The Nuclear Option?

I recently came across this article about a paranormal investigation team in New Zealand dealing with a haunted house. So far, pretty routine - at least in the paranormal world. The article discusses details of the haunting and reports of paranormal activity in the house. It also has skeptics weigh in with their take on possible mundane explanation for the activity. But it was a quote from investigator Karen Williams that really caught my attention.

Williams, a practitioner of Wicca and a British Traditional Witch, said spirits often didn't want to move on.

"A ghost is a person who is no longer a corporeal being, they don't have a body anymore, but they're still the same person that they were before. "They have free will. If they're in a place, they might not want to move. You have to be persuasive."

Williams said she would be using the "nuclear option" to remove the spirits. "This is where my Wiccan training comes in. There's a ritual I like to use which is called the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, it's a very powerful banishing ritual."

Williams shared some details of the ritual with the Herald. The ceremony would be conducted using the Hebrew language and would call on the "divine light" to help cleanse the house.

Willams' comments about ghosts are generally accurate, but hopefully she was being tongue-in-cheek about the LBRP being the "nuclear option." It's the first and simplest ritual that ceremonial magicians learn. It also doesn't banish a space, even though there are people out there who teach that it does - and with a serious haunting that might be an issue down the line.

It is true that LBRPs will temporarily chase away intelligent entities a lot of the time. Ghosts usually avoid magicians, and one of the easiest ways to clear out a haunted house for somebody living there to take up a magical practice. I've lived in old houses my entire adult life, and the previous occupants of my current home did report some paranormal stuff. But there's been nothing since I started living and practicing here.

Ghosts recognize that any magician who can do an effective LBRP is also capable of harming them, and that's a bit of a shock - ghosts get used to being immune to things, since most material actions don't affect them. They also don't like being the presence of the four archangels while the ritual is being performed.

But if you walk into a house, do an LBRP, and leave, the danger is that it can work just like those "house blessings" that you see on paranormal shows that almost never work. The activity quiets down for a short period of time and comes back with a vengeance.

To actually clear a space and make it stick, you need to use the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram along with the LBRP, because that will extend the banishing into macrocosmic space and actually clear out the building. That combination is much more like a "nuclear option" than the LBRP on its own.