The Ghost Hunter's Survival Guide: Protection Techniques for Encounters With The Paranormal

by Michelle Belanger

Ghosts can't hurt us, right? Guess again!

Chasing the unseen has become a popular American pastime, but how can we protect ourselves from mischievous ghosts, astral parasites, and malevolent spirits? Michelle Belanger, a rising star in the paranormal community, comes to the rescue with a self-defense program for ghost hunters—or anyone vulnerable to a spirit attack. Proven successful by Belanger and other paranormal investigators, these easy-to-learn mental exercises can be used to protect homes, shield against harmful entities, and remove unwanted spirit guests.

Interlacing each chapter is a gripping, true ghost investigation conducted by Belanger, which provides context for understanding when to use these potent defense strategies.

Genres: Paranormal, Nonfiction, Witchcraft, Spirituality, Ghosts, Occult

307 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2010

About the author

Michelle Belanger is an American author, singer, and television personality, widely recognized for her work on television's Paranormal State. A leading authority on psychic and supernatural topics, her non-fiction research in books like "The Dictionary of Demons" (Llewellyn, 2010) and "The Psychic Vampire Codex" (Weiser, 2004) has been sourced in television shows, university courses, and numerous publications around the world.
She has worked as a media liaison for fringe communities, lectured on vampires at colleges around North America, performed with Gothic and metal bands, including Nox Arcana, and designed immersive live actions RPGs for companies such as Wizards of the Coast. Her research on the Watcher Angels led to the creation of a Tarot Deck and the album Blood of Angels. She has appeared on CNN, A&E, Fox News, Reelz, and the History Channel.
Michelle resides near Cleveland, Ohio with three cats, a few friendly spirits, and a library of more than five thousand books.

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clean your home, guard your energy.

Energy work, elements techniques.

Meditations & exercises.

Quite a bit scaredy stuff on otherworldly influences & interferences. Refs to Laberge's Lucid Dreaming, Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense (creeptastic!).

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primer for a professional paranormal investigators. The author leads through the one of house and personal psychic hitchhikers clearings, commenting on details of her method that were involved. Energy manipulation, visualization and intent based.

I seriously doubt that anyone repeatedly or professionally involved, or even armchair reader of occult and magick, doesn't know most of necessary basic information. To complete picture, there are other books, with quite different philosophy and methods - that work too - behind them, see recommendations in the end of this review.

The book does contain main psychic self-defense information, to give it its due, but in a strange way: the first half of book I couldn't help but feel as a nursery rhyme is being recited, not a concise, efficient, helpful communication of an adult with equal in intelligence adult. Where one sentence could be enough, the whole page and more were used, drifting away in reasoning for non believers again and again (they wouldn't get such book, ahem). I would recommend to compare it to the other similar books listed further.

The second half of the book picked up in speed and addressed to professionals in more efficient way.

What was particularly good, the topics omitted or insufficiently represented by most others: dealing with psychic vampires (for the background, see other books by this author), recommendations on lucid dreaming, dealing with possessions (exorcism: warnings and the options).

What was absolutely priceless, the short, concise treatise on faith in the middle of the book, and making King Solomon vessel and seal from peanut butter jar, duct tape and a pen, for trapping and containing demons. Not recommended, there are consequences.

Recommended reading to widen horizons and see other points of view and ways of dealing with similar manifestations:
1. Style and serious posessions: Drawing Down the Spirits by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera.
2. Another way to deal with haunted houses, poltergeist and astral hitchhikers: The Practical Psychic Self Defense Handbook: A Survival Guide by Robert Bruce, EMF based.
3. Shorter and more universal way to clear properties and help with clearing persons, invoking upper astral powers: Spiritual Clearings: Sacred Practices to Release Negative Energy by Diana Burney; worked on properties of celebrities and professionals.
4. Similar and different, solution for each problem separately, invoking too, in Exploring Auras: Cleansing And Strengthening Your Energy Field by Susan G. Shumsky, who spent 20 yrs in ashrams in Tibet and other remote places studying.
5. Advanced shielding, warding, protection for energy workers themselves in Spiritual Protection: A Safety Manual for energy workers, healers and psychics by Sophie Reichter.
6. Believe or not, still follow the procedure, other aspects of bringing spiritual wrath on themselves: Protection & Reversal Magick: A Witch's Defense Manual (Beyond 101) by Jason Miller.
7. Protecting and cleansing methods, transforming negative energy into positive, in Utterly Wicked by Dorothy Morrison.
8. For shovelless guarding of property and different methods of property and persons clearing, Nita Hickok's books and website astralhealer.com, in articles, menu on the left. Professional, travelling internationally.
9. Easier way of clearing energy workers who picked up an astral hitchhikers themselves, clearing clients and places, in Way of Psychic Protection by Judy Hall, who cleared some big areas of mass negative events, found ways for psychic protection from phone, fax and internet, in public places and clearing in studio.
Different people, different approaches, all work. More complete picture.

