Curate, connect, and discover
Been tossing this idea around in my head but for spirit-working witches I lowkey think a good place to start is going around to make introductions to a variety of helpful spirits, either benevolent or neutral in moral dignity, who can be called on at any time.
Literally going around and meeting the archangels/monarchs/guardians/gatekeepers (etc/whatever) of the four elemental roads. Just shaking hands and saying hi. Asking for their support, patience, and grace in working with them and their domains.
Brief introduction to the structure you live in, or absent of that, the land you live on.
Choosing your top 5 personal favorite kitchen spices, one or two nice rocks, and the nearest convenient tree and just doing a series of private rituals to meet them one by one.
Because then by the time you want to get started with other stuff, like finding familiar spirits, learning new skills, or solving problems, you already have met several spirits who are likely to be easily invoked to stand by your side and offer protection, assistance, and guidance for the task at hand.
Just because you don't know any spirits on a friendship level doesn't mean you have to be alone. You can still have spirits standing with you to help and ensure things go well. You can lay a compass, call forth the elemental gods, and ask them to provide assistance for the duration of the ritual. You can ask them to send a teacher or a guide to you to help you with something important.
Etc.
use this as a conduit to connect you to the local spirits and nature
get a pot
fill it with local dirt/sand/clay
keep it on your porch/inside/near your house. somewhere you can visit it.
put cool natural items in it, like local shells, bones, branches, etc. that you’ve found…
watch it come to life. if i just leave a pot of dirt around, something will spring up in it. usually those considered “weeds”. if nothing grows, plant a low-maintenance native plant in it. but there should be something after a time.
make offerings like water and more natural items as you desire.
connect to it, talk to it, introduce yourself.
Rinse and repeat over time. That’s really it! and then you just… build a relationship as time goes on.
-crushed eggshells
- water
- reflective things such as coins, metal objects, and beads in place of candles.
-bread, crackers, matzo etc.
- carved or painted stones.
- woven grass or flowers
- origami animals and houses
-milk (milk combined with water may kill fungi when sprayed on plants)
- avocado pits, cherry pits, apple seeds etc.
- leftover tea/tea leaves
- hanging flags, wind-chimes, strips of cloth etc.
Hi Chicken! I really enjoyed reading your post about spirit shops. It also raised smt that I've been kind of struggling with for a while-- the discernment thing. Everyone in here is constantly talking about this, but it's always in nebulous terms and I'm like wtf do I do?? And have become rather worried and turned off by spirit interactions and trying to have any bc I'm so worried that I'll get something wrong, that I'll be trying to talk to some "higher"(in the god sense) being but something else will respond, and since for now I feel pretty spirit blind I feel overwhelmed. This also applies to when thinking about going to the astral or meditation, you know, to meet spirit guardians and such (as you are speaking about in your recent post). Sorry if I'm making a big deal out of something small. Thank you so much for your posts, I'm enjoying them a lot ❤️
Hi!
It is not making too big of a deal. It's not a small thing.
A great deal of modern rhetoric on spirit communication is dominated by the concept that there are so many evil, malicious, or liar spirits out there desperate and waiting to glomp on to any wayward practitioner, so before a person can ever be safe working with spirits, they need to learn X, Y, and Z magics.
Where do you learn this magic, if you aren't able to commune with spirit teachers?
Why, you have to rely on more experienced people, probably the same ones telling you its not safe for you to explore on your own :)
My number 1 suggestion for you is to stop listening to people who are saying those things. Whether or not they realize it, creating anxiety in learners causes those learners to flock to them for help and rely even more on their words.
It's a toxic, self-fulling loop.
If someone is telling you that all these spirits are so dangerous and it's so easy for you to be tricked, what does that tell you about them? It tells you that THEY work with dangerous spirits and THEY are at danger of being tricked, AND they are so inexperienced that they do not understand their dynamic is not universal and other people walk different paths.
This long post I recently made talking about the astral summoning praxis talks about the danger of people within this belief system projecting their beliefs outwards.
