Empty Space

"When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. 44 Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation."

There's a certain amount of danger involved in 'casting something out'. There are a variety of ways to cast something out. You can literally cast out an evil spirit. You can do a cleansing on a haunted or otherwise troubled house. You can remove something from your life that shouldn't be there. The trouble is that if you do this, and you don't put something back in empty space the bad thing (whatever the case may be) still has room to be in your life.

Think about it. An unreligious person is troubled by an evil spirit. The person doesn't believe in gods or spirits but that doesn't stop said evil spirit from bothering them. The evil spirits, after all, believe in that person. They call a paranormal group like PRS or something (first example of a religious paranormal group I could think of ---not picking on them) and they end doing an exorcism. After it's all over with the not religious person goes back to being not religious. Now, honestly, what do you think the result of this is going to be? The problem they had that allowed that evil to come into their life is still there. It hasn't been addressed. We need to think about this before we do it. In other words, we need to address the problem from the direction that person is coming from and make sure they're ready to deal with it appropriately. Otherwise, you're really just making it worse.

So if I tell you I don't think a Christian house blessing in a pagan household is a good idea, please listen to me. (Besides, I know this is going to shock you, but pagans do house blessings too.)

The same goes for addiction, bad friendships, and unhealthy food choices. Something needs to be there to take the bad thing's place. So if you give up alcohol, take up tennis. Something like that... but get another activity so you don't have the temptation to fill your time up with that again. If I stop eating crap---I obviously need to keep eating---so I have to find things that aren't crap that fill up that space. Get rid of a bad friend? Spend more time with a good one so you aren't tempted to apologize for something that wasn't your fault.