Blacklight Metaphysics

Warding or shielding the home can provide many benefits to a magical practitioner.  It can filter out psychic background “noise” or ambient energy that might make one uncomfortable in the home.  It can provide an atmosphere of comforting energy that allows a person to recharge and relax.  It can also protect those inside from random negative energies, or even the rare deliberate magical attack.  For all of these reasons, establishing effective wards for one’s home seems like good practice for those heavily involved with the magical arts. 

Establishing protective shields amounts to little more than energy control.  Warding allows for energy to be kept out of the home, but also for energy to be kept in the home.  Some wards may block certain energies while permitting others to pass through.  Others may redirect or even transmute energy, according to the desires of the occupants.  In this sense, wards act as any other element of the structure and decor of the home: to help maintain a safe a comfortable atmosphere for the occupants.

Careful thought should be given to the construction and operation of wards for the home, according to individual needs.  Will your shield be flexible or rigid in its response to incoming energy?  Will it be permeable to some kind of energy, or completely impenetrable?  If it is permeable, to what degree should it be, and will it allow energy to enter, leave, or both?  Will your protective wards consist of one strong perimeter, or several interlocking layers? How will the wards be anchored to the structure you are trying to protect?  Will incoming energy be absorbed or dispersed?  Will shields be configured to reflect negativity back to its source? 

The needs and tastes of the occupants should play heavily into all of these decisions.  If someone who likes to feel the ambient energy of the surrounding neighborhood lives in the home, a more porous shield should be considered.  If you are in an area with much negativity in it, a flexible shield may bow into the living space.  If you are in an apartment building, do you wish to ward the entire building, just your unit, or both?  If you are practicing magic in your home, do your wards allow for such energy to be released?  Do you feel comfortable with full shielding at all time, or do you want something that will activate only under certain conditions?

Other features can be incorporated into home wards.  Filters can be designed to allow some energy through, but strain out types that you don’t want.  House shields can be programmed to reflect incoming energy back to its source.  Mechanisms for notifying the occupants of intentional attacks can be developed, as can methods to identify the source of such attacks.  Shields can be self-replenishing, or can feed upon incoming energy.  Wards can be anchored to objects that can be taken to new homes in the event that the occupants move -- especially if this occurs frequently, like it would for college students -- or they can be permanently embedded into the structure.  Servitors can be designed to intercept incoming negative energy, or to maintain and repair wards and shields. 

All of these design factors should be considered, but so must the actual techniques employed in creating and maintaining wards and shields.  Many different possibilities exist, and of course they depend upon the tastes of the one creating the wards, as well as the specifics of the design and function of the defensive systems.  While I cannot cover all of the methods that could be employed, I will attempt to cover several that can be easily and effectively utilized.

Visualization:
Achieving magical consciousness and visualizing shields around the home can prove effective as well.  Armor plates can be visualized growing on the outside of the house.  Force fields can be imagined in place.  A technique popular among my circle of friends is to imagine strands of energy woven tightly within the outer walls of the structure. Walls can be visualized in the same way, and can be constructed of layers of elemental or other types of energy.  More complicated techniques can be employed, but can often be more difficult to visualize successfully.  Visualized wards and shields should be recharged or otherwise maintained on a regular basis, as many can fade over time.

Sigils:
Sigils can not only make it easier to provide a physical anchor for a defensive system, but can encode complex programming for multiple layers and structures.  One ward system that I once created had three different layers to it, and the instructions for each were encoded in a sigil, which was then combine with the other two.  Such sigils can be engraved permanently on some part of the house – preferably a central location – or can be etched into a small object placed in a similar location, which can more easily be moved to a new structure or modified according to later needs.  Less complex protective sigils can be used to create defensive charms as described above.  They can also be used to establish a perimeter, such as by inscribing the sigils along the outer walls of the house, or by etching the same protective sigil on four pieces of iron and placing them at the corners of the property.

Servitors:
Servitors can be constructed to perform many tasks related to magical defenses.  A well-programmed servitors might function in pace of a complex ward system, actively intercepting and redirecting negative energy.  A servitor might also be effective in maintaining and recharging any wards or shields put into place by other means.  If an influx of negative energy is deliberate, a servitor could be launched to track down the source of this energy.  For the particularly ambitious, a servitor might be constructed to build the entire house defensive system, in addition to maintaining it.  Of course, such servitors should be constructed very carefully and clearly, and monitored continuously to ensure that they are operating as intended. 

I have by no means presented a comprehensive analysis of magical defenses for the home, nor have I provided specific techniques for constructing such defenses.  You, the individual, must decide on you own what methods of design and implementation are best suited to your needs and ability.  Hopefully the suggestions made here will prove useful to any such endeavor.

© 2007 Chirotus Infinitum