How fucked up is it that some of these people have projected their beliefs to the point where it is dangerous to talk to gods totally unrelated to their system? They are literally gatekeeping Hellenic, Kemetic, Norse, etc., gods, because their unrelated spirits in unrelated systems have all these rules, so obviously Hekate and Isis need to be approached the same way a conjurer approaches a trithorkian glitter salamander they met in the astral.
It's absolutely ridiculous, and I'm sorry you've been dragged into this culture of fear. People out here are literally making you afraid to meditate. That's fucked up.
So, as far as actionable steps go:
1. Throw out the astral. I mean absolutely just drop it. You do not need to astral travel to meet spirit guides. Let go of every single concept of the astral. Decide for yourself, "maybe astral travel is for me later on, but right now I have so much baggage about it that I need to let it go."
2. Throw out the concept that all these spirits are somewhere far away in nebulous realms. Some are, yeah. Let's not work with them. Let's find our family here on Earth. Our siblings in the land, our parents in the solar system, our cousins in the sea and sky. They have physical bodies on earth: the trees, the stones, the grains of sand. We have physical bodies here on earth. We're all family. Family first, maybe getting to know astral strangers later :)
3. Practice spirit communication with stuff around you, not in the astral. Avoid disassociating or leaving your body. Stay fully within your body, talk to spirits around you (no astral, no meditation).
4. Discernment is literally just having psychic senses that are clear enough so that you can understand what is going on around you in the ethereal/metaphysical layers of reality. Discernment is not a concept limited to spirit work. For example, energy workers discern whether or not they have created a shield. Spellcasters discern whether or not they have properly raised energy. If you want to improve your psychic senses, try an exercise like this one. Other activities, such as "vibe checking" enchanted objects with friends (can be done with photos online), attempting aura readings, all divination, energy work, and spellcasting will help improve your psychic senses over time.
5. "Tricksters" are not coming through in the place of gods. Some people out here are doing really stupid shit and setting themselves up for complete failure when it comes to divine communication, and then turn around and act like we're all in danger. We're not. No need to set up an altar. No need to do fancy devotionals. Siddown and pray. "Jesus Christ, I need to talk to you today. Tumblr is out here spreading lies again." Or you know like, "Athena, I need to talk to you today. I've heard you got the good vibes, I'd love to get in on that."
6. Getting something wrong isn't a big deal. If you're just wanting to pray to your ancestors and receive advice from guides, it's not a big deal. There isn't some little incidental mistake you can make that is going to make you possessed by a demon. There are not hoards of evil spirits straining, clawing to get through to you. There just aren't. The world is not evil like some people think it is. You are not prey. You are not a future victim. You are not a tiny little weak person trapped in an isolated cabin with evil spirits piling up around you like snow in a blizzard, and there's only one path to safety.
You are a person surrounded by friends and family, in a warm house with a crackling fire, you are sitting on the rug before the fire, they are watching you with loving smiles, your eyes are squeezed shut and you're holding your knees to your chest, and they are so ready for you to open your eyes and join them at the dinner table -
Whenever you are ready.
This post is full of my personal UPGs and stuff. These are just my beliefs and what works for me. YMMV.
Have you ever done a big tarot reading and got really drained? Or focused really intensely on a spirit guide meditation that left you feeling lightheaded and hungry? When we connect to the spirit world it is tiring and energy-intensive. There is no reason to believe that connection on their end is any easier.
A lot of rhetoric gets tossed around that spirits and guides are so powerful and life-changing, etc. And this might be true, but I think it gets construed in a way where we assume that because they're so powerful, it must be very easy for them to appear to us - so any failure of communication is squarely on our shoulders.
This is unfair to both them and us.
Your offerings aren't just token gestures. You are actually providing energy to your spirits - dense, earthy energies they need in order to be able to come through to our world. Fresh water is refreshing and polite, but not really energizing. Food offerings are especially helpful.
This is the point of spirit houses and spirit vessels. You create a sacred object or space aligned to a spirit's energies, and invite them to come inside of it and use it as they please. As a magic-worker, your words of dedication and consecration make a literal foothold for that spirit to more easily come to our world. This also provides a place for the spirit to rest and relax as they speak to you.
