Cleansing Unwanted Energies III

Years ago, I wrote a rather cursory introduction to cleansing unwanted energies. Upon rereading it, I found it sadly wanting, as it only covers house cleansing and doesn't go into detail. Because it's such a common topic, I thought I should rectify that situation. So I wrote a second, slightly better version. I've been dropping that version in comment threads for years. Today, when someone asked for cleansing advice, I actually reread it for once and found I've learned some things since then. Consequently, my conscience requires me to update my recommendations yet again. Because my schedule doesn't permit the writing time I used to have, I have wantonly plagiarized my previous post and will simply be changing a few things here and there.

Disclaimer: What follows is not exhaustive; it is a collection of my own personal methods. Use what works for you. Some would say you could skip this entire post and just read this article about the LBRP. But that's boring! I love chicken casserole, but I don't want to eat it every day!

Work of this kind could be broadly classified into two groups, cleansing and banishing. Cleansing would be dispelling unwanted or stagnant energies in general. Banishing would be targeting specific energies, generally a non-corporeal entity. (These are just my definitions, please don't go definitively telling your friends this like I'm the Supreme Arbiter of Truth or something.) Cleansings and banishings could each be further divided into two groups, personal and environmental. The methods you use would depend, to some extent, on which of these four categories you're working within. This post is mainly divided into these four categories, but first it is prudent to talk a bit about materials commonly used for cleansing.

There has been a lot of talk, in the time since I wrote my last version of this, about environmental sensitivity and cultural sensitivity regarding two well-known cleansing tools: white sage and palo santo. I won't go into all those issues because they have better advocates elsewhere on the web, but it would be irresponsible to not mention it. I will still cover them here because they work and each of them works differently. Each of these materials has its own energy and affects energy differently. I've seen many people say there are easy substitutes for white sage and palo santo but that's only true to a certain extent. Rosemary isn't a substitute for palo santo any more than your Aunt Irma is a substitute for your Aunt Sally. They have similar roles but they are not the same. So, please, educate yourself about the issues and, if you do decide a different material can be used, please use it. If you think only that specific material can be used, please source responsibly and use it respectfully. All that said, we can move on to what the individual properties are of each of these materials.

I call sage "the bleach of spiritual cleansers". In my experience, nothing else has the oomph that sage does. Additionally, sage has evidence-based antiseptic properties. Rosemary also had evidence-based anti-septic properties. Unfortunately, sage smoke has been demonstrated anti-septic while, to my knowledge, there is only evidence that rosemary has anti-septic properties in its whole, extract, infusion, and decoction forms. So, to the best of my knowledge, rosemary may not have the same anti-septic properties when burned. (If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please inform me and I will gleefully update this!) Sage is what I would normally use when moving into a new house or dealing with a particularly persistent energy. It is not a substance I recommend for routine use. You wouldn't try to clean up black mold with just a wet rag but you wouldn't use bleach to wash your hands! Use the right tool for the job! Sage is for when you need a heavy-hitter, not for routine maintenance.

Rosemary is a commonly recommended substitute for sage and palo santo. As previously mentioned, it has some limitations in comparison to sage. However, it still has valid uses. Of the alternatives, rosemary probably has the most similar properties to white sage. It still packs a punch, though I wouldn't consider it as much of a hard-hitter as white sage. This means that, while it might not be as effective as sage in all situations, you can be a little less cautious with it than with sage. If sage is spiritual bleach, rosemary is spiritual Simple Green. Because its anti-septic properties come in a different form, I would recommend it as a floor wash. You can still burn it to do a whole-house or personal energetic cleansing but I can't guarantee you'll receive the same anti-septic benefits as with sage smoke. Rosemary has a long history as a protective herb. It is traditionally planted at doors and gates for this purpose. It also has a number of cosmetic uses, such as stimulating hair growth! I find rosemary to have a protective energy that is lively, fresh, and invigorating. As such, I definitely recommend it as a solid staple in your magical cupboard for most cleansing purposes. 

