Written by Frater TP
Psychic defense is a topic that comes up more often than I would hope when I am doing tarot readings. Several people per week inquire about whether someone has hexed, cursed, bound or magically attacked them. This article is written so as to give information to anyone who has this problem because it appears to be growing where it shouldn’t.
The first thing is to discern whether something really is a psychic attack. Essentially this is done by logically excluding all other possibilities (logic always rules out possibilities to get the final one) and this requires a grounded approach in the person who would be defending themselves. The mind can find it exciting, although terrifying, to have the attention of some “enemy” which is trying to “get them”. So if all things have been thoroughly ruled out through logic, we begin.
As a general rule, it is better to defend through shields and traps rather than counter-attack. This is not a moral assertion but a matter of energy usage and the amount of control we have of our own subconscious, microcosmically, compared to the control we have of the no-man’s-land or Wild West area of the macrocosmic mental spheres, or other microcosmic spaces which do not belong to us.
Essentially, the usual resources for strategic warfare such as the 48 Laws of Power, 36 Strategies of War and Art of War (though perhaps not the first) all apply here despite things not being on the physical level. You must know your enemy as much as possible and it is advisable to take the high ground as far as your karma (not quite the moral high ground) as well as within the mental scene of battle.
There are different severity levels of psychic attack which I have roughly categorized as follows but these have some overlap. Imagine these levels as parts of a pyramid because the higher levels build off of the lower ones and they are also far less common by thousands of times (multiplying).
Level 1 as I will call it is an accidental sending of negative energy or a deliberate sending or a very mild attack. It could be caused by other people or entities or yourself. If you cannot control your own negative thinking, you are attacking “yourself” meaning the energetic bodies that you occupy. If you do anything of clear detriment to you despite knowing this and having the ability to change it, you are also attacking yourself.
The most obvious way to stop this is basically to use aura control which for these purposes means an egg-shape surrounding you. Imagine it to be impenetrable, reflective or with wards on that stop negative thoughts and reactions to negative emotions. All of these things as well as whatever forms of spiritual hygiene you usually partake in are good practice regardless of attack. Ultimately, any skilled occultist is not bothered by these things. However most people in life are actually frequent yet oblivious victims to this kind of attack.
Level 2 of attack is someone making a deliberate effort to attack you one time in a concentrated/powerful manner. This includes people hiring an experienced occultist to attack which is usually not much different except that a dark occultist may use entities that they have bonds with to cause something. The effects of this level of attack may be job loss, a period of guilt/shame, a relationship break-up, disproportionate and disruptive karmic backlash (e.g making it tenfold), causing nightmares or anxiety over a period of days to weeks or some other thing within this kind of range.
The response to this is to notice as soon as possible and set up shields, wards and other things to block the attack. Then cast a conditional binding that is triggered only if the person tries to do anything else. It does not have to be a named person. It could simply be “the person/entity that attacked me”. All you need is something identifying them as the attacker; your Higher Self knows how to find the exact person or entity so using it’s knowledge can be extremely beneficial.
Level 3 is a group attack or a persistent attack which uses strategy to bypass or overwhelm your defenses. When a group raises energy together, the energy is magnified exponentially with each person. A group is no more than 12 but usually no more than 6 due to the fact that everyone must be in total harmony, acting as one. Satanic groups use 9. In such a case, binding is probably less useful (depending on your abilities) but the lower level methods used in combination with secrecy, diversion, and sabotage may well be enough to stop some of this level.
If it is a group, the first thing is to bind or disrupt it as a whole, which means you need as much information as possible about why you are being attacked and who by (including group identities). So find out as much information as possible; you can use this information to decide how to proceed. Such an effort is half the battle; clever attackers may attempt to limit the amount of information that you can gather by, for example, shielding their identities. In this situation, attack whatever is preventing you from getting this knowledge; it is being hidden to force you to defend in the dark whilst your enemy has night vision. Knowledge is power in this situation so long as it gives strategic advantage. Be especially vigilant concerning the veracity of the information you acquire when things are this serious, for obvious reasons. Once you have information, act strategically as required.
Aside from that, there are ways of siphoning the large amounts of energy that are being sent your way and either earthing it (so that it is neutralized), transmuting it (so that it is beneficial to you) or sending it back several times over (counter attack). What is best depends on the situation. Make sure to use caution when counter-attacking otherwise you might find it coming back more than tenfold.
