Read Online The Witches' Book of the Dead by Christian Day - Free Book Online Page B

to be awakened by your magical dabbling. This is why it is so important to understand how to rid your home of spirits when they begin to cause problems.
    The best offense, as they say, is a good defense, and so you need to know how to keep yourself safe from supernatural dangers. One of the best ways you can do this is to enter into your visionary state and visualize an energy shield of protection around your body that strengthens your own aura— the psychic energy field that surrounds all living things. Another is to carry protective jewelry, charms, and other accoutrements of magic that harmfulspirits have learned to recognize and fear, much like the vampires in movies recoil from the cross.
    The skills of psychic protection, banishing, and exorcism are crucial to magic, so if you're looking to study them more in depth, I recommend Dion Fortune's 1930 classic Psychic Self-Defense . In the meantime, this chapter should provide you with the basic information you need to keep yourself safe and sound as you make your exploration into the worlds of the dead. To begin, it's important to figure out what you're dealing with.
    Unwelcome Spirits
    While the work you do will draw many good spirits to your altar, you might not want some of them around. Such unwanted visitors can be very hard to dismiss. Angry spirits can often be strong and take more effort to usher off. Other spirits, regardless of their intentions, may be energized by peculiar energies of place. This is one reason why certain places become haunted— the dead are able to use place and land as an anchor in the physical world, especially in those places to which they had a personal connection. It is important to close the doorway to the spirit realms after the dead have been summoned and business is concluded lest an entity that you don't want to contend with comes wandering through.
    The restless and unquiet dead can cause a host of unpleasant phenomena, such as apparitions, cold spots, unexplained sounds, shadowy figures, movement and misplacement of objects, breaking and throwing of objects, mental disturbances, nightmares, and interferences with anything electrical.
    The ancients respected and feared the dead, recognized the dangers of working with them, and had ways of heading trouble off at the pass. Some cultures even performed entire festivals to exorcise the dead, such as the Roman Lemuria or the Anthesteria of Greece (see chapter 13 ). If you maintain your boundaries and keep your psychic shields up, you are not likely to have many difficulties. However, exceptions may arise; let's look at ways both supernatural and scientific to send unwanted spirits packing.
    Eliminating Natural Causes
    Sometimes what you think is a spirit presence is not one at all. When your attention is focused on the unseen, it is tempting to interpret every creaking floorboard and chill breeze as paranormal. If you are experiencing phenomena, first eliminate all possible natural causes. Changes in climate can make a house creak, especially during certain times of the year as ground contracts and swells, and humidity levels change. Poorly fitting doors and windows can cause strange breezes and abrupt closings. Odd smells can sometimes seep into a house from outside sources. What might seem like the fetid stench of malevolent spirits could just be a dead rat in your central heating system.
    You also must honestly ask yourself if your own imagination is involved. It's easy to unwittingly fill in blanks when it comes to the supernatural world. We all want to believe. And sometimes it's just plain tempting to dine out on embellished, creepy ghost stories and be the center of attention; but, as I mentioned in chapter 2 , the occult should not become a crutch for the needy. You impede your own development if you mire yourself in delusion.
    Spirit of Place Residue versus Hauntings
    Not all supernatural phenomena that you might experience are the products of an active spirit. In fact, most of