Spiritual Housecleaning

We’ve all heard of house blessings, but psychic scrubbers? The New York Times reports on the “spiritual cleaning” of homes.

Running off the fumes of the big four religions, with a lacing of indigenous ritual and a dash of early 20th-century palaver — Madame Blavatsky by way of L. Ron Hubbard — the shamans and healers, mystics and mediums of the last century’s not-so-New Age have become indispensable exterminators for certain homeowners in New York and other big cities, who summon these psychic scrubbers to wash their apartments and town houses (as well as their offices and even some events) with ho-hum regularity. They get more publicity than most decorators and architects, and have armfuls of testimonials from brokers at companies like Core and Corcoran.

You can read the whole thing here.


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2 responses to “Spiritual Housecleaning”

  1. Michelle Francl-Donnay Avatar

    I’ve had 4 car accidents in six months (I hasten to add none my fault!), so after Morning Prayer this morning, one of the Augustinians took out the Book of Blessings, an aspersorium and several of us tooped out to the parking lot and quite thoroughly blessed my new car (and some others while we were there).

    I don’t think it makes me accident proof, but I appreciate the communal prayers, and the way such sacramentals make the wall we have constructed between the sacred and the profane a bit thinner.

    1. Rita Ferrone Avatar
      Rita Ferrone

      @Michelle Francl-Donnay – comment #1:
      That’s a great story, Michelle. I hope you are having safe travels now! I have been wanting to have a house blessing of our new apartment, not so much to close the place off from evil influences as to give thanks and acknowledge God as the source of the blessings we receive by being there.

      The curious thing about this story is (well, one of many curious things) is that it’s sort of a glimpse into the religious environment people step into when traditional religion is rejected: not just atheism or secularism, but credulity about the spirit world and the role of adepts in managing its effects on us.

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