Banishing

[Morgandria]

I came across a statement someone made on the subject of banishing, today, and I just wanted to hear some other people's reactions to it:

Quote:

I have found that banishings are counterproductive. Rather than attempting to force the being from your location, try making gifts of food and incense to it and offering it more in exchange for it staying away and not disturbing anyone/anything.

Banishings seem to result in the being coming back later, angry that it was forced to go away.

First off....I don't understand how people end up with this wandering Outsiders in their homes, like they strolled in casually or something. I protect and ward my home - it keeps them out, even if they've tried to stroll in on other folks. I take that into account. If I spirit isn't going to abide by my Hospitality, it doesn't get in.

This "give it something" approach - it smacks of "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", where we should all just try to get along and tolerate everything for the sake of tolerance. (...which just opens the door for all sorts of crap.)

Now, I've been known to make offerings to the Outsiders before. Usually when I'm doing a rite or working I really don't want disrupted. But...that's a precaution. That's a sop to the Hounds of Hell to stay away from the rest of the banquet, so to speak. I give them that, they leave me alone, and it's done. It recognizes they exist, but states in no uncertain terms that they should take the offering and leave me in peace.

What this person is suggesting is that a disruptive, unwanted spirit who has violated your space should be given a gift and asked nicely to leave. Would you do that to a person who just up and wandered into your home, maybe moving things around or taking your stuff? No. It's an invasion of privacy.

Paying a spirit to leave...That's just voluntary extortion. You pay him to leave...he keeps coming back for the offerings, and he has no reason to respect your boundaries or desires. Outsiders should not be presumed to have the same sense of honour or ethics as you. He might leave you alone...he might decide to escalate his unwanted attentions for bigger and bigger "gifts". You don't know...and you've established to them that you're not going to stand up for yourself.

I don't play that game; I haven't got time for spirit shenanigans. You invade my space, you get your butt kicked out the door. I banish hard and fast. I keep cold iron. It's perfectly clear when I send you out that I don't want you coming back.

It's the same as I don't "invite" spirits or deities. I invoke, or summon, and when I'm done I dismiss. I don't leave my communications with the spirits I work with in uncertain terms. Don't call up what you can't put down.

And if the spirit's "coming back angry", you're not banishing properly.

Ahem. Anyway...
What do you think?

And if anyone's inclined, we could further open the discussion to methods of banishing.  

[Starlock]

Personally, I haven't had any need to do any sort of 'spirit banishing.' A part of me finds the most effective way is to simply disbelieve it can be a problem or that it can have any effect on you. In a way, such active disbelieve and non-credence to an idea can be a spell of sorts. Actively ignoring something can indeed be the wisest way of making something go away. Don't fight back, don't placate; just ignore it.

That's not to say this would be true in all situations. I imagine that the need for and methods of banishing would depend on the case. There may be some cases where an offering would work well. Say for example you have a Land Spirit bothering you because you or someone in your area took out a bunch of fill dirt (did harm to the Land Spirit, in essence). Offering some sort of compensation might get them to leave you alone.

At any rate, since we're dealing with nonscience here, there is really no way to objectively measure what is going on with the supposed spirit problems to begin with. The heart of the problem might actually be due to something else entirely; there's no surefire way to know. What I do know is that someone who simply doesn't believe in a spirit world isn't likely to be harassed by them. They'll chalk up the problem to some other more 'rational' explanation like sleep deprivation. xd  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

I'm admittedly not too familiar with banishing rituals and procedures sweatdrop .
So, I'm going to ask silly, n00by questions about it!

When you are doing a banishment, does it banish everything? What about spirits and such that you don't mind having around?

Is sage the go-to for banishing? Or is that cleansing I'm thinking of?

Is there a difference to you between angry, rude spirits and spirits that are just confused and scared?

Do you think that just asking a spirit to leave and giving an offering to it ever works in some situations?  

[Morgandria]

Violet Song jat Shariff

I'm admittedly not too familiar with banishing rituals and procedures sweatdrop .
So, I'm going to ask silly, n00by questions about it!

When you are doing a banishment, does it banish everything? What about spirits and such that you don't mind having around?

