So, I realize that this is a sort of vague topic title, and there are going to be some bigger posts on this subject coming, but I wanted to get a few things out there with this whole idea first.  I get a lot of emails and messages and comments on Facebook from people with questions or need for help with shadow people, spirits in the home, or what they perceive as being demons. There are a few things that always stand out with these stories.  Most of them claim to have had the problem for years, some since their childhood.  And many of them will claim to have some pretty outrageous experiences.  This isn’t to say that they are making them up, because you really never know since anything is possible in the world of the paranormal, but you have to wonder.  If someone has had what boils down to demonic activity in their home or in their lives in general for 20 years, why hasn’t it been properly addressed?

It’s not that these people haven’t tried. In fact most of these people have done a few things to attempt, often on their own, to be rid of the problem.  Most of them try a simple house cleansing.  Others try to do protection spells or protection work for their home.

This makes me think of a scene from the movie “The Skeleton Key”.   Caroline uses a protection spell to keep things from harming her, declaring that she doesn’t believe in the spirits and in magick, but the spell wasn’t to protect her from getting hurt from something or someone else but to protect her from being able to move or leave the space she was in, therefore making her a sitting duck, so to speak.  I don’t know…that just comes to mind when I hear about some of the things that some of the people I’ve talked to have tried to do when it come to spirits bothering them.

First, let’s talk a moment about protection spells.  Or any protection work for that matter.  It’s all good and it’s all something that i would highly recommend to someone that’s dealing with problems with spirits or ghosts.  However, if you’re just doing protection work and you’re not doing anything to try and be rid o the actual problem, you’re just putting a bandage over a wound that’s never going to heal.    You will need to do your protection work over and over again because the energy will be sapped by the entities that are bothering you.  So it’s not that your protection spells aren’t working, you’re just not addressing the real issue.

Second, your power is paramount in these situations.  If you’re not in control, someone or something else is.  You need to be willing to stand up and be powerful.  You know the phrase “fake it ’til you make it”? That works in these cases.  If you can just muster up the energy and the courage to stand up and be strong, even if you don’t believe 100% that you’re as powerful as you’re trying to come off as, you’ll get there.  Your belief will grow as you do the work and you feel yourself being powerful.  But it takes time for some people.  Just because you don’t feel it the first time you try and confront something, that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to be more confident the second or third time.

Third, and something that I think is really important, don’t call something by a name if you don’t really know for sure what it is.  I have people tell me all the time that the cloud of bad luck that seems to follow them around is a demon and that they have had this demon around them for years.  My first question is “have you called it a demon all this time?”  I’m always surprised at the number of people who say “yes”.  When you name something, even if it’s a generic things like “demon” you’re giving it power, and possibly power that it otherwise wouldn’t have had.  Bad luck may very well just be bad luck, even if it’s lasted for 10 years.  That doesn’t mean it’s a demon.  Demon’s are something very specific and, frankly, not nearly as common as all those paranormal shows on television would have you imagine.

I had a friend who said that he would tell clients to start calling the “big bad energy” by something else, like “Fluffy”.  If they were calling it a “demon” he would tell them to never use that word in talking to it or referencing it and instead to call it “Fluffy”.  If they would have a visualization of this thing in their head, even if they’d never seen it with their eyes, he would tell them to change the image and make it a clown or a little girl with a pink dress and a lollipop the size of her head, anything that was the opposite of whatever it was that was scaring them. That new image, and the new name “Fluffy” would help to change and minimize that power it had over people.  He said a month later he’d have people calling him to say that not only was everything gone but that they felt more powerful and in control of their space.

HOT DAMN!  That’s the point!

So, like I said, I’m going to do some posts on these sorts of situations in a more in-depth manner soon, but the topic just seems to me haunting me lately.  (Pun intended…I’ll be here all week folks, tip your waitress!)  In all seriousness, in the next few weeks I’ll be working on some posts about dealing with shadow people, info on demons, and how to clear your home or space of those things that might go bump in the night at your house when you’re rather they went away and left you in peace.