What To Do When Astral Entities Bug You

One of the most frequent problems I see cropping up in the community of gnosticly inclined Pagans is annoying or harmful astral entities that won’t go away. When people are taught to use the astral (some people are not taught, but are born knowing) this is often the very first thing that happens.

While the astral is full of gods, demons, faeries, and dead people, it is also full of quasi-sentient ideas that take on shape and wreak havoc. Spells that actually do something are a kind of living idea, and so are servitors. Most psychic attacks fall into the same basic category. I’m going to simply refer to this entire category of thing, collectively, as “spooks.”

I have had great success in the case of free-floating “entities,” psychic attacks, and nasty spells with pulling the energy out of the living idea, putting it into a new form, and thereby taking command of the magic.

I make a sharp distinction between entities on the astral, and entities which, while invisible, spin plates, smash dishes, light fires and slash car tires. These sorts of entities need to be dealt with in a different way. These are fairly rare, however.

Step 1: Try Talking to It.

Destroying the spook may not be needed. It might be a part of you that needs to be reasoned with. It might be a projection of a friend or loved one who needs your help. Who knows, right?

The next time the being shows up, try to strike up a conversation. Ask these questions:

• Who are you, and where do you come from?
• Why are you here?
• What is your assigned task?
• What do you represent?
• Who sent you?

See if the situation can be resolved amicably before you proceed. Often, these situations are a message from ourselves about something important. Other times, spooks are just mostly-mindless automatons, programmed to make you miserable. If that winds up being the case, then they need to be dismantled.

Do NOT propitiate hostile beings. It’s a bad habit to be in. If it is a legitimate entity, it teaches them that abuse is the best way to get your attention, and they may pass this knowledge onto other beings who similarly want your attention. If it’s mostly-mindless, you’re empowering it.

Step 2: Write Out a List of the Qualities

You probably don’t know the name of the entity, and it may not have one. Even if you have a name for it, you’ll want to discard the name, and give it a new one as part of the process of taking control of the energies.

The first thing to do is to come up with a list of qualities.

My first spook was called “Five Alive.” Yes, like the citrus beverage. The manifestation, however, was anything but fun and fruity. He’d be the first thing I saw when I was drifting off to sleep, a dark shadow sitting on the edge of my bed, teeth in a the precise colors of the lettering on the juice drink, big like piano keys. He had a voice like a bad case of tinnitus, and smelled of rotting teeth. He’d frighten me awake my running icy, bony claws over my face, and whispering “five alive.”

I did not have the skills at that time which I now have, but he still serves as a good example for our purposes.

If I were to evoke the energies out of that thought form, I’d start with a laundry list of qualities.

• Large, many colored teeth
• Smells of rotting bone
• Ringing, monotone voice
• Cold like death
• Clawed hands

Step 3: Enlist The Help Of A Divinity (Or Don’t)

Technically speaking, you don’t really need the help of a deity, or even a ritual, to field-strip a spook. All you really need to do is to get a really solid lock on the energy, and separate it from the form it is currently inhabiting. It’s not too different from pulling the stuffing out of a pillow. The same goes for spells that people throw at you, for the most part. Psychic attacks, in my opinion, are best scrapped for parts, rather than sent back to the sender. If you send it back, the person will notice and maybe try again. Besides, the energy can be up-cycled and used for something constructive.

A great portion of our interactions with these things, however, is psychological in nature. By the time one of these things starts to actually bother us, we feel afraid, angry or helpless. Even if the thing had nothing to do with us to start, it picks up a patina of our issues.

Commanding the energies in the name of a deity you trust, especially one with expertise related to what the entity represents to you, can give you confidence in more ways than one.

Firstly, if you have any doubts in your head about whether the thing is actually mindless, or whether you actually have the right to dismantle it, having a (presumably) wise spiritual entity around to help out can set those concerns at ease. Hekate and Hermes, for example, wouldn’t let me shred the remnants of a human soul –not that such a thing is even really possible, since a soul would have will and true consciousness– they’d simply bop me over the head and ferry the poor bastard to wherever he or she needed to go.

Secondly, if you feel intimidated, back-up is useful. This brings me to a second point: it is, after all, better to learn to deal with these issues on your own. You will find as you gain more independence with dealing with these types of situations, they’ll occur less and less frequently. I could conjecture about why, but the reasons are complex, and deserve their own article. I’m not completely sure that I’m the correct person to write that article.

In our hypothetical example, I’m going to call Hekate, because a monster created from a discarded juice container with many aspects in common with a zombie seems right up her alley. I trust that she knows the difference between a dead person and a magically empowered figmentary.

Call the deity before hand, let them know that you will need their help, and arrange fair payment for their participation.

Step 4: Craft an Invocation

The next step is pretty basic. I’m going to identify the energies and summon them under the divine authority of Hekate.

I call to the creeping thing beside my bed

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Piano-key teeth of many colors

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Rotting bones and icy claws

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Many-toned and monotone

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Teeth fall out with a humming buzz

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Decaying mouth, ever open

In the name of Hekate I summon you

Terror-bringing whispers in my dreams

In the name of Hekate I summon you

And bid you to do as I command.

Step 5: Give it a shape, a name and marching orders

Any shape will do, but you should decide in advance, and it should be a very simple form. Compact the energies you have called into that form. If you are having difficulty wielding them, ask the deity for help, or else (if you are feeling really cheeky) inhale the energies, and breathe them out completely into the form you’ve chosen.

Then, name it, and give it some marching orders.

Creature of my nightmares, in the name of Hekate, I command you into this shape. I name you Rob Zombie, and command you to find me exactly three excellent horror movies. Once you have completed your task, die, and return your energies to the element of Earth. Rob Zombie, so I charge you in the name of Hekate, and so I command you.

Here, I’ve chosen marching orders that are benign, and make sense based on the type of energies present in the creature. Rather than trying to disperse or banish the energies )because where would they go?) I’m using them. In our universe, that is how energy goes away. It’s used up.

Naming something gives you power over it. Similarly, when we apply a name of our choosing to the energy of a spook, we’re tattooing it without our will.

If the Spook was particularly powerful, you might have to do this a few times, carving the energies up into bite-sized chunks.