[Jon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even though I know I'm probably going to get lots of hate mail from fans of this subject, I'm going to give my true opinions anyhow. Books like this generally get high reviews because only people really interested in the subject would even pick it up. I bumped into it while looking thru the non-fiction section of the library and thought it might be mildly entertaining. I was hoping for some crazy 'Ghost Buster' style suggestions like tin foil hats and the like. I was disappointed.

The small portions of the book I read were either descriptions of mediums that really need some schizophrenia medication or mental techniques to 'align your energy' and other meaningless generic terms. Really, it just made me sad that people take paranormal stuff so seriously.

Don't get me wrong, I like being freaked out in the middle of the night as much as the next guy. Its kinda fun to experience the crazy ways your brain will interpret input when its dark and the accompanying hilarity when it turns out your ghost was a hungry raccoon or a coat rack. I love Halloween stories and ghost hunting tales. But when the lights come back on, it's business as usual.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting, but confusing book to read. Instead of the self-help type book I was expecting it to be, there were literally chapters of a fiction story as well…so every couple of pages you went from various technique passages and then suddenly you were back into the middle of a story…I think she could have done better without the story, although the techniques seem like they would be beneficial to anyone who used them.

[Anne-Maaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Packed with good & easy-to-do protection techniques for ghost hunting. Accompanied with a story that goes on with every chapter...followed by some information & techniques of grounding, shielding, cleaning the stagnant energy along with some unwanted spirits, tips for spirit communication for benevolent ghosts & entities, etc. Very practical book.

[Hana the Suburban Witch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently read “The Ghost Hunter's Survival Guide” by Michelle Belanger and as far as practical paranormal books go, it's pretty decent. I had quite high expectations, as I'm familiar with Michelle's work via other books and chatting with them on the Witch Talks Podcast so I went into it expecting awesomeness.

What I liked:
- I loved that there was an element of narrative learning woven throughout the chapters. We get to see the techniques in practice at Irving's house; which needs a deep spiritual cleansing, and some extra house guests need to be relocated too. I definitely retain more information this way so appreciated this aspect of the book.

- Adore the concept that buildings have ghosts too. Not as just inhabitants, but the building itself leaves a spiritual imprint, residue or 'ghost' image behind.

- Some of the historical knowledge drops were really fascinating like the fact protective amulets were made by the clergy and used by the inquisitors to protect themselves from evil, yet if they found those same items on another person it would be seen as proof of witchcraft.

- Loved the perspective that ghosts have just as much right to exist as the living, and that it isn't our place to be forcing anyone into 'the light' like we see on TV and in so many paranormal investigative books.

- This quote is so necessary. "In all of these diverse systems, there is an underlying theme: spirits can be controlled, compelled, and restrained by someone with proper knowledge and skill. Please don't immediately assume that someone is you."

- The section on ethics and ghost hunting responsibly is wonderful.

What I disliked:
- In chapter 3 there's a whole segment on 'smudging' and using white sage. Whilst it does reference the origins of this as a practice 'borrowed' from Native Americans it isn't something I like seeing promoted anywhere since so many Native American people have spoken up about this as cultural appropriation. Seeing this in the book kind of throws the rest of the practices into question as what may or may not be appropriative.

- In a similar scenario, there's a whole segment on dream catchers in chapter 5 without a caveat that they should be purchased only from native American people. We see so many mass-produced dream catchers, and certainly here in Australia where I am anyone would be hard pressed to find a genuine dream catcher. It doesn't even specifically mention the Anishinaabe tribe when talking about the origins of dream catchers.

- As a ghost hunters survival guide I think I expected more anecdotes on real-life scenarios and what to do if you encounter them. There were a few in the book I think I just wanted more.

Do I recommend it?
Yes, I really liked it and if you can read it critically with the caveat of 'don't culturally appropriate' then you will get a lot out of it.

I give it 4 witches hats.

