Check In, Ward Off: A Witchy Guide to Ghost-Proofing Your Hotel Room
Practical protections for paranormal travelers who want restful nights—not unexpected guests from the other side.
Over on Threads, a travel writer asked for tips on avoiding hotel ghosts. After more than one sleep paralysis while traveling incident, I have a lot of recommendations. I'll relay more of my own ghost encounters in October. But right now, folks need tips as summer travel time kicks in.
All the following tips have witchy foundations, but none require psychic skill. When protection works, nothing happens. You don't need flash and circumstance to know it worked. No harm comes from trying protections just in case.
About Hotels
I never stayed in a hotel that wasn't haunted. It didn't matter if I was in a Super 8 or Le Meridian - a ghost floated somewhere. Haunted hotels that advertise make bank from paranormal tourism. As long as the living and dead are okay with the arrangement, what's the harm?
It's the ghosts without billing that can cause inconvenience. Hotel rooms with a ghost presence tend to have:
flickering light bulbs (even if LED)
cold spots in weird places
plumbing issues that never replicate in front of maintenance
a sense of something almost solid in the corners
mirrors that often reflect a sort of fog
shadows that extend beyond normal light angles
a feeling like other bodies inhabit the room with you
One or two of such indicators do not immediately mean you have a ghost in your room. Any time you encounter what might be paranormal phenomena, try to find other rational explanations. When you rule out "Hey, the air conditioner fan broke," move into more unusual explanations.
Hotel rooms are intended as temporary dwellings, which sends a signal to the spirit world that such unclaimed spaces are free. The specific person who owns the land or the building is so invisible that it might be a corporate board. The way the laws of spirit work, a board does not equal one person, and so a hotel reads as an unclaimed space.
Meanwhile, humans with low or no stake in the community pour through. They bring tragedies, spiritual attachments, and miasma as they pour through. Most pour out as liquid as the money that flows through the travel business.
A few checkout but never leave (The Eagles, Hotel California). Some become hotel ghosts.
Spirits Beyond the Dead
But it's not just the spirits of the human dead that can make your lights flicker and wobble the bed. Some spirits exist that parallel ticks - they attach and feed on your energy. Living spirits exist and may follow you to your room depending on what you got up to on a given day. While hotels see most spirit traffic from the dead, some living spirits (still non-corporeal) also pass through.
Most people don't think about setting up spiritual protections in places where they stay for the short term. For those only staying for one night, that's fine most of the time. If you stay for more than a night or two or deal in spirits, you will need to establish more boundaries, through wards.
So far, I haven't met anyone who wants an entity attachment as a souvenir. However, I have met lots of people who consider getting good rest an important part of travel safety.
How to Ghost-Proof (or Ghost-Minimize) Your Hotel Room
The following steps should keep your hotel room ghost-free as long as you stay there. If you must stay longer than three weeks, you may need to repeat some warding practices.
As soon as you receive your key, claim authority as the threshold keeper. If you have a Bluetooth key app, use it when you select your room. Say out loud, "I am the threshold keeper of room ___."
The threshold keeper is the person in charge of what is and is not allowed to enter a dwelling. A hotel room constitutes a private space rather than a public one (such as a business), which makes it easier to do the "my cave, you out!" maneuver.
When you enter a room, invoke the laws of hospitality as the threshold keeper. That makes anything physical or spiritual in that room your guest.
The Laws of Hospitality are an ancient practice that appears across cultures. Read one take on it here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.14318/hau2.1.022)
Invoked creates a contract between the host/threshold keeper and the guest/spirit. The host agrees to protect, provide safe passage, and welcome the guest, and the guest agrees to do no harm to the host.
If the host violates the law, then the guest is subject to whatever power that binds the law of hospitality determines. If the guest violates the law, that being is at the host's mercy.
When you first enter your hotel room, open a window if possible. If not, prop open the door. State your rules of operation and tell anyone who doesn't want to abide by them to leave. For best results, give it a place to go.
To invoke the laws of hospitality, say out loud: "I invoke the laws of hospitality, and any being in this space is now my guest and present at my discretion. You may remain so long as - " and list the rules you have. When you do this, be ready for the next step.
Thanks to the media many of us grew up with, we often expect spirits to walk through walls. While some can and do, it is not a universal ability. Opening a door or window makes it easier for them to leave. Also, invoking hospitality raises at least a mild ward.
If you are sensitive enough to recognize a spirit is choosing to remain, offer it a glass of water. If it accepts, that shows it accepts the contract of hospitality. If it refuses, it will be compelled to leave.
Final tip:
Unless you give the spirits a specific location to go to, they return to the hotel. If you have claimed the threshold and warded your room, they tend to displace themselves to the adjacent rooms. I advise against trying to clear spirits for other visitors.
If you're at a hotel where management wants the ghosts gone, please give them my contact information. Removing ghosts from multi-unit dwellings is enormous mental and physical work, even if you have team support. For those who ask, I can do some work remote.
Past the PayWall: Tips and Tools for Handling Hotel Ghosts in Long-Term Stays
Production Time: 6.5 hours Consumption Time: 15 min
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