Protection in magical workings is 99% fear management.
If you believe that a dark entity is likely to descend upon you as soon as you do any spiritual work not preapproved by a patriarchal church, then you may very well manifest that experience into being. Or at least your perception of events will turn it into something dark. I regularly have visits from a being who scores pretty high on the poltergeist scale but has a gorgeous energy and I love it when she visits (she’s my friend’s nan). She would have scared the bejeezus out of me when I first started doing this.
Of course there is the possibility that I am just batty as a fruit cake and suffering from a beautifully delusional mental illness. But you are here reading this so I am likely in good company.
If you hold such fears of dark entities approaching when you work with Goddess I would encourage careful examination of where these came from – are they the result of the cautionary tales the christian church told to maintain their structure of power, one in which God could only be accessed through their middle men? Did it come from a teacher who hadn’t considered that the evil voices might just be their brain reacting to their unprocessed childhood trauma, or a part of them they had suppressed so long it had given up on integration and became what seems like a disembodied evil spirit?
When I was in my teenage years I used to see things that scared me, things that could not be explained by science, and having been raised a catholic, taking a considerable amount of recreational drugs at the time, recovering from some traumatic experiences (badly) and being full of the kind of psychic energy that teenagers have – like a tent flap that has come undone in a storm – weird shit did happen, and it caused a sense of foreboding.
I closed down to a large extent, shutting out the noise and only letting in things that felt very safe to me – Goddess and Reiki. In my early thirties I attended a spiritualist church and asked them for help to open up other abilities whilst also keeping me safe from the things I’d seen that I’d attributed to dark energies. They told me those things didn’t exist, told me it was my own psychic projections I was experiencing and then made evasive manoeuvres about teaching me anything. They were right, I was a liability! But they went about it all wrong.
What I needed at that moment were some rituals/techniques that would help me to manage my fear, to keep my energy clean and focused, and to gently test the control I had over my imagination/manifesting abilities with a reassuring hand to guide me, reminding me that I had the power to keep myself safe and that the thing most dangerous to me in the room was usually myself.
Fast forward to more recent times when protection techniques I have learnt have become so embedded that I forget they are even in place. With one millisecond thought I will cast a mental dome over the space I’m in that no fear can penetrate, and over the spaces my online clients are in as well, and over the space of the individual reading these words now. You are safe! But above all else is my unwavering faith in the power of Goddess to protect, and same for Reiki.
Other rituals that may be reassuring:
- place crystals in corners of the room
- go old school and make a circle of salt around your working space
- invite your spirit guides in
- have a picture of a loved ancestor and ask their love to come in
- if you are Reiki trained you can send some Reiki energy to the space, or use the symbols in the corner of the room
- splash some water around the room that you left out under the light of the full moon, or collected from a sacred well.
- Use the words ‘for the Higher Good’ a lot
Whatever works for you to help you focus and enter a comfortable and sacred state.
Should you find yourself a bit freaked out by unusual experiences (and if you are doing it well you will have unusual experiences!), the Bene Gesserit Litany against fear quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune series is a good go to:
“I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.”
Fear isn’t just the mind-killer, it’s a party pooper. If you do find yourself overwhelmed by thoughts that dark entities are attached to you then you may wish to settle the nervous system down first by doing lots of things that make you feel calm, and none of the things that wind you up. Take a break for a bit. Remind yourself that your thoughts create reality, and being centred is the best immediate defence against anything annoying in this life. Mental illness is very real, so seek medical help if you are experiencing an unhealthy amount of fear or anxiety (if it’s affecting daily life). The brain is like any other part of the body, it can malfunction at times.
There are some dark entities that you do need to be mindful of. They come in the guise of flesh and blood people who go around telling the vulnerable they have dark entities that can removed for a nominal fee. These can usually be banished using the block button on social media but occasionally they infiltrate physical spaces, so it’s good to have a bottle of moon water in your handbag for such occasions.
Unprocessed childhood trauma could also be described as a dark entity – maybe it’s just semantics at the end of the day. Narcissistic ex’s can definitely be classified as dark entities and people who have energetic hooks in you can be a pain in the butt. Protection rituals can be very useful for those. If you need something a bit more symbolic, write the name of the thing that’s bothering you on a piece of paper, fold it away from you and place it in a jar, sprinkle it with salt and squeeze in some lemon or other cleansing materials and leave at the outskirts of your property. If you believe in it, it will work – you’re cleansing your own mind really, protecting your own energy field- hitting delete on the line of code that keeps you tied to them.
I know some will disagree, and tell you demons exist that are waiting to overwhelm the vulnerable and those people will probably be feeling quite cross with me now.
Either way, we aren’t can’t let fear dictate our relationship with spirit and/or Goddess.