What is Protection?

What is Protection?

Tonata:……..Good evening my friends.

Let me look once again at Protection.

The basic teachings need to be spoken of again and again. Indeed one of the most basic is that of protection. It is not really understood by so many people for the subject is surrounded by a world of superstition and mumbo-jumbo ritual. It is as if particular signs, rituals, symbols or formulae of words will somehow banish, protect or do the magic thing that is required all by themselves. I say this is sheer nonsense.

Let me explain something about protection.

There are just two kinds of protection. One is to do with spirituality while the other is to do with psychic power. Both kinds are required in magical and spiritual work, for it is dangerous to rely only on one. Let me begin with spirituality.

A picture that comes to mind is that the brighter the light that shines, the deeper the shadows become – a very simple picture to see. Another is that if you have a single candle shining in the darkness, then moths will be drawn to it. If you keep both these pictures in mind then you describe how it is concerning spirituality.

There is a constant battle going on between the negative and the positive, between the light and the dark, between good and evil. This concept is very real and not just a religious idea. Also it is not as if evil is just an absence of goodness. Those people who are regularly involved in such a battle, in such a fight, would find it so easy if all they had to do was to sit down and just concentrate on goodness and hope that the evil would disappear! It does not do so. The physical analogy of light and dark does not hold here if you say that darkness is just an absence of light, for the evil or spiritual darkness is real, just as the goodness or spiritual light is real.

Yet despite my saying something just now that seems to be the opposite, spiritual light is itself a form of protection. What I am saying is that although spiritual light is a form of protection it does not make the evil disappear as physical light banishes physical darkness. What it does do is make it very difficult or impossible for the evil to get near. As a person turns towards that spiritual light, as a person begins to resonate with it or the light shines in that person in some way, then something of the perfect nature of spiritual light begins to shine through that person. Even if it is just a glimmering to begin with, that is in itself a form of protection. Those beings whose nature shows that they belong with the negative or the spiritual darkness find that they cannot approach. The light is too bright for them, too uncomfortable for them, and they cannot break through. The greater the spirituality, the brighter the light, the more uncomfortable the approach!

Frustration, anger, jealousies and bitterness are all kinds of negativity, which erode the soul, which seek to bring a person down. Through such emotions as these, the forces of evil seek to weaken a person’s natural defences and in time feed off the increased negativity. Yet in all religious teachings, there is much being said about the ways of love compared with the ways of the lower nature of mankind. The forces of negativity make free use of these lower more basic natures, but as spirituality grows there is less chance of the person being used in this way. So you see spirituality is itself a kind of defence.

As I said, the brighter the light, the darker the shadows or the more the moth is drawn to the candle. So as a person matures spiritually, although there may be less chance of that individual being used for negative ends and their lower nature to be turned against them, the forces of frustration and negativity are more assuredly drawn to them and surround that person. This is most important, for although they themselves may not be used so easily in this way, other people who they meet or have dealings with, may be more readily influenced by such forces, or be used in some way against the more spiritually mature person.

It is dangerous for a mere mortal to know a saint and in turn a saint should be prepared for trouble. Although the saint may be less likely to be used by such forces, the mortal unfortunately is more likely to get caught up with more challenges. That is the way of spiritual growth.

Another danger that follows on from this kind of protection occurs when that person relying simply upon spirituality for protection finds that they are ill, or when there is an accident or a misfortune falls upon them. If they are tired or they are exhausted, then they are also more vulnerable. It is at these times of greater vulnerability that these forces of negativity and darkness come against them, will press home their attack more assuredly. At such times, the person may become hurt, damaged or even possibly defeated by the forces of darkness. It requires a super human countenance to withstand such forces when all defences are down. With the Christ on the cross he did not succumb. Others undoubtedly would have.

Another form of protection, therefore, is also needed, but this kind involves something of psychic power. This is more to do with a talisman, amulets, charms or thought forms, as in magical rites or yet shields of prayer, however you like to describe them. In your opening ritual you imagine a circle around you. That is a form of protection of this kind.

When a person invokes this visualised symbol, there is a construction, an actual construction, of a thought form. It is a reality at the level of thought, and it forms an actual defence that creatures of spirit find difficulty getting through. The more potent the symbol, the stronger the defence is. Yet that potency of symbol depends in some way upon the power of the people who are visualising the symbol. It is something to do with their strength as well as the aptness of that symbol. A cross is a very potent symbol of protection for a Christian, but it would have very little meaning or significance for a Buddhist. It would be exactly the same vice-versa with a Buddhist symbol for a Christian. In my time and place symbols of Ra, and all the gods, were effective. The aptness as well as the intensity of thought must be thought through, so religious belief obviously is a factor to be taken into consideration.

The circle is a universal symbol of protection. It is obvious that those who are within it have a wall around them. Such symbols of protection that are effective are brought about by the will of the person, whereas defence wrought through spirituality, is something of the very nature of the person themselves, something of their maturity in such matters. Psychic protection is an act of will; it is deliberately put into place, while spirituality as a protection just ‘is’.

Shape and the properties of different materials affect psychic forces. I have said things about this before, but at the moment though, may I point out, that although psychic symbols of protection are of the thought form level of being rather than of the physical level, if a symbol in a physical form helps a person to think, then it is best to use it. The physical object is an aid to that mental exercise and act of will. It is not the fact that circles on the floor, pentagrams, stones, metal, gold, and so on are of any great protection in themselves. Just of themselves they really are not, but when they are put together in a ritual of some kind, sincerely performed, then it creates a thought form at different levels of being and so becomes effective.

We are talking of something to do with a working faith. What makes the symbol effective is belief or faith. If the person is just visualising and has great faith in their ability or the ability of others working with them, then the defence is effective. If that person believes that by following through a particular ritual then it will become effective, then it becomes effective. Whatever helps in increasing faith is therefore a way of increasing protection.

Going back to actual objects then, physical shapes that are drawn or charms that are worn, although they are physical outer objects, they can hold inner power. A talisman, amulets and charms can be charged. The outer shape involving this inner power or psychic defence is empowered through complex rituals of protection. The curses that you hear of to protect our Egyptian burial places were very real and it has been only a matter of time, sometimes great time, before that power leaked away from the physical, dissolving and leaving only the physical empty shell.

Sometimes psychic protection is more effective when a physical object is used as a focus, but the danger of this kind of protection is that of superstition. There often comes upon the less able a relying on the actual artefacts themselves, or upon the power of others who imbued this artefact with protective power, so the faith of the user becomes minimised. If it is that a person must wear a particular charm in order to feel comfortable then they are in fact dis-empowering themselves most certainly. If that charm in reality has no power imbued by a magician or priest then there is nothing but superstition that is keeping the person comfortable, and at the first wave of attack disaster results! So protection of places and individuals must involve a living power and not just a comforting idea. It involves something of a person’s spiritual stature or spirituality and it involves something of their working faith, their prayer or their psychic ability to produce a protection.

There are times when psychic protection is most certainly needed especially when you open up your sensitivity to psychic and spiritual forces. There are also times when such armour should be rested and the natural defences of spirituality are sufficient.

Neglect one or the other at your peril. Understand and work upon both for safety and advancement.