Sage Cleansing Ritual

- Open every door and window in your home including closets, dens, storage areas, attic and the basement, and in particular where you feel the most energy.

- Stand at your front door and light the stick until you have a flame, blow on  it until the flame goes out and embers smoke. You can let the stick stay on fire until you are satisfied with the burning area before blowing the flames out to embers. Keep the lighter with you as it may go out. (Note down when and if this happens.)

- Begin by walking the heavies traffic areas moving the stick in a sweeping motion up, down and side to side, saying a prayer of empowerment. You can use the prayer of St. Michael, or simpler more direct prayers that you feel comfortable saying out loud and confidently. (You do not need to perform this alone)

- Walk through all your rooms, waving the sage smoke in a sweeping motion and using your free hand to push the smoke into corners from top to bottom, along walls, around windows and along the ceiling and floor lines.

- After you have cleared your entire home including heavily used outdoor areas, use your hand to make a cup over the smoke and push the smoke over your head and face. You do not need to inhale the smoke. Use the stick and wave it around your body from head to toe and front to back to force any energies not your own away from your body.

You can let the stick burn out on its own or extinguish it as you see fit. You may want to keep the remainder Sage as a tool of self empowerment or for future use. Allow the remainder of the smoke and smell to leave your home before closing your windows and doors. You may need to repeat this ritual.

• Gnomes, Earth, Dirt
• Nymphs, Water, Crystals
• Sylphs, Air, Feathers
• Salamanders, Fire, Candles

Earth
This is the element that stands for grounding/earthing effects including all forms of nature, money, prosperity, growth, rules/laws and responsibility. If you want to represent earth on your altar, you can use a pentacle, stones, or a bowl of earth or rock salt. For earth spells, crystals and herbs are often used since they are natural items directly from the earth.

• Earthing is an essential part of all ritual and magical work. We use it to return any excess energy raised but not released during our work, thus allowing those energies to be returned to the powers of the Earth and the Universe.
• Grounding is a way to connect with the Earth. We use it to draw energy from a pure source. We also use it to purify energies we draw from ourselves and from other sources.

Water
Water energies are often used in spells for love, fertility, friendship, healing and sleep. But spells don’t often call for actual water. Crystals like aquamarine and moonstone make great “water” additions, as do herbs like lilac. A chalice is the usual altar tool to represent the element of water. If you do use water in your water spells, try to use naturally collected rainwater.

Air
The qualities that air represents include ideas, inspiration, creativity, intelligence, travel, freedom, new beginnings and mental clarity. If you want a spell for any of these ideas, you should incorporate air into your magic. Items like feathers, bells, incense and quartz all have air attributes.

Fire
Candle spells are the most popular kind of witchcraft spell, and are a good example of using fire. Fire should be used for spells involving passion, energy, strength, creativity and anger. Items for fire include candles as well as volcanic rocks or glass and the athame. Fire spells usually involve candles, but not always.

• An athame or athamé is a ceremonial double-edged dagger.

This article is intended to educate you in the absolute basics of elemental magic. INPHO does not practice or subscribe to any occult practices. Use information provided here upon your own risks.

Shadow people are dark, human shaped figures that can appear suddenly in locations not known for hauntings, in locations with a traumatic past or in locations with lots of negative human emotions.  Similar to apparitions, shadow people can appear somewhat solid, translucent, full-boded or partial. Most often they have a human form, however they can take on other forms. If the shadow is small and stays low to the grown these forms of shadows are known as elementals.

Nothing is formally understood about shadow people. The best folk information is believed that shadow people are ordinary apparitions that appear “darker” in color, while others classify them as a different and independent phenomena. INPHO network subscribes to the view that shadow people are distinct from apparitions due to the large volume of reported behavior that only pertains to this type of phenomenon such as shadow people “following” a person for a number of years, even though that person has had no loved ones die recently or has any other reported haunting. Shadow people should also not be confused with a form of sleep paralysis which is sometimes accompanied by the perception of a dark or shadowy figure in one’s bedroom.

