A Mystic Guide to Cleansing & Clearing | Review

How to clear or cleanse your tarot deck, or yourself, is a much asked question in Facebook groups like Tarot Professionals. Not everyone does it, but many of us spiritual workers do think that being aware of energy around us is an important practice. Enter David Salisbury’s A mystic guide to cleansing & clearing. Salisbury wrote a so-called Cleansing Introduction and while I at first thought it would be specifically catering to Pagans I soon realized this book needed a place on The Queen’s Sword due to its usefulness in a broader sense.

Like I said, initially I thought he was only talking to, for example, witches. That came from 1. the blurb mentioning energetic methods geared for the Pagan mind and 2. it began with a chapter on (how to make/do) besoms, wands, spells and addressed witches. Perhaps interesting for many, but a lot of *you* (my readers) are also atheists, agnostics or part of one of those well-known monotheistic religions. “Pagan” doesn’t speak to you, so would this be useful? With a book on practicing spells as a witch I would lose many in a heartbeat. But already a few pages in I could see A mystic guide to cleansing & clearing has much to offer.

Cleansing tools
Think about cleaning or clearing the room/yourself from (negative) energy after an altercation or working with a client. Remember that feeling you can get after you had an argument with a nasty person or walk into a room which has just seen a fight. It feels heavy, or you can feel grubby. David Salisbury promises ‘teachings from the Western magical traditions that’ll arm you with the tools necessary to clear your space, cleanse your body, cast out negative entities, and clear the slate for a fresh start’. And after reading it I think this guide for everyday spiritual cleaning is suitable for whatever religion, belief or lack thereof you uphold.

The book is divided into several handy chapters. The first deals with cleansing tools and musical instruments like singing bowls for example. All simple introductions which have to do with materials and sounds for those new to clearing. David’s model is basically a clean body is a clean soul.

Energy sponge
What he means by clean body-clean soul is that the human body is like a sponge, it absorbs influences of everything around it. Sometimes when you feel awful a shower will help. We as human beings have this receptivity, and from this comes our compassion and empathy. The problem with that is that the body can’t always tell the difference between energy signatures that inform us and those that are a threat. That’s why spiritual cleansing on a regular basis is important; physical, mental and spiritual.

Why the regular thing you might ask? I like his metaphor here: see your body like the saucepan you cook in on a daily basis. If you clean that regularly it is easy to take out all the grub. But if you let it sit on the stove and have the dirt build up it will be very hard to scrape all the scum off the surface. It’s the same if you’ve never done any cleansing of your body (oops, that is going to take me some work then!). At one point some of us can feel depleted after a tarot or healing session, after several readings -or worse 1, or even after a simple activity or altercation with someone. If you’re chronically ill it has a reason. if not, it might be that you’re not taking care of your energy field. And those are my words, not David’s.

David Salisbury, author of A Mystic Guide to Cleansing and Clearing.

For dummies: exercises
The whole book is divided into different body and environment segments, so easy to check and look things up. In those segments he explains how he sees the role of the soul, the three parts of the self (fFetch, Talker, God soul), our chakras, auras, possible cords and the cleaning of our environment. Every chapter and every part of a chapter has its own background, research and exercises. Think an exercise for the alignment of your auras, how to nurture the three parts of your self and how to deal with traumatic things energy-wise (if they still have a hold over you).

David suggests several mindfulness/meditation techniques, working with sense and scent, cleansing baths and many other forms of clearing. Now, if you are a little skeptic or not used to working with concepts like these, I can totally imagine some exercises seem ridiculous or difficult in the beginning. But bear with me, A Mystic Guide to Cleansing & Clearing is very down to earth. In every chapter the how, the when and why is explained in normal language without any woo-woo. He uses metaphors in daily life to make you understand as well. For example that working with chakra’s is like increasing muscle mass in the gym. Or that sensing soul chards and cords is actually not easy at all – you won’t just full a thread running from your head to someone else. So, cut yourself some slack if you think: Huh, I don’t feel *anything*. First of all: there might not be anything to feel and if you do feel something is wrong, just try another day. Or ask for help.

Junk food healing
What I also liked about this whole book – besides it being so down to earth – was that he managed to make it into a learning experience as well. You’ll read about rituals in different religions, about the fact that being hexed is very rare and that cleansing and clearing is no miracle cure either. Like he’s saying, if you don’t take care of your health by eating junk food every day a healing bath won’t help you one bit. But it might help you start getting better the moment you incorporate a healthy diet. And it’ll definitely be a good beginning if you haven’t thought about your spiritual energy before (always feeling like the proverbial truck ran you over after a reading while you eat and drink well enough? You could start here and you’ll also learn how to *not* shut yourself off while doing so.)

I think what won me over indefinitely when it came to A Mystic Guide to Cleansing & Clearing was: Salisbury knows what he’s talking about, he has experience in many traditions, despite not being linked to any god(dess) myself I didn’t feel uncomfortable, and it seems he has a healthy skepticism towards weird claims himself (too).

Conclusion
Despite him stating this is by far not a complete work on cleansing and clearing I think he has still done something remarkable. With A Mystic guide to Cleansing & Clearing he’s written Cleansing for dummies that’s approachable,very practical, with loads of useful information and without the New Age airhead stigma even coming close. In the meantime it even informs the reader on cultures, myths and giving tons of tips and recipes in the process.

I think it is a great acquisition for every energy worker, beginner or already aware of many tricks of the trade. I would almost say it’s a must-read for everyone a little energy-sensitive and engaging in human interaction. Three exceptions: you are a true Hermit, you don’t believe in cleansing no matter what – but why are you still reading this then 😀 – or… you were looking for that quick fix on high cholesterol.

You can pre-order A Mystic Guide to Cleansing & Clearing on Amazon.