Getting Rid of Unwanted Spirits

While many people I meet are interested in finding a spirit companion or enhancing their contact with a current one, I also occasionally meet someone who wants to get rid of a spirit. Sometimes, they have a haunting or feel they are under some sort of psychic attack from unwanted spirit visitors. Other times, it’s more complicated — they want to “break up” with a spirit companion and go on with their lives. This is not to imply that those of us with companions need to “get a life” or get on with our lives. But sometimes, for whatever reason, people just want to say goodbye.

Short form:

• If you have a haunting, banish and set wards.
• If you have a Neg or other nuisance spirit, ignore it.
• If you want to break up with a once-beloved spirit companion, release it.

Hauntings

A haunting is usually not a big deal. Noises, footsteps, occasional sightings, things out of place — these characterize a typical haunting and usually have nothing whatsoever to do with the home’s current occupants. Typically, these ghosts are the spirits of people who died during their residence (even if they died in a hospital from natural causes). They’re no big deal and are only a problem if the current residents are easily freaked out. If this is a case or you otherwise need to cleanse your house, perform the following actions.

1. Buy or gather —
A. One sage (or sage mixture) smudge stick. This is a bundle of herbs tied together with string. You can find them at any metaphysical shop.
B. A long-handled lighter like you use on a grill.
C. Something you can set the lighted smudge stick in — This item cannot be glass. Glass will shatter under high heat. Use ceramic or an abalone shell.

Print —
This ritual. Don’t argue. I know it looks strange. It works.

Perform —
Make sure you have the house to yourself (except for others who wish to participate) and won’t be interrupted for about 30 minutes. It may not take that long, but it’s good to be sure. Gather in a room close to the front door; it should be a comfortable area with room to move around. Hold the smudge stick by the rounded end and light the other end. It’ll flame. Let the flames die down on their own. If it doesn’t seem to be smoking, light it again. Once it’s smoking a bit, set it into your dish and turn to face east (or as near east as you can).

Perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual you printed out. It says to vibrate the words; vibrate means, essentially, to sing them. Doesn’t matter how. Just follow your instincts. The ritual takes about 2 minutes, tops. You can make it five or so if this is your first time. You can hold the paper while you do the ritual, for ease of reading. The ritual is hermetic in nature, uses Hebrew and an invocation of archangels. Don’t worry if you’re not comfortable with angels; neither was I. It doesn’t matter. Angels transcend any definitions people give them, so if you grew up Christian and feel uneasy with Christian overtones, maybe it’ll help to know that this ritual descends from the Order of the Golden Dawn. Its roots are Qabalistic. But for you Christians, maybe the Hebrew will help, or maybe if you know this ritual does invoke archangels. Moving on. . .

Take your lit smudge stick by the rounded end, and carry it and your lighter with you. Walk to your front door. Make sure the stick is burning, then trace (without touching) the edges of the door frame, including along the floor. In the center of the rectangle you just made, trace a symbol that holds power for you. A cross, a Celtic cross, a pentagram, whatever. Draw this symbol in the air and then “stab” it with your smudge stick. While you are doing all this tracing, speak aloud. You want to say something along the lines of “All unwanted energies are banished and we invite only positive forces here.” Blah blah blah. Then as you stab the symbol you drew, visualize that symbol “charged,” and then visualize it moving forward to guard and protect your front door.

In your foyer or entry way, move in a circle and smudge every “between” place in the room. Whether you move deosil (clockwise) or widdershins (counterclockwise) depends on whether you wish to focus on banishing (widdershins) or on inviting positive energies (deosil). Between places are any spot that’s between one place and another. This includes doorways (even ones from one room to another or into a closet), windows, mirrors, stairways, and attic trap doors. If you have other highly reflective surfaces in your house, you might do those, too. Repeat the tracing of the entire opening, the symbol, the “stabbing,” and the blessing at every between place. Then go to the next room, and repeat (you don’t have to do the ritual again). Smudge every room in your home, including the basement, attic, and garage. When you reach your starting point again, perform the LBRP one more time to close the ritual.

As an aside, it’s also really good for house cleansing to open windows now and then. If you have heavy curtains that you keep closed, opening them for a day can help. Lots of spirits prefer dark, stuffy homes. If you have a lot of clutter (like I do), you’ve probably noticed how much better your house feels after being cleaned. Metaphysical energies can’t move well in messy places, or at least not the positive ones. If your life is in a rut, try redoing your home or rearranging things. It helps break stagnant energies apart.

