I read about some Kahuna practices in Denis Linns (sp?) book "Sacred Space" and just stumbled on this small article. Now i wanna find more material on Kahunas! This also reminds me of a story in "Psychic Self-Defense" by Dion Fortune where an Adept absorbes some kind of thoughtform into himself to get rid of it. And a character in Crowleys novel "Moonchild" does something similar. I suppose its similar to eating them in a way...
http://www.masterworksinternational.com/huna/hunarchive/huna98jan.htm
a snip: "The people of Old, Bishop Museum Press) was writing about the Hawaiian culture he remarked that if you were really ill you did not visit a kahuna lapa'au but you went instead to a kahuna ana ana as they were more adept at dealing with illness and disease. This hardly tallies with their dark reputation. In even earlier times the role of the ana ana was vitally important in the ho'oponopono process as a kahuna ana ana or "eater of filth" would be the one who if required exorcised any possessing spirits or who literally scavenged the thought forms within the family consciousness that had crystallised into separate entities. These entities would attach themselves to various family members and even move from one to another causing a great deal of emotional pain and distress. In the modern stories the ana ana is supposed to capture the spirits of the dead and then to send them to do his evil bidding and in olden times this was very much his role in part, the first part only that is! that of capturing any ghosts and helping them to return to Po. Thereby preventing them from harming the living."