Spectral Technologies 101
image: a black person looking in a mirror and seeing a figure similar to themself.
"We had to admire the two of them cause where it would of spooked some into their graves they took it all in stride. But people will accept some pretty outrageous behavior from their own blood, and after all it was just talking. But it wont the talking itself that caused the problem: it was what he said."
— Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, "Clarence and The Dead"
Seeing Ghosts, Speaking Spirit
One thing my students in the newly renamed Intuitive Strategies Community know is that the best reader is a safe reader.
Over the past few years, spiritual readings have become a source of entertainment. This is true from TikTok to YouTube to loud crowded parties where people are drinking and maybe the reader is too.
This is not necessarily a problem, at least not in itself. But it means that people be thinkin' it's a game. When you remind them it's not, they say you're fear-mongering, or gatekeeping, or demonizing the tradition.
No, beloved, I'm being real about it. No one is trained to practice everything. Not everyone is meant to offer everything publicly.
Even the best of the best elders have their hang ups and limitations. The more we ignore that, the more dangerous some practices become.
Yes, dangerous.
If you let in whatever wants to come through, you cant be surprised when you get what you get.
When I was still bartering readings in the 2010s, I shared community with a reader who let in hundreds of spirits to speak to clients.
Even then, I was like "how are you vetting all those spirits, babe?" Quick answer: they weren't.
Now, something can be dangerous, but that doesn't mean every person who encounters that danger will be harmed. It means the danger is present. It means that someone could be harmed.
This is the importance of a reader telling you what they practice, where they learned it, and their values around it.
Different traditions prescribe different remedies for different things. Even no remedy at all.
I don't speak about my clients. I can, however, say that I've seen things you probably don't want to see. Things that bring danger to a client, danger to a reader, even danger to future clients.
Spirits are part of our day to day life. They’re available to be spoken to or worked. That doesn't mean it's safe for you to do so.
So how does one learn to work with spirits, or find someone qualified to do so?
A Seer's Training is Their Armor
What tradition do you work within? What do they have to say about working with spirit?
If you don't know, that could be a good place to start. Every tradition approaches spirit with their own values and beliefs. Every tradition thinks their own way about how to approach spirit, how to close out a practice, and even which spirits to work with.
Training is essential to feeling and being safe in sessions where spirits are present.
Technology is often reduced to tools, physical objects that the work works through, like cards or candles, even an altar.
But spiritual hygiene requires the technology of water changing, the science of plants, and wisdom of places in addition to many other things.
What does the seer you go to think of these things? How does their private practice impact their public work.
If they don't tell you, why aren't they telling you? Some people have good reason to keep such things private.
If you're seeing for yourself, how will you pull yourself out of that state, if that's desirable? What will you do if a spirit lingers, overstays its welcome?
If you don't know how to remove it or move it, who will you call? This is a question that can help you avoid a problem that is at best, annoying, and at worst, menacing.
It matters, so let it matter.
Protocol Protects Curiosity
Spirits may not always interact with you respectfully. You can, however, insist upon it.
Having boundaries with spirits, deciding what comes through and what can't and when to stop is also a question of who to read, when, and how.
This is why we have the dominant cultural scripts we do about Ouija boards. You let go of a lot of control what comes through without a whole lot of practice and training.
At this point Ouija boards are consumer products made for all comers, separate from stated tradition. Shit comes through when it wants to, and not in regards to any boundaries of your own.
It's normal to be curious about the dead. Yet we know what curiosity can do.
How can you be courteous to yourself while honoring your desire to connect with spirit? How can you be respectful to the spirits that come? What does that look like to you? What did it look like to your ancestors?
What are your boundaries? What are your limits? Do you have a safe space to practice them? What do your elders do?
These questions can guide you to a safer practice. They can lead you to evaluate or reevaluate you practice.
They can also keep you in your lane and safer from the parts of spirit that can really fucking hurt.
Practice is Ritual is Practice
Let's be real for a second: speaking and working with the dead may come easy, but it's not easy.
There may not be hard and fast rules, but there is protocol, and best practices. Practice. Our safety and success are lagging metrics of our practice.
Our spiritual hygiene practices. Our prayer practices. Our work practices. This is neither bad nor inherently good.
Perfection is a myth and not a goal. The goal as I see it is to apply what we know in repeatable ways.
The goal is ritual, which includes routine. Ritual which includes practice.
For instance, I take a spiritual bath at least once a week. What's in it depends on my needs, but the practice is there. I clean my cards off before every reading, and my head, and my body, of course.
That’s only a small part of what keeps my practice as safe as I can make it. I also take workshops on trauma informed work for wellness and healing professionals.
I keep my training up to date. I work on the parts of me that that require more curiosity and care, because there will always be parts that require more curiosity and care.
Spirit work can be exacting and high stakes, and yes, dangerous. Slower can be safer, though nothing is entirely safe. Many important things require risk. This is one.
We can't take it lightly and expect it to turn out for the best. But we can take it seriously. We can meet it with ritual. We can keep practicing.
Further Thoughts
image: hey, i'm cyree jarelle. I run Collective Cartomancy. I help queers, feminists, and leftists connect with their intuition using tarot and cartomancy. More on me.
"It's in our spirits that we keep the hope of ending the systems of oppression that bind us up. That tear us down.
It's the part of us that rises up and reminds us liberation is a spiritual practice."