Tarvos wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2023 4:57 pm
I understand where your friend is coming since I don't task my companions as well. But I hasn't had this problem before. This is kinda hard to reply since it's written based on your understanding of her situation. I'm just assuming at best.
Personally, I don't like to give my companions strict rules to follow, but I do have some long guidelines to make sure I'm comfortable before diving in and the need to ensure that my companions and I am on the same page. My house "rules" are more like loose agreements that I tweak based on our interactions.
Regarding your friend's situation, three things come to mind: protection spirits/entities, protection spells, and house rules.
Protection spirits or entities can greatly prevent spiritual attacks. It's like a skinny bouncer at a club - he won't scare anyone away, and they might even try to sneak in because they think they can get past him.
Not all races of spirits are equal when it comes to protection. It's important to consider race of the protection spirits.
When your friend mentioned having "powerful" spirits/entities, it's worth asking how she defines powerful, what their main abilities are, and if they are primarily for protection.
Similarly, if your friend has the strongest protection spells and doesn't engage in conjuring, rituals, or anything more involved, she may not need protection spirits. But still, she'd need good protection spells in place.
As for the house rules, there's certainly a lot that could go awry. I concur with Darknorth that if she has her companions report back to her regularly on what's going on, they'd follow her commands accordingly, in the absence of specific guidelines.
Alternatively, she could sit down and brainstorm all possible scenarios to include in the house rules, so that her companions know how to handle any unexpected situations and whether they're authorized to act on her behalf. Well, we certainly don't want our companions to come in and cause chaos, do as they please, and leave us in a mess, now do we? Like Thyr mentioned, it might be wise to consider their bindings and many other factors before allowing them to act on their own accord.
Lewk's advice is also worth taking into account. Is she sure that the spiritual attacks are actually external and not just internal struggles? Additionally, the races of the spirits she's befriending could play a significant role in this. It's not advisable to ask someone at a water park to help with tax papers, after all. So perhaps take a little bit of break from the metaphysical and see if everything is clear.
It's possible that she may be overestimating the strength of her bonds with her many companions. I don't mean this as an insult, of course, but it's important to recognize that there may be aspects of their personalities that she hasn't yet grasped. Misunderstandings can also arise if communication between her and her companions is unclear. Therefore, she can continue what she's doing and ask her companions for guidance on how to proceed.
In my experience, even my non-social companions are quite active, manifesting themselves at least to 3-4 times a day on average, it's usually more. So my companions are anything but inactive and I don't task them. I'm the worst at tasking and wishing so I'll leave it as that. Lol.
Other than that, I'd love to hear about her progress and hopefully there's good news to share.
This is great feedback - thank you.
I'll preface this by saying that she is a very... Unique case. I've known her for 10+ years, and I've seen a lot of strange things occur around, and involving, her. She's a bit of an entity magnet. I've never seen anything like it before.
To address what you mentioned, she has quite a variety in protective-entity species. At the height of the attacks, she was actively bringing on new companions of all different types in an effort to quell the worst of it. I don't think there's any harm in suggesting that she might not have the closest relationship and/or understanding of all of them. She has had some for many years, others for a few weeks. She does also have CH protective companions. I also asked my own companions to lend help, if able.
In terms of rituals, she performs protective ones on occasion. Not as often as might be needed, given the circumstances. So there's room to alter behaviour there. She also lives in a very active house; it's 100+ years old, used to be a place of worship, and is right at the crossroads.
As far as house rules are considered, I intend on bringing it up again. There's nothing obviously wrong with the house rules she's established, from what she's shared, but there may be improvements that can be made with the suggestions people have provided.
I do agree that it's important to approach instances like this with a balance of skepticism and spiritual awareness. I've been very careful in my recommendations and approach to the whole situation, and we've discussed the issue at length, and gone over all sorts of possibilities. Projection? Mental illness? Physical illness? She has a clean bill of health, however, mentally and physically, and no family history of illnesses in either regard. Threw in a visit to her physician, just to be safe, but there wasn't anything of note.
Just to list a few of the things that she has experienced;
- Pain, at times like being stabbed
- Graphic, disturbing, violent dreams
- The sense of being strangled at night
- The sense of being assaulted at night
- Heaviness, like weights pressed on her body
- Intense, hostile entity presences - always plural
All of these things are extremely abnormal for her. In the case of dreams, for example, prior to the move her average dream consisted of silly, simple things like stuffed animal parades at a theme park. Her dreams have progressed to the point of being
extremely disturbing.
She did attempt to break from anything metaphysical for a time, but that's quite the challenge with the symptoms listed above. At the height of things she could expect all of these things every single day.
This is just a cursory glimpse, but hopefully it helps to paint the picture here. It has been suggested that there might simply be too many entities involved, to the point where it's overwhelming her companions. Figure this could be the case? Or, alternatively, any other theories as to what might be happening?