Is sage the go-to for banishing? Or is that cleansing I'm thinking of?

Is there a difference to you between angry, rude spirits and spirits that are just confused and scared?

Do you think that just asking a spirit to leave and giving an offering to it ever works in some situations?

A banishing shouldn't banish everything, unless that's your intent. They're typically shaped to work against a particular target or group of targets. You really don't want to make them wide-beam sorts of spells - that's asking for a lot of complications and chances for the energy to go awry. They work best as single-target, tightly-focused workings.

I personally don't use sage for anything. Don't like the stuff at all.
You're pretty much looking for a repellent of some kind, and there's three types: 1) stuff that is just generally nasty, 2) things that are very pure and clean, and act against harm, 3) things that are specifically known to drive off a particular type of spirit or energy. Type 1 materials can include asafoetida, sulfur, garlic, chili pepper, etc. Type 2 materials are often things like frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood, the aforementioned sage....the list of both of these things can be endless, depending on which culture and magical system you're approaching it from. sweatdrop

There is indeed a difference in my perception of these spirits. I don't want you to think I banish at first sight and ask questions later. That's careless. I do my best to contact and identify what is lurking about before choosing a course of action. At this point, I'm fairly decent at identifying things, since I've had a few years of experience, but when I started out it took longer, and I had to clean up more loose ends if things were just buggering me about.
I don't let them drag out if I can avoid it.

When I make offerings to the Outsiders before a rite, typically I am not inside my home. Doing it in that instance is a respect thing - I am in their space, not they in mine.

Typically, if a spirit has come into my home, it is abiding by my hospitality, and is welcome. I have specific things in place, that have been set up with very specific phrasing, to keep out that which does not respect that, who are interested only in causing harm or trouble. If an Outsider manages to get in somehow, and I catch it, I don't think I'm being too harsh in telling it to get out, and not come back.

I've honestly never made an offering to a spirit that's not welcome in my home and asked it to leave, thinking that would end the matter. It seems silly to me. When a bouncer clears a problem out of a bar, they don't give the guy a drink to take out the door, and ask him to stop being a jerk - they just escort them out. If that guy keep causing problems, the guy gets thrown out a little more roughly. Or they beat the crap out of him and THEN throw him out. And then his face is posted at the door and he doesn't get back in.

Banishing is bouncing. I'm polite, stern, and painfully clear when I banish. I'm not gonna bribe something to leave me alone, and I don't want to keep having to throw the guy out. Do it right, the first time, and they won't bother you anymore. If they're stupid enough to keep bothering you - well, it escalates beyond banishing, and that's a different subject.  

[too2sweet]

Giving offerings to something is usually a good incentive for it to come back, so I really don't think it's going to be all that effective in driving it away.

I'm a big fan of sage myself, though I also have tingshas that I use in banishing and cleansing rituals. I usually try the "ask politely first" routine as well, but if that doesn't work, I'm certainly not going to lay out milk and cookies and hope for the best. It's my house and if you are being rude and disruptive, then you need to go. Rewarding for bad behavior never works out very well.  

[Morgandria]

too2sweet

Giving offerings to something is usually a good incentive for it to come back, so I really don't think it's going to be all that effective in driving it away.

I'm a big fan of sage myself, though I also have tingshas that I use in banishing and cleansing rituals. I usually try the "ask politely first" routine as well, but if that doesn't work, I'm certainly not going to lay out milk and cookies and hope for the best. It's my house and if you are being rude and disruptive, then you need to go. Rewarding for bad behavior never works out very well.

It's just like dealing with kids. wink You gotta teach them to respect boundaries - and sometimes they learn the hard way.  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Morgandria

A banishing shouldn't banish everything, unless that's your intent. They're typically shaped to work against a particular target or group of targets. You really don't want to make them wide-beam sorts of spells - that's asking for a lot of complications and chances for the energy to go awry. They work best as single-target, tightly-focused workings.

Ah, makes sense 3nodding .
I was worried, like in the case of disir of other ancestral spirits/house wights/etc...that tend to hang around a place but aren't malicious. I'd hate to accidentally banish my grandmother!

