Magickal Defense Without Permission

One of the most debated issues in magickal defense is whether or not you should do magickal defense for someone else without their permission.  In this post I'll take a look at a few of the situations where you might be tempted to do defensive work for another without their permission and the various issues they entail.

A general protection sigil.

A little disclaimer: I'm coming at this from a mainstream Pagan perspective in which one always wants to get consent before doing magick of any kind on another person.  I know there are other traditions out there that don't really take issue with doing defensive work without permission and I respect that.  This post is my personal perspective based on my own ethics – take it as you will.

Due to my education (code for "law school warped my brain"), I tend to see any issue of consent and defense in a legal light.  This means that, for me, there are two circumstances in which I can pretty much always do defensive magick without getting express permission from the person I'm defending: 1) there is an imminent threat of non-trivial harm to the target, and 2) the target of the magick lacks the capacity to give consent.

The first situation in which I’m comfortable doing defensive work without permission when there’s a non-trivial imminent threat to the target.  An imminent threat is something immediate, something that will happen in a matter of moments if it isn’t stopped – think of an out of control car careening towards someone.  It’s the kind of situation where there really isn’t time to ask permission, so I really don’t feel bad acting on instinct.  In terms of defensive magick I always have to add a “non-trivial” qualification to the situation before I act.  Most situations that necessitate the use of defensive magick are actually fairly mild in the short term – sure an attachment will do a lot of harm over time, but it’s not going to be any more dangerous or difficult to remove if I wait the few minutes to get permission to act.  For me a situation needs to be a serious threat to life, limb, or sanity before I act without permission.  While I have no problem warding someone when an infernal comes into the room whether they ask me to or not, I wouldn’t do that for a pixie’s arrival.  If something is actually dangerous and needs to be acted upon quickly, then do what you’ve got to do and ask for forgiveness later.

The second situation is where the person needing the defensive work lacks the capacity to give me permission.  When I say "the target lacks capacity" I mean that the person you want to defend is unable to give consent either because they're too young to understand the situation, they're drunk, extremely ill, unconscious, mentally unsound, etc.  Under those circumstances I try to get a hold of someone with the authority to give consent for the target (e.g. a parent, spouse, sibling, etc.).  If I can't, then I'll use my own knowledge of the person I want to defend to decide what I think they'd want.  For example, if you have a relative that is in a coma and you want to ward that person you can feel good about doing so, as long as that person wouldn't have religious objections (I'll talk more about that in a minute).  However, as soon as that person came out of the coma you should take down the wards and ask permission before putting them up again.

Deciding to do magick without permission when you can’t really ask them is fairly easy.  But what about when you ask and you get turned down?  That’s a different and much trickier situation.  If you think someone is in danger there is often an intrinsic need to help that person – whether they want your help or not – particularly if it’s someone you care about.  Here are a few situations to think about that you might find yourself in.

What do you do when you feel that someone needs a defensive working but that person does not believe in magick or any type of metaphysical threat?  If you’re anything like me, you probably have friends and relatives that do not believe in what you do.  If you’re lucky these folks will give you permission to do magick on them just to make you feel better.  If you’re not so lucky then you’ve got a difficult choice to make.  For me the deciding factor would be just how bad things could get without a working.  If we’re talking about a violent poltergeist in someone’s attic do you wait until someone gets hurt and your friend comes crawling back for help, or do you so some subtle preemptive work?  What if the target itself needs a serious cleansing due to possession or oppression?  I’m more likely to do magick surrounding a person (e.g. warding their attic) than anything directly to a person (e.g. a cleansing or banishing) who doesn’t want it.  Further, there would have to be some pretty dire consequences to staying my hand before I’d do magick on someone when they’ve told me not to, just as a matter of personal respect.  In fact, this is the kind of situation where I would call in a second or third opinion before moving forward with any magickal working.  When in doubt, don’t act alone.

An even trickier, if sadly common, situation is when the target has a religious opposition to magick of any kind.  I have some friends whose religion is strictly opposed to magick (to the point where I occasionally marvel at them for being friends with me in the first place) and I would never perform magick on them without their express permission unless I thought it was a life or death situation – and that’s seriously unlikely to occur.  I know I wouldn’t want them trying to “pray” evil away from me so I will respect them by not doing the same magickally.  The strictly religious almost always have “proper” channels they can go through for paranormal issues.  If you sense something happening, encourage these folks to seek the help of their priest/pastor/exorcist/etc.  Give their religious beliefs the same respect you want them to give yours – even if you secretly think they’re nuts, I’m sure they feel the same way about you.

