As you develop your spiritual practice, you'll realize how important it is to develop a spiritual hygiene and spiritual protection practice too. When we open up to the spiritual realm, we become a beacon to spirits of all energetic vibrations and unfortunately that means we become the target of low level energies and entities very easily. It's like wandering through an open field on a muggy day with zero bug spray knowing you have O positive blood and hoping the mosquitoes don't bite you.

So here's 5 different ways you can set up spiritual protection and cleanse your energy field to keep yourself clear.

Get some tourmaline. There are a lot of crystals that provide spiritual protection, but tourmaline has been the most effective for me. Obsidian, tiger's eye, and selenite are also great protection stones, but something about tourmaline really puts up a barrier for negative spirits. I place it above the doorways in my home and even sleep with it under my pillow for extra nighttime protection. You can even create crystal grids by placing a combination of crystals around your home and building a barrier from door to window. Place your crystals under the full moon each month to cleanse the negative energies from them and renew their natural vibration.

Sage, Palo Santo, and Anointing Oil are your friends. Our homes can become cluttered with stuffy energies from people coming and going, intense emotions and experiences, and through the activities we choose to do in our homes. When the energy in our homes is off it can create access for lower level beings that match that vibration to come in seemingly uninvited, making spiritual protection extremely important. Cleansing your home raising the energetic vibration eliminating access points for these energies. Different types of energies and beings might require different types of cleansing combinations. For a general energy clearing to set your home energy back to baseline, sage is great. As you walk around each room in your home with the sage, you state that negative energies must leave and once you finish clearing out the old energy I always call in good energies like peace, joy, and abundance. For lower level energies like ghosts, palo santo works really well. Palo santo is a blessed wood, so essentially a holy wood, that packs a little oomph and removes darker beings that sage might only irritate. If you've tried both and you're still experiencing negative paranormal activity, it MIGHT be a demon. Anointing oil works well for this if the entity isn't attached to a person in the home at all. You can anoint every door and window frame in your home with oil in the shape of a cross while commanding the demon to leave. Remember that we have God-given authority over all powers and principalities in the spiritual realm (Romans 8:38-39). We can command them to leave just as Jesus did. Make your front door the last door and anoint both the inside and outside frames. If the activity persists, you may want to seek out guidance for removing the entity from anyone in the home or have someone come bless the home for you. Once things are back to normal, I recommend a monthly palo santo cleansing for maintenance, but if you have activity in your home it would be wise to cleanse daily until the activity stops and then weekly before moving to monthly.

Break out the salt. Salt is a powerful energy barrier and energy cleanser. It's highly effective at preventing most entities from entering your space if the home is already clear. You can line your doorways to the exterior of the home with a thick line of salt, and you can sprinkle the salt into the four indoor corners of your home. Additionally, you can mix up salt water in a spray bottle and spray surfaces in your home to cleanse them periodically. Soaking in an epsom salt bath is great for cleansing yourself of lower energies as well. I often do this during the full moon when it's time to really release and refresh my energy for the next cycle.

Lock your mirrors. Mirrors are portals for the spirit world. I don't understand the science of it, but I've experienced it firsthand. I had tons of paranormal activity in my home at the beginning of my spiritual awakening even after cleansing and protecting my home because I have giant mirror doors on my closet in my bedroom. Every night without fail I would feel spirits enter my room and cause havoc. After many sleepless nights, I finally learned about mirror locking. You can lock mirrors with anointing oil, florida water, holy water- even your own spit can provide spiritual protection. Start by cleaning the mirror with windex three times in a clockwise direction. After that, take palo santo and move the smoke around the mirror three times clockwise and then three times counter clockwise. Once you've cleansed it with smoke, take your base of choice (mine was spit because it was all I had at the time) and mark the four corners of the mirror with a protection sigil. I used a cross for mine and I finished by putting one in the center and stating that nothing could enter through those mirrors without my permission. The activity ceased.

Shield up. Even if you've locked down your home and made it a safe haven for you energetically, you still have to go out into the world and interact with crazy energies every day. Everything done in the spiritual realm is done by intentions since we don't have physical bodies over there. So when we set intentions here in the physical realm, we are tapping into our spiritual divinity and the energies and entities MUST abide by them. As long as you can slightly visualize, it's easy to put spiritual protection around yourself and set intentions for the day. One way is you can envision a white light starting above your head and closing down around your feet in a cone while stating that nothing is allowed to influence your energy without your permission. Another way is by envisioning a white light unfurling from your heart space in a circle around you. It can be twice your size or as big as your property if you're in your home. This heart space light is such a high vibration that nothing lower than its vibration can exist in that space. It's very powerful against demonic entities too. You can also ask the angels to put up protections around you, to walk with you, or to even remove negative energies from around you. I've even asked them to set up protection around my property and found a feather on my doorstep the next day. Angel energy is powerful as they are primarily divine warriors, healers, and messengers. Stating whatever you want to occur is also very powerful as you set the vocal intention of what you expect to happen. Some powerful intentions are "no one can influence my energy without my permission" and "nothing is allowed to communicate with me unless I allow it or invite it." Those are good protections if you're expermienting with psychic divination or mediumship.

The more you follow these practices, the more you'll feel the effects of them and the power behind them. Most of these spiritual protection practices teach us to trust Spirit and to step into our Divine authority. After a while, you'll realize that lower level entities can only access us if we give into fear and you'll easily see them for what they are- powerless beings relying on illusion to give them some semblance of control You are far more powerful than they are and they live in fear of the day you wake up and realize that. So set up protections and step into your power!