Practices of guardianship — invoking guardian deities, enlisting spirit help, clearing spaces of questionable energies, and establishing boundaries around ritual, communal, and personal space — are common to animate traditions across the world. In many traditions, guardianship is absolutely central as we navigate a world of forces, not all of which are traditionally seen as beneficial. So traditional practitioners — even as they commune with the natural world — also draw clear boundaries, send wayward spirits fleeing, and even do battle with malefic energies. Such practices challenge modern western minds and are often dismissed as ‘superstitious’ or as the least important part of any traditional practice. They rub up against modern visions of a cosmos or a natural world that is ‘all good’, as they suggest the existence of things like malefic forces that are incompatible with a modern rationalist vision. So modern spiritualities forgo traditional understandings of guardianship and promote a vision of ‘openness’ within a universe that is ‘all good.’ Yet many traditions focus a lot of attention on closing, sealing, and directly establishing boundary.
Even in non-dual traditions that see a cosmos ultimately beyond yes and no and good and evil, practitioners spend years establishing boundary, cultivating discernment, and invoking guardian entities. With the rise of modern freeform spiritual experimentation, people are invoking and inviting spiritual forces and navigating heightened states of consciousness often without any attention to guardianship. In such a time, when mental states are fragile and traditional safeguards are no longer in place, it can be important to understand what guarded space looks like personally and ritually. Guardianship practice needn’t be complicated. It starts very simply, with offering and gratitude, and with how we navigate our own thoughts and feelings. Featuring conversations with Tantric scholars Dr. Ben Joffe, Dr. Hareesh Wallis, and Dr. Sthaneshwar Timalsina, author and Ayurvedic Doctor Robert Svoboda, sculptor Rose B. Simpson and activist Nadia Irshaid Gilbert, this episode dives deep into how traditional systems have viewed guardianship practice and its necessity in an age of spiritual free-for-all and excessive exposure to internet imagery.
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