Trap, Banish, or Cleanse?

[writemod]

We seem to have some sort of energy/spirit/? in our house. I did a simple sage ritual to eradicate it, but it has since gotten worse. It used to be almost playful, opening all the cupboards, things like that, but when the feelings turned dark, we burned the sage. I'm totally inexperienced, in fact the only magic I've ever attempted has been that one sage ritual and a protective circle on a night when the house felt extra spooky.

Since the ritual, the energy has not only increased, but it seems we've exacerbated it. My dad (who was not present at the time of the sage burning) has seen shadows and movements, which only happened once before the sage ritual and has happened countless times since, and last night a cupboard opened to smack him on the head while he did dishes. The topper on this cake: my deceased grandfather's gun (no idea how or where or when he got it) that has been unloaded since before he died, with bullets always kept far from the piece in their own pouch, was found suddenly loaded today.

In my limited knowledge of these things, I feel like whatever it is must be following/after my dad, as my husband and I only ever see small, seemingly harmless things (my jewelry being moved place to place, things falling off shelves, etc). I don't know how to proceed here, what the energy is, which rituals or spells to use, but whatever it is feels like it is escalating to something malicious. Help please!

[fraterai]

Don't trap it if you don't know how. A lot of these stories start playful and end nasty. You need to banish and cleanse. If your method didn't work, you need to try another method. Banishing really works with your will power or your belief (really both). If you were raised a certain religion, this is usually the most effective method of banishing that an inexperienced person can use. For instance, a Christian can use psalms and prayer to do so. Any amount of fear, annoyance, agitation, feeds this thing energy. If you can get help from anyone local in removing it you should do so (psychics, priests, shaman, anyone that specializes in this) .

[Desecrated]

It's very normal for thing to flair up after you've done your first attempt at getting rid of it.
That is usually a good sign. If the cleansing did nothing, then nothing would happen next. But because you are getting an reaction now, it seems like it did have effect.

When you have energies living in your house for a longer period of time they get more attached and you usually have to kick them out more then once.

So the absolute first thing you should do is make repairs on anything in the house. If you have something that s broken or needs fixing. Do it now.
If you have any problem inside the family, take care of it. if anybody is sick, get them medical attention, If anybody needs to talk to a professional take them to a psychologist or a priest. Make sure that you resolve your own problems first.
If you want to redecorate or do anything like that, go ahead. The better you feel about the house and the more attached you feel to the house the more strength you will have. Do not be afraid of these things. Your alive, they're not, it's your house, not theirs. If they can't behave, tell them to leave.

Cleansing with sage is nice. But a lot of people forget that there are actual steps to it. First you need to clean your house. Throw out anything old or broken. Clean inside the kitchen cabinets, clean under furniture, clean behind furniture, Don't forget the corners and over doors.
Then you take a nice bath.
Then you do the sage.

And after that is done, you need to ward the house. You need to put up something for protection. A glass of water, some salt, some iron, If you have any religious symbols or even a bible on the nightstand helps.

AND, negative energy is a little bit like dirt. It builds up over time and you might need to clean it out every 3 month or so.

[the_spiral]

Also keep in mind that in many traditions, sage cleansing is only used for dealing with human ghosts and general negativity, as it may not banish intelligent nonhuman entities and may even annoy them. So if the sage has the opposite effect you want, experiment with burning incense instead. I wrote a longer post about that somewhere.