The Witches' Book of the Dead (10 page)

Repeat this incantation nine times, and never look back. While you are doing this, keep one hand closed in the sign of the horns—the thumb crossed over the two middle fingers and the index finger, and the little finger extended—which wards off both the evil eye and evil spirits. Your final stop should be through your front door, where you should spit the three beans in your mouth outside the house. The spirits will follow your trail of beans and depart the house with you. Now, turn and go inside. To conclude, wash your hands again three times and then bang a brass cymbal (you can also use your ritual bell or rattle for this) and command all unwanted presences to depart! Later, pick up the beans and deposit them at a local graveyard.

• • •

Exorcism

When things get really tough, there is one final technique used to rid a space of unwanted spirits. The rites of exorcism are far older than those of the Church and are powerful ways of ridding your life of nasty ghosts and harmful energies once and for all.

In early 2011, Sicilian hereditary Strega Lori Bruno and I were asked by the
Wall Street Journal
to perform a house blessing on a recent foreclosure property that the new owner felt had a bad vibe. Lori and I brought the implements of exorcism and first went through the house to get a sense of where the problem areas were. We discovered that this was a classic case of the psychic pollution of the spirit of place. There weren't any ghosts there; just the residual muck of emotional suffering that had seeped into the very structure of the building. This did not comfort us, though—sometimes that form of energy is even harder to get rid of than spirits, because it lacks a definitive consciousness and cannot be reasoned with or frightened. It must be rooted out by the sheer will of the sorcerers involved. Lori wielded a large, loud bell and the sheer strength of her powerful voice as she conjured the powers of the four elements and the archangel Michael, while I brandished the ritual sword of the late Strega, Dr. Leo Louis Martello, which Lori has passed to me that I might use it for justice. With much effort and strength, we wrested control of the house back from the malefic powers that had held dominion over it. The owner was quite grateful and Lori and I were featured on the cover of the
Wall Street Journal
.

The power we call on for this ritual is Saint Michael. Before you stop and say, “Well, isn't this one of the archangels of the Catholic Church,” remember that the Church layered many of its practices on older religious and magical customs and even built its churches over the sites of temples of old. The veneration of Saint Michael—who is properly an archangel rather than a saint, since the latter is the venerated dead—is no exception to this. Michael, whose name means “who is like God,” is often seen with a spear or sword, standing over a demon he's about to slay. This represents Michael's power over the forces of evil. Michael is also often seen with a
sword and scales, symbolizing his role as the enforcer of truth, fairness, and justice.

A number of scholars have argued that Michael's roots are pre-Christian, though they don't always agree on what those roots are. Michael has been traced back to Mithra, the Persian god of war.
³
He's been compared to Marduk, “Babylonian deity of the springtime sun,” who, like Christ, was said to rise again from death and, like Michael, was associated with slaying a great devil—in this case, the dragon Tiamat.
⁴
Connections have been drawn between Saint Michael and the Sumerian Mukhla, invincible warrior and archangel of the Sun god, and to Miok, son of the Norse god Thor. He also appears as the solar angel Mikalu on the coins of the European Phoenicians of Cicilia as early as 500 BCE.
⁵
Finally, much of Michael's imagery, especially the scales and the spear, have tied him to the great Egyptian Anubis, guide of the dead.
⁶
So it all comes full circle. By having dominion over the dark spirits, Michael also becomes a guide to those dead who lived nobler lives. From a scholarly perspective, all of these competing origins for Michael may seem confusing. From a spiritual perspective, it merely lends evidence that this being does in fact exist and that he has been called by many faiths and by many names.

Ritiual: The Ritual of Exorcism

Strega Lori Bruno taught this rite of exorcism to me and I pass it to you. You will need:

• A red candle for Saint Michael, preferably a seven-day candle with his image on it.
  
• A bowl of water small enough for you to carry around.
  
• A bowl of kosher salt, also small enough for you to carry around.
  
• Incense and burner, preferably a swinging censer. The incense should be a basic purification blend of one part frankincense, one part myrrh, and one part benzoin. Spirit conjuring incense
  should not
  be used here.
  
• A sword or dagger made of iron or steel. The bronze dagger would be too soft for this purpose. Be sure to tie a red thread to the handle with nine knots. The red thread has long been a powerful ward against dark powers, so much so that it has been popularized anew by modern students of Kabbalah.
  
• Your ritual bell or spirit rattle. The bell is more traditional and Lori prefers that, but I prefer the rattle.
  

Prepare the ritual by going into a visionary state (see
chapter 2
). Now, start by blessing the water. Add a small palm full of kosher salt to the water and mix it with your right hand. Then, draw a pentagram (five-pointed star) over the surface of the water, beginning at the top point and moving down to the lower left, ending at the top point again. Now, make the sign of the equilateral cross, and draw a circle around both, clockwise, saying,
I bless this water by the power of my will and the might of Michael the Archangel that it rid this space of all evil!
You must say this with the strongest feeling and determination you have ever felt. The most powerful ingredient in this ritual is you!