The issue of permission becomes that much more difficult when the person in question is a roommate/housemate.  Someone who shares your personal space has a significantly greater effect on your safety and wellbeing than anyone else.  If you share a dorm room with someone who is being haunted or oppressed by a spirit it is going to have a huge negative impact on your life.  If you’re in a situation where you share living space with someone (and moving out isn’t feasible) then doing some pretty heavy workings, even if you’re denied permission to do so, might be warranted.  At that point you’re really working in self-defense due to the target’s proximity to what should be your safe space.  If you don’t feel energetically safe in your own bed because of your roommate’s paranormal problems, then you’re probably justified in doing something about it.  The closer the proximity of the target to your personal space the easier it is to justify doing defensive work.  If it’s someone you share a bed or a room with you can pretty much do what you need to in order to be safe.  (Note – if you’re sharing a bed with someone who’s being haunted or oppressed and they refuse to allow you to help them you might want to rethink your relationship.  I’m just saying.)  If it’s a housemate that you don’t share a room with, then it should depend on the impact the other person’s problem has on you and the amount of harm being done to the person.  If it’s someone who’s just down the hall or in the building, then you should probably stay out of things.  Basically, use proximity and the likelihood of serious harm to make your choice.

Now, there is a bit of a loophole with this whole permission thing.  It’s not exactly the most upright thing to do, but just because someone doesn’t want you to do magick on them doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t do magick to address the source of the problem.  If someone is being haunted you can, more or less, do whatever magick you want on the entity doing the haunting.  You can theoretically dissolve the magick of a curse without magickally touching the target of that curse.  You can make healing energy available to someone without forcing them to take it.  You can ward the exterior boundaries of a property without doing anything to someone’s home.  These little loopholes can allow you to address the source of many metaphysical issues without technically doing magick on someone who doesn’t want it.  Does this sort of thing go against the spirit of honoring someone’s refusal? Yes, absolutely.  Exploiting loopholes may be a bit underhanded, but if it’s a matter of being trixy or watching a friend suffer unnecessarily I will chose trixy every time.

Ultimately, only you can decide whether or not a situation warrants doing defensive magick on someone without their permission.  I look at the immediacy and severity of the situation along with how personal the magick involved needs to be and then weight those factors with the strength of the target’s opposition to the work in order to decide what to do.  If I feel strongly that magick is necessary in the situation I’ll use my loopholes before I go disregarding someone else’s will.  Respecting the autonomy of others is very important to me, so things need to be pretty bad before I’ll go disregarding it.  In the end your ethics are up to you.

Psychic Self-Defense for Ghost Hunters (2015 edition)

Last weekend I gave a lecture on Psychic Self-Defense for Ghost Hunters down at the Spooked in Seattle's Metaphysical Market.  I wanted to share the important points of that lecture for those that were unable to attend.  

These days it seems like everyone and their grandmother wants to have an exciting paranormal experience like the ones they see on TV - hearing whispered voices, having their hair be moved by unseen hands, seeing shadowy figures, etc.  Just a few days ago I was telling a friend about the haunting of the restaurant we were eating in (Kells in Post Alley, highly recommended)  and the table next to us got terribly excited and asked how they could experience the haunting for themselves.  For most people most of the time ghost tours and ghost hunts are a fun and completely benign way to spend an evening.  However, every once in a while something goes amiss.  There are a few quick and east things you can do to make sure your experience is as safe and fun as it can be, avoid the dangers of attack, attachment, or bringing something home with you.

Visit the dead but don't join them prematurely

Brief Disclaimer: The following tips and techniques are things that will make you safer, not safe.  You will certainly be better off doing them than doing nothing at all, but the unseen world is unpredictable and nothing short of sealing yourself in a psychic bubble and never leaving your house again will guarantee that nothing metaphysically untoward will happen to you - and perhaps not even then.  Use common sense - if you ever feel like you are in danger in a haunted location you should leave.  Ghost hunting is about interacting with the dead, not becoming one yourself.  