Palo santo is where we really run into trouble. The sustainability concerns are not as easily worked around as with white sage. And, unfortunately, I haven't yet found an adequate substitute because of its unique properties. (If anyone thinks they have one, I would love to try it out!) What makes palo santo unique, in my experience, is that instead of an energetic scrubbing, it facilitates a gentle energetic releasing. Rather than the total clearing of the slate one gets from sage, palo santo carefully teases out the bits of energy that are unwanted and wafts them away. For this reason, palo santo is what I've used for regular maintenance of home and self, and for targeted cleansing of specific energies. For example, I frequently return to my hometown, which has a lot of unpleasantly aggressive energies from the massive military presence there. As soon as I cross the state line on the return trip, I light up the palo santo and stick it in the air conditioning vent to disperse throughout the car. I don't want to scrub my energy, I just want to release the aggressive energies of my hometown. Because of its gentle nature, it is also really useful when working to process trauma or when doing energetic work with children and pets. 

While I haven't found an adequate replacement for palo santo, the closest I can think of is sandalwood. Sandalwood is likewise gentle and can be used more regularly than white sage or rosemary. Unfortunately, I haven't found it to have the same releasing qualities as palo santo. What I have found with sandalwood is that it imparts an energy of sanctification. For this reason, it is often used to consecrate tools and spaces. This would be an excellent option for creating a space for meditation or to prepare yourself for ritual. Unfortunately, I haven't found it to have the same benefits for releasing unwanted energies but, rather, for transmuting energies. This doesn't mean it's useless, it just means it has a more targeted area of use. 

Lemon is an often overlooked cleanser. When I started a new job, I flicked lemon water around my cubicle. Not only did this prevent me from being fired for starting a fire with burning plant matter, it also gave the place a more vibrant energy than most cleansers would. (I'd like to interject here that the wonderful cleansing sprays which are common now weren't as readily available at the time.) Things like sandalwood are great for building serenity but, if you're anything like me, too much serenity and you'll be drooling on your desk by noon. While palo santo is great for a living room, and sandalwood is lovely for the bedroom, lemon is a better fit for a kitchen or home office. Likewise, for personal cleansing, I would end the day with palo santo but begin it with lemon. In fact, Edgar Cayce recommended starting each morning with a hot cup of lemon water, before anything else. When I actually practice this, I find I have more energy and a better mood throughout the day and my metabolism functions much more effectively. Lemon can be used in a spray bottle with water for misting yourself or a space. It can also be used in a spray bottle with vinegar as a natural cleanser for surfaces in the bathroom and kitchen. As previously hinted at, it can be used in foods and beverages to ingest its refreshing effects.

For a real heavy-hitter, bust out the dragon's blood. Dragon's blood digs down into your soul and roots out the evil like a rotten tooth that needs to be pulled. I recommend this for ridding your home of aggressive deceased tenants or yourself of "influence" (possession, basically). I absolutely love dragon's blood soap for ritually washing away those pesky non-corporeal hitchhikers! Please exercise caution, however, as dragon's blood has a very martial energy. When I was using dragon's blood routinely, I found myself feeling more aggressive and having more aggression from external sources in my life. I recommend only using dragon's blood if something has essentially declared war on you.

A common Conjure staple for cleansing floor washes is florida water. This was traditionally used because it was cheap and readily available. Though it may still be readily available, thanks to the internet and the increase in the number of occult shops, it is no longer cheap. For this reason, unless you're personally attached to florida water or making it yourself, I don't usually recommend it. (However, floor washes are a great way to cleanse energies from your home and impart new energies! There are entire articles and books about various floor washes for different purposes. If that strikes your fancy, I recommend tracking one down. Because they're basically innumerable, I won't go into further detail here.) Energetically, I find florida water to be refreshing and vibrant, much like lemon. The difference, in my experience, is that florida water is cheerful but soothing, whereas lemon is lively and perky. To use a colorful metaphor, florida water is pastels and lemon is neons. I have some homemade florida water in a spray bottle that I use as a body spray for a refreshing pick-me-up.

