Reivings, Banishings, And Wards:

Pracicalities

There are lots of unwanted and random energies and entities floating around one's environment. The following techiques are required understandings for any Witch. You will need to keep you own environment clear of these unwanted wraiths, and you may also, over time, be called on by others to clear these things from their houses or their lives.

Nothing ever goes away, you must understand. Things that are made of matter are not made only of matter, and can just as easily be energetic. Matter does not imply intelligence, soul does (and that's a rather ineffable concept). So why is it considered that inteligence inhabits only things of a material nature ( like biological species)?

Entities can be either material or nonmaterial. They can be left over from extreme emotional discharges. They can be other and therfore, not of a recognizable origin.

Reiving (Clearing A Place)

To psychically clear unwanted entities is also called Reiving. Banishing often accompanies Reiving, but Reiving can also be performed to tranquilize a house or an environment that has been cluttered y previous occupants.

You will require a container of consecrated water, your athame, incense, and censer, a candle for each room, and a vacuum cleaner. It's often preferable to work with another person, but not strictly necessary. You are better to get rid of any occupants of the property. You are to work privately whenever possible. The energies of Cowans can be unpredictable.

Every psychic knows that accumulated psychic grunge is heavier than air and will fall to the floor (and sometimes stick to windows). So the first thing that you should do is vacuum the floors with intent. A vacuum cleaner is one's contemporary besom (broom stick), and much quicker than the manual tool; There's no point having the house occupants do it, it just never feels as clean. Then you should set up a candle in each room, light it, and close off whatever doors there are. Then get the charcoal burning, and then take a shower with intent of purificaton.

Each room, from one end of the house to the other, is to be lightly encircled with your dagger ( these encirclements are meant to be embracing rather than encapsulating), encircled with the smoke of the incense, and encircled with the consecrated water. With each circumnambulation, you will raise aloft each implement to the four directions, calling on their powers of protection and harmony. As you exit each room, you will extinguish the candle with your fingers ( don't blow it out), and leave the door open.

When you are done, you are to pack up all your things and leave without entering into conversation with anyone.

Banishng (Getting Rid Of A Thing)

The occupants of the place you are to banish are to understand beforehand that they are not to engage in any form of dispute in the place, or to sully it with resentful or bitter emotions for the cycle of one Moon after your work. More often than not, their behavior would have been empathetic with whatever entity was causing them discomfort. Things are attracted to strong blasts of emotion as much as they are attracted to psychic activity. You need to be aware of this phenomenon in association with all your Magickal practices, but especially where protections and enchantments are concerned.

Your Banishing is irrespective. It matters not whether the entity is a living person or an energetic agent. Banishing is about getting rid of, but "getting rid of" requires full Reiving of a property and encirclement of its boundries, as well as the correct placing of pentagramic seals.

You must attend to two priorities before you go near the place! First, you will seal off all orifices, psychic and actual, of your own body. A man has twelve, a woman has thirteen. For both: eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, nipples, umbilicus, anus (eleven). For a man: penis (twelve). For a woman: vagina and urethra (thirteen). Secondly, you will take with you your boline, just in case you encounter the need for self-defense.

You will work the same process as Reiving, but you will seal each portal of the house with a Banishing pentagram of Earth. You will keep the intent of Banishing clearly in focus at all times (words or no words).

You will work from a central point in the house to the outer most part of the property. You will conclude by encircling the entire property and laying seals on the ground at all entrances and exits.

Warding (Keeping A Thing Out)

Warding is keeping out unwanted influences.

This is trickier than the previous two techniques because you'll require certain powers to assist you. You would not do any of thes techniques as a beginner, anyway, so you'll have had pleny of time to accumulate the requirements of Warding. They are certain talismans that you'll have gathered from the wild places, like bird skulls, feathers, bones, spiders webs, the discarded bits of animals that have moved from whtever form they inhabited before the died to that form, certain stone entities and wood entities, specific shells, and symbolic amulets. All of these kinds of things will call you, and you will collect them. They will be part f your company of entities and are like familiars but are not the same, for their powers are dormant until they ar fomed as Wards.

You will also need to acquire sealing wax.

Before a Warding, prepare as would for a Banishing. You will also need to choose whichever of your company of entities you require to create the Ward.

A Ward is an intelligent, elemental entity (and could be considered a Witch's medicine bundle with a specific purpose). A Ward is always to come back to you ( it is to be left to do its work for a limited cycle only (one lunar month, more or less). You are to tell no oe of what you are doing, as the Ward, once it is placed, is to remain undisturbed.

You are to bless and consecrate all things that make up the Ward ( you won't need much; keep it simple), wrap it in cloth or leather, and seal the way into the package with sealing wax. The Ward will remain active until you break the seal yourself.

You will also require a small piece of meat. This will be buried on the property and the ward will remain active while the meat decomposes. It will feed the Ward.

You are to ascertain that you scent is on both the package and the meat, so rub them both with your hands before you leave them at the site.

You will create the Ward beforehand in your own home, within a cast circle. On the night of the Warding, cleanse with intent of purification and seal your orifics with consecrated water. Take your athame and a bottle of concecrated water, as well as a packet of ordinary table salt. You will also require a small hand trowel (or a bloddy shovel if the ground is presumed hard!).

You will go once around the property or the area casting a circle of protection. You will repeat the encircling with the consecrated water, and go around a third time sprinkling a fine circle of salt.

All is to be done with focus and intent. You are to be really clear about who you want to keep out!

You will summon the entity, that is, the accumulative of all things within the Ward, to come out into the area of protection (these entities, once released, are never small, I warn you, but they are lovely; they are your creatures!). You will then bury the Ward very well and very secretively, placing a rock over the spot if possible to dissuade any passing beastie from digging it up. You'll bury its food close by ( ditto with another rock).

Then cut a zone into the circle with your athame allowing those in alliance with the person you are assisting to come and to, but you will seal it with a Banishing Pentagram of Earth.

Then you leave. You are to tell the person you are assisting that you have set up protections for a certain duration only, and that you will return to remove them when the allotted time is up. They are to understand this and to agree to do whatever they must, in that time sequence, to prevent further dysfunction.

At the appointed time, you are to return to the site and dig up your Ward, summoning the entity back to you. You will then return home, break the seal, and put the bits back in their usual places, where they will remain dormant (which is their current, natural state).