Seventh Lunation: Waning Moon Cycle
Days 16–28
Exorcism
Magical Purpose: Learning about exorcism and putting the techniques to use.
Dion Fortune, mystic and influential figure in the revival of the Western Mystery Tradition (which includes Wicca), wrote several early works on magical practice after her time with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1919. In one of her most influential works, Psychic Self-Defense, Fortune lays out the ground rules for understanding and dealing with what she calls the “subtle forces which are the basis of psychic attack.”
Here are Fortune’s exact words:
“We have very little exact knowledge of these subtle forces ... but we have good reason to believe that in their nature, they are closely analogous to electricity. They are not inanimate forces, however, but have in their nature something that is akin to life, though of a low type.” 14
A psychic attack is when unwanted energetic vibrations enter a person or an object and negatively affect energy, mind, and body. These attacks can occur for several reasons:
• Someone has either consciously or unconsciously directed harmful, destructive, or malevolent thoughts in your direction, thus mobilizing an unwanted energetic field.
• You spend time either consciously or unconsciously mobilizing and directing unwanted, harmful energies toward others.
Here are some signs of a psychic attack in all three stages—early, middle, and late. In addition, I have listed some other reasons why you or others you know might be experiencing this difficulty. In the end, only you can tell if the symptoms are those of a psychic attack.
|
Possible Early Stage Signs of Psychic Attack |
Differential Possibilities |
|
Sleep disturbances that are atypical for you. |
This is common. There are many reasons why people have trouble sleeping. Don’t let this worry you. Think in terms of the frequency of sleep disturbances as a sign of psychic attack. Also, if you have anxiety, depression, or a diagnosis of any other mood disorder (even a mild one), chances are you will have trouble sleeping. |
Early Stage Psychic Attack and Differential Possibilities
|
Possible Early Stage Signs of Psychic Attack |
Differential Possibilities |
|
Nightmares. |
Everyone gets nightmares. Consider the frequency of the nightmares. Also consider the circumstances of your current life. Are there precipitating life factors that might explain the nightmares, such as moving, changes, marriages, births, deaths, etc.? |
|
Feeling depleted of energy for no apparent reason. |
This may have a medical basis, even if you do not suspect one. See a doctor first. |
|
Intrusive, negative thoughts when your life seems to be going just fine. |
This is an unusual one. But remember that unconscious material is always bubbling below the surface of awareness. Sometimes working intensely with a spiritual practice (such as Wicca) can bring “unwanted” material up from the unconscious. |
|
Suddenly changing your career, losing a job unexpectedly, or an unanticipated divorce or separation. |
These things may not be as “unexpected” as you may think. Consider your past history with work and with relationships. Consider world events such as economic recession and other global factors that regularly influence work situations. Divorce and separation are not entirely a surprise. Among adults who have been married, recent studies show that one third (33%) have experienced at least one divorce. I say this not to put the kibosh on your relationship hopes and dreams, but to introduce some statistical facts before you start worrying about psychic attack. |
|
Chronic difficulties with concentration. |
Life is distracting, especially if you live in a big city. Even if you don’t, with the Internet come innumerable distraction possibilities. Think of these first before considering psychic attack. |
|
Panic attacks when you’ve never had one before. |
It is possible to have an unforeseen panic attack with no previous history of the disorder. See a physician promptly, as there may be underlying medical considerations. |
|
Difficulties with completing daily activities, with no apparent cause. |
There may be an evolving emotional health condition such as anxiety, depression, or others. |
Early Stage Psychic Attack and Differential Possibilities (continued)
|
Possible Middle Stage Signs of Psychic Attack |
Differential Possibilities |
|
Physical maladies that have no apparent basis in biological pathology. |
Just because a doctor does not know right now what it is that is causing your symptoms does not necessarily mean you are experiencing a psychic attack. Think of chronic fatigue syndrome and how long it took the medical establishment to accept the symptom picture as that of a genuine malady. Additionally, some people convert emotional pain into actual physical ailments; thus, the etiology is not a traceable pathogen. |
|
Unexplained headaches, dizziness, or vomiting. |
See a physician right away. |
|
Sudden and unexplainable depression. |
See a physician and a behavioral health clinician right away to rule out any physical possibilities. |
