Anytime you buy a house or move into a new apartment, you might want to consider performing a house cleansing ritual especially if you feel your residence could be occupied by a ghost, spirit or any other form of negative energy. No, it won’t remove a pesky mother in law encamped inside your guest room, but it can be used to ward off a presence of evil that is potentially occupying your new home. House cleansing rituals such as smudging ceremonies have been used for thousands of years and can prove quite effective at running off unwanted house guests. The concept behind smudging has existed throughout many unrelated cultures across the globe. It is still used today by Native American tribes, Wiccan covens and other shamanic societies. How could all these isolated groups devised such a similar house cleansing ritual all on their own? Easy answer. Spiritual cleansing works.

If you think you’re hearing weird noises in the middle of the night or experiencing strange phenomena around your house, you might have spiritual forces hanging about. While they aren’t always negative, they can cause great havoc around the home. If they turn out to be negative entities, they can even be somewhat dangerous. People I know who have experienced paranormal activities around their homes often ask me the same thing. “Peter, I think my new house might be haunted but I just moved in. Why am I being visited by spirits?” Well, the truth of the matter is that you never know what you’re getting into when you take up a new residence. No realtor alive wants to list “Haunted” on a new for sale listing. Also it is not always whether the building you live in is a new construction or not. What might be attracting these spirits to your home should be your focus instead. Maybe that antique item you picked up at the flea market brought some aspect of its former owner along with it. Maybe your new home is built on blood soaked land. Maybe your hundred year old house is new to you but teaming inside with spiritual energy.

Our world is ancient and filled to the brim with shadows from the past. People have lived and died in almost every corner of our Earth. Regardless of where you reside, there is a good chance that some of your town’s former residents have chosen to remain behind in a metaphysical existence. I think there’s a pretty simple explanation for why this is and its garnered from a small tidbit of knowledge found in science. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed but merely changed. It is my firm belief that regardless of the trappings of our modern world that what we are in the end is simply energy itself. When we shuffle off this mortal coil, that energy trapped within our bodies is released back into the universe. Some of this can choose to remain or even become trapped against its will. Whether you call these lingering interlopers ghosts, spirits or lost souls, they are all in my opinion merely trapped forms of energy. To set them free and get them the heck out of your life, a basic house cleansing ritual will do the job. You don’t need anything fancy to accomplish one and certainly shouldn’t need to call Ghostbusters or the Ghost Whisperer.

How to Smudge Your House
So, how do you quickly and easily release spiritual forces and negative energy from inside your home? To perform a traditional smudging ceremony, you’ll only need four items: a smudge stick, a cigarette lighter or pack of matches, a candle and a fireproof bowl or container. You probably already have most of this stuff on hand but you might have to acquire a smudge stick. That is not so hard. Here is a two pack for sale on Amazon.com. Also, I recently found one at a well known organic grocery store chain here in town. These are generally made from white sage but not necessarily always. A smudge stick is comprised of dried herbs and bound with string. Any smudge stick you can find will do just fine for holding your own smudging ceremony.

Before you begin, find an area in your home where you will perform the house cleansing ritual. This can be a table or a kitchen counter top. If you have a fireplace in your home, I suggest setting up the smudging bowl and candle on the mantle or in the fireplace itself. Think about fire safety when selecting your area. Burning it to the ground may in fact remove the evils spirits but I wouldn’t suggest it. You are going to set something on fire in your new home. Do that in a safe location. You might even want to prepare a cup of water to keep nearby just in case you drop the smudge stick or knock the candle over. Secondly, grounding yourself is very important to the success of this ritual. Say a prayer, meditate or simply focus the energy of your mind before beginning. Just do whatever works best for you to reach a calm state. The specific nature of your religion is unimportant to this process. Getting to a state of calm however is absolutely essential.

First, light your candle with the lighter or matches. When ready to proceed, take the smudging stick and ignite one end of it while holding firmly onto the other. Wave the stick around in the air until you see it erupt into flames. Then blow out the fire on the end of the smudging stick and allow it to smolder. Keep the smudge stick over your large fireproof bowl at all times during this process. Watch out for small bits of sage that tend to fall from the freshly lit stick. Be careful not to ruin your brand new carpet. Remember to feed the stick with air so that it does not go out during the ceremony. Wave the stick in the air above the bowl or simply blow on it to ensure it gets enough oxygen to stay lit.

