Protecting your energy is a huge part of occult practice. Here in these parts we call it "having spiritual hygiene’ - you shower and stay physically clean, and wear clothes to protect you, and similarly, it’s worth cleansing to stay psychically and spiritually clean and set up wards to stop nasties from reaching you.
We have a bunch of free tutorials and recommendations here for a start: spiritual hygiene tutorial collection - that first book recommendation is non-religious and can be used by anybody, regardless of your beliefs.
After that if you are under specific, targeted attack, by people or spirits, there’s methods to deal with that, from bindings to persuasion to banishings.
That’s completely fine, no need to apologize. This forum is open to all viewpoints, you have to do what works for you. You don’t have to work with “demons” whatsoever, or even entities at all, to do magick.
You mean everyone around you is Christian so that’s why you get that? It’s a well-known Christian bias, so, yeah. I can see that getting very tiring after a while, it wears you down, and I think it’s supposed to. All cults including Christianity control the mind, it’s how they survive.
Sounds like a couple of things going on.
The first thing to do is get rid of the negative entities around you. We call those “parasites”, because they usually do it because they are feeding on your negative energy output - we have a bunch of ideas on how to do that too: Forum Tutorials: Parasite Collection (or use the search for something more specific to you).
I would say you need a change of scene, change job maybe, get some new friends, maybe through a hobby you like, your current situation needs a refresh. Or maybe just take a trip to clear your head and get out of the current energy you’re in, even it’s to book a night in a bed and breakfast a couple of hours away, being out of the constant pressure can really help clarify your thoughts.
Here’s the thing, there’s a principle in magick coming from Hermetics that says “like attracts like”. So you feeling like them supports and attracts more of the same. So breaking the cycle and getting yourself into a better mental-emotional state is half the battle. When you lift your energy, it becomes less “tasty” and attracts fewer parasites, and so you can spiral out of a bad energy instead of deeper into it. You can use music, self care, and deliberately exposing yourself to nice things to help change up that energy.
Yes, many. If you want to work with entities, the gods of other religions work well and are very helpful, and not connected (some pre-date) the Christian paradigm. Some of those gods were later demonised by the Hebrews that later fed those conquered foe’s gods into Christianity, so you might want to avoid those for now in case you recognise them and “demons” and that bothers you.
One example is the Norse gods - Thor is well known for protection and the rune Thurisaz is protective, as well as the Aegjishalmr (Helm of awe) Icelandic runestave. The world is a big place and there’s many many philosophies and styles of magick to choose from. This makes for a long journey sometimes before you find what really works for you, but it’s all good experience.
You might also want to look into developing your astral senses, then when you can know you have a decent chance at avoiding impostors and parasites then try the evocation guides we have on here.
