Dear everyone,

I have chosen to write about this topic for Rinpoche’s blog because it fascinates me and it is something that many people are drawn to. Generally, people are afraid and yet they are strangely attracted to the paranormal.

It does not matter if you are living in the West or in the East; unseen entities are just as active in either of these places. In the West, most people doubt their existence and often consider them the result of an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, there are still many documented cases that are genuine where a real entity is afflicting a person or location without any plausible explanation. On the other hand, many people in the East continue to believe in the spirit world and follow many customs and traditions that respect and accommodate the existence of unseen beings.

In the course of researching this post, I found methods of protection that have originated from the Western ‘New Age’ approach in order to protect oneself from malevolent forces, such as aura cleansing and smudging. Please note that it is not advisable to communicate with or invoke spirits and other entities. We can never truly know their nature which may appear benevolent at first but disguise an actual malevolent motivation and sometimes once invoked, they can be very difficult to dispel or send away. So it is better not to be in contact with them altogether. I hope you enjoy this explanation and it will perhaps give you a rough idea of what to do in the event of encountering malevolent entities.

Pastor David Lai

There are many people who are naturally ‘sensitive’ to psychic attacks from unseen entities. They may be targeted because they are mildly psychic due to naturally opened chakras (centres of psychic channels in the human body) and can sense their presence, or that these entities are just active in a particular location or space.

A psychic attack is an incursion into our psychic aura that surrounds us, by an external entity that has the intention to harm. Once the negative entity has penetrated our protective aura, it can cause physical or spiritual harm. Psychic attacks can originate from living people who send malevolent ghosts, spirits, dark entities or demons with ill intention.

Our psychic aura acts like a natural shield that protects us from such negative entities. It is relatively more difficult for negative entities to penetrate a healthy and strong aura. Our aura generally changes in colour, size, shape, consistency and uniformity over time in response to the environment and other factors. Naturally, our aura is adversely affected by stress, psychological attacks, spiritual warfare, other people’s negative intentions, alcohol, drugs and afflictive emotions like jealousy, fear, hatred and so forth.

The following might be the symptoms of someone who is experiencing psychic attacks:

A feeling of being watched A feeling of being touched when no one is present Hearing disembodied voices Sudden changes in personality and behaviour for no apparent reason A loss of self-confidence Irrational fear, anger or sorrow Sudden depression without any apparent reason Sudden and irrational difficulties with relationships Feeling you have been cut or scratched, when no one is there Icy cold sensation on your body Feeling drained or a sudden loss of energy Fatigue for no reason Memory loss and/or losing the sense of time Inability to think clearly or make logical decisions Recurring nightmares Imagining monsters, animals or frightening shadows Disturbing visions or hallucinations Strange recurring accidents that can seem like bad luck Sudden illnesses that cannot be diagnosed or explained Negative obsessive thought, or desire that would not go away Feeling of discomfort or fear in a specific room or area in your home

In the event an individual experiences one or more of these symptoms, it can be indicative of a psychic attack and an incursion into one’s aura. They can employ any of these measures to circumvent the attack and provide protection for themselves. Many of these methods can also be used as preventative measures as well.

Respect them

Just like their human counterparts, proper etiquette applies in the spirit world. If we sense the presence of an entity, we should be respectful to them. The same rule applies if we are entering a place that is haunted by an entity. Just imagine if strangers visited your home and decided to be rude. You would definitely feel irritated at the very least. The space that these spirits haunt is regarded as their home even if they are sharing it with living counterparts. Hence we should never heckle or poke fun at them, even if when we are attempting to rouse them into showing themselves because we might provoke their anger. There is no telling what harm these entities can do when provoked.

Drawing the Line

There are benign and malevolent entities. Benign entities are harmless but they are usually desperate to communicate. On the other hand, there are malevolent entities that just want to siphon your energy and wreak havoc in your life. One of the ways to deal with them is to perform regular home cleansings with sage and salt, which can be combined with prayer in accordance with one’s faith. Another way to handle them is to politely ask the entities to leave you alone and end all communications if we have previously established contact with them.

To be more specific, you have to express that they are not allowed within the vicinity of your energy field or to follow you home. You also have to tell them to stay away from your friends, family and pets and anyone else you may be connected to. You must bear in mind that these entities may not necessarily depart on your first attempt to request them to do so. Therefore, you have to be alert in the next few days upon establishing contact. What you have to look out for are erratic changes in your energy level and mood swings. It would be good to cleanse your energy field with the white light and mirror visualisation in order to protect yourself from spirits that have attached themselves to you.

House Cleansing

In reality, spiritual entities, whether benign or malevolent, seek to draw from your vital energies. Therefore, it is not advisable to allow any entities to dwell in your living space. It is best to cleanse your home from all traces of negative energies including your own on a regular basis. All living people deposit all types of energies in the space they inhabit and work. Engaging in cleansing therefore clears those locations from all of these residual negative energies.

It is advisable to cleanse your home once a week or at least fortnightly. However, you should increase the frequency if you dabble in the occult or if you live in a place that is prone to paranormal activities. You begin the cleansing process by opening all doors and windows to allow natural daylight to flood through the room. Then you burn dried sage, infusing every nook and cranny in your home with its smoke. The burning of sage is an ancient Native American tradition and it is commonly known as smudging. Most New Age stores will supply smudge sticks, which are bundles of sage and cedar. This can also be replaced with juniper incense.

