Banishing rituals

The Obsession with Banishments

Both Jason Miller and RJ Stewart discuss the obsession with banishment that is prevalent in Western Occultism. RJ notes that you can't really exclude anything from your circle as long as you have some trace of it or fear of it within you, which makes sense, because holding onto any such feeling is essentially an invitation in. I do banishing, but I don't do it as an everyday magical activity. There's a specific time and place for banishing and knowing what to banish is equally as important as when to banish.

For example, I have done banishing rituals for people I wanted to move on from in my life. They weren't in my life any more, but I was holding onto the memories, which wasn't healthy. In most cases, I was holding onto a lot of pain and anger toward those people and I didn't feel there was any other resolution. So the banishing served as a way for me to resolve those feelings and let go of the memories I was holding on to justify the feelings. Since doing the banishment I haven't really thought of those people or the memories.

When I clean my house, I use the cleaning activity as a banishment ritual, but in my daily work I want to connect with the various spiritual allies I work and since I've developed a relationship of trust with them its important to me that they are present in my space. They are as much a part of my life as anything else and to banish everyday would be to tell them they are not welcome.