I've shared about my freaky obsession with the occult in my blog, My Dance with Darkness, but because we're wrapping up the summer and I am already itching for spooky season to get started, I decided I'd share something both indulgent for me and actually informative for you.
Who doesn't love a win-win, am I right?
DISCLOSURE: I am not a certified medium, but I have and do work often with the dead in my personal practice. I have consulted with many mediums and espiritistas for personal rituals and ceremonies.
Now let's get started on how to handle an entity in your home.
Who is this for?
This article is well-beyond just clearing the slate and infusing a generally neutral environment with positive energy (such as in my blog, How to Spiritually Clear Your Space) - this is for a space that just feels undeniably creepy.
What does creepy really feel like?
Well... creepy. But to make it as clear as possible: unsettling, heavy, intrusive, like you're not alone or being watched, edgy, mysterious, or flat-out horrifying.
Whether there are visual, auditory or tactile indicators that your space is haunted, your intuition knows best. Honor it and proceed.
How?
Energy is energy. Remember that you are equal parts light as you are dark (having a hard time digesting this? Reach out to me for a 1:1 on shadow work, because this is key). Honoring your wholeness is how you can honor the wholeness in others - yes, including the dead. What I'm saying is even if the energy feels heavy or negative, it's only an element of it.
This is a tricky field to break down, because what we reject in ourselves, we'll reject outside of ourselves - hence the reason why so many are so afraid of the dark, the scary, and the mysterious.
If you aren't in a solid place with you, hire a medium or an energy worker (like myself) to help work with this entity directly. Rejecting it or coming at it with only fear will only exacerbate it.
Before you run for the hills, here's a personal story on how I managed to clear my own very haunted house of overwhelming, negative energy.
The Story
My family owned a house in the middle of the Hawaiian jungle for the majority of my life. Don't shoot the messenger, but the owners before us built the house and excavated bodies out of what was sacred burial ground to make: real estate.
Nice.
When my parents found this out, they had the house cleared by nearly every religious and spiritual sage they could find. Holy water, blessings, prayer, smoke clearings, chants, Enya's albums on loop - you name it.
But nothing really seemed to help.
This house had a mind of its own. Things falling, sounds echoing, images flashing and the hairs on your arms standing for no reason other than a deep, heavy feeling that you weren't alone.
My dad taught me at a very young age to use my imaginary red pen and draw an "X" three times over the energy that was trying to get in my space.
"You tell them 'NO,' so they have to leave you alone." He said with a seriousness a child never wants to experience when their parent is talking about ghosts. This was my introduction to energetic boundaries.
It wasn't all scary though, the house also spoke in rainbows, sunshine, and magic. There were days where the vibes felt so light and beautiful that you were practically lifted up by angels to Nirvana.
Growing up here, I began to notice patterns: the energy of the house responded and mirrored what was going on within. When my demons came out to play, so did the land's.
Strangely, despite all the terrors I'd experienced over the years, I didn't mind. I had decided (as nearly an infant) that this was my home - my paradise - and I would love it unconditionally.
And I did.
And this was key.
The members of my family who resisted this place the most battled the most horrors - the kinds of horrors you're too scared to look at. But I wasn't afraid to look. I wasn't afraid to love.
I cleared out old items and rearranged the furniture for better Feng Shui.
I prayed and listened and meditated and created.
I connected to nature.
I trusted.
The very last time I was with my whole family at this house before they sold it, my highly intuitive (though she hardly even knows it) little sister and I ran up to the old graveyard as soon as we got to the house one winter.
We trudged gently through the overgrown weeds with reverence, as my parents taught us to do.
When we arrived at the unkempt sacred burial cliff, we found that what would normally be a nest of dead weeds was a meadow full of tiny white flowers.
My jaw dropped.
"What do you think it means?" I asked quietly.
"I think... they're happy." My sister said.
The next time I was home was the very last time, was a few months after the graveyard flowers. I was there studying Hawaiian healing with native healers and elders. I knew that these few weeks would be my last with this place that meant so much to me - this place I had developed a personal, deep relationship with.
I poured and poured devotion into the home. I planted trees, chanted the native chants, danced hula for the ancestors, lit candles in their name, expressed my love for this land we now shared, I woke up before daylight to meditate and pray for our peace and faced my fears.
I could feel the energy transform even deeper than it had over the years. It now held me.
On one of the final days, I walked to the old graveyard with a shovel and an offering representing each of my family members. I buried them in the rain as tears streamed down my cheeks at the inevitable fate of losing this place.
"Send me a sign - please." I whispered to my old friend.
A butterfly danced its way through every raindrop to encircle me and the offerings with hope and guidance.
The Takeaways
Don't:
1. Come at it with a short-cut mentality (just try to "clear it out")
2. Throw your boundaries away
3. Be forceful or aggressive
4. Be generic in your approach
5. Treat the energy/entity as negative or "less than"
6. Let the space become cluttered, dirty or disarranged
7. Don't forget that you're free and safe
Do:
1. Use your intuition and patience
2. Set boundaries
3. Be compassionate
4. Get to know the native culture and history of the land to respectfully honor the ancestors
5. Practice reverence
6. Make sure the Feng Shui feels good (research Feng Shui if needed)
7. Remind the spirit(s) that it's free
Conclusion
The most important thing to remember when dealing with an entity above all else is: act with love.
When all is said and done, you can do a smoke clearing or holy water ceremony in the space with the intention of setting up a clean slate full of love and light.
You may find that the entity just wants to be set free, in which case, throughout these steps, it can entirely leave the space. Other times, you'll find that the spirit(s) want to stay. This doesn't make them bad. It means you'll have to share and develop a relationship.
If the latter scares you, look within. Are there parts of yourself that you reject or are afraid of?
The latter was my outcome at my family's Maui home and personally, I consider myself lucky.
