About three months ago, a writer friend asked if Rob and I could visit and do her and her family a big favor. She explained that her middle daughter, L, has been experiencing ghostly encounters in her room at night, and she won’t sleep in the room any longer. L also insisted that Trish was the only person who could rid her room of the ghost. We first wrote about it here.
I’ve never tried to banish any spirit to anywhere, probably because I’ve never had the need to do so. However, in preparation for this, I solicited advice from friends who are psychics/mediums, read up on the subject, and came up with a technique I felt might work. Belief seemed to be a huge component in this picture – L’s beliefs. The above drawing, in fact, is her depiction of what she has seen in her room. Creepy little sucker, isn’t it?
The ghost busting venture finally came to pass. First, Rob took photos in L’s room and in different areas of the house where everyone in the family had felt a presence – the bathroom off the guest room where we were sleeping, and in the youngest daughter’s bedroom. Nothing showed up on the digital pictures.
We saged everyone out on the porch, taking turns, arms extended, legs spread. We jokingly referred to it as the TSA position. I also told L I’d never done anything like this before, that it was as much an experiment for me as it was for her. She’s an old soul, this one, and understood that I was grappling in the dark, just as she was, that it was a joint venture into the unknown. But she joked, “Gee, great. That’s a vote of confidence.”
L’s mom has a gorgeous Salvator Dali tarot deck, so I pulled out the 22 major arcana cards, fanned them out, and asked L to draw four, to represent the four directions. Her selections: The Magician for the north, the Empress for the south, the Star for the east, Justice for the west. I used tarot cards because it’s how L and I initially connected. She was interested in the tarot, so I had sent her a copy of the book on the tarot that I co-authored with Phyllis Vega.
The flash on my camera obscured the top card and I had to Google the image to find it. After she’d chosen the cards, I removed the stones I had brought out along – a large rose quartz and a large amethyst. L laughed and showed me her selections – a piece of rose quartz and an amethyst, smaller, but the same stones. We knew we were on a synchronistic roll.
In her room, I drew a circle on her floor with white chalk. We placed the tarot cards at the appropriate directions. In the center of the circle went out stones, a candle, , holy water from the Vatican that L and her family had brought back from a trip to Rome, a rosary, sage for smudging.
L’s mom had prayers and blessings to say. L and I stepped into the circle. It wasn’t large enough to include her mom (the room was crowded with stuff), so mom sat just outside the circle and the three of us held hands and visualized a white dome of protection around us. Then we said the Lord’s Prayer.
I should note that we aren’t traditionally religious people, that none of us adhere to any particular religious belief, but we recognize that certain rituals are powerful statements. The holy water and rosary, for example, were L’s choices, symbols that are meaningful to her, so we used them. Since Mom had some prayers that were meaningful to her and L, we used those, too.
Once this was done, I told L I was going to step outside the circle, smudge the room with sage, and bless the room with the holy water. While I was doing that, I asked her to bow to each direction, hands pressed together, touching the center of her chest, the Namaste salutation in yoga. The divine light in me recognizes the divine light in you. I also said that while she was doing these salutations, she should ask the spirit/ghost to move on, that it had nothing to fear in the after life, that it wasn’t welcome in her room, this house. While I saged and sprinkled the holy water around the room, I silently told the spirit it was time to move on.
We repeated these rituals in the younger daughter’s room and in the guest bathroom. I saged every inch of the house, sprinkled windows and doors with the holy water. I never felt a presence in the house, never felt threatened or intimidated by anything unseen. This led me to believe that the spirit L had seen was drawn to her because of puberty, her psychic energy, to awaken her to her own intuitive ability.
That night, for the first time in eight months, L slept in her bedroom – with all the lights on. But as her mother noted, “She’s in there. That’s what is important.”
So, we’ll see.
PS It’s now late June, six weeks later, and L is still sleeping in her room, but with the light on. I wonder if I can add ghost-busting to my resume.