|
Feeling as though someone is watching you from the shadows, especially when you are alone. |
Sometimes sensitive magical practitioners can “feel” energies moving through their home. Do not become automatically alarmed that you can sense these things, especially since you are on the Wiccan path. Energetic sensitivity is likely to increase for you, given time and magical practice. |
Middle Stage Psychic Attack and Differential Possibilities
|
Possible Late Stage Signs of Psychic Attack |
Differential Possibilities |
|
Unexplained sounds, smells, or seeing things from the corner of your eye, especially in your home. |
Check your home for animals of all kinds, plumbing problems, window problems, and structural stability issues. I once moved into a home that was “completely remodeled.” Soon after moving in, the bedroom began to smell horrible. There was no apparent reason for the stench. Finally, I asked someone to open the wall, and there we found mounds of raccoon droppings. Evidently, the home had sat vacant for months before it was remodeled rather hastily, with no one investigating the unusual house smells. Sometimes phenomena that we think are supernatural turn out to have a very natural basis. |
|
Animals avoiding your home or you when they never did before. |
Sometimes an animal may make a reactive association with you for no known reason. It is true that animals can be sensitive to energetic changes, but they are also very basic creatures that respond to operant conditioning. An animal may avoid something it associates (for its own reasons) with pain, discomfort, or fear. |
Late Stage Psychic Attack and Differential Possibilities
|
Possible Late Stage Signs of Psychic Attack |
Differential Possibilities |
|
Previously supportive people are no longer available to you. |
Have you withdrawn? Have you not been a good friend? Look at your own behavioral pattern first before jumping to belief in a psychic attack. |
|
Feeling isolated from everyone. |
Check the reality of this. It is truly rare that anyone is actually isolated. Feeling as though you are isolated is another matter altogether, and can have a basis in your personal history, your family, your culture, and your attitude toward others. |
|
Feeling as though you want to commit suicide, but you still cannot discern any root cause for the feelings. |
See a physician promptly and do not act on the destructive urge. |
Late Stage Psychic Attack and Differential Possibilities (continued)
What is most important when discerning if the phenomenon you’re experiencing is due to psychic attack or other causes is the quantity and the intensity of the signs. Psychic attack can happen, and it is not as uncommon as you might think. Luckily, you will learn some techniques that can help.
Exorcism: Cleansing Objects and Clothing
Magical Purpose: Starting the spiritual cleansing process.
What you’ll need:
• A pendulum
• A shovel
• An area of soil somewhere near your home
While you may not be under spiritual attack at the moment, there is no harm in cleansing your home and belongings proactively.
The energies involved in a spiritual attack can “infect” a person’s home and physical belongings. The infection may not be spread across your entire home, nor will it always pertain to all of your belongings. So it will be up to you to determine what may carry energies harmful to you and what remains neutral.
Use a pendulum for the procedure of determining potentially unwanted energies. Begin by taking the pendulum outside and allowing it to dangle from your index finger and thumb. Hold the pendulum over neutral things in nature, such as rocks, tree roots, grass, leaves, etc., to get a sense of how the pendulum responds to these natural, neutral phenomena first. This will give you a baseline for pendulum responses to neutral objects and environments.
Then take the pendulum inside your dwelling and dangle it in rooms or over suspected “infected” clothing or objects. You will likely see a different pendulum response. You should interpret any pendulum response that differs from that shown in neutral, natural settings as an affirmation of the presence of unwanted energies.
Your first step is to quarantine any “spiritually infected” objects or article of clothing by first moving all such items to a room in your home that you determine (using the pendulum method) is already active with unwanted energy.
Next, using a shovel, upturn some soil near your home and lay all clothing and objects with unwanted energies on top of the soil. Allow them to sit on the freshly turned soil and in the open air and sunshine/moonlight for three days. This allows for neutralization of the objects and clothing.
Following this, launder all of your clothing and wash all items that were infected. Once your washing is complete, place the clean clothing in any area of the home that does not harbor unwanted energy. Also, place all neutralized objects in a neutral area of your home. For larger objects, like furniture, please follow the instructions on days 20–21.