Quote:

I personally don't use sage for anything. Don't like the stuff at all.
You're pretty much looking for a repellent of some kind, and there's three types: 1) stuff that is just generally nasty, 2) things that are very pure and clean, and act against harm, 3) things that are specifically known to drive off a particular type of spirit or energy. Type 1 materials can include asafoetida, sulfur, garlic, chili pepper, etc. Type 2 materials are often things like frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood, the aforementioned sage....the list of both of these things can be endless, depending on which culture and magical system you're approaching it from. sweatdrop

Ah that's right; I think you've mentioned before that either you or your husband are allergic to it.

Also, you mentioned cold iron and I'm not sure what that is sweatdrop . Is it a specific kind of iron, or is it just iron that's well, cold?

Quote:

There is indeed a difference in my perception of these spirits. I don't want you to think I banish at first sight and ask questions later. That's careless. I do my best to contact and identify what is lurking about before choosing a course of action. At this point, I'm fairly decent at identifying things, since I've had a few years of experience, but when I started out it took longer, and I had to clean up more loose ends if things were just buggering me about.
I don't let them drag out if I can avoid it.

When I make offerings to the Outsiders before a rite, typically I am not inside my home. Doing it in that instance is a respect thing - I am in their space, not they in mine.

I wondered about this. I thought maybe you just offered to them at the other end of the house or something, to keep them out of the immediate space that you need for workings and such.

Quote:

Typically, if a spirit has come into my home, it is abiding by my hospitality, and is welcome. I have specific things in place, that have been set up with very specific phrasing, to keep out that which does not respect that, who are interested only in causing harm or trouble. If an Outsider manages to get in somehow, and I catch it, I don't think I'm being too harsh in telling it to get out, and not come back.

I've honestly never made an offering to a spirit that's not welcome in my home and asked it to leave, thinking that would end the matter. It seems silly to me. When a bouncer clears a problem out of a bar, they don't give the guy a drink to take out the door, and ask him to stop being a jerk - they just escort them out. If that guy keep causing problems, the guy gets thrown out a little more roughly. Or they beat the crap out of him and THEN throw him out. And then his face is posted at the door and he doesn't get back in.

Banishing is bouncing. I'm polite, stern, and painfully clear when I banish. I'm not gonna bribe something to leave me alone, and I don't want to keep having to throw the guy out. Do it right, the first time, and they won't bother you anymore. If they're stupid enough to keep bothering you - well, it escalates beyond banishing, and that's a different subject.

Thanks for answering my questions Morg heart .  

[Morgandria]

Violet Song jat Shariff

Also, you mentioned cold iron and I'm not sure what that is sweatdrop . Is it a specific kind of iron, or is it just iron that's well, cold?

It's just iron, really - but it was called "cold iron" because feels cold to the touch. It was used to refer to pure iron, or to any iron/steel weapon used for cutting or stabbing.  

[Violet Song jat Shariff]

Morgandria

Violet Song jat Shariff

Also, you mentioned cold iron and I'm not sure what that is sweatdrop . Is it a specific kind of iron, or is it just iron that's well, cold?

It's just iron, really - but it was called "cold iron" because feels cold to the touch. It was used to refer to pure iron, or to any iron/steel weapon used for cutting or stabbing.

Ah, gotcha.
Thanks!!  

[Sanguina Cruenta]

What is an "Outsider"? What are we talking about here? Fae? Ghosts? Land spirits?

I come across a lot of situations where people are afraid of something because they don't know what it is. Their general response is to lash out at it, which a is fair enough to want to do, but not particularly very nice. If something is trying to get your attention or otherwise discontent, it's better to ask them what the deal is than just to get rid of it. That's.... impolite. If it's something Out Of the Ordinary it may be your dead grandma trying to get you to check behind the fireplace for her jewels or something. But you can't hear her, so she spends all her time knocking s**t onto the floor. "Oh my!" you exclaim, "a spirit is angry!"

In my experience, ghosts and similar don't get to choose where they end up. They just.... end up. Chucking it out will just end up with it bounced somewhere else and is really inhospitable of one. If it's being a pain in the a**, sure, show it you're hospitable. I mean, if I ended up in someone's home, through no fault of my own, and they treated me like I was a leper, I'd be pretty upset and offended. If they offered me a drink and let me know that, so long as I was here, there were particular rules I should follow.... well, why wouldn't I follow them? And if you break 'em, fine, kick 'em out.