Negs

A “Neg” (in my parlance) is a spirit that feeds on negative energies. If you or someone you live with is often angry, depressed, over-sensitive, etc., you’ve got a ripe feeding ground. People who get involved with metaphysics are like beacons on the astral — their light has “awakened” (so to speak), and it shines brightly to those who communicate via thought and emotion. If you’re someone with a close relationship to a helpful or friendly spirit, you’re doubly vulnerable. Once you’ve learned to communicate with and recognize your spirit companion(s), it’s easy pickin’s time. A Neg can very effectively mimic the spirit companion, right down to that unmistakable energy signature. And I hate to tell you, but most of the time this happens with the spirit companion’s consent or at least without his interference.

The Neg will come along randomly and sort of slide right into the role. Maybe you were talking to your SC George a minute ago, but now it’s the Neg answering you and you don’t know, because everything seems fine. Then, out of nowhere or with exquisitely bad timing, the Neg will speak up in your mind with something that cuts right to the heart of you. You’re stunned, heartbroken, and very confused. Any attempts to straighten things out by talking to the SC don’t work, because it’s the Neg, see? It’s succeeded in getting a rise out of you — oh that sweet pain, or oh that tasty anger. It’s going to keep right on going because it’s getting fed. So how do you make it shut up?

Well, the first step is realizing that, no, this is out of character for George. There’s no way George would say that. Sometimes it’s something the Neg says or does that is just too far out of line. Sometimes it’s our own trust in George that pulls our focus away from our pain and into the understanding that something fishy is going on. Either way, there’s only one way to get rid of the Neg. You can’t get angry, or hurt, or start to beg, or fight, or reason with it. It likes attention just fine, since attention is another form of energy it can feed on.

Have you ever seen a really scary movie or been in a spooky situation, with a friend or friends of yours? You talk about what happened, maybe you get into trading stories about haunted highways at night, or about the scariest part of the movie. You talk to each other, getting the creeps now, and now you mention to each other that you’re getting the creeps, and on it goes until one of you either suggests you both leave this freaky place (might be your living room, but weirdly spooky now) or cracks some joke that makes you both burst out laughing. . . and suddenly the feeling is gone. (Laughter is a great banishment.) But if you succeeded in freaking yourself and each other out, you probably ended up doing something that took your mind off the creepiness, allowing it to dissipate (until you went home alone, anyway, mwa ha ha!). Moral of this tumultuous tale: Attention to anything makes it stronger, including the general creeps.

So. How does one get rid of a Neg? By refusing to dignify its offenses with a response. Ignore it. Refuse to be goaded. If you’re tardy realizing a Neg’s been messing with you, then allow yourself to realize it with relief that it wasn’t really your SC acting that way, and release the emotional response. Yawn. Be bored with its pathetic drivel. It’ll come back a few times, to check your dedication to ignoring it, but if you persevere in your “bored now” response, it’ll eventually go find someone easier to manipulate and leave you alone. After that, attacks should come much farther apart until they only happen very rarely.

Releasing a Spirit Companion

There aren’t many requests for this, but it does happen on occasion. Someone will feel the need to get on with the next chapter of their life, and will feel that the spirit companion (or spirit guide) they’ve been with is no longer a boon to them on their new path. If that happens, and you’re positive that you will not regret your actions, you can release the SC from his commitment to you. That commitment might include anything from a romantic partnership to a working relationship a la Meridjet and me, but you can’t be sure you are aware of the full spectrum of the SC’s commitment, so it’s best not to specify if you really want to be rid of him.

Once you’re sure you’re done with this spirit and really don’t want him around, it’s as simple as addressing him aloud, and directly: “George, I release you from your commitment(s) to me, and ask that you release me from mine to you.” That’s it. But you have to mean it. And once you do this, if you really meant it, he’ll go away. Don’t go seeking him out again after that, because it would be really rude to do that, but you shouldn’t be bothered with his presence in the future. If you feel him around once in a blue moon, chalk it up to him checking on you and let it go. If you feel he’s not going away, then in my opinion it’s time to ask yourself what his agenda is, and banish him.

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