Banishing: A basic but effective approach

Today I'm going to discuss banishing.  Though it may not be the most interesting practice in magic, it's one of the more important ones.  It's also quite misunderstood to people not versed in magic.  While it may be of some assistance if you encounter a bona fide haunting, it is useful in a great many more situations than in the presence of paranormal activity.  An important part of the magical perspective is that in complement to the commonly realized fact that entities and spirits can be understood as facets of the mind, facets of the mind can be dealt with as if they were spirits.  If you find that someone has evoked a demon for you, for instance by going on a tirade against a particular religion whose evils come to obsess you, a banishing is appropriate.  If you have built for yourself a cage of coherency, a set of ideas which seem inescapable wherever you look, and you think you have found the secret to understanding the universe, I recommend banishing.  Daily banishing is used by some to maintain clarity of mind, but it's important not to let banishing itself obsess you or there is no point to such an activity.

You can use banishing any time you wish to return to a more neutral state of mind.  Certainly it can be abused for excessive suppression of certain thoughts, but that risk is less than the dangers of equating reality with your ideas about it.  Like any technology it is best when used wisely.



There may be more ways to banish than there are people, so I'll share a technique and links to a few others.  One of the simplest comes from one of the books on magic by Stephen Mace - I can't recall which.  Take a breath or two and relax as best you can.  Now feel the point of awareness in your head  where your eyes meet (around where the pineal gland is located).  Imagine or feel a line extending from this point in both directions, up and down.  (If you are lying down, pretend you were standing up when determining what 'up' and 'down' mean for this whole exercise.)  So this line goes parallel to your spine and down, down, down, infinitely far beyond it, and it also goes infinitely far above your head, passing through your skull around where the crown chakra is located.   Take a little time to get a feel for this line.

Now find a point in space directly in front of your forehead, perhaps a foot or two away from it.  Take this distance from the central vertical line you just drew through your body and make a circle with it, so that the point in front of your forehead turns into a circle around your head.  Spend a moment feeling this circle.  In my experience it doesn't matter if you start drawing this circle by going to the right or to the left.  If you prefer one way over the other, do it that way or keep experimenting.

Return to the point in front of your forehead where you started, and this time go either up or down, tracing an oval around your entire body.  This oval strays neither to the left or the right, but is as vertical as the first line and goes in front of and then behind you until it meets its starting point.  Once you have a feel for this oval, move to the top or bottom point of it.

Once you're there, trace with your mind a second perpendicular oval, going either to the left or the right.  This one should be the same size as the last one you drew, and it should intersect the circle around your head at the points on both sides.  With these three closed curves drawn, you have an egg-shaped construct surrounding your body.  Feel at home in this.

Now take a deep, deep breath in, directing your attention once again to the vertical line you imagined at the beginning.  As you slowly exhale, imagine this line becoming brighter and brighter, energy flowing in from both directions.  Let it pour in, and let it ignite, burning away all thoughts and feelings and impurities in your aura, if such talk makes sense to you.  Continue to breathe as you concentrate on this sensation.  Sustain it for a little while and you'll find yourself feeling energized and clear.

If you believe what the psychoanalysts say about psychic energy, you always have the same amount of it.  You sometimes have less of it available, however, when it gets tied up in recurring thoughts, emotions, and complexes.  The purpose of this exercise is to, for the moment at least, burn all of these things away so that you can allocate it as you see fit.

There are many other ways to perform a banishing.  An English adaptation of the ritual used in ceremonial magic is available, or you can do something as simple as imagining whatever you wish to banish flowing into some salt in your hand and then throwing it over your shoulder.  The most important element is concentration, so use something that's compelling to you rather than trying to focus on a ritual you don't understand.  The method I've given here is my personal favorite.