Now, while these lovely tools carry their own weight, they're just aspects of the environment until your intent puts some momentum behind them. This is where we get down to details, dear reader, so put on the tea and your spectacles and settle in for some dry technical documentation.

Personal Cleansing:
Any of the above can be applied to the body in a variety of ways to act as a personal cleanser. However, good spiritual hygiene involves more than just spraying something on yourself and calling it a day. To really address energetic balance, I use chakra meditation. I open and cleanse each chakra, starting from the root and working up towards the crown. What are chakras, you say? Take two Google searches and call me in the morning. Open and cleanse them how you say? Well, if you can feel your chakras, great! This will be easy. If not, put your imagineer cap on and visualize with me. This process starts with the root chakra and is repeated on each chakra in ascending order, up to the crown. Personally, I see everyone's chakras differently (lotuses, lilies, and multi-faceted gems are a few examples) but a good start is to see them as pools of colored light. Visualize a spring of colored light (the color corresponding to the chakra) rising up from within you to become a pool. The pool becomes a whirlpool as the chakra spins. All the debris collected by the river of your life rises to the surface where you can easily skim it off the top with one of those unwieldy nets. Luckily, you don't actually need to use a dangerously awkward net, just your intent. There are a lot of ways to see this; I tend to see it as black tar. Whatever works for you, go for it. I see the tar spinning off the chakra into a ball in front of me. Working my way up, I send all the tar from all the chakras into that ball. When I'm done, I see a pillar of green light (earth energies) rise from the ground and a pillar of blue light (cosmic energies) descend from the sky, meeting in the tar ball and dissolving it. I tell it, "Go do something useful!" as it's blown to smithereens and released, transmuted. Then I proceed to shore up the little bridges from pool to pool. Weaving in and out from front to back, a thread of light connects my root to my sacral to my solar plexus to my heart to my throat to my third eye to my crown to my third eye to my throat to my-- you get the idea. The shape the thread forms is something like an infinity symbol with more loops. Any time there is resistance in the thread, I focus my attention on the area and gently dislodge the blockage, like you would dislodge a log sticking out inconveniently into a canal you're canoeing through. Clean chakras do you little good if they're not talking to each other and allowing your energy to flow properly. That's a prime way for them to get all ucky again. Do you want a tar pit for a solar plexus? Do you? I didn't think so. Think of the tiny dinosaurs that are your hopes and dreams! Do you want them mired forever in muck? But I digress... Where was I? Oh yes, so once everything is properly connected, this chain becomes a pillar of white light. Push the light into every part of your body, seeing the secondary chakras in your hands and feet bloom. You can do a little work here to ensure your transmissive and receptive hands are doing their jobs by sending the energy from the one to the other in a circuit. (Usually, your transmissive hand is your dominant hand.) Samesies with the feetsies, sending it through the earth/floor/deck of the ship/whatever. Pull that light back in to the pillar. Now send it around yourself, enveloping you in an opalescent egg. Disconnect your energy from the egg while leaving the egg in place. This creates a protective boundary around you without leaving a route for it to sap or infiltrate your energy. If I expect to be around other people, especially doing Tarot or energy work, I add what I call "the rose quartz aura". It's another layer of protection, like the egg, but "made of" rose quartz. Basically, it filters signals received and transmitted through a shell of love energy, canceling out things like fear and anger. You'll probably want to actually hold a piece of rose quartz when you first start doing this but, eventually, you'll probably be able to get the energy right without the physical tool. Every person I've told about "the rose quartz aura" has returned with positive feedback about how well it works for them. I even have a friend who started using this method with other stones to impart other energies.

