Houses and land bear the imprint of people who once lived there and events that took place there. If violence of any kind, such as war, rape, ecological destruction or death has happened in a house or on a piece of land, there may be misplaced energy left behind that continues a negative influence. This energy can be the spiritual cause of continued conflicts, disharmony, imbalance and even illness.

From a shamanic point of view, a house has a spirit and land has a soul. Both can be helped shamanically. An area of land may need a soul retrieval to heal misuse or damage that occurred there. For example, if the land was dynamited to build there or chemicals were dumped on the soil, the land may have lost its soul or the soul may have gone dormant there.

A house may still hold the spirit of someone who died in it and is now ready to be psychopomped. Unhappiness or abuse may also have occurred there that needs to be cleansed and extracted as well.