You are a friend (or child, or master, or whatever) to the spirit. But it can't stay in the middle world on its own, it will be pulled away to the spirit world. But it wants to help you, or has agreed to be employed by you, or it owes you service. So you offer it a body that it can inhabit, in the form of a fetish. Your tradition tells you what sort of fetish is suitable to what spirits.
If the spirit is friendly, your only challenge is overcoming the worlds resistance to getting the spirit inhabiting its home. If the spirit is neutral, you have to cajole and persuade it and bribe it, and the stronger it is, the harder this is to do. If it is hostile, you have to beat it, intimidate it, and basically convince it that doing this is better than being snuffed out, and that is hardest of all.
At least, that is my take.
--Bryan
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