Before 

There are certain things you should do before visiting a potentially haunted location:

• Know your environment - For maximum safety you should learn as much as you can about the types of experiences people have had in a location and what types of entities are generally believed to be present.  The more you know going in the more appropriate your protections can be.  However, knowing too much about what other people have experienced in a location can bias your own experiences.  The human mind is amazing at seeing what it expects to see.  As a result, you may choose not to find out too much about a location in order to guarantee a more authentic experience.  Most of the time that's an acceptable risk as long as you have something at hand that can increase your protections if necessary (I'll talk about that in a moment).  At the very least, find out if the paranormal activity in a location is generally benign or if it's considered malevolent; if it's benign then going in blind is probably an acceptable risk, if not then your safety should trump the desire to be "surprised" by paranormal activity.

• Choose how much protection you want going in - Psychic protection, at its core, is something that strengthens the barrier between you and the world around you.  It makes it more difficult for unseen entities to do things to you that you don't want - like pushing, scratching, or attaching themselves to you.  However, it can also make it more difficult for entities to do things you do want - like touching or talking to you.  Think of it like the difference between wearing rubber gloves as opposed to wearing a full hazmat suit.  They each put a protective barrier between you and something potentially dangerous, but one dulls your senses a lot more than the other.  Ideally, you want just enough protection to keep you safe, but not so much that it deters activity.  After all, the whole point of going on a ghost hunt or tour is to experience something.

• Basic Pre-Hunt Protections - These techniques are good for most situations (e.g. mild/med hauntings).  Do these before entering a potentially haunted location.    
• Prayer - If you are a person who prays it will probably be beneficial to pray for protection and good fortune before entering a haunted place.  The powers (gods, spirits, angels, etc.) that are a part of your personal belief system generally have a vested interest in helping you out and are probably willing to do so.  It never hurts to have a little outside muscle on your side.  However, keep in mind that prayer alone is almost never enough to be considered complete protection.  Also, depending on how your faith views the unseen world, the protective entities you call on might scare away all the ghosts.  Think about it and do what makes you comfortable.
• Ground and Center    
• When I use the term “grounding” I mean the act of flushing out negative or excess energy you have in your body into a place where it is naturally neutralized.  This is generally done by visualizing all the energy you don't want as static electricity and then moving it down your body and into the ground where it is neutralized.  Grounding helps to make sure that your energy doesn't interfere with the energy of the place you're visiting and it makes you more energetically stable.
• The act of centering is essentially finding the place in your body where you feel your energies the strongest and aligning your energies to concentrate and flow from that place.  For many people that place is the lower abdomen or the base of the spine - it make be different for you.  I generally center by visualizing my center (just below and behind the navel for me) and breathing into it until I feel my energies focus and stabilize there.  Having a calm and focused center makes it easier to pay attention to what's going on around you and adapt accordingly.  

• Shield - Shielding is the practice of forming a layer of protective energy around yourself in order to strengthen the barrier between you and the outside world.  The easiest way for most people to shield is to visualize an egg of white or pale blue electricity surrounding them like a bubble - just like the shields around the Enterprise on Star Trek.  Depending on how safe you feel in a given location you will want to make your shields thicker or thinner.  The nice thing about shields it that you can modify them at any time in response to what's happening around you.  This is also a great technique to use when dealing with angry co-workers or relatives.  It helps keep their negative energy off of you!

During a Tour or Hunt

• Statement of Intent - I consider it a common courtesy to introduce myself when first entering a haunted location.  You can do it out loud or in your head, paranormal entities are generally able to hear thoughts expressly directed at them, though I like to say it aloud unless it would make me look like a crazy person in the given situation.  I recommend introducing yourself, expressing your respect and compassion for the unseen entities present, and inviting the experience you would like to have, e.g. let the entities know that you'd like to hear them speak or be gently touched and that you do not want to be pushed, scratched, or otherwise harmed.  By expressly saying (aloud or silently) what you do and do not want to happen you actually make it easier for the entity to do what you want and make it more difficult to do what you do not want.  Clearly expressed desires create their own energy that can help or hinder paranormal entities to act.  It's also just the courteous thing to do.  Wouldn't you be more likely to be friendly to a stranger that introduced themselves and asked you to do thing rather than just barging in an making demands?    
• Protective Items - These are things to have on hand in order to escalate your protections as necessary.  Depending on the item and your own risk assessment you make choose to carry some of these things on your person (in a pocket or bad) or choose to leave them in a secure and easily accessible place just outside the haunted location.  I recommend choosing just 2-3 items to have on hand for most investigations.    
• Talismans/charms     
• Objects of faith (cross, star of david, pentagram, hand of fatima, etc.)  
• Personal objects of special significance (family heirloom, love token, etc.)     
• Bundles or small bags of protective herbs (Angelica, Bay, Cinnamon, Cloves, Fennel, Garlic, Mullein, Rosemary, Rue, Sage)    
• Mojos (bundle of protective objects in a red cotton bag worn next to the skin - to begin I recommend choosing an herb, a stone, and a metal charm, eg. a bay leaf, a hematite, and a small pewter dragon)     
  
