I have an unwanted spirit in my home...?

Question - What can I do to get a spirit out of my home, she showed up 2 weeks ago and things have gone for good to bad, things go missing, strange things happen, having trouble sleeping, l feel some one is watching me at night, can you help me please?

Answer -The first thing is to be certain that you are dealing with a spirit. A lot of the symptoms you describe could easily be explained in other ways. Taking steps to remove a spirit if one has not infiltrated your home could be both a waste of time and potentially dangerous as it might attract the interest of spirits who would otherwise not have bothered you.

If we presume that the incidences you describe are 

indicative of genuine spirit activity then there are several steps you can take. You would look to make contact with the spirit, remove it from your home an protect your environment so it cannot return.

To contact a spirit the best way is by simple and direct communication. Talk to it directly and state your intent without ambiguity. Try to be rational about why you do not want the spirit in your home (keeping you awake, frightening children...) Don't hedge around the issue, tell it clearly that it is not welcome and possibly suggest another place for it to inhabit (preferably not somebody else's residence).

It might also be worth being prepared to make a compromise. If the spirit wants to stick around, could you agree on some ground rules. There is nothing to say that all spirits are negative and often they develop a liking for the people in the home they choose to inhabit. Unless you simply cannot cope with the idea of having a spirit in your home then I'd explore the idea of saying "you can stay...but..." Be aware that time does not work the same way in the otherworld and the spirit has little idea of when you should be sleep or waking. If you clarify what behaviours you do or don't want then you are at least giving it a chance before you move on to banishing it.

If the spirit leaves of its own volition - problem solved. If it doesn't then you need to take practical steps to remove it. There are several methods a witch might employ to do this ranging from sprinkling blessed water to a simple banishing spell to bottling and sealing the spirit or possibly even performing a full exorcism depending on the severity of the situation. As you don't say what level of magic you are comfortable with performing then I certainly wouldn't suggest the latter. If I personally had an entity so entrenched in my home that all other methods to remove had failed then I would look for support from someone with a good deal of experience and I'd recommend the same for you. Exorcism tends to be more associated with inhabitation of a person rather than a place. What you have sounds far more like a place spirit which is unlikely to warrant a full blown exorcism.

Incidentally, don't let the term exorcism allow your thoughts to drift toward demonic possession. A curious spirit couldn't be further from the drooling images of demons the horror films are so keen on portraying. Spirits are very common, true they do not always choose to make themselves known but they are attracted to human homes and many departed cannot sever their link to and their interest in human living. Demonic possession on the other hand is very rare indeed and I only mention it to put your mind at rest from the popularist associations with the world exorcism.

So bearing in mind that I'm unsure of your background and presuming a) your attempts to compromise have failed and b) you have decided you definitely want shot then my advice to get rid of the spirit would be to force it into a sealable container and remove it from your home. Get a clean glass jar with a lid that can be firmly screwed into place and leave it in the room where the most spirit activity has taken place. Then you need to put something inside the bottle to tempt the spirit to enter. My suggestion would be you put in some earth from your own garden and something personal to the person the spirit is the most attracted to. Before placing the item (a ring perhaps, do not use anything from yourself only something belonging to yourself, a cufflink, child's dummy, thimble - something personal) visualise your energy and emotion going into the object. Saturate it with your own energy and leave it in the jar as bait. Place salt at the bottom of the jar as this will weaken the spirit when it enters. Place a ring of salt around the jar with just a small opening for the spirit to enter. It's a cliche but spirits do tend to be more active at night so you will have more luck trapping it if you screw on the lid in the early hours of the morning. Remove the jar at the end of the night and take it far from your house and bury it in the earth. Unlike a physical entity the spirit won't be trapped forever but it will hopefully be disorientated enough (and put off by the whole experience) not to want to return to your home.

Like I say there are other ways of doing this, banishing to the otherworld for example but I tend to favour simplicity over unnecessary complexity so this is in my opinion the best course of action at least to start with.

Once the spirit has left your home you need to take precautionary steps to make the home less welcoming and to prevent return. A simple smudging (good old sage) will remove negative residue and cleanse the atmosphere of the house. Once you have done this, use a dilute wash of urine, salt water and essential oil (choose from clove, cinnamon, peppermint, willow or pine - and to be honest there are loads more that will work just as well) and anoint the external entrances and windows to your home with this mixture. Finally sprinkle salt across the doorways and window ledges.

Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-8846434

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