Liminal times and spaces make it easier for us to reach the spirit world, and therefore easier for them to reach us. Taking actions such as laying a compass, casting a circle, or reaching trance states can actually be extremely helpful. It's not about "spirits are dangerous so cast a circle first," and it's not about "you have to meditate and clear your mind" (trance can be achieved ecstatically, after all). It's about creating or entering into in-between spaces where our worlds more easily meet.
If you primarily use tools to communicate with spirits, cleanse and charge them more regularly. The spirits can direct the energy within your tools instead of having to use their own.
If you're already using spirit vessels or houses, try gently cleaning them and re-consecrating them. Provide as much energy as you can to the spirit at that time, so that they can more strongly imprint upon the vessel.
Spirits are people too. They shouldn't be treated like invisible humans with cool new skins, but that doesn't mean they don't have autonomy and personhood.
Spirits exist independently of us and they don't disappear and go into the void when we stop paying attention to them. They are living their own lives. Even if you believe the spirits do revolve around you, at some point they have to leave to go find information you're asking about, or review the strands of fate to make sure you're headed in the right direction, or whatever.
You don't expect your human friends to be on call 24/7 and it's rude and inconsiderate to just assume all spirits are going to want to communicate with you every single time you want to communicate with them.
No, the point of this is not "you're clingy and the spirits need space."
The point is that if you're just picking up the spirit phone at any random time, of course some of your communication will "fail" because they're not free to answer!
You might be blaming yourself for having unreliable psychic abilities when the reality is that you're just sending a FaceTime request at a bad time.
It is my experience that this is true even of gods. Sometimes I walk by the shrine of my primary god and it's just empty - he's not there right now. It's not because he hates me or because my psychism failed. He's probably off chasing nymphs or something, he'll be back later.
Try setting a schedule with the spirits if possible, such as determining what time(s) of day they're free to talk, what days of the week or moon phases they're usually free or busy, and so on.
You have times when you're more or less attuned to communication, too. The most random stuff can make psychic senses go haywire. For some, a strong cup of coffee will turn off their second sight like flipping a switch. If you try to get more of a schedule going, it will be a lot easier for you to control the variables contributing to your successes or failures. It's not fair for you to assume your psychic senses are static and you should just be able to turn them on at any time you want.
There are many kinds of spirits. Some we primarily interact with as friends and companions. For them, the reason for them to talk to you is that you're cool, interesting, and they want to spend time with you (all your friends think that about you! I promise!).
Other spirits can hold a much more spiritual or tutelary role in our life. When they speak, they have something important to say - and they're not necessarily going to let that be drowned out by everyday chatter.
Have you ever done a tarot reading you didn't like or understand, and then re-drew the spread to ask again? And the second time made even less sense?
Talking to spiritual teachers can be like that. They tell you something important, and they're not necessarily going to rephrase it. The problem with spiritual teachers and guides is that you still have to be the student and the explorer.
I have often communicated with the gods and spirits of other people. In these situations, I do my best to give them a really good reason to want to talk to me. "Hello, gods and spirits of [client]. I am helping [client] with [their question/problem]. I will be empty, and you can speak through me. I'll do my very best to clearly share everything you want them to know."
No matter what, though, spirits might just not want to talk. And that's ok.
Ask yourself the kinds of relationships you have with the spirits and beings you're attempting communication with. Having a very close and fulfilling relationship with a spirit doesn't mean it's appropriate to treat them like a casual friend (just as I can have a very fulfilling relationship with a professional mentor, but it's still inappropriate for me to call them at 3am after some wine).
Keep an eye on the intention of your communications. Are you unable to "find" your guide when it's about an important spiritual question, but they show up just to chat? Or vice-versa? Ask why a spirit might choose to not respond to some types of communication.
I find that spiritual guides can get irritable and non-responsive if you continually request communication without applying their advice.