Characteristics

• Shadow people are described as “darker than night” and usually have a male human form.
• People report that these unexplained entities slowly vanish in a seemingly intimating manor when observed.
• Shadow person may manifest and not disappear for some time, even if observed.
• Shadow people may be found in locations with traumatic history.
• People with high levels of distress, abuse or negative emotions may suffer from shadow people visit.
• Shadow people are sometimes described as wearing some form of coat or hat.

It is not understood if shadow people are ghosts, demons or a distinct form of paranormal phenomenon. To date there are no reports of successful communication with shadow people besides the observation of being followed or watched by these strange “beings.”

Shadow People Haunting?

Shadow people are known to be found in haunted locations and are usually reported as part of the overall haunting symptoms.  From what is known in America and Latin America folk lore, keeping your home clean, full of natural light and reducing the amount of distress or substance abuse can help dramatically to get ride of these “people” pretty quickly. Religion or any type of religion cleansing has not shown to produce any results.

Woodcut Manticore

A quick list of the most commonly known mythical creatures found in pop-culture and modern literature.

Basilisk
A creature, variously described as a serpent, lizard, or dragon, said to kill by its breath or look.

Beast of Bray Road
A bear-like creature described as a hairy biped resembling Bigfoot,  unusually large, or an intelligent wolf-like creature apt to walk on its hind legs.

Centaur
One of a race of monsters having the head, trunk, and arms of a man, and the body and legs of a horse.

Cerberus
A dog, usually represented as having three heads, that guarded the entrance of the infernal regions.

Chimera
A mythological, fire-breathing monster, commonly represented with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail.

Cockatrice
A legendary monster with a deadly glance, supposedly hatched by a serpent from the egg of a chicken, and commonly represented with the head, legs, and wings of a bird and the body and tail of a serpent.

Duende
A hairy goblin-like mythological creature from Iberian, Latin American and Filipino folklore.

The Fenris Wolf
A giant wolf monster, one of the sons of Loki and Angerboda, chained by Gleipnir but destined to be released at Ragnarok to eat Odin and to be killed by Vidar.

Gorgon
Any of three sister monsters commonly represented as having snakes for hair, wings, brazen claws, and eyes that turned anyone looking into them to stone. Medusa, the only mortal Gorgon, was beheaded by Perseus.

Griffin
A fabled monster, usually having the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

Harpy
A ravenous, filthy monster having a woman’s head and a bird’s body.

Hippogriff
A fabulous creature resembling a griffin but having the body and hind parts of a horse.

Hydra
A water or marsh serpent with nine heads, each of which, if cut off, grew back as two; Hercules killed this serpent by cauterizing the necks as he cut off the heads.

Lamia
One of a class of fabulous monsters, commonly represented with the head and breast of a woman and the body of a serpent, said to allure youths and children in order to suck their blood.

Manticore
A legendary monster with a man’s head, horns, a lion’s body, and the tail of a dragon or, sometimes, a scorpion.

Minotaur
A monster, the offspring of Pasiphaë and the Cretan bull, that had the head of a bull on the body of a man: housed in the Cretan Labyrinth, it was fed on human flesh until Theseus, helped by Ariadne, killed it.

Pegasus
A winged horse, created from the blood of Medusa, that opened the spring of Hippocrene with a stroke of its hoof, and that carried Bellerophon in his attack on the Chimera.

Scylla
A sea nymph who was transformed into a sea monster: later identified with the rock Scylla.

Stymphalian Birds
A flock of predacious birds of Arcadia that were driven away and killed by Hercules as one of his labors.

Wyvern
A two-legged winged dragon having the hinder part of a serpent with a barbed tail.

Charybdis
The daughter of Gaea and Poseidon, a monster mentioned in Homer and later identified with the whirlpool Charybdis

Millions of Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, WordPress and other social users die every year- but what happens to their social accounts? Unfortunately nothing happens. Most parents can hardly handle checking their own email accounts let alone managing a multi-level blog/forum account.

It’s a growing problem for social-networking sites and often more so for the eFriends and relatives left behind. Some social network site like LinkedIn have auto reminders to “reconnect” or to “confirm connection” that is sometimes sent from a deceased friend or relative’s account automatically.  Some social sites might auto-delete a dead persons account and this too can add have a negative effect on friends and relatives.

Last year Twitter announced that it had updated its policy so that relatives can choose to delete or archive the accounts with prof that the account holder has died and that the person contacting twitter is directly related.

