Defences against ghosts

Silver, iron and salt were considered the best defences against ghosts

The three principle defences, in order of effectiveness, are silver, iron, and salt.

Defences against ghosts have been discovered, created, and manufactured since the Problem began. The main ones used by agencies and the general population are silver, iron, salt, lavender, and running water. There are numerous ways these defences have been used in products.

All such defences were considered temporary. Used directly on an active ghost, they would generally succeed driving it back or causing it to temporarily dematerialise. However only containing or eliminating the ghost's source or eliminating their reason for remaining in the world of the living in the first place would truly banish their presence for good.

Before the Problem, most of the general public were unaware of properties of the various defences. Nevertheless, even since ancient times, silver, iron and salt were used against ghosts and evil spirits in general.

Silver

Silver is generally used by agencies as a chain net to subdue a Source with (any object used to subdue a Source is also called a Seal). Some rapiers are made from silver. Most people use silver in the form of adornments such as silver scarf pins. Presumably the relative rarity of silver prevented it from being used as a more widespread defence.

Iron

Iron is a strong and commonly used defence. Agents have iron rapiers and chains, while the public uses iron wards, in their homes as iron plates around their house and doorways, iron gnomes in their gardens, iron baby bracelets and crib decorations, as well as a variety of other uses. Members of the Night Watch were given spears with an iron tip as their only defence against ghosts, other than whatever small amount of Talent they happened to possess. Fairfax Iron Company was the largest and most prevalent supplier of iron.

Salt

Salt is primarily used by agents in salt bombs or to scatter on a Source. Agents may also use salt in suspicious areas or around iron chains to strengthen their defence against a ghost.

Lavender

Main article: Lavender

Lavender's scent is effective against ghosts, mostly the weaker ones. It is used by agents in small vials of lavender water, and most people wear dried sprigs of lavender, burn lavender at night time, or hang lavender outside their house.

Other

A ghost lamp

• Other defences include curfew and Ghost-lamps. Curfew is enforced by the British government, and begins shortly before nightfall. The population is strongly encouraged to be indoors during this time, protected by their home defences. Agents conducting an active operation are exempted from curfew. Ghost-lamps are extremely bright street lamps installed in heavily-populated areas. They turn on for short intervals of time throughout the night to discourage ghosts. Lucy Carlyle was of the opinion that ghost-lamps were largely useless. They were supposed to keep the roads safe, to discourage Visitors from lingering, but few ghosts wandered open roads anyway. As such, ghost-lamps were mainly a form of reassurance, to make people think the authorities were doing something.

• Running water is also effective against ghosts; much activity in high density areas is done near the large bodies of moving water, such as the River Thames. A large portion of the England's trading is done on the Thames, by boat. Houses and shops often have runnels of water that they fill at nightfall. George Cubbins is said to have survived an encounter with a Spectre by turning on a garden hose and standing behind it. Steve Rotwell was said to have mansions with electrically powered streams of water running along their driveways.

• Among cultures in which shamans would visit the Other Side to converse with ghosts, spirit houses were typically built away from villages and across streams, to provide water as a defence against ghosts that might be stirred by the visits.

• Raucous loud noise of certain types may have been a defence against ghosts, as Anthony Lockwood possessed a 19th-century Polynesian ghost-chaser, a rattle seemingly made from human bones, that was supposed to drive away spirits via this method. He had not, however, actually tried it.

• In the TV adaptation, while investigating Combe Carey Hall, Lucy wonders aloud "why do spiders love ghosts so much," to which Lockwood replies that the spiders make "excellent warnings" while walking through masses of spider webs. Shortly after making their way through the webs, the trio see the ghost of Sam Pandy which Lockwood uses to affirm his point that spiders are useful for warning of ghostly presences.