In the case of spirits who are primarily friends/companions, try thinking of a fun activity for the two of you to do together, or something interesting to show them. Spirits enjoy novelty, too. Maybe you could read a new book together :)
There is a difference between requesting communication and just vibing with a spirit's vibes.
When you want to communicate with the spirits, do you actually think, say, or sign, "hi, it's me, I want to talk to you today about [topic]"? Or do you just kinda show up like, "I'm here, so... yeah."
I like vibing with the vibes. I like sitting quietly with people and spirits and just existing with them. But I wouldn't sit quietly in the vibes and then say, "okay, so you're just not going to talk to me??"
Other things like manners go an incredibly long way. Spirits have a concept of boundaries and politeness - some more than others.
Active listening and critical thinking helps a lot too (and it's a great way to strengthen relationships with other humans!). Make sure you're treating spirits like a conversation partner, and not a novelty toy that spits out mystic answers to your questions.
One of the best ways to bond through communication is to create the space for the other person to share their thoughts. It's more than reasonable to show up to a spirit with a question.
But if you redirect the conversation always to be what you want to talk about, think your senses are going haywire just because a spirit is showing you something that isn't what you asked about, or only want to talk about yourself or your problems - it's not reasonable to expect that 100% of spirits want to be a part of 100% of those conversations.
Try approaching every spirit communication with clear intent. Just wanting to chat and hang out is more than okay, but be upfront with your interests and needs.
Try asking the spirits if they're free to talk and if they're interested in talking about what you want to discuss.
Make time and space for the spirits to bring up their own topics.
Employ manners at all times, even if you think your communication effort failed. Please, thank you, hello, and goodbye are powerful words.
Be open to the idea that the spirit might not want to talk about your question or your problem, and that they might have something to share with you that doesn't appear to directly benefit you.
Yes, you can, right now. You can just do it, whether or not you're a spirit medium or can "visualize".
Don't get me wrong, I find cultural and historical research of correspondences to be very important. But also, just ask the thyme in your cupboard what it likes to do in its spare time. (Bonus points if you take notes and compare to your research later on)
Here's how I do it. I call it my "pinging" method, like how a modem pings a server. Here's how:
If you want to be polite, start with a, "hello, is anyone there?" Although admittedly this is more for animists. If you believe you're just reading energies and there is no indwelling spirit, why not get right to it?
Questions to explore utility and correspondences include:
"Magically speaking, what are you best at?"
"If I added you to this spell, how would you influence/affect it?"
"What kind of intents are you best at supporting?"
"What kind of magic do you not like to be involved in?"
"What other ingredients do you work well with?"
"What other ingredients do you not get along with?"
Avoid performing this technique on living animals, as it often scares them :(
Have it in your field of vision, or touch it, or do whatever you need to do in order to feel focused on it.
Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know, aka OBFUK (my handy acronym I use to replace "visualize," which I ordered that way because it kind of sounds like "oh f*ck," as in, "oh f*ck, the ubiquitous use of the word 'visualize' has caused many witches to be ironically equipped with blinders that require energy perception and control to be funneled through a filter of sightedness and images, which for many is counter-intuitive and detrimental to their practice"). Anyway -
Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know that the object which you would like to communicate with is aware of you and will hear you when you send your question.
Speak or think your question to the object. OBFUK that the object receives your question.
Listen, here's the downfall of this technique: You need a wee bit of open space in your mind. No, you don't have to be a meditator to do this technique (I did it for years before I began meditating). You just need enough space for the answer to arrive.
I have found that ideally, this means actively anticipating receiving your answer for 1-3 seconds.
This works on the same meditative trick as, "wait for your next thought to come and it never will." The force of anticipation itself is what creates an open platform for your answer to arrive at.
Your mind does not have to be "totally clear". You can have a lot of tabs open and still be able to pull off this technique.
We will all get answers in different ways. Repeat: there is no golden standard for how you are "supposed" to receive your answer. Here are some ways your answer might appear to you:
Snippets of memories, songs, scenes, verses, or literature pop into your awareness.
A fully or partially formulated concept comes to you all at once.