I'm a big fan of Ground Rules. My general ones are "the bathroom is out of bounds" and "don't watch me when I sleep, it's creepy". But if you don't lay down ground rules, how is anyone to know what behaviour is acceptable? When you enter a bar, you know what sort of behaviour is acceptable. And you do assume that most whatevers are aware of how to behave, but really, you can't fail to lay down some rules and then complain when your bathroom walls start weeping ectoplasm. After all, the last place they did that started charging admission.

"Banishing" is a dirty word for me. It's up there along with "exorcism". It makes the bile rise in my gullet. Generally more can be achieved via diplomacy than "OMG it's a BAD SPIRIT, get rid of it!!". I've had one that broke the rules before, so it's not like I haven't had any problems. Had it come to that, yes, I may have done some sort of banishing. As it was I just asked the other one to get rid of it, which was easier and probably worked better, but then I don't know what he did and he may have done something nasty.

Generally I'm on the side of Whatever It Is, on the basis that people tend to treat the dead and so forth as if they were some sort of disease instead of people. Or a ******** theme part. "Hey, there's an abandoned house that's meant to be haunted! Let's go bug the spirits until they get pissed off!" It's offensive.

I've never quite understood why incense would cause something to go away. Would it not just say "mmm, sandalwood"?

Then again, if you're going to offer a peace offering, you don't do it in order to bribe it away. What you do is offer something in order to get it to stop doing whatever and pay ********. Then you say "ohhi, these are the rules, follow 'em or get out". You don't say "here, take this s**t and leave, or I'll be forced to give you more s**t".

EDIT: If you are in fact talking about Fae specifically rather than anything else, you can disregard this post wink We don't have 'em here as far as I know, and I don't know how to deal with them. I leave 'em alone and hope they do the same for me. Most we have here is Taniwha and I don't think I've been around a lake tghat has 'em anyway xd (Now I'll leave you all to ponder how "taniwha" is meant to be pronouned.)  

[Morgandria]

Sanguina Cruenta

What is an "Outsider"? What are we talking about here? Fae? Ghosts? Land spirits?

My reference to Outsiders refers to what could be called "fae", as well as land spirits, local entities, and other small spirits.

I honour my Ancestors. They are a presence in my home when they desire so. That being said, I don't have much interaction with ghosts past that - they just aren't that interested in me, or me them.

Chances are if a spirit's in my home, it's gotten through my protections because it plans to abide by my hospitality and respect the conditions I've set. It's deliberately built that way. The rules are posted at the door, metaphorically. What I use as shields and wards have come about from 15+ years of trial and error. In the past things have gotten through, and I've learned from that. Now, it's pretty solid. I haven't had anything nasty get in for years.

Ghosts, however, I tend to leave in peace.

Quote:

EDIT: If you are in fact talking about Fae specifically rather than anything else, you can disregard this post wink We don't have 'em here as far as I know, and I don't know how to deal with them. I leave 'em alone and hope they do the same for me. Most we have here is Taniwha and I don't think I've been around a lake tghat has 'em anyway xd (Now I'll leave you all to ponder how "taniwha" is meant to be pronouned.)

We've got those that came over from places with the immigrants to Canada (there's enough of those), and our own local genus locii, and our own little spirits. People tend to forget about the spirits who were already here, unless they're Native. I interact with them all, although I definetely do not appreciate "faeries".  

[Shearaha]

Well giving it something and hoping it goes away makes no sense. That's like saying "if you feed that stray cat it will stay off your lawn" Every one knows if you start feeding one stray cat it sticks arround and invites its buddies over to join in on the free lunch. I do have a spirt that came with my husband. He is quite welcome in our home and I can't think of anything he could do that would make him un-welcome. He has done some things that we've had to ask him to stop doing, but once it's explained why he usually doesn't do it again. I've never had to banish anything and honestly hope I never have to. I do have shields set up around our home to keep the nasties out, and our resident spirit is rather good about giving us hints when someone else is around.