Does this get under the label of pagan ritual? Cause I just did that a few days ago. Because I believed there had been so much negative energy coming from that person (now dead) towards me. Hopefully things will improve...
I suppose, but it's overkill. It's a rather simplified version of traditional talismanic ritual. However, people get too freaked out about spirits. Remember that they are dead and you are not and you have control over the situation. My teacher always said "there is more to fear from the living than the dead."
i had a hard time getting someone's energy out of my life when i first began studying wicca and paganism about 16 years ago. i now realize what causes energy to cling in ones life is not "attacks" or the other person's negativity, but our own fearful inability to let go. so, at the time, i felt really guilty because i thought it was "bad", but i wanted this person's energy out of my life so bad i did a banishing, in which i burned an effigy (the idea was not to cause harm but to release the energy from my life) as well as all his writings, the tapes he'd made me, photos, newspaper clippings, catroons, everything i had that he had ever given me. i now realize that it was one of the wisest things i've ever done, and was probably as healing for him as it was for me (because when we are clinging to someone's negativity it can hinder them from moving on with their own life by simply giving that negativity a place to go and continue growing). was it overkill? perhaps. but i had become so stuck, so attached in the aftermath of that relationship that it was hindering my ability to move on and find closure. burning everything (my parents had a fireplace in their living room so it was really a convenient banishing as well as symbolically effective) made a very strong statement to my stubborn subconscious, and i was able to move on with my life.