You are strongly reminded of something (say, the god Aries, or a soothing woodland scene).
An image or images come to your mind's eye, either still or animated.
Nothing seems to come to mind at all, but certain things on your altar or around your house, or certain colors, suddenly stand out or seem especially relevant.
Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel energy moving on or around you.
Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel as if you can smell or taste something that wasn't there before.
It is unlikely that you will hear a voice in your mind that says, "hi, I'm Basil, and I'm good at..." Our particularly clairaudientally blessed friends may receive such information, but the rest of us are likely going to have to apply some level of interpretation to what we receive.
Be aware that if you're talking to something with an indwelling spirit, it may not be interested in trotting out answers to your question, and may have questions of its own, or something else it wants you to know instead.
I believe good manners go a long way, so even if you feel you haven't received any answer, it's polite to send a message like, "thank you for your time, have a good day."
UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis. It means that you have personally received information through spiritual means, however, that information is not necessarily agreed upon or accepted by anyone else but you.
Please don't go around sharing your UPG as if it is actually verified spiritual canon!
Even if that information is totally cohesive within your personally constructed spiritual system, I'm sorry, but your personal spiritual system is not universal.
If I have a communication session with my rosemary plant, and it tells me, "yes, I'm a plant of protection and dreams [community accepted correspondence], but that's only one side of me; I'm also a spirit of evil, nightmares, and destruction, and that's why I can also defend against them [unverified personal gnosis]," it is wildly misleading of me to go on Tumblr and post a new rosemary correspondence that includes "cursing, nightmares, and destruction" as if everyone needs to automatically accept and believe my own claims.
It is now on you to experiment with the information you receive, compare it to other resources, and decide if what you heard was valid, legitimate information for a certain group, tradition, or practice, or if it is untrue, or if it is only true for you.
Your UPG might end up being totally valid and verified by others (this is then called verified personal gnosis) and this is such an exciting, wonderful, and validating thing to experience.
However, every single time I have a question about a spirit or god, and someone says, "hold on, I'll ask them!" and comes back 5 minutes later with an answer they assume I should accept as canon, I want to reach through the screen and slap them.
Your spirit communication is not automatically spiritual canon, and should probably undergo many steps of testing and verification before EVEN YOU accept it as true.
"It isn't possible for me to complete the active anticipation portion, what could I do instead?"
This technique is specifically a telepathic one; you receive communication within your mind. If doing so on the fly isn't possible, I'd recommend trying an entirely different technique, such as asking the same questions through tarot or another divination system, or petitioning the ingredient for a dream.
"I don't think I'm receiving any answers, what do I do?"
Not all spirits want to talk to us. Or from a secular perspective, not everything is imbued with enough energy for us to get a reading, or that energy may be hard to access or understand.
Objects which are very often used in witchcraft, such as magical and culinary herbs, minerals, and animal parts, often have something to say. (Perhaps the reason they are used in magic is because they're so willing to work with us in the first place!)
You can also gently cleanse the object and offer it some incense or water, then invite the spirit/energies back, and see if that changes your results.
Or, you may need to try contacting it over several days, maybe also with feeding and cleansing, before it responds. (Remember, it takes the object energy to communicate with us, whether it is a spirit or just a lump of energy, something must be expended to send you a message).
Plus also: This technique is a skill you need to practice. If I tell you how to hold a guitar and how to make three cords, it's still going to take you a minute to strum out Wonderwall. I recommend a minimum of hours of practice before you write off your own psychic abilities.
"I don't know how to tell the difference between a spiritual answer and my own thoughts."
Practice, practice, practice - and verify. Also be patient and gentle with yourself, and move forward with the understanding that far from 100% of people are magically born with thought patterns clear, regular, or tame enough to easily (or ever) track.
Perhaps the best way to move verify is to communicate with common ingredients in witchcraft, ask them for information, and then verify it against information online. Don't give up too quickly; common correspondence lists are often oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Your herb might have given you a snippet of information commonly ignored by mainstream witchcraft.
"I'm only getting invalid answers - my rose quartz told me it's used for blood magic and banishing."