• Protective stones (hematite, jet, obsidian, malachite, black tourmaline, etc.). 
• Salt water, salt, black salt - Salt has a unique ability to disrupt and neutralize negative energy.  Black salt is salt that also contains charcoal or crushed lava rock and it cannot be beat for absorbing and grounding negative energy.  Something as simple as putting a few grains of salt on your tongue or rubbing salt on your hands or feet can make a huge difference in mitigating negative energies.  You can also wash your hands or feet in salt water for the same effect.    
• Shielding - As I mentioned earlier, you can and should adapt your shields in response to what you feel in a haunted location.  If you feel threatened you can thicken shields or change their opacity, e.g. if your shields are a translucent electric blue you can change them to be made of solid steel or concrete.

Aftercare

What you do after a paranormal experience may actually be more important than anything you do before or during it.  If you do nothing else, I urge you to always do all three of the following:

• Closing statement - Before you leave a location, inform the spirits that you’re finishing up and give them one last chance to communicate with you. Thank them for allowing you to share their space and wish them well. (Being kind and courteous costs you nothing and can go a long way towards ending things on a positive note - especially if you think you might come back!) Then tell them that you’re done and that they are to remain where they are, that they are not allowed to follow you home.  As with your statement of intent, just saying that the spirits are not to follow you will make it more difficult for any troublemakers to do so.    
• Ground - After any paranormal experience you're likely to be either keyed up or extremely tired. Take a few moments to consiously let the energy of the experience calm down.  The easiest way to do this is to have some food and drink (fruits, nuts, cheese, bread, water or fruit juices all good - stay away from over processed or sugary foods for the best results).  Eating has a wonderful way of closing any open psychic connections and bringing down energy levels.  Rubbing your hands with salt or putting a little in your shoes is also an easy way to help you ground. 
• Cleanse - Cleansing after a paranormal experience is absolutely critical.  You never really know what energies have gotten on you during an investigation and you do not want any potential negatives lingering. Here are a few things that you can do to cleanse yourself energetically:    
• Smudge - A Native American technique of essentially fumigating yourself with the smoke of smoldering herbs, most often sage, cedar, and/or sweetgrass. 
• Spritz - Have a spray bottle with a few drops of cleansing essential oil in water or hydrosol (rosemary, cedar, sage, lavender all good) and give yourself a good spritz or three.  This technique is particularly useful while traveling. 
• Wash hands in salt water 
• Bathe/Shower -  If you can, I highly recommend taking a shower - standing in running water does wonders for washing away negative energy.  Try using cedar or sage soap, florida water soap (available at your local Hoodoo supplier), or a van van wash (also available at your local Hoodoo supplier).

Try out these techniques the next time you visit a local paranormal hot spot and see how different your experience is. 

tl;dr - be courteous (ghosts are people too), be firm (say exactly what you do and do not want to experience and mean it), be prepared (have some quick and easy methods of increasing your protection if necessary)

My previous post on this topic - I've refined things quite a bit over the last few years.

Pantheacon 2015

It's that time of year again folks!  Pantheacon starts tomorrow!  If you're in the bay area head over to the Doubletree in San Jose and join the glorious insanity that is Pcon.

This year I'm presenting two (that's right two!) workshops: Pop Culture Magick - Working with Villains, and Magickal Munitions - Magickal Defense in Urban Environments.  PCM will be on Friday night at 9pm in San Martin/San Simeon and MM will be on Sunday at 7pm, also in San Martin/San Simeon.