There's also an exercise I do with a grounding cord descending from the root chakra to the center of the earth. Saying, "I release all foreign and unhelpful energies", allow them to flow down the grounding cord to burn up in the molten core, then release the grounding cord to burn. After that, form a new grounding cord. When I've done that, I allow the earth energies to flow up through my feet and the cosmic energies to flow down through my crown chakra, meeting in the heart chakra and mingling throughout my entire body. Sometimes I do this on its own, sometimes in concert with the chakra meditation. It really depends on my time and need. When I do psychic fairs, I begin the day with the chakra meditation, use the grounding cord and a version of the personal banishing described below between readings, and close the day with a combination of both. (Credit where it's due, the grounding cord method comes from a wonderfully terrible little book called You Are Psychic by Debra Lynn Katz.)

Personal Banishing:
The following I learned from a speaker at the monthly Edgar Cayce Forum. (Sadly, the Cayce Forum is no longer in operation.) I wish I could remember which speaker it was because I hate not attributing! To get a sense of the health of your chakras and your being you can ask them questions! How are you feeling today root chakra? Is there anything you need? There's a variation of this I find even more useful! First you get a baseline reading of how your chakras feel, then you picture a person you have a relationship with. And this is just so lovely, you read them again and see how they've changed! Maybe your heart chakra feels like it just drank a refreshing glass of lemonade but your third eye is crying. Even more useful is taking it a step further, looking at the energetic connections you've made with that person. (Shades of Celestine Prophecy, anyone?) You may notice a connection is very strong between you in a certain chakra, but rather weak in another. My best friend and I had strong, steady, but not blasting connections at ever chakra. It was remarkably consistent. My at-the-time partner and I had an interesting arrangement. Energy was cycling between us, using two pairs of our chakras. Take a long look at these connections, you can learn a lot about your relationships with others that way. The only thing I recommend doing with these connections is gently separating them. Some might encourage just cutting them like scissors through a taught rubber band but, in a relationship you want to preserve, I wonder if those ends might snap back and bite you in the wrist. The aforementioned cyclic connection between my partner and I involved a gentle weaning process of about a week. Others slipped apart quite easily. Do what feels right for you. While some might disagree, I don't feel like this process is pressing enough in the ordinary course of things to warrant shocking your system. However, when you want a certain persistent someone gone, that extra jolt can be exactly what is called for. In this case I do a decisive cutting of all these energetic connections and then I bust out the giant ceremonial ribbon-cutting scissors and turn my attention to the Silver Cord. This, I consider to be your soul connection with the other person. Cutting this cord is no joke. It is severing the karmic connections between you and the other person. You're releasing yourself and them from the soul contracts between you. Some of these are karmic baggage we're still carrying around and some of these are things we're still trying to help each other with. That said, who's to say the cutting of the Silver Cord isn't a fulfillment of those contracts? (Which send me on interesting parallels regarding Jesus as fulfillment of the law and the prophets... but that kind of exegesis merits an entire book of its own.) Suffice it to say, this is not a regular practice for me and I don't recommend doing it casually. Loose ends and what not. And now, back with another blast from the Katz, is this little gem, which I've found is a common trick, in various masks, among professional psychics-- the simple quick energy return. You and the other person each have a golden sun overhead. Get a sense for their energy. Sense around yourself, where do you feel that energy on yourself? Send it into the golden sun above the other person's head. Repeat the process to reclaim your energy from them. The golden sun is purifying and revitalizing the energy for re-absorption. It bursts and the energy rains back down into the person it belongs to. This is what I use in conjunction with the grounding cord between clients at psychic fairs. It's quick, easy, and harmless. Also easily adapted. A Santeria-trained professional reader I respect very much simply claps her hands three times. Certainly that's all you have time for at the busier fairs!

