By Katrina Rasbold
In researching for this article, I looked back over a blog post I wrote on Patheos Pagan in 2015 and wow, have my views ever changed! One of the great benefits to blogging and journaling is the opportunity to review and reconisder our position from years before and notice how much we learned in the interim. Back then, I had a more naive perspective on psychic attack and since that time, I have performed literally thousands of cleansings on people suffering from the effects of untreated psychic attacks, plus wrote a book on the subject. Where at that time, I considered true psychic attack to be uncommon, I now know it happens all the time. People are so much more comfortable slinging baneful energy around than I ever imagined back then.
Launching and maintaining a true psychic attack takes tremendous amounts of energy, focus, and time, which led me to believe that people were mostly too lazy to bother. I seriously underestimated the aggregate fury among magical and non-magical people.
It’s true that some people who think they are under psychic attack are, in fact, “Seeing demons behind clothes baskets,” (as my mother would have said) meaning that people often see malice where there is none and add up two and two and get seven. It is more comfortable to imagine some external “big bad” sent by someone than to think our own demons, secrets, traumas, and just dumbass decisions have come home to roost.
We may have understandable puzzlement over long stretches of pure bad luck. Even the most practiced mage has calamity times where one thing goes wrong after another to the point that it defies the odds. Rather than presume malice, we must consider the situation through meditation and ask, “What is going on? What is the Universe trying to tell me with these derailments?”
Likely, we went off course at some point and our lives became increasingly jacked up so we will stop and evaluate. When we carefully, objectively trace backward to the last time things were right, we can usually identify where things went amiss and why. Often, it is because our personal agendas got in the way of something The Universe told us to do.
That is what the evolved spirit does and honestly, it may be effective and might not. We may simply be down on the Wheel of Life and it is our turn to be in the mud rather than on the top riding in the sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of the world needing to turn a few more times before we are out of the muck. It happens.
But what about those authentic psychic attacks?
It is easier curse, cross, or hex someone than you may imagine. I talk about the differences in those in this post.
Our thoughts and our words have power. We cannot call ourselves energy workers or mages or Witches without believing that and we can’t have it both ways. Thoughts, words, and actions generate from energy and intention. We gave the energy direction when we identify someone with whom those thoughts, words, or actions are associated. That creates an open bridge that sends the energy directly to the person in focus and the energy reaches them on a spirit level, which can impact their mind and body as well as a contaminate. The greater the malice, resentment, or anger imbued in the energy, the stronger the impact. You do not have to intend to harm them for that harm to occur.
Immersing in intense, negative feelings regarding another person or their behavior, regardless of whether those feelings are justified, can cause, and often DO cause, a negative eneretic reaction in that other person.
This means that any of us who encounter others even indirectly are at risk for psychic attack and, whether we like to admit it or not, any of us is at risk for causing psychic attack. This could be from “ordinary” human experiences such as road rage, a volatile family holiday dinner, or anger resulting from reading a social media comment you make.
For most people, it is unhealthy to isolate and have no connection with others and the majority of people are at risk for psychic attack. Even being around someone we care about whose behavior sometimes causes us to cringe affects us on a spirit level. Does this mean we avoid other people? I am an advocate of distancing from anyone who behaves in a way that is harmful to us or whose behavior we do not condone. On a practical level, that is not always possible and even if you do control who has access to your energy, you do still live in the world and will likely encounter negative energy intrusion at some point. The key is to get clean and perform regular spiritual hygiene to make sure you stay clean.
What are the symptoms of psychic attack?
The most valuable tool in identifying psychic attack is to know your own energy vibration and baseline on an intimate and instantly identifiable level. The way you do that is through (many people do not want to hear this) meditation. By sitting in a quiet, sacred space without distractions of any kind, you can be present with yourself and your breathing, paying close attention to what feels like you and does not feel like you.
A professional spiritual cleansing removes any extraneous energy from your energetic field so that only you remain. This also helps you to see how you feel without anyone else’s energy influencing you.
Once you know well what your energetic baseline feels like, it is easier to notice when something feels off. Sometimes, a person close to you who knows you well realizes there is a problem before you do.
Not everyone responses to psychic attack with the same symptoms, but most people are consistent with how they respond to an attack. They have a “tell” or a trigger that alerts them that there is a problem. For me, it is the onset of “victim” mentality, which is not my usual way of being in the world. When I start to think and speak like I am being victimized in some way, that immediately informs me that something is off in my energy. Nightmares are another identifier for me. Usually, my dreams are vibrant and either extremely banal or interesting and fun. When I have nightmares, it tells me that I have an energetic intrusion of some kind.
The following list is not inclusive because each person will have their own set of reactions to psychic attack. This list is merely some of the most common symptoms and you will quickly notice that there are many mundane reasons why a person might experience these symptoms. The main thing to look for is an abrupt change in your energy baseline; a behavior that is noticeably different than it normally would be.
- Severe fatigue the victim cannot shake
- Fearfulness, paranoia, pessimism, and hopelessness
- Severe headaches
- Anxiety attacks/panic attacks
- Nightmares, particularly of being chased or someone/something trying to kill the victim
- Inexplicable coldness in part of the body or the whole body
- Severe pain/tension in the solar plexus, stomach, or intestinal area
- Depression, suicidal feelings, or desire to self-harm, not traceable to any known issue
- Shaking and trembling
- Loss of confidence in a normally self-assured person
- Abrupt onset of “victim” mentality
- A series of unexpected, severe health problems
- Sudden onset of and increase in “bad luck” or a downturn in fortune
Obviously, consult a physician if physical symptoms persist, but if medical staff are unable to find any physical cause for your symptoms, consider that the cause might, instead, be energetic. Mind, body, and spirit are intimately connected and when one of those three is compromised, the other two not only suffer, but will often suffer demonstratively.
In next week’s “Witch At The Crossroads,” we will move on to the second part of this series, called “Managing Psychic Attack.”
Want to know more right away? I wrote a whole book on it!
Katrina Rasbold is a professional Witch, published author, priestess, and editor of Green Egg Magazine. She and her husband, Eric, are the creators of the CUSP spiritual path and owners of Crossroads Occult. She and Dahlia Rose host the popular livestreamed video broadcast “Crossroads of Cognizance” most Thursday afternoons. You can reach her through www.katrinarasbold.com.