Exorcism: Protecting Yourself
While You Sleep
Magical Purpose: Learn a magical method of ensuring that you are not attacked while sleeping.
What you’ll need:
• Your circle-casting tools
• First Pentacle of Saturn
• First Pentacle of Saturn candle (from the second lunation)
• Saturn Incense
It will be particularly important to protect the bed in which you sleep each night if you are the subject of an unwanted spiritual invasion. Of course, just as you did with your clothing and other objects, you will want to wash all of the bedding first. Cast the circle as usual, but for your circle-casting incense, use the Saturn Incense you made earlier in the year’s training.
Place the previously blessed First Pentacle of Saturn (the one on paper) under your pillow, and place the First Pentacle of Saturn pillar candle on a nightstand near your head, where you can see it at all times during the night. For objects like furniture, cast a circle around the object, then place the First Pentacle of Saturn directly on it. Light the pillar candle and place it near or on the affected object. Stay with this for a while, until you sense some vibratory change. Once you do, close the circle, extinguish the candle, and leave the pentacle on the larger object overnight.
A Word to the Wise: It is never safe to allow a candle to burn in your home while you are asleep. This is doubly unsafe given the possibility of a spiritual attack. Burn the candle only while you are awake, and extinguish it before sleeping. As an alternative to using fire, place an electronic tealight on top of the candle. This method works well, and you can obviously allow an electronic tealight to flicker throughout the night.
Even if you do not have an active spiritual/energetic disruption in your home, this is an excellent proactive step you should try tonight. You may unexpectedly discover that you sleep better.
The frequency of reestablishing the circle around your bed may vary. Over my years of practice, I have heard everything from the need to re-cast the circle twice each day (once at dawn and once at dusk), to recasting the circle only once every twenty-eight days, at the full moon. It really is up to you. Again, during this Second Degree year of training, it is important to develop your psychic senses and tune in to the subtle energetics of your home, your work, and the people around you. To that end, it will be a matter of personal preference as to the timing of your circle recast.
Exorcism: Out with the Bad,
In with the Good
Magical Purpose: Driving away unwanted spirits.
What you’ll need:
• Athame
• Chalice
• Purified water
• Salt
• A fresh bunch of rue (alternatives include a fresh bunch of any of the following: angelica, basil, blessed thistle, sage, or hyssop)
• Distilled vinegar
• Fresh whole onions (one for each room in which you’ve sensed unwanted energies)
• Bowls (one for each room of your home)
If an unwanted spiritual manifestation persists following proper and prudent measures, you should proceed to more direct measures of casting out the unwanted energies.
The ancients of Old Europe would drive away evil spirits with the aid of water drawn from sacred springs or wells. Some customs consisted of drinking sacred waters to drive away evil. Other ancient customs from both Ireland and Wales for seeking cures from maladies thought to be caused by bad spirits included offering pins, coins, buttons, pebbles, and other small objects to sacred waters.15
This information is important when considering Fortune’s initial recommendations for dealing with spirit attacks. She recommends first to take the afflicted person from his or her dwelling and cross a body of running water. This recommendation, likely rooted in many of the examples of Old Ways I’ve described, is effective. Fortune explains that since the spirits involved in spiritual attacks are generally of a lower-voltage nature, you can easily loose or disrupt their engagement simply by take an afflicted person across running water, which, in Fortune’s estimation, short-circuits the connection these spiritual energies have developed.
If you are like me and live in an area where a body of running water is not readily available, then there are other operations using water that can help deflect a negative spirit infestation. One is to draw a bath and bless it, as you would normally bless water for casting a circle. Add to it consecrated salt (just as you would for circle casting). Bathe in these waters for a time while meditating. Fortune describes the energy field you enter while meditating as “pure spirit,” which is intolerable to lower-voltage energies.
These many months of working with meditation practice will come in handy for you if you are the one experiencing the spiritual attack. Fortune does not make any specific recommendations for a meditation format, and neither will I. Choose any meditation format with which you feel comfortable. But after you begin meditating, make sure you engage your concentration and mindfulness for at least 20–30 minutes.
