. Samahta meditation is meditation upon a certain meditation object to get concentration of the mind. He can do this by doing anapana meditation or doing the beads. In Burmese a rosary is called a Seit-badee. In the next stage he has to do Insight Meditation or Vipassana meditation so that he will be able to control his emotions. By doing Insight Meditation, the person who is walking along the weizzar path will be able to reduce the lower emotions such as anger, greed and ignorance (lohba, dosa and mawha). Along the path he will be confronted with a lot of temptations such as women, power and wealth. He has to remain steadfast and overcome all of these temptations. If he becomes deviated he will not become a weizzar.

When the student has gained enough concentration powers, one of the weizzars will try to contact him. This is how it is done.

While the student is doing the seitbadee, the weizzar in charge of training will send his spiritual force field or “dat” in Burmese. If the spiritual force that is entering his body is big, then the student will feel that he has become big. When this force field or “dat” hits the body of the student, he will feel a tingling sensation. He will feel that his head is swelling. The dat then enters the body of the student from the crown of the head first and then travels down the body, little by little, till it reaches the legs.

It is at this stage that a teacher is necessary.  If there is no teacher, the student will not know what was happening to him and might get scared or even become mad, not knowing what to do next.

The weizzars will not make contact with a human being unless there is a special need. Sometimes, a person might have been related to a weizzar in his past life as a son or a brother. In that case, the weizzar might try to establish contact and help that particular person when he is in trouble or when that person has fallen into wrong ways.

The weizzar cannot send his “dat” to a person unless that person has fulfilled the basic conditions to be a recipient of weizzar dat. Firstly, the person has to keep the five precepts. Then he has to do the prayer beads. It is better if the person can take a vow to do the beads regularly. The weizzar dat can be received only when the recipient is pure at heart and when his mind is in deep concentration.

Sometimes when you are reciting a particular garhta (it is a verse in Pali about the virtues of the Buddha or sayings of the Buddha), say Iti-pithaw, there might be unseen beings near you listening to what you are reciting. It that case you might feel that there is another force field near you. You know this because you will feel that your little hairs on your arms or neck begin to stand up (kyet-thein hta in Burmese).   When you get the weizzar dat you will feel the dat entering your head from the crown and then you will feel it going into your arms, then down your spinal cord, then your legs, etc.

Sometimes when a weizzar comes in, you feel that you want to cough. This means that the weizzar is trying to take control of your vocal cords. He is in fact activating the vocal nerves. In Burmese we call it “hnoke-see”. Hnoke in Burmese means the lips.  After the weizzar has full control of the body and the voice, we say that all the strings can be controlled. In Burmese we call it “kyo-sone”, meaning all strings. The analogy is taken from a puppet and a puppet master. In this case the weizzar is the puppet master and the student is the puppet.

When the weizzars come there is always a noble purpose. They come when they want to give guidance in the personal spiritual development of a person or if that person is trying to do some sasana propagation work, such as building a pagoda or a meditation center.