Stop by and say hello! Mention this blog post and you'll give me warm fuzzy feelings :)

Direct Download for Handouts (these will be live for at least six months after the presentations):
Pop Culture Magick: Working With Villains
Magickal Munitions

Daily Practice for Defensive Practitioners

Daily practice is exactly what it says on the tin: a set of magickal practices that you do every day.  For the defensive practitioner this means performing at least one quick and easy protective and/or cleansing practice a day, often more than one.  There are many benefits to maintaining a daily defensive practice that include better metaphysical hygiene, strengthening magickal foundations, and mental comfort.

Deliberately incorporating protective measures into your daily practice is important both for the immediate magickal benefits and their effect on your overall magickal fitness.  Like any other skill set, magick must be practiced in order for a practitioner to rise to their potential.  Just as a sprinter needs to constantly train in order to be as fast as they can be, a defensive practitioner needs to practice protective and defensive magicks on a regular basis in order to have such magicks at their fingertips at all times.  Since we don’t live in a world where we need to practice such magicks all the time (constant attack only happens in fiction or if you are really, really unfortunate), incorporating them into daily practice is the best way train your defensive magick muscles. 

Daily protective practices are also a wonderful mental touchstone for soothing jangled nerves.  After a certain amount of time being a magickal practitioner out and about in the world you begin to notice, for good or ill, more of the metaphysical world.  Realizing just how surrounded we are at all times by the unseen can be frightening and can lead to a fair amount of paranoia.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  As Jim Butcher, says, “...just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.”  A certain amount of healthy paranoia will give you incentive to actually perform your daily protection practices.  At the same time, your daily protection practices will calm your paranoia.  Do not underestimate the importance of daily practice’s ability to help calm and ground you.  A freaked out practitioner is rarely at the apex of their skill level.  A practice you do every day will come naturally and easily no matter how unsettled you are and will do wonders to bring down your blood pressure and put you back in control of your mind and body.  In a clinch this can be the difference between successful defense and much unpleasantness.

Unfortunately as important and helpful as it is, daily practice is one of the great bugbears of the magickal community.  Like getting regular exercise and eating well, we all know we should do it but many, if not most, of us struggle with actually making it happen.  Stress, fatigue, changes in our schedule, and boredom can all make doing our daily practices difficult.  The two greatest adversaries to successful daily practice are undoubtedly stress and boredom.  

When we’re stressed out and pressed for time it’s easy to let our daily practices slide in favor of dealing with our stressor or just plain freaking out.  It’s always a mistake to forego our daily practice when we’re stressed because that very practice can actually help us deal with that same stress.  Taking five or ten minutes to meditate or do a quick grounding exercise can clear our heads and make dealing with our stress easier.  Of course that’s easier said than done with stress hormones and adrenaline pumping through our veins.  Sadly, there’s no easy solution for gaining the strength of will to do what you ought in times of stress.  It’s just a matter of deciding to do your daily practices and actually doing them.  Don’t beat yourself up if it just doesn’t happen, just try again tomorrow.

Daily practice also faces the pitfall of becoming routine and losing its power, becoming boring.  Some people take great comfort in establishing a routine and performing it over and over again, exactly the same each time.  If you are one of them congratulations, you will really enjoy establishing daily protective practices.  If you’re like me, the idea of doing the exact same things over and over again every day for the rest of your life is about as appealing as eating wallpaper paste.  

Regular daily practice requires mindful performance to retain its magick, both figuratively and literally.  No matter how many times we do the same practice or ritual we must always actively infuse it with our energy and intent in order to actually make magick.  No purposeful intent, no magick.  Routine is a double edged sword when it comes to magickal practice.  It both creates a natural path for our magick to flow through, making it easier to work magick, and can dull our attention making us put in less effort to the point where we fail to push our energy into our routine practices at all.  Mindful attention is the only real solution to keeping routine practices fresh, which is easier or more difficult depending on the way your brain works.  The only other option is to change up your daily practices so that they don’t become routine in the first place.

There are many, many options to choose from when creating your own daily practices, but I particularly recommend self-cleansing and energy checks.  Daily self-cleansing, beyond the obvious benefits, will strengthen your ability to remove negative energy from people and places - possibly the most important magickal skill in the defensive practitioner’s arsenal (other than shielding).  Trust me, this is a skill you want to be able to use anytime, anywhere, at the drop of a hat.  Daily energy checks will strengthen your ability to sense the energies both within and around you - making it far easier for you to asses metaphysical situations when you find yourself in them.  You’ll be far more confident assessing if a place is haunted or if someone’s energy is off if you are accustomed to checking the energy of people and their surroundings.  Practice makes perfect.