Start at your front door moving clockwise around the home while holding the smudge stick. Allow each area to fill up with smoke. Pay particular attention to corners, closets and cabinets. This is where spirits tend to accumulate and hide. Make sure to highly smudge windows and doors as well as areas where plumbing or electrical come in and out of the house. These are common entry points that spiritual forces use to seep into your home. Don’t forget to smudge the garage, laundry room or attic if you have those. When you have completely smudged the entire house, return to where you first began and left the burning candle. Extinguish the smudging stick and blow out your candle.

Protecting Your House with a Salt Cleansing Ritual
If you can’t find a smudge stick in your area or you just simply don’t want to set things afire and wave them around your new house, there is another type of house cleansing ritual that only uses a few common household items everyone has. And while I highly suggest the merits of burning sage in your home to cleanse it of spirits, if you don’t want to do that here’s a second less flammable option. To perform a salt cleansing ritual, you’ll only need a large bowl from your kitchen, water from your faucet and salt. I prefer using sea salt but if you don’t have that kosher salt or normal table salt will suffice.

First, fill your bowl about halfway up with water. Add to that three tablespoons of whichever salt you have chosen. As I said before, I prefer the use of sea salt. It has been used since antiquity to ward off evil spirits throughout many different societies. Sea salt was once a prized commodity in ancient times because it was discovered it had “miraculous” properties in preserving food. Additionally in its use by white magic, sea salt held a stunning reputation as a powerful ingredient in purification and protection rituals. Kosher salt or normal table salt can stand in for sea salt if you simply can’t acquire it but I would highly suggest picking some up next time you’re at the grocery store.

When you’re ready to begin, take your container of salt and visit each entrance of your home. Take a handful of salt and carefully sprinkle a line of it at the bottom of each doorway. Make sure you do this for the full width of each door. These salt lines will protect each entrance from evil spirits and other nefarious entities wishing to enter your home. Next, repeat this process with each of your windows. Similarly to how you protected the doors, place a small line of salt across each window sill fully covering its width. Windows are secondary entry points for spirits and are essential that you cover them. Don’t skip a window in your attic or other hard to get to spot. Treating each and every window in your house is essential.

Once you have finished with the doors and windows, take the bowl of water containing the salt mixture and visit each room in your house. Dip your fingers in the saltwater and flick it around the corners of each room. Pay particular attention to doorways and windows as well. While sprinkling saltwater, I suggest saying the following housing cleansing spell over and over to further cleanse your house. If using a chant or incantation offends you, it can be omitted.

Protect my home from spirit clan.
I spread this salt to banish them.
Protect my home from spiritual force.
I spread this salt to end their source.

After you have finished the salt cleansing ritual, dispose of what is left of the saltwater by pouring it outside the front door of your home. This will further protect the main entrance of your house and let outside spirits know not to come knocking at your door any longer.

Removing Items that Attract Negative Energy
If you’re having recurring problems with spirits inhabiting your home, you may want to take a serious look around for any older items that could be attracting these negative energies. My wife and I recently purchased a home built in 1910. Not only did the former owner die in the house but several such deaths have occurred at the property over the years. The first thing we did was to remove anything left behind by the lady who lived there. Maybe you think you got a great deal on that house because it was full of antique furniture. But if a former resident of your home passed in the house, the possessions they left behind might be the very cause of your current haunting. Get rid of any of that stuff left behind if you’re experiencing paranormal activity.

If the house was empty when you took possession of it, perhaps the cause of your spirit visitation is an object you brought there yourself. Pick up anything old at a garage sale or flea market lately? Spirits can easily become attached to items they formerly owned just like how they can enter your house. If you think something you recently acquired is at fault, get rid of it. If it is nothing of great value, I suggest you take it outside and burn it. You will feel a change in the vibes of your home the very second you dispose of whatever is causing spirits to gravitate to your house. I also suggest repeating either of these house cleansing rituals immediately after removing an object like that from your home. This will ensure that potentially harmful spirits attracted to your living space will find somewhere else to hang their hat and leave you and your family alone.