An example of transmutation is to collect the vast amount of energy that was sent to you and use this same energy to break through any remaining barriers that stop you from having information that you might need. Otherwise, it might be used to put a shield around your boss so that you are not fired or to add power to protections that require energy (e.g talismans).
The Level 4 attack is anything more serious than this. It includes serious curses that are hard to lift (e.g ones that follow your soul through lifetimes) and other very sophisticated/ powerful attacks. In such a case, you want to use all previous tactics with the understanding that you are now at liberty to counter attack and use whatever devious stratagems you can come up with to win what has become a war.
Do whatever you need, preferably in line with Universal Law because if someone is a dark occultist, they are swimming against the tide in this regard. This means that if you find out that your attacker or group has some kind of karma, you can make it come early or you can talk to the forces of Saturn about making it come with a vengeance. Yes I am saying at this point that you might want to initiate into the Saturn sphere. This is not because you are becoming a dark occultist yourself but because you hopefully use your spiritual power as a representative of the Divine here on Earth. Well the job comes with powers such as being able to negotiate other people’s karma. All things appropriate, use this and similar privileges provided to you in order to bring justice (meaning balance, not revenge). In this it may be appropriate to use Gevurah as well but remember that blessing people with cleared karma (Chesed) may stop the attack in it’s tracks since a lot will have been built up with the attacker’s own persistent effort to undermine your Will. This sort of strategy is essentially summarized as the utilization of Universal Laws and Divine “mechanisms” and is most useful to the advanced Adept who is the only person really capable of dealing with this level of attack. If you are not an Adept and you find yourself under this level of assault, the first thing you must do is cast for an Adept. You don’t have to meet them on the physical plane necessarily, just get their attention and they will solve the situation because they have a responsibility to do so. There are healing lists in various places such as mystery school websites that you can add your name to as well.
Make sure that you invoke your Higher Self before performing any psychic defense, especially when in danger.
Silence
Now that we have the four levels of severity dealt with and we have strategies in place, let us emphasize the importance of silence in it’s various forms.
Prevention is ideal to keep things quiet in the first place. For the sake of conserving energy, avoid provoking people if you can help it. Don’t go looking for trouble. Additionally, do not leave yourself entirely unguarded. Set up basic general protections (without being paranoid). Make sure to close off your energy whenever you finish spiritual work. Declare yourself sovereign from those who might steal your lifeforce or have energetic cords on you etc. Your energy must be declared as your own in the spiritual context because permission is turned on by default. Qui tacet consentire videtur.
Most importantly, keep your occult abilities and practices secret. If you do tell people that you are an occultist it’s best only to do so when you want to teach people what you know (if it is public, it is not a deeper mystery), but don’t reveal the extent of your abilities. I am known to be “spiritual” but no-one privy to me being an occultist knows what powers I have, if any, except that I am “psychic” because I do this work publicly. Anecdote time; I talk to only one group of like-minded people in a casual manner and one day after criticizing harshly what somebody said on a topic of spirituality I was asked what “abilities” I have gained over my time. I replied “clearly not anger control.”
One gesture of silence which can be used in a protective manner is the Sign of Harpocrates or Sign of Silence. It is done by curling the left fist into a ball and putting this same first finger on the lower lip whilst stomping the ground firmly with the left foot. Then imagine a blue, watery vapour encircling your egg-shaped aura. This particular visualization is again linked to Harpocrates but one can use a brilliant whiteness that entirely protects the aura in a similar manner to the watery vapour except that the whiteness makes you opaque whilst the blue and watery vapour is mostly transparent. Remember that when I speak of “visualization” I am referring not just to “visual” imagination but the use of all five creative senses (or whichever are possible for you). If you have aphantasia (are unable to see in the mind’s eye) then there is simply a strong knowing which can be done in parts until you are proficient enough to combine them. For the Sign of Silence this looks like; “I see a blue vapour. It encircles my body. It envelops it in an egg shape. It is resistant to negative energies. I hear the water. I see it rise to surround me in an oval. Below my feet and above my head. It protects me.” Once proficient with this, reduce to a single awareness of “watery vapour”. Then this can be reduced to the gesture done with conviction.