Smudge sticks can be placed in a ceramic bowl or large abalone shell and lit with a wooden match. As the smudge stick catches fire, slowly blow out the flames and allow the herbs to smoulder. Then, place your hands over the smoke and ‘wash’ your hands with the smoke. Do the same with your face, ears, heart and over your head. Finally, breathe in a little of the smoke and allow some of the smoke to waft all over your body. This is followed by carrying the ceramic bowl with the smouldering herbs all over the room and property while reciting Dorje Shugden’s mantra Om Benza Wiki Bitana Soha to tap into his protective energy. At this point, mentally ask the negative entity to leave.

When you are done, you can leave the ceramic bowl in a safe location to let the remaining smudge stick burn and have the smoke pervade the room. The proper way to dispose of the ashes is to leave it on the earth outside of your property. You can also bring the burning herbs to the front of your house and allow the smoke to waft out the main door for a minute or two, and then place the remaining ashes outside the doorstep to protect the entrance of the property. If you do not wish to use sage or juniper incense, clap your hands repeatedly a few times at each corner of the room while mentally requesting the entity to leave.

After completing the smudging process, you can also light candles while requesting for peace and positive energy to permeate every corner of your home. Then place a little bit of pure sea salt at the corners of each room and again at the corners outside the property to fend off negative entities. Just like the various protection talismans, the effectiveness of home cleansing rituals may vary from person to person. However, the suggested method of burning sage and scattering salt is a great way to start.

In the event of a very strong energy or entity that pervades a particular room in the house, fill a bowl with rock salt or sea salt and place a quartz crystal on top. Then place the bowl in the room and leave it there overnight. The following day, discard the salt away from the house and wash the quartz crystal under running tap water or sea salt. Finally, dry the crystal in the sun to get rid of residual negative energies.

In the Buddhist tradition, there are a plethora of prayers and rituals to propitiate the blessings and protection of the enlightened Buddhas. These prayers and rituals are called pujas. In fact, several Buddhas like Palden Lhamo, Sengdongma and Dorje Shugden are propitiated for their special protection against harmful malevolent entities. They are very effective and one can commission monks or those who are trained in the rituals to perform these pujas to alleviate the issue of malevolent entities.

You can develop additional methods on your own based on your spiritual preference and tradition. It is best not skip this cleansing process or you might find yourself living among a multitude of spirits of all kinds. They can potentially drain your energy over a period of time, and this would in turn lead to depression and health problems.

Protective Talismans

In the past, most people worked with talismans in order to protect themselves from negative entities. Even today, most mediums work with talismans and other tools to protect themselves from malevolent energies and entities. This is especially important for them considering they may be in regular contact with such entities.

If you are a religious person, you can draw upon a rich tradition of religious icons and protective talismans from your faith. Therefore there are no set rules of what can and cannot be a protective talisman. The following are normally used as protective talismans:

Crosses, religious medals of saints, holy water, Tibetan chakras and ruels

Medicine bags filled with herbs and stones, used by indigenous people for thousands of years

Stones, like crystals and black tourmaline, which were used to banish negativity and charge the environment with positive energy

White Light Visualisation

Take 5 to 10 minutes each day to complete this easy visualisation in order to protect and cleanse your aura. Begin by imagining a powerful white light surrounding your head and extending all over your body, all the way down to your feet. Then imagine this light expanding into a bubble of protection, like a force field that surrounds your body, and it moves with you as you go about your daily chores and activities.

If you are a religious person, you can imagine this protective light as an extension of a higher power. If you are not religious, it is good enough to imagine this light that surrounds you as pure, protective energy and that it is an extension of your own personal strength and ‘groundedness’. Many psychics do this visualisation in order to enhance their abilities.

In fact, positive entities are attracted to this vital energy and find comfort in it. It is said that spiritual entities cannot perceive man-made light but they can perceive candlelight and the aura of living beings. Such light however, repels negative entities. Negative beings prefer shadowy dark places, and are especially drawn to people who have a lot of fear or are depressed i.e. when their psychic aura and energy is ‘down’. These negative beings find that their strength is weakened by the positive energy that is generated during the white light visualisation.

In order to enhance the visualisation, one can visualise a layer of mirrors on top of the white light that surrounds you. The mirrors reflect energies and light back into the world, thereby repelling negative entities and bad energy. This allows you to clear the energies of the environment while protecting yourself, and prevents you from becoming drained and being afflicted by negative entities.

What You Should Not Do

You should never enter or remain in a haunted site with an angry or distraught frame of mind. Such a negative attitude will only serve to attract negativities and especially negative entities to you. They will feed off the negative energy and become more active and stronger. In dealing with malevolent entities, you should be in a positive frame of mind.

Similarly, you should not remain or enter a haunted site if you are too exhausted or you are ill. It is important to be healthy and strong to deal with negative entities; in general, the physically stronger we are, the stronger and more impenetrable our psychic aura. We should also not be intoxicated or be under the influence of any substances as they can alter our state of being emotionally and physically, which can weaken or leave us open to negative influences.

Conclusion

As for the haunting of any negative entities, it is best to expect the worst. You can perform all the methods explained above and they may still fail to rid of the negative entities depending on the strength of these beings, and the strength of their connection with you. When all else fails, it is best to reach out to a psychic medium, healer, priest, monk or lama if you sense that your energy field has been compromised. If you are feeling ill, it is also best to consult a medical doctor. In Kechara, you can consult the Buddhist pastors who have experience dealing with such negative entities. You can consult the pastors here or the Kechara House Front Desk here. Meanwhile, remain alert for signs of energy drain, depression or unusual paranormal activities at home. We should be alert to all these red flags to ensure that we are properly prepared to deal with negative entities that just refuse to leave you alone.

For more interesting information:

Note: All articles published on the blog are conceptualised, approved and edited by H.E. the 25th Tsem Rinpoche. For further assistance and any urgent enquiries, please write in to mail@tsemladrang.com.