Household Ghosts

It is not unusual to have ghosts in your home.

The Romans knew this and set up a special shrine in their home for the family ghosts, the Lares. The Lares would be told about important happens such as births and marriages, a new spouse would be introduced to the Lares, and there would be special festivals for the household ghosts throughout the year.

The Grandmother of Ghosts, or the Queen of the Lares is Mania and the Romans would leave offerings of small loaves shaped like men and women at a crossroads. So if you were having trouble with your family ghosts, you would ask Mania to look into it.

The thing to remember is that often the ghosts have as much right to be wherever they are as you do, and sometimes it is the behaviour of the mortals in a household which upsets the ghosts.

There are different sorts of ghosts, and these days we tend to think of ghosts as the spirit or left-over energy of someone who has died. When we moved into our current home we were watched cautiously by a spirit which looked like an elderly woman, this may have been the spirit of a previous inhabitant who wanted to make sure that we were going to respect her home as much as she had. She must have been satisfied with our behaviour as she soon stopped feeling the need to keep an eye on us.

We also have been visited by the ghosts of pets who have lived with us. One dog who liked to perch on the arm of the sofa during life, made his presence known to a visitor by growling at her when she put her arm on his favourite seat.

Sometimes a disruptive spirit may not be the residue of a former resident, but may be an elemental spirit who has had a house built on top of their home. If this is the case, then the elemental really has more right than you do to be where it is, and there is no wonder it gets annoyed with these humans making free with its home and paying it no heed. There is no need to panic if you have this kind of ghost, just make friends with it.

The first step is to acknowledge that the spirit is there. Very often manifestations get louder and more intrusive just because the spirits are trying to make themselves heard. One woman was having this problem with a spirit in her hall, it would throw clothes off the coat rack, make the hall cold and be a really unpleasant place to be. I told her to sit on the stairs and talk to the spirit. She told it she recognised its right to be there and just told it something about herself and her family. She told the spirit that it was welcome to live with them as long as they could find a way to get along. She made a point, as the Romans did with their Lares, of telling it any news, if she was going away she asked it to keep out intruders, and she left it a bowl of spirit food once a week (a saucer of milk and honey with bread broken up in it).  The lady and her spirit now have an excellent relationship, the home is warm and loving and feels safe and protected too - and she has caught her children sitting on the stairs talking to the spirit too.

Incidentally if you are thinking of moving house and want to take your spirits with you, tell them what is happening and find a bottle or jar with a good fitting lid. Leave the bottle with the lid off in the place your spirits manifest, or where you talk to them, and tell them that if they want to go with you, they should go into the bottle and you will take them with you.

Give this three days and you will feel the atmosphere in the house change as the spirits withdraw into the bottle. Then put the lid on the bottle - remember to warn them you are doing this - take the bottle to your new home and open it there.

Keep your ghosts happy, and they will keep your home safe and happy too.