Environmental Cleansing:
For a simple but thorough house cleansing, I do a fragrant little walk around my house with a sage bundle. This is similar to the chakra cleansing in that I see all the uck as black tar. Sometimes the black tar has miraculously sublimated and is wisping and wafting about in the air. I do a similar visualization as I walk around, gathering all the tar into a ball and discharging it with the earth and cosmic energies and the exhortation to do something useful. When I'm feeling fancy, I throw in some Wiccanesque flair from my back-in-the-day days and call in the elements and their helpful qualities. 

That method is really for moving into a new house or for cleansing something particularly damaging or persistent. For regular maintenance, I use a similar ritual but, instead of burning sage, I use palo santo. For an annual variation, I use a cinnamon broom to symbolically sweep the floors and walls until I sweep it all out the door. The broom then lives on the door for the next year, symbolically sweeping the energy of anyone or anything that comes through the door. The next Samhain, it gets burned in the bonfire and replaced with a new broom. It also has the added benefit of being met with a cozy, comforting smell whenever you walk through the door!

A note on which direction to walk when using these rituals: Traditionally, banishing is done counter-clockwise (or widdershins), while invocation is done clockwise (or deosil). Unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise, I usually start in the Center and walk East, then clockwise, ending when I get back to the East, and sort of just push out the undesirable energy with the desired energy. (Traditionally, one sweeps to the East, east is associated with new beginnings and cleansing because it's where the sun rises.) It's essential with any energy work that you mindfully replace any energy banished or expended, so if you walk counter-clockwise to banish, please do a circuit clockwise to replenish the vacuum left by whatever you banished. I skip a step by condensing them together. If you're just starting out with this work, you might want to take your time and use the long form. If you're a pro at pushing energies around, you can probably cut to the short form. Some people would say I'm doing a poor job and it won't work but I'm a chaote so I say it works because I believe it does.

Environmental Banishing:
These are your Big Spookies, the things people tell stories about around campfires. This is when you bust out a sword, cut a banishing pentagram in the air and recite the invocation of Archangel Michael! Lawd ha' mercy, child! You push that motherhaunter through it!
I mean, you CAN do that. But usually you don't need to. Usually either calmly talking to the entity or screaming at it to get the fuck out works just fine. It's actually easier work sometimes because you're dealing with something that has motivations, so the motivations can be played. Energy doesn't have motivations, it just is, so you just laboriously push it around like so much bread dough. But things that have feelings, fears, desires... these just require acuity. Usually, in the case of "ghosts", either some thorough cleansings will clear out the residual energy or you'll be able to talk to them and let them know what's going on. Just talk to them like a friend. Worst case scenario, you open a portal to the other side for them. How do you open this portal, you ask? I have no idea. You send out the intent to Source, allow yourself to be a sort of GPS marker and trivial conduit, and there it goes. Which is why my friend is no longer beset by ghost cats. Make sure you close it though, and keep an eye on it while open. With nasties, usually ordering them out will work. If it doesn't, bust out the dragon's blood to make them uncomfortable. Become an inhospitable environment to them. Which is to say, don't give it chinks in your aura to latch on to. Which is to say, lay off anything that weakens you (like alcohol), be mindful of your thoughts and emotions, stay centered in love, and FOR GODS' SAKES, don't be afraid of it! Which brings me to the most powerful tool in anyone's kit, Love. I was once dealing with a minor possession case; annoying and unsettling but not immediately dangerous. I shouted at it to "Get the fuck out of [Person]!" to no avail, so I changed tacks. Instead, I thought about how much I love the affected person, I filled myself with my love for that person, I sent them that love. And the invader left quietly. Staying centered in Love creates an inhospitable environment for things that would work contrary to that purpose. If you can't be a tool or entertainment, they will lose interest. Don't let their torment unsettle you, don't let them manipulate your thoughts and feelings. This can become difficult, but it's the surest route away from "recidivism". Any time I've dealt with big nasties, it was Love that drove them out. Well, from their perspective, boredom or more trouble than it's worth.

