Spiritual Protection & House Cleansing

Just as homes need to be physically cleaned, they also need to be spiritually cleaned. We call this a house cleansing. A house cleansing is necessary in addition to a house blessing and spiritual protection of your home. This serves to remove negative spirits and energy that’s collected in your home over the past years/months/days. Learn how to perform a house cleansing, house blessing, and to spiritually protect your home from invasion.

Importance of Cleansing and Blessing Your Home

Negative energy is particularly powerful in a home where trauma took place, domestic abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, suicide or homicide, severe mental illness, unexpected death and/or long-term illness. A house cleansing removes negative energy. While a house blessing brings in positive energy and spiritual protection prevents from further spiritual intrusion.

When To Do A House Cleansing

In addition to performing a house cleansing and house blessing when moving into a new home, you should also do it when a new person moves into the home. This new person will bring new energies into your house and until the energy stabilizes it’s a good idea to do a house cleansing. If there’s a tragedy in the house, do a house cleansing. If you’re experiencing paranormal activity, perform a house cleansing. I recommend performing a routine house cleansing once a month on the waning or new moon, as well. If you’ve also noticed a string of bad luck, illness, or discord, CLEANSE your home!

How to Perform a House Cleansing

A personal favorite of mine is to do a good ol’ fashioned smoke-cleansing. Smoke-cleansing, to put it simply, is a tradition of lighting bundles of herbs and using the smoke to spiritually cleanse an area or person from negative energy. Different herbs are used for this ritual including sage, cedar, rosemary, lavender, rose, and juniper. If you can’t get your hands on an herb bundle, make your own. The point is to let the smoke fill each room with its purifying powers. If you are using incense or an herb bundle, here are the steps to do a house cleansing:

1. Open a few windows throughout your house or the back door. DON’T SKIP THIS STEP. It allows the energy to escape…it has to go somewhere!
2. Start at your front door with lit incense or bundle in hand. Allow the smoke to fill the room and say, “I cleanse this home with smoke. All negativity must go away, only positive energy can stay.”
3. Move in a counter-clockwise direction from room to room in your home. Allow the smoke to fill the air in each room while repeating the cleansing prayer above. (Take the incense/bundle in one hand and move it in a circular motion counterclockwise while speaking the words.)
4. Be sure to get the corners of the room really well, as well as closets, cabinets, pantries, shower stalls, etc.
5. Once you’ve cleansed each room with the smoke, extinguish the incense or bundle and say out loud, “so mote it be” or “amen” or “and it will be done”.

Other Ways to Cleanse Your Home (Without Smoke)

There’s literally dozens of ways to effectively cleanse your home from negative energy. And plenty that don’t involve burning herbs or smoke. If you can’t handle the smoke or can’t burn herbs for whatever reason, try one of the following instead:

• Make a simmering potpourri (also called a simmer pot) on the stove
• Use the cooled remnants from the simmer pot to spray around the house
• Play high-vibrational music around the house (Celtic flutes, Tibetan bowls, etc.)
• Bang on pots and pans (this is especially helpful to scare negative spirits away and shake up old stagnant energy)
• Ring bells
• Light a white candle and go from room to room, lighting up your space with divine white light energy
• Any kind of cleansing herb spray works wonders
• Asperging: dip a sprig of rosemary or other fresh herb into blessed or moon water then sprinkle around your space
• Open the blinds – let in the sunlight!
• Open the windows and let in some fresh air on a cool, breezy day

Perform An Effective House Blessing

House blessings are a common practice among various faiths. That being said, you don’t have to be of a particular faith to bless your home effectively. A house blessing acts to dedicate your home to positive energy, peace and harmony AND/OR to a specific spirit, deity, or ancestor. You are proclaiming to the spirit world that your home is under the care and supervision of a particular deity or Universal energy by performing a house blessing. The one thing you’ll need is a bit of olive oil or holy water. Performing an effective house blessing is the second step in the process after a thorough house cleansing.

Here’s how to perform a house blessing (a.k.a. consecration or sealing):

1. Put your oil or holy water into a small bowl or container of your choice.
2. Start in the front of your house and dip your pointer finger into the oil or water.
3. Draw a protective symbol on the door-frame (i.e. a cross, rune, Star of David, etc.) While you’re drawing the symbol, say “Bless this home in the name of _____. (God, the Divine, the Universe, Spirit, Jesus, ancestors, etc.)
4. Continue to repeat the process for every door, window, fireplace, and vent in your house, walking in a clockwise fashion from room to room until you’ve drawn your symbol on every entry in the house.
5. End the house blessing with an “Amen” or “So be it”, etc.

Spiritual House Protection (Use With House Cleansing & Blessings)

When the house cleansing and blessing are complete, there’s one more step to protect your home and family from negative energy and spiritual intrusion. Depending on your faith, how you want to spiritually protect your home is ultimately up to you. Here are a few options to consider:

• hang meaningful religious symbols on the walls and doors
• feng shui
• say a prayer every night to ask for protection
• visualize a circle or bubble of impenetrable white light around your home (do this every night or at least once a week)
• decorate with stones & crystals for protection/cleansing: tourmaline, obsidian, turquoise, tiger’s eye, selenite, onyx, etc.
• physically draw a circle around your home with protective powders, salt, red brick dust, pepper, or rosemary and envision drawing a barrier around your home
• hang pictures of deities, spirit guides, angels, or ancestors
• wind chimes, bells, horseshoes, witch balls, mirrors, etc. to frighten away negative entities
• cleansing and protective simmering potpourris (also called simmer pots), save the remnants and spray around the house
• hang a small muslin bag or sachet filled with cinnamon or other protective herbs on your front and back doors
• place statues of gargoyles, lions, and protective animals at the gate or front door
• Pets are a great source of positive energy. Some will even protect you or take on your negative energy (cats and dogs particularly).

Plants With Protective Properties

In addition to the spiritual protection methods above, consider planting trees and bushes with protective qualities around your property. Our favorites include bushes with thorns: bougainvillea, roses, barberry, blackberry, cactus, Holly, hawthorn, locust honey, etc. There are also herbs with protective qualities like rosemary, aloe, bay, bean, cumin, mint, mullein, purslane, sage, snapdragon, etc.

Warding Your Property and Home

What is a ward, exactly? A ward is an object that works to ward off or scare away negative spirits and energy. Wards are placed around the property, typically in the four corners. Once they’re laid down once, you can refresh them once every three months. Wards can be stones with protective properties, statues of angels, gods or protective animals, or protective symbols drawn onto rocks or other non-biodegradable objects. If you choose to use biodegradable objects, you’ll want to lay brand new wards once every three months. I typically lay my wards and refresh my wards as a part of my cleansing and blessing rituals. As you’re laying your wards, visualize an impenetrable barrier encircling your home and property. Spirits will frequently be frightened off by the barrier and not even attempt to cross it. Learn more about wards here.