Try cleansing and charging objects before you read on them. For beginners, it may be difficult to discern whether you're contacting an object, or the energies it's sucked up or wallowed in.
There may be an indwelling spirit or energy "haunting" the object and returning invalid or silly answers. Try reading on different objects and see if your luck improves.
You may be particularly psychically closed off. When I don't properly connect, I get all kinds of nonsense that seems like a real answer, when it's just my random thought generator (un)helpfully trying to fill in the blanks. General practice of divination and spellwork will assist you. I would avoid using this technique to practice, as it may confuse your discernment to accept your inner voice as external communication. Set it aside and come back to it after a couple of months and see if there are changes.
Similarly, the spirit might just not want to talk to you, or isn't present in the item (or, the energies you seek to understand don't exist in that item).
The spirit may be giving you valid information that most people just don't agree with. My UPG for rosemary is that it is sort of an "uncrossing" agent for your life in general - part of the way it protects you is to align things around you so that misfortune is diverted. It's not a good luck charm, this is just how it achieves its goal of protection. This isn't totally off the wall; I think almost everyone agrees that rosemary is protective, powerful, and "high vibrations." But I don't think I'm going to find anyone else talking about how rosemary works the way it does, so I'm not going to be able to cross-check this anyway. But even if they do, they might talk about a different aspect of rosemary or something else it does. So I'm caught in a limbo where this information is true for me and the plant works that way every time I use it, but I can still never verify that with my community. If your answers aren't totally out of left field, you may be receiving genuine information about how the object wants to work with you. But that doesn't mean you will ever be able to verify that with your community.
Knowing how to do magic is not at all the same thing as knowing how to solve a problem.
Here is a map to one trail through this irritating, often murky, forest. The steps are generally presented in the order I'd recommend taking them, but naturally the details of execution are up to you.
This guide assumes that as someone who knows how to do magic, you may be called upon to assist others from time to time, so there is a distinction made between you as the practitioner, and the victim of a haunting.
There is a difference between Energy Work and visualization. If someone has told you that all you need to do to protect yourself from spirits is to imagine that they cannot hurt you, they are wrong.
Yes, where your attention goes, energy flows - but as it turns out, real spirits are probably more powerful than the wispy energy patterns sprinkled about by you imagining stuff really hard.
I have met many a practitioner who was convinced they were up against an incredibly powerful spirit, because years of visualization did nothing. The first time they cast an actual spell with real power (that takes like 45 minutes of prep and 15 minutes of execution), the spirit was gone.
Fancy that.
Spirit hauntings often affect more than one person. Household members, social groups, entire Discord servers - it happens.
Attend to your own personal protections first. If this is your first rodeo, a few suggestions:
We may assume there is a timeline pressure; by the time you're called in to help, things may have become rough. There is no need to avoid taking care of the problem for months while you carefully craft a system of protections.
Obtain or recharge a single personal amulet of protection, especially one crafted against malefic spirits (as opposed to a general protection). Charge it and wear it for the duration of this process.
Obtain or recharge a single household ward for your own home, if you are not the one being haunted. If your home is already under spiritual attack, now may not be the right time to place wards. Read on for details.
Obtain or recharge a single ward for your sleeping space, a heavy-handed one that strongly protects your sleep, and strongly limits spirit movement into your room.
For the duration of solving this problem, engage in spiritual cleansing techniques more often. Also ensure you are getting enough calories and rest - depending on how resistant the problem is, your ongoing energy may be required for some time, and burnout helps no one.
If you are assisting another person, get down (in writing) as many details as you can about when the haunting began, who it affects, the symptoms, any locations where the spirit is present, etc.
Consider that sometimes the spirit haunting is caused by a spirit which cannot be banished, like local nature spirits who are going to dwell there regardless of your actions. Whether you need to approach the situation as a warrior or a diplomat should be ideally figured out before you begin taking actions.
If there is a potential that this is happening, open up or partially dismantle a ward (this can often done by opening a household door or window with Intent) so the spirit can leave.