Now, once you've got yourself or your environment all nice and clean, you want to keep it that way, right? Pennies really have a way of keeping energy flowing. For yourself, try keeping one in each pocket. Magnetite is also great for circulation but it has more of a grounding energy, while pennies and the copper bracelets you may have seen are a bit more perky. I like to wear my magnetite earrings to work, while I would prefer the penny method for an afternoon hike. For your home, placing pennies in corners and other strategic locations can keep the energy from aggregating and stagnating. 

If you're dealing with a particular entity, corporeal or otherwise, you'll be wanting to think about protection. As previously mentioned, rosemary at the door or gate has a tried-and-true history of home protection. Similarly, setting wards at the door is a good way to keep out unwanted guests. There's a huge host of wards, from runes to the hamsa. Whatever culture or tradition you hail from probably has some item or symbol used for warding. Personally, I like to get my land in on the action. I talk to the trees when I move into a new home and suggest we work together to keep the space safe. When I need to renew my protections, I visualize the earth and universal energies suffusing the land and forming a protective barrier that lets in only that with loving intentions. Then I focus that energy into a red ribbon tied to the door knob. I've used variations on this, as well. When I was having issues with non-corporeal entities, I strung a bell on the red ribbon, since bells are a traditional ward against various spirits. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I replaced the red ribbon with a green yarn, since green is associated with healing, with the idea that it would act as a ward against coronavirus entering the house. A tradition in the US South is to paint your porch ceiling blue to confuse ghosts. Traditionally, salt (especially the expensive consecrated sea salt occult shops love to sell you) is spread on the thresholds of the home to prevent intruders or unsavory guests from entering. If you're dealing with a non-corporeal entity, you may want to put a ring around your entire house, inside or out, though I suggest inside for environmental reasons. (You're not a conquering invader salting the earth of your defeated foes, after all, this is YOUR earth!) If you're not fond of the idea of wanton salt-strewing, you could instead construct a crystal grid. Place appropriate stones in strategic locations throughout your home. I'd recommend black obsidian for protection and rose quartz for cancelling out "bad vibes". Keep in mind where the rooms in your house are when designing your crystal grid. For example, an obsidian point under your bed might have some unintended consequences for your relationship with your partner, as it's a cutting tool used for warding. Presumably, you'd rather be cuddling up to your honey than warding 'em off! (Otherwise, you've got even worse problems than spooky Uncle Ghost.) Black obsidian is a wonderful stone to carry for personal protection, as well. (There's no more powerful magic than being able to deliver a solid ass-kicking to whoever might do you harm so, please, don't let an obsidian point be a replacement for martial arts, mace, a swift kick in the oh-no, the piercingly debilitating shrill scream of a Soprano I, or whatever your preferred method of self-defense. It's meant to give your efforts a boost, not do all the work for you.) Speaking of rocks, throw 'em everywhere! Well, don't throw them, that's hazardous. In fact, don't be haphazard about it. Be strategic. Have a hard time thinking clearly at work? Get yourself a godawful gaudy clear quartz paper weight for your desk. Do physical labor and need some extra energy? Wear carnelian. And so on. Google and trial and error are your best friends here. For personal protection, I've had good success with incanting, "I am purified. I am protected. I am one with the radiant white light of Divine Wholesomeness." while visualizing myself being suffused and surrounded by a protective white light. This works well as a protective incantation in situations like walking alone at night or preparing for magical work. When I was very young and kind of stupid, my friends and I decided to call the fae. Being not entirely stupid, I insisted we perform this protection before going on this ill-advised mission. Sure enough, once we had called the fae, I felt something try to push itself into me from behind. But it was unable to take hold and I felt it get ejected out the other side. 

Chances are I'll keep updating this for the rest of my life but that's what I've got for now. I hope this has helped you assemble a solid toolkit for a variety of cleansing, banishing, and protection situations. Feel free to hop in the comments with questions, concerns, recommendations, and experiences. 

Blessings and Blessings!