I recommend doing at least one protective spell or ritual daily, either first thing in the morning or just before going to bed.  Of course, doing both would be best but there are only so many hours in a day.

This post was inspired by the following article: http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-paths-blogs/to-be-a-witch/daily-practice-doing-that-one-thing-over-and-over-again.html

Book Review: Have You Been Hexed? Recognizing and Breaking Curses

I've just begun writing my Magickal Defense II class over at Shadowkrafting.com.  One of the books I read as part of my research was Have You Been Hexed? Recognizing and Breaking Curses by Alexandra Chauran.  Like most books on metaphysics, it has its strengths and weaknesses but overall is worth reading if you're new to the subject.  If you already have pretty decent knowledge of common psychic attacks and how to deal with them you won't get a lot of new information.

Strengths

One of the things I like most about this book is that it distinguishes between deliberate, purposeful psychic attack (think if evil practitioners slinging hexes over black candles) and the "common curse."  The common curse, as Chauran refers to it, is the unconscious or unskillful sending of negative energy from one person to another.  Real, deliberate, skillful hexing is incredibly rare.  To cast a truly harmful hex requires skill, practice, determination, energy, and a willingness to accept the consequences.  Very few practitioners with the knowledge and skill to cast such a spell will do so unless you've seriously wronged them or someone the love, making real hexes quite rare.  Common curses are much, much more plentiful.  Anytime someone cuts you off in traffic and you swear and shake your fist at them you are sending a common curse - a batch of negative energy sent their way.  A skillful hex can ruin someone's life; a common curse might make someone miss a traffic light - maybe - if the person is unlucky and has terrible natural shielding.  This distinction is important and rarely made so explicitly; kudos to Chauran for this.

I also like that Chauran takes the time to warn readers about the potential of fraud from psychics and other practitioners that a person might go to for help.  Sadly, in every group there will always be those looking to make a quick buck from the frightened and naive. We've all heard stories of someone going to a psychic to ask if they're under psychic attack and the psychic saying "Yes, you're under attack and for just $500 I can remove it."  While this type of fraud is quite rare (and highly illegal), it does happen occasionally and it's important for folks to be aware.  Chauran gives good information on how to avoid this type of fraud and instead find genuine help.  

Chauran also does a pretty good job explaining what type of symptoms are potential evidence of a real psychic attack and how to go about determining their validity.  I'd say about 1 in 25 people who think they're under psychic attack are actually suffering from the negative energy of others.  It's very easy to think you're under attack when, in fact, you're just having shitty luck or are getting ill.  Chauran looks at all the different warning signs of a potential psychic attack, shows how to look for mundane causes, how to eliminate erroneous "proof," and how to look at things objectively to figure out what's really going on.  I really like this pragmatic approach.  Too many "resources" on psychic attack are alarmist or are just trying to sell you something.  

I also like her thorough explanation on how thinking you're under attack can actually place a self-hex.  I've been trying to get clients to understand this for years.  If you believe you're under attack you will be - from yourself if not from the outside, or in the worst cases from both within and without.  Chauran gives good solid info on how self-hexes work and gives some reasonable info on fixing the situation.

Weaknesses

There are, of course, things in the book that I don't agree with - quite a few really.  

The first thing that bothered me was Chauran's insistence that any practitioner skilled enough to sling a harmful hex must have their lives put together.  I call Bullshit.  You can be smart and skilled and still suck at life.  All it takes to sling a really powerful hex is skill, energy, and an acceptance of the consequences.  There are plenty of hateful, miserable people who generally fail at life that have developed the skill of hating on others to a potent and powerful degree.  In fact, the more miserable a person is the more likely they blame others for their misfortunes and the more likely they are to take retribution for their perceived slights into their own hands.  Further, the more miserable someone is the more negative energy they'll have on hand to throw at others.        

