In the way of believers, I once met a woman at a business conference who has talents as a medium and who is connected to the angelic realm. We spent an evening sharing some of our magickal experiences. My role in serving her was to help her accept that darkness is real, and to start thinking about integrating her own shadow.
There is no such thing as opening yourself to spirit realms without putting yourself at risk of experiencing negative entities. My first exposure to this was watching a person I love suffer from psychic attacks. I could only accept what they said was happening was real because I had chosen to believe, and I knew and trusted this person.
I hadn’t had those experiences myself, however, and while I had been told that negative entities had been removed from me in soul extractions, and I could feel a difference when they were gone, I still didn’t really realize what it meant to be walking in the world with these invisible things all around us.
At one point in my spiritual process, I was impatient. I had had a taste of magick, and I wanted more. I was reaching, and wanting to push myself. Around that same time, three separate events happened: first, my six-year-old son climbed over the fence into our neighbours’ yard to retrieve a ball, and was attacked by an invisible entity.
My husband heard him yelling, “Get off, get away from me!” but when he looked, he couldn’t see anything. Our son wouldn’t talk about it, and told us first that it was too scary to involve us, and then later insisted that he was imagining things.
We knew enough to suspect that this was more than just imagination. We made an appointment with our shaman to have him looked at and learned that he had claw marks all over his energetic field. He was healed, we got help dealing with the entity, and then went through the challenge of trying to explain to our son that in spite of the fact that it was very frightening, it was not a good idea to pretend that it was ‘just his imagination’. Because this shit is real.
Within days of that, my husband had a dream of doing battle with a demon. When he woke up, the same son described the dream to a ‘T’. He had been there. And within days of that, I had a dream that we had lost a light worker to the dark in a dramatic and terrifying way. I woke up and checked in with the lightworkers I knew and discovered it had actually happened in the 3rd dimension. My husband also noted that my younger son seemed to be having nightmares all night, and it made me suspect that he had also had a dream connection with me.
Those events made me realize that my impatience with evolving more and gaining more magickal knowledge was extremely dangerous. My kids needed safety and protection, and I became painfully aware that trying to go beyond my ability for reasons tied up in ego was a terrible idea.
“The best way to protect yourself and your family is to step into your full power.”
And yet, that didn’t mean turning my back on the whole thing. As one of my mentors said when I stated my intent to slow things right down and not strive for more than I was ready for, “The best way to protect yourself and your family is to step into your full power.”
And to do that, I need to face the dark and accept that this shit is real. During my conversation with the woman at the conference, she said, “Some of my teachers just tell me to focus on the light and everything will be ok.”
Everything will not be ok if you ignore the external darkness, or the shadow inside yourself. This also does not mean giving in to fear. It means to keep your eyes (and awareness in all realms) open and exercise caution, while also committing yourself to becoming stronger.
Another friend of mine has said she has chosen to not believe in anything supernatural or in other-worldly forces because it will help her stay safe. I’m afraid it won’t. Denial is not a protective shield. Acceptance – and an intentional protective shield – is a protective shield.
I appreciate that all of us have limits to what we can believe. Over and over I have had those limits pushed. And every time, it is that choice to believe that moves me past the resistance. If I chose not to believe, and took my son at his word that the attack on him was just his imagination, he’d potentially go through life with a damaged energy field and not trusting his instincts. I am not willing to take that risk because I have trouble believing something.
While in mainstream and primarily non-believing culture, I have to accept that many people will worry that I’m crazy, I don’t let that slow me from working towards a holistic understanding of the world as it exists in all the dimensions and realms, and collecting my own tools for responding to what might come at me.
As a practice for all believers, let fear be a sign that you should look closer, not turn your back. Examine those blocks in belief. Why would you draw the line there? Use some inquiry to explore the areas that make you uncomfortable. And most importantly, go slowly, and use whatever resources and supports feel right to you to collect your own spiritual tools.
Connect to the Angels, pray, use elemental power, call on your Spirit Elders or Guides or Guardians, use crystals. Heal yourself and ward yourself and your loved ones from negative intent. Awareness is key – because this shit is real.