The Qabalistic Cross invokes the Higher Self, seals the aura and grounds the practitioner. It is therefore useful against all attacks because the Higher Self may act to defend you or guide you on what to do. A direct invocation, even for the Neophyte, also helps.
Elemental Balance
The next thing is to balance the Elements within you. There is Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Psychic attacks of any kind will attempt to cause an imbalance in one or more of these 4 areas either through the microcosm or macrocosm. As within, so without.
Earth relates to your actions and material circumstances as well as your health and energy levels. Earth corresponds to the feet and the legs especially but also to the physical body as a whole.
Air relates to anything involving communication, travel and thoughts as well as the astral realm and the subconscious (as far as it relates qabalistically to Yesod) Air also corresponds to the chest/heart. It also relates to ego/illusion and Truth.
Water corresponds to your emotions, dreams, visions, heart-based hopes and desires, your love-life, creativity and your relationships as well as the area below the chest.
Fire relates to competition, ambition, motivations and drives, all kinds of instincts including your sexual ones, determination and the head and other parts above the chest.
Fire and Earth are a powerful combination. Water and Fire clash. Earth and Water are a powerful combination whilst Air and Earth clash. When I say that Elements clash this does not mean that these combinations are not to be used but it suggests how they might be used in a different way to the sympathetic pairs. Note that these combinations are not quite the same as what we see when using a technique of tarot reading called “elemental dignities”.
Spirit, the fifth Element, is within all 4 previous Elements and keeping them in equilibrium allows you to maintain this. Spirit relates to spiritual powers (which have come about subsequently, not ones that have been deliberately trained), the Higher Self, lifeforce, the akashic records (all knowledge of past, present and future) and similar things.
Invisibility
The Rose Cross ritual can be useful for psychic protection, secrecy and invisibility (meaning in this context not being noticed). Unfortunately, most people do it in a way that keeps them visible on the astral plane which defeats some of the intended effects of the ritual. It doesn’t matter in many cases but for our purposes it would be best to heed David Griffin’s two cents;
‘It has been claimed by Regardie and other authorities that this [The Rose Cross] Ritual does not light up the Inner Planes. Certainly, this is the case in the form which this Ritual embodies below, as it separates the different forms of vibration (that is, sound, movement, and mental imagery). Therefore, do not visualize anything while tracing the figures or projecting through them during this Ritual. Furthermore, do not vibrate Names simultaneously with movements or the tracing of lineal figures. Instead, separate each event.’ (David Griffin, Ritual Magic Manual, p.54, edition 1, Golden Dawn Publishing, Beverley Hills: Stockholm)
This is a simple point that is talked about in a different way by Josephine McCarthy in her free Quareia course. She describes a method of inner plane invisibility whereby the magician becomes so silent (meditatively) as to create a void.
There is also a fairly lengthy and wordy ceremonial ritual that involves Saturn and Binah. It is described in many places such as Frater YShY’s Adept Magic and John Michael Greer’s Circles of Power (3rd edition). This one impacts the aura and if done powerfully (especially in the more complex forms, by an advanced Adept) it might cause someone looking for you to lose sight of you “physically” if you weren’t yourself doing anything to undermine its purpose. But how? Seek and you shall find.
Be careful with your perceptions. As far as psychic defense goes, you should consider that “everything is peaceful”. As far as spiritual powers; “only god decides what is possible”. “I don’t believe/see how x is possible, therefore it isn’t” is no attitude for the critical thinker, never mind the occultist.
Assistance
If you are unsure about a specific situation or some aspect involving psychic attack/defense, it may help to consult an experienced occultist. They can help clarify firstly whether you are under attack (or how to test) and secondly how to stop it. If an Adept finds that you are under attack and they know that they have the ability to stop it then it is unseemly for them to require payment should they assist you (if you go to someone who assists as their profession though, you should expect to pay!). If they cannot assist you but are convinced of it being an attack they may give you a way to find someone who can help or basically think “person x is helped for the highest good” (a true Adept is very powerful) However, they may just as well down-play the situation, tell you to do something vaguely magical like “spin around clockwise 3 times whilst patting your head and rubbing your belly” and then Work in secret to assist you regardless of their particular abilities, in homage to the Sphinx.