Not, "leave me/my friend alone." Not, "go away."
"Please leave this household permanently, and do not come back."
Combining this with a good-faith offering can help a lot. Place the offering outside, ideally beyond the property line, but we all do what we gotta do.
"Please leave this household permanently. I have placed an offering of [stuff] outside for you, because we are not enemies. This offering is yours if you accept these conditions: that you leave this property and do not come back. Please accept this offering, and leave."
"You must leave this household, and all the people in it. This is not your home. Authority has been given to me to revoke any invitation which brought you here. Leave now of your own volition. If you do not leave, force and aggression will be used against you to force you to leave."
Maybe you didn't even ask it to leave, because you arrived well after that was already attempted. If things have already escalated:
If you cannot reasonably do so, teach them how to shield through energy work. Remember that there are many inherently protective amulets found in nature which do not require much (or any) magic to be worked over them before they are effective; employ these to your advantage.
This step may be especially useful if banishments have already been attempted, and failed.
Gather a wide variety of magical symbols, amulets, talismans, and objects charged with various energies.
Find the spirit or connect to its energy (ideally behind a mirror, or through a protected scrying device, or using some other technique so it can't see you).
Hold up each symbol, object, etc., up to the spirit in turn. See how the spirit is affected. Take notes (ideally, have an assistant who can take notes as you describe what you're seeing).
Suppose the spirit seems totally unaffected by watery energies or solar symbols, but seems very affected by fiery energies and iron - now you have helpful answers.
Combine your discoveries with information about any previous banishments that may have been attempted to aid you in choosing your next course of action.
It drives me fucking CRAZY when people refuse to banish or get rid of obviously harmful spirits because they want to know its backstory, its personality traits, its gemsona, its full natal chart, and its favorite comfort foods first.
"We can't banish it until we know why it's doing this!"
The fuck you can't.
If your attitude is literally that it's okay for beings to hurt you as long as they have a good reason for it... Or you're not going to set boundaries unless you know why someone has crossed you...
I don't know what to tell you.
And hey, by the way, if it's an obviously bad spirit that you've already acknowledged is harming you, IT'S GOING TO LIE TO YOU AND MANIPULATE YOU.
There's a hell of a lot of people out there who have fully acknowledged the absolute hell a spirit has caused them, but they want to talk to it because idk, why wouldn't you want to talk to your own personal torturer, and thirty minutes later they're accepting the spirit as their new guardian and building it an altar.
So.
Divination is useful to help determine the outcome of your banishing actions and to give you insight into how to perform your operations effectively. This is a really good idea if you don't have a million years to randomly try stuff until something sticks.
It is not to become penpals with a harmful spirit who has already shown you its intent towards you.
Telling a spirit something, or sending messages, is extremely different from two-way communication. Don't open yourself up to a force that is causing active harm.
Your banishment will be greatly increased in efficacy if you surround it with supportive actions. The ability to employ any of these techniques of course varies depending on situation. Employ as many of them as possible.
Include as many people as affected by the haunting as you can.
A floor wash or steam pot will be very helpful. Smoking out an entire house is difficult to get away with these days, but a fine option. If you can't get to the whole house, especially try to work on the areas where the spirit is known to be present.
Protective symbols hung about, including saint candles, also tends to assist in shaking the spirit "loose" from its moorings.
Loud and cheerful music, fresh air, and a generally upbeat mood helps the proceedings a great deal.
If it is determined that the spirit is attached to a single person, focus applying smoke, blessed waters, and talismans to their person.
When you banish a spirit, where does it go? Just outside the property line? All the way across town? To the ends of the earth? How long until it finds its way back?
A cobalt-blue bottle filled with sand is a handy spirit trap. The spirit will eventually be freed again, before this world is over - and likely, quite a bit before that. Research why and how spirit traps work, and what techniques may be used to occupy the spirit for a great length of time before it can escape.
As this post is for those who already know how to do magic, I leave the details up to you. Reflect on what you've learned about the spirit up until that time, and utilize powers which seem best suited to cross it.