Another thing Chauran lists are being necessary evidence for a hex is a distinct start date for the symptoms.  In theory this sounds reasonable - if someone places a hex on Wednesday night, symptoms should start turning up by Thursday morning right?  Well, not necessarily.  If you're looking at a common curse then yes, symptoms are going to start right after the negative energy is sent your way.  If you're dealing with a deliberate hex then maybe not.  It's perfectly possible to place a delayed or gradual hex.  For example, a skilled practitioner would probably make their hex more gradual and insidious to avoid immediate detection and make it more difficult to pinpoint and thus undo the hex.  While a distinct start date is strong evidence for the presence of a hex, its absence is not dispositive proof of a lack of hex.  Nitpicky? Perhaps.  But hey, I'm a lawyer and nitpicky is what I do.

My biggest issue with this book is its hex removal and prevention strategies.  I'm a down and dirty results driven practitioner.  I will beg borrow and steal from any tradition whose techniques actually work and will gleefully chuck the dross to the wind.  This book places a huge emphasis on prayer as a hex removal and prevention technique.  Yes, if you have a good relationship with a higher power then prayer can absolutely help with common curses.  If you don't have an established relationship with a higher power then it's a little less helpful.  Further, in my experience prayer alone will do basically nothing against a skillfully placed hex unless your relationship with deity is essentially being their personal saint. 

Chauran does give some good magickal advice on dealing with hexes.  I particularly like her suggestion of creating a sigil to represent the curse (particularly if it's on a place or group of people) and then ritually destroying it to dismantle the curse.  With the right magickal precautions, and a few extra bits thrown in, it's a great technique.  I don't know how well it would work from someone without a magickal background, but it's a solid technique.

Conclusion

Overall, I would recommend this book for a layman looking to find out "Am I cursed?"  It gives very decent information on how to determine whether you're the victim of a psychic attack.  It also gives decent information on the first steps someone should take in dealing with a common curse.  However, if you determine that you're probably the victim of a deliberate hex, then the info in this book is unlikely to be sufficient and you should seek the aid of a skilled defensive practitioner.  

If you're a defensive practitioner looking for more information to add to your arsenal then you can probably skip this one.  If you don't already have a checklist for determining if you're looking at psychic attack, then the identification sections of this book could be quite useful.  If you already have some decent cleansing and banishing techniques in your skill set then you can skip the hex breaking and prevention sections.

Correspondence Courses - Magickal Defense

As much as I have enjoyed having a full month off of teaching, I'm starting to get that itch again folks.  Some of you probably had suspicions that this might happen when I left the Grey School, but yes I am going to start offering correspondence courses in a few subjects in the coming year, beginning with a full course series on Magickal Defense.  My plan with these courses is to offer in-depth information with a goodly dose of personal attention.  The lessons themselves will be downloadable pdfs with a goodly number of images and videos as is appropriate to the subject.  All of the courses will include a certain number of either google hangout or skype sessions so all students will have some real one-on-one time with me.  Of course, this is all a work in progress so things are still very fluid.

For those of you who have read my book or saw my Grey School course offerings, you know that magickal defense is one of my specialties.  It was the first magickal practice that I obsessed over and I've created A LOT of materials in it over the years.  I'm planning to create a three course series in practical magickal defense running from pure beginner into the quite advanced. 

I'm hoping to have the beginner course ready for its first students by Ostara at the latest and Pantheacon at the earliest.  The beginner course will cover shielding and filters, energetic awareness, magickal camouflage, the materia magica of defense and protection, creating simple protective charms, and clearing space.  Are there any topics you'd like to see me cover in this first course that I didn't mention?  Leave me a comment or shoot me an email - I'd love to hear from you!

The intermediate and advanced courses are in the pipeline and should follow a few months after the basic course is up. Further down the road I will be creating a course series on shadow magick, and possibly one on magickal pests, to go with my book.

So what do you folks this of this idea?  This is your chance to have some input on how these courses form so speak up!  Leave a comment or shoot me an email emily (at) e-carlin.com.

Seattle Area Event 11/20!

This Sunday, 11-20, I will be presenting a workshop on Psychic Self-Defense for Paranormal Investigators!


I'll be doing an hour long presentation at the monthly meeting of WSPIR at the Issaquah Library.  The meeting is open to the general public and has no fee and runs from 1-4:45pm.  I'm not sure at what point in the meeting I'll be doing my presentation. 

I'll probably be hanging around for a little while after the meeting, so bring your questions.  If there's enough interest I might just have a dinner round-table discussion on all thing magickal afterwards.