Draw another invoking pentagram and cross onto the surface of the bowl of salt, saying,
I bless this salt by the power of my will and the might of Michael the Archangel that it rid this space of all evil!
Draw yet another invoking pentagram over the incense, saying,
I bless this incense by the power of my will and the might of Michael the Archangel that it rid this space of all evil!
Draw a final invoking pentagram over the candle, saying,
I bless this candle by the power of my will and the might of Michael the Archangel that it rid this space of all evil!
This may seem repetitive, but it is in the repetition that your mind is reinforcing the mental will and power necessary for the work at hand.

To begin the ritual, walk through each room of the house with the bowl of kosher salt. Sprinkle the salt into all four corners of the room and say,
By the element of Earth, the power of my will, and the might of Michael the Archangel, I banish all evil and harm from here!

Walk through each room again, this time with the incense. Swing the censer into each corner of the room (or raise up a censer that you're holding) and say,
By the element of Air, the power of my will, and the might of Michael the Archangel, I banish all evil and harm from here!

Now, light the candle and say,
By this sacred flame, so shall the element of fire cleanse and purify this space!
Walk through each room with the candle. Raise it to each corner of the room and say,
By the element of Fire, the power of my will, and the might of Michael the Archangel, I banish all evil and harm from here!

Walk through each room again, this time with the bowl of water. Sprinkle the water into each corner of the room with your right hand and say,
By the element of Water, the power of my will, and the might of Michael the Archangel, I banish all evil and harm from here!

Now, go into each room with the bell or rattle and loudly ring or shake it, saying,
Let all things evil that hear this sound depart from this space at once! At my command and by the might of Michael the Archangel, I banish all evil and harm from here!

Go into each room a final time with the sword or dagger, and at each window and each door that leads outside the home, draw an equilateral cross in the air before the window and say,
With this sword and the power of my will, I call upon the great might of Michael the Archangel, that he may forever protect this home from all evil and harm! Let all who would dare bring evil here fall upon the blade of this sword!

Finally, go to all doors that lead outside the home and sprinkle ko-sher salt along the threshold and say,
By this salt of Earth, the power of my will, and the might of Michael the Archangel, I consecrate this threshold, that it serve as a shield against all evil and harm. Let no evil dare enter here! So mote it be … from now until eternity!

The ritual is now complete. As Lori and I do, a team of people can perform this ritual, with a person assigned to each element, the bell, and the sword. Consult some of the simpler methods of protection discussed earlier in this chapter to keep your home or other space free from malefic energy. After you are done with this ceremony, take a ritual bath with kosher salt or a shower with kosher salt sprinkled about your feet. This will cleanse you of any residual psychic filth.

• • •

Get Help from Others

There are times when even the most experienced Witches have to consult others. It can sometimes be difficult to be objective when you're under spiritual attack. If several attempts at banishment or exorcism do not succeed, do not hesitate to consult other Witches, mediums, exorcists, and similar experts. They may have favored methods and tools that will work better in your specific situation. If you think a spirit has attached itself to you and you haven't been able to rid yourself of it, get outside help
immediately
.

6
Methods of Spirit Contact

Now that your altar of the dead is set up and you're beginning to use it, you're probably wondering how to find out what the dead have to say to you. Throughout this book, you will learn ways of interacting with the dead, but the following methods are considered among the easiest ways to understand what the spirits of the departed are trying to tell you. Remember, it's probably good that you've familiarized yourself with the methods of banishing and exorcism in the previous chapter. Before you open a door, know how to close it!

Automatic Writing and Automatisms

Visit any Spiritualist church fair and you will often find psychics who are able to create spirit drawings and other such physical records of supernatural phenomena, including written messages and symbols. Such communications are referred to as automatisms. The most popular of these is automatic
writing, where a spirit is said to move through the body of the writer in order to spell out what the departed soul is trying to say.

Automatisms are a variety of unconscious muscular movement often attributed to supernatural guidance. They include virtually any physical activity, but usually refer to creative activities such as writing, drawing, painting, speaking, playing musical instruments, composing, dancing, and singing. Some psychologists see automatisms as an expression of a person's own subconscious— often referred to as an ideomotor response. However, it is hard to explain away some of the more extraordinary cases, especially those where a person provides information or exhibits a talent beyond his training, reach, and knowledge.

Automatisms can be stimulated through ritual as a deliberate and direct way of channeling the spirits. Either the anonymous dead or a specific dead personality can be invited to use a person's body through a unique form of temporary possession. (This form of automatism is called mediumship, explored in the next chapter.)

Automatisms sometimes start spontaneously, and if allowed to continue, can become increasingly more inspired and sophisticated. For example, in 1924 a seven-year-old English girl named Rosemary Brown was visited in a dream by the ghost of composer Franz Liszt—who had died in 1886. The composer told Rosemary that when she grew up, he would come back and bring her music. At age seven, she had no idea who Liszt even was.

Brown later married, had children, and led quite an ordinary life. Her husband died in 1961. In 1964, she was in an automobile accident during which several ribs were broken. While recuperating, she spent time playing her piano—something she had not done for twelve years.

Suddenly the spirit of Liszt sat beside her and guided her hands to play flawless music entirely unfamiliar to her. Brown soon found herself in an automatism of channeling music, including new compositions, from other dead musical greats: Bach, Berlioz, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Grief, Mozart, Monteverdi, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, and Schumann.