[Ramona Wetzel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting Perspective

Michelle: FYI: the wise old man who spoke of the faith of a mustard seed was Jesus of Nazareth. This is a fine book for all those who are enthralled with New Age, Hoodoo, Voodoo, Santerian and "modern" Wiccan practices and belief systems. Me, I like simple. Truth be told, my thinking is 100% Catholic. Especially regarding the preturnatural and the disposition of the human soul after the death of our bodies. It's easier for me to call a spade a spade instead of trying to invent a vocabulary to explain my abstract thoughts/beliefs as to WTF is really going on. Ghosties? Stagnant energy? Thread-like attachments which are magically placed into 3 vessels after being psychically severed from the afflicted person? Seriously? If more so-called Paranormal Investigators suffered more malign mental/physical consequences from needless bumbling and destruction of the lives of real people, Truth MIGHT become important once again. Sadly, all these shows only demonstrate how self-serving these charlatans are. And sadly, I now see that the literature is also shallow and incredibly dangerous. If all else fails, try Jesus. He'd rather die than live without you.

[Pam Simones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michelle Belanger can make the occult and arcane knowable. Crisp, clear language and gentle humor--definitely a reference book on my self for the exercises in clearing, grounding and shielding.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has just moved to the top of my to-be-bought-asap list. What a wonderful guidebook! I had known for a while that Michelle Belanger was a good writer (merely from her social media). I was pleasantly surprised to discover through her book that she is an absolutely superb writer. Not only is the book very well written, but also it communicates the needed information clearly and concisely with helpful exercises and interesting sidebars. I am so glad I checked it out and plan on reading more of her work.

This book follows her through a paranormal investigation (training another) while introducing helpful techniques of psychic self-defense and how to deal with various types of entities. Whether you’re a psychic yourself or a skeptical investigator, you can find much of value in this book. She leaves it open to your own belief system, while simultaneously making it clear how you can benefit a client during in investigation – through their own beliefs as well. The techniques are based both in basic psychology AND known magical systems (i.e. the folklore and historical ways in which many populations have dealt with the supernatural).

I love her overall philosophy that while “You might not be able to measure it on a trifeld meter . . . when it comes to haunting resolution, the most important thing is how the people exposed to the haunting feel. If you make unwanted experiences stop, your work is successful, especially in the client’s eyes.”

I felt the exercises in grounding, shielding, cleansing, etc. were appropriate and beneficial. I’m going to practice them and I’m eager to try them out in our next investigation. I like the kindness and respect in her approach; honoring both client wishes and that of many spirits who are perhaps not ready to be “kicked into the light.” I agree with her theory that sometimes an entity may simply want acknowledgement and with careful boundaries created, the living and the dead can coexist peacefully until the spirit is ready to move on.

Belanger’s ending thoughts on “Responsible Ghost Hunting” included some excellent reminders regarding how the field of paranormal investigation is a speculative field with lots of theories and few known facts. While we can guide clients through the process of shielding themselves and their homes, we must acknowledge that there is a lot of uncertainty in what we find and what we do. Ultimately, results are what counts. A successful investigation is one in which the issues are resolved to the best of our abilities and our clients are strengthened and empowered to the best of theirs.

[Curtis Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

A primer for those who are seriously pursuing this field, this book covers the bases in regard to natural and elemental energies. I am keeping this on my shelf, certain that I will refer to it again and again. One thing I like about this is Belanger goes to great pains to be inclusive of all belief systems and worldviews of this subject. This contradicts many who study the paranormal, in that many are condescending of some belief systems. I feel I am more comfortable and more confident in dealing with these spirits, though there are so many different origins.

[Ghostleegirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've actually read this book a couple of times. I find that the techniques that Ms Belanger recommends are very clear and well thought out. It's easy to read, and easy to put these methods to use. Not only can the exercises be used for ghost hunters, but they can also be used in every day life. We've all experienced *toxic* people, as well as places, and the methods described in this book can be very useful for those situations as well. I'd definetly recommend this book to anyone!

[Tyler Mickelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book thinking I was going to get a crash course in ghost hunting, but what I got was a detailed book on how to improve your psychic abilities. When I first started in to the book and realized what it was I admit I was a bit disappointed, however the further I read in the more intrigued I became until I was fully immersed in to the book.

[Vezlandia Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are planning on doing any type of paranormal investigation work, Michelle preps the most novice ghosthunter with this book. It is a guide I am very happy to have found and am quite thankful she wrote.

[Dharia Scarab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice to see a different approach to what you need to know when ghost hunting. I've read a number of books by this author and find it interesting how she teaches some of the same concepts in different ways depending on the audience

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basic phycic defences and homecleansings are covered in this easy to read book. Definitely worth it for those interested in the occult or ghost hunting.

[Mitchell Stern · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good primer on dealing with unwanted spirits.