Relying upon your personal power alone is not advised. Draw from sources greater than yourself. Asking divinity and benevolent spirits to arrive and support the working while you undertake it is a fine idea.
Once the spirit is gone, or trapped, dispose of various implements and clean up as you normally do.
Any technique will do.
This includes helping others understand how to maintain protections in their own home.
Mighty sorcerer though you are, it is possible that the spirit was not actually removed when you performed your banishment. Do not discard gut feelings or intuitions that the situation is not fully at rest.
You may need help, or new techniques, or simply ongoing effort applied to the situation before it is completely resolved. Every now and then, rare as it may be, the solution is really just to apply protection and go about your business.
Even if a spirit has been correctly removed, a person or place may have sustained actual spiritual damage. Instead of immediately dropping extra spiritual self-care when the spirit is gone, try maintaining it for a little while (especially if your normal level is zero). Staying clean and hygienic will help spiritual injuries heal on their own. Mundane actions, such as continuing to get enough food and rest (where possible), will also help.
If you are helping another, give them steps for things like cleansing baths how how to clean their own aura.
Ancestor Veneration
In the occult discords I frequent I periodically see questions from new practitioners who want to start spirit work and have been directed to start with their ancestors, but they’re in a bind because like many young folk today they don’t have such a great relationship with their family. For their own reasons they don’t know their family history and either feel disconnected from previous generations or don’t want to connect to their bloodline. Over the years my personal ancestor veneration has taken shape in a way that I think might be helpful or of interest to people who want to strike up a relationship with their ancestors, but don’t have a great one with their living or recently deceased family.
Beloved Dead: These are my known/recently deceased spirits, people I have known in life who have passed on. Not always technically ancestors, because these spirits aren’t aren’t necessarily related to me, or in my direct line of descent. The only requirement is that I knew them in life, as well as in death.
Ancestors: My actual forebearers, the people I’m directly descended from. I know many of their names because my family tree is very well researched, but I never met them in life. This also includes the ancestors whose names I don’t know but are still in that familial line, those spirits I refer to as “unnamed ancestors” or “unnamed forbearers”.
Cultural Ancestors: This by far the largest category, because there is no upper limit to the number of sub categories I can squeeze in there, none of which rely on actual blood ties. It has my ethno-cultural ancestors, the Irish people who came before me, the Italian people who came before me, the Norwegian people who came before me… etc. But it also has the ancestors of the things I choose to identify my self as: The disabled people who have come before me, the witches who have come before me, the Sailors, the Dancers, the Musicians, the Storytellers, etc. Everyone in this category connects me to some kind of cultural history that exists outside of my bloodline.
For me calling on my ancestors is a lot like calling on a deity. I petion them/ dedicate my actions to them, when I’m doing something that’s in their realm of influence. For instance: Say I’m cooking a traditional Italian meal, I would call on my Italian cultural ancestors, and they would get some of the meal as an offering in repayment. I would also probably call on the individual spirit of my grandmother, one of my beloved dead, since she was the one who taught me Italian cooking, and it’s quite likely her recipe I’m using.
I also have specific days set aside for my most frequently called upon groups Christmas Eve was always big with the Italian side of the family, and I still celebrate it the traditional way, so that’s become a day for my Italian cultural ancestors. St Patricks Day is for my Irish cultural ancestors. St. Lucia Day is for my Norwegian ancestors. I’ve set aside Talk Like a Pirate Day to venerate all of the sailors, fishermen, and wayfinders who have gone before me, and
I feel like this approach gives me, and perhaps others, the most flexibility and the most options to approach ancestor work on terms that work for me. Have a great relationship with the family you’ve interacted with, but uncomfortable with the actions of your ancestors a few generations back? Interact only with your Beloved Dead and your Cultural Ancestors. Want nothing to do with your biological family, but still want to do ancestor work? Create a spiritual found family by working only with Cultural Ancestors. This way of thinking about those who loved what we love before us could be applied to any interest or personal identity that a person holds dear. However you choose to define yourself you can can use to draw a connection to people who also defined themselves that way in the past.
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