I have a spirit in my bedroom and I have recorded him once on my voice recorder playing with the voice recorder and then he said "oops" and I feel him in my room and I believe he has been shutting the voice recorder off at night as I have it on a setting that it only records if it hears a voice or noise. I go to bed fine but when I wake up I have bruises all over my legs and I don't know  what to do. I don't want to send him away without knowing who he is but he won't tell me. And I wake up with some really bad bruises. What can I do?

Spooked in Seattle

Good Witch responds:

It sounds like you’re going through some really tough stuff. I’d love to provide you with all sorts of great advice, but possible malevolent ghosts are way beyond my area of expertise. Have you tried any of the ghost and paranormal organizations near where you live? One good resource for ghost work is your local Spiritualist church. These folks aren't, strictly speaking, Pagan (in fact, they are a denomination of New Age Christianity) but they are very good with all things "beyond the veil." Here's a link to their national (USA) organization: https://www.nsac.org/

If you do indeed have a ghost and said ghost is causing you physical harm, doing house blessings and purifications may not be enough to stop it, but it may make you feel like you’ve got at least some control in the situation while you’re looking for someone who can give you more professional help.

Believe it or not, there are a couple of spells in Scott Cunningham’s Magical Household that I’ve actually found to be very useful for getting negative stuff out of the house and preventing new negative stuff from coming in, and you can also do a little research and find rituals online. Try to make sure the rituals are from a reasonably credible source, and do the rites yourself; there are plenty of crooks out there who will tell you they can exorcise your house “for a reasonable fee,” and almost none of them are legit. Keep your ritual simple so you can do it repeatedly and fairly easily in your current stressed-out state, and choose a rite that resonates with you. You want to feel powerful while you are doing the ritual and project strength so your unseen roommate knows you mean business.

You may also want to explore the possibility that the bruises and the ghost are two separate issues. If you’re frightened or stressed out, you could be tossing and turning in your sleep and bruising yourself. I know you’re thinking that’s nuts—your bed is soft, right?—but I’m speaking from bruising-in-your-sleep experience. I once made a grave tactical error and sent my hubby to the store for soap. The stuff he brought back gave me horrible hives, which resulted in huge, horrible bruises, most likely from my tossing and turning and scratching while I slept. I looked like a Dalmatian with the measles. There are other health issues that can cause excessive bruising, so I’d recommend seeing a doctor and ruling out a medical reason for it.

Best of Luck!

Bad Witch sez:

Look, I don’t know what sort of abuse you’re used to in your daily life but this is willingly subjecting yourself to spiritual abuse. Stop it right now. No, really. That you could even articulate that you don’t want to send this invisible jerk on his way until you know who he is tells me everything I need to know.

Throw this creepy interloper out of your house. Now. Today. Immediately. You owe this non-terrestrial piece of crap absolutely nothing.

Tonight before you go to bed, speak out-loud in a strong clear voice —

You are not welcome here. You’re dead and you need to wander over to the place dead people go. Good-bye.

And you have to mean it. Withdraw your consent to this continued abuse. If you still feel him around, get a professional in your area to remove him. Then set some strong wards around your house and steel shields around your person.

Don’t look back. Don’t wonder how he is or if he’s at someone else’s house, kicking their shins all night long. Move along. Get involved with wholesome things during daylight hours and work on cultivating some sweet dreams.

You deserve better than this!