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Originally Posted by Icelander
What other mundane countermeasures can Brazilian monster hunters who lack any magic of their own use to protect themselves from all the horrible things adepts and unnatural entities can afflict them with?
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Historically, iron was used not only against fairies, but against satanic powers, witchcraft, curses, and other forces of evil. While I have found most references to this in Europe, some of this idea seems to be found elsewhere, with some spirits in China said to be repelled by iron (notably dragons, which are not particularly evil in Chinese myth, but are more like spirits than physical beings).
Of course, commandos and the like will be carrying a good steel blade anyway. But brandishing it to ward off spells and spirits might be something they are trained to do (brandishing being a common method of driving off fae and of protecting oneself against their spells). They might also bring a horseshoe along to hang over the threshold of their dwelling, even if it is just a hotel room or a camp tent.
If you combine the influence of technology with the influence of iron, you might get the idea of an iron grounding wire. Loop it around symbolically important parts of your body and then let it dangle onto the ground. The idea being that hostile magic "grounds out" across the wire and into the earth, just like electricity (or something). I haven't heard of any actual occult practitioners using this method, but it seems like the sort of thing that a more technologically savvy group might think up. Heck, even if it doesn't work it will protect you against electrocution. You might even connect the wire to the base of your knife, so when you ward off an evil spell or spirit it can ground out the magic from the knife tip down to the ground, in analogy with a lightning rod (sharp points concentrate field lines, leading to ionization that both attracts sparks and inhibits them from forming in the first place, and then provides a harmless path to ground). Maybe they have a loop of their grounding wire around both thumbs, and a conductive steel handle on their blade so when they grasp their knife they get a good electrical (and magical) contact. It might also be that none of this electrical analogy stuff actually works, but the people in the field use it anyway because they think it does.
Luke
EDIT: I just remembered that during the Boxer rebellion, the Yihequan (rebels) believed that the telegraph wires and rail lines were interfering with the flow of spiritual essences around China. They claimed that the wind whistling past the wires was the wind screaming as it was cut, the reddish fluid dripping off from condensation or after rains was the blood of China. Needless to say, they attacked this infrastructure. Telegraph wires were copper, but railways were steel. This gives some idea of historical beliefs outside of Europe of metals interacting with magic and spiritual forces.