Archiving or deleting a social account can prevent digital reminders that may cause pain to friends and family.

Twitter’s policy is a step in the good direction to managing the ‘online-undead’ but some believe it doesn’t go far enough and there is an increased attention on what the bereaved can or can’t do with online accounts of dead ones. For example, Twitter doesn’t allow relatives access to the deceased’s account or allow accounts to be transferred ones they have been notified of the death.

Some users have asked if its a good idea to allow online profiles to stay as a memorialized account.  From the standpoint of a paranormal investigator, yes this would be useful information. Facebook does offer a way for users to use the account as a memorial and friends can post messages or condolences on the wall. Psychiatrists have suggested that the ever growing attachment to online friends has grown so would such e-memorials and its an additional way to help in dealing with bereavement.

How to Manage a Dead Relatives Social Network

1. Gather copies of  death records, online death statements and related information that you may need to identify that your relative has passed away.

2. Contact, via email but do not send sensitive information yet, customer service for the social sites. Google may be a bit tricky as they don’t usually offer email customer service. Explain your situation professionally and indicate what you wish to accomplish.

3.  Provide necessary information ones it’s requested.

4. After you have access consider posting necessary information to inform users of the situation such as a copy of a memorial flyer ect. If you are instructed that the account will have to be deleted, politely insist on your behalf. As most social sites are free, threatening to sue my not work in  your favor.

If you feel this is not enough consider created a blog in memory of your relative and post their story and social network screen names so that you can others can control or research your loved one.

How to Manage your Social Network Portfolio incase of Death

1. Consider compiling a hard copy of your online profiles with links, screen names, passwords and what you would wish to happen to your social accounts incase.

2. Leave this hard copy with your will, an attorney or in care of a trusted family member. If you decide to include your bank login information, please take extra care in guarding against this information being lost or used without your permission.

Always update your information as emails changed, new social networks are constantly being created and your last-wishes may change. With that said, INPHO wonders if some day well have ghost who instead of saying ‘booo’ at night might whisper ‘update my statuuuuus.’  (We apologize if that was distasteful. )

The show is very informative and is more mature than other “feral” ghost shows such as ghost-adventures and ghost-hunters. We highly recommend the show and hope that it returns to SyFy next season.

Introduced by Joshua P. Warren on ‘all topics considered,’ Coast to Coast AM radio show hosted by George Noory.

Mirrors have been present in the paranormal since perhaps the mirror was invented. A few instances include Black Mirror Scrying, Mirrors as Portals and Mirrors cages.  Another popular practice is covering mirrors soon after a death of a loved one, or on Halloween as mirrors are believed to be able to trap the spirit of the loved one or allow ghostlies to enter your home.

Oh my and who can forget the 7 years bad luck for breaking one. As soon as this potential device is tested all if any results will be posted.

*Milligauss is quite a small unit for measurement of magnetic field strength.  One can easily generate magnetic field of several milligauss. Info provided by Southern California Edison.

“…the jinn are an inter-dimensional being that have existed before the human race and used to interact with humans far more in the past than they do now…”

The jinn are mentioned frequently in the Qur’an, and infact have a chapter dedicated to them called Sūrat al-Jinn or Chapter of the Jinn. The habitat of Angels are considered to be the sky whereas the earth is for the Jinn. In the Quran, it is stated that humans are created from the earth and Jinn from smokeless blue fire.

Some Ways to Ward-Off Jinns:

• Jinns can be weakened by iron as in an iron bracelets, horse shoes and so on.
• In middle-Eastern folk lore, you can have an Islam Priest try and communicate with the Jinn in order to find out the Jinn’s intention, but not ward it off.
• One can try to use Jesus Christ and the Bible to push it away, however Jinns do not believe in Jesus so this may not work and may make the encounter increase.
• You can invoke the help of Arch Angel Micheal.
• In some believes it is thought that every person has a jinn counter part or a jinn-twin.

As science was evolving, it had to first pull away from its roots. And as all thing different, was similar in the same way. Some of the woodcuts depict demons other woodcuts, dramas and others of random objects related to the occult. Most woodcuts of these very early times show very obviously, depictions of mental and physical formalities.