Following this, dress in the clothes you freshly laundered in the previous days’ working. Using your chalice, bless more fresh water, and to this add one small “scoop” (only a trace amount) of salt, using only the tip of your athame. Bless the salt and water, just as you do when casting a circle. Next, using an aspergillum of fresh rue, sprinkle the salted water around you in a clockwise manner.
Using your athame, draw banishing earth pentagrams in all four directions, starting in the east. While doing so, recite the following:
In the Names which are above all names,
By the power of the Great Mother and the Horned Lord,
I exorcise thee, thou seeds of evil,
I cast out from this space all that I do not seek;
I lay upon thee the spell of the Triple Goddess:
By Hecate and Hel,
By Sophia and Sekhmet,
By Inanna and Rhiannon,
And the countless names of power,
By the full moon and buckled horn,
Come, ye holy Goddess,
Cast out what is impure.
I lay upon thee the spell of the Triple God;
By Arawyn and Anubis,
By Beli and Balor,
By Osiris and Oghma,
And the countless names of power,
By the sun, hoof and horn,
Come, ye holy God,
Cast out what is impure!
Asperge the space once more. Dip the fresh rue in the saltwater and sprinkle it in all directions. Then drink the remaining water.
Exorcism: Finishing Touches
Magical Purpose: Using other methods to ward off harm.
What you’ll need:
• A fresh onion (one for each previously infected room)
• Distilled white vinegar
• Salt
• Small bowls or containers
According to Dion Fortune, onions have a particularly absorptive power when it comes to dealing with unwanted psychic energies. Magical workers employ the following technique using onions and vinegar following exorcism workings to absorb any remaining infectious energies.
For this technique, place one fresh onion in every room (or space, such as hallways, closets, entryways, etc.) in which you have sensed an unwanted spiritual visitation. Make sure that you split each onion in half. This technique may leave a bit of an onion smell in your home for a short while, but it is a relatively small price to pay.
Next, put ¼ cup distilled white vinegar and 1 teaspoon salt in each small bowl or container, and place these in every space where you’ve sensed an unwanted spiritual visitation.
Allow the onions and the vinegar bowls to sit for at least twelve hours, preferably overnight if you can sleep with the odors. Once the twelve hours have elapsed, collect the onions and bowls of vinegar, setting them aside for the next days’ practice.
Make sure your bedding is freshly cleaned and replaced. Finally, change the direction of your bedroom furniture for the time being. Rearranging the furniture stimulates a fresh energy in your bedroom. As you consider the placement of the bed, make sure you set things up so that when you lie down, your head points in the opposite direction of its previous position. This means that if your head was originally pointing north, now it should point south.
Know that even though you have taken these and other measures, it may still take time for unwanted spiritual influences to subside. Be patient, knowing that these procedures are helping to restore balance and spiritual healing to your home and your own energy field.
Even if you have not experienced any psychic attacks and are simply following these procedures for the sake of following the year and a day of practice, know that these measures will help to establish a magical energetic shield in your home.
Exorcism: Neutralize
Magical Purpose: Learn one more technique that neutralizes lingering energies.
What you’ll need:
• The onions and bowls of vinegar/salt from the previous days’ magical working
• A fire pit or barbeque
• Salt
• Water
• Chalice and athame
Today, you will destroy any remaining energies that have been absorbed by the onions and vinegar. Start by lighting a fire in either a fire pit or a barbeque. Make sure you use either many coals or plenty of wood. Place the collected onions from yesterday’s working in the fire. Let them sizzle and burn until they are charred completely.
Pour the bowls of vinegar/salt into a single larger vessel that you can transport safely without spilling. Bring this, along with the charred onions, your chalice and athame, a container of fresh water, and a small quantity of fresh salt, to where you previously upturned the soil near your home.
At the upturned soil site, dig a small hole and bury the charred onions. Over this, pour the vinegar/salt. Bury these completely. Pour water into your chalice and consecrate it, just as you would for your usual circle casting. Bless your salt in the same manner. Place three scoops of salt in the water and stir together.
Holding your athame between your two hands, use the knife tip to trace four elemental banishing pentagrams on top of the soil: one for air, fire, water, and then earth.
Finally, pour the blessed saltwater on the ground at the center of the pentagrams. Walk away and do not look back.