Your Only Job On This Earth Is To Be So Intrinsically Yourself That The Right People Gravitate Toward

Some of you may have already come upon this one, but I’ve found that when it comes to objects I want to imbue with magic or bring to “life” (in an animist sense), simply just breathing on them goes a long way. Like a rock can be “dead” and then you can just breathe on it and the little fella just wakes up. Of course you can do this on anything you want, like stuffed animals and figurines and all of your tools. You could even do it on a snowman if ya want. So yeah. :D ETA: Breathing on things can also be fine for quick cleansings. Just blow on ‘em like you’re blowing off dust or whatever.

Cartomancy cheat sheet for fortune telling with playing cards.

Witch Tip: Get to Know Your Spell Ingredients

Get to know your spell ingredients. Just because one ingredient is good for money doesn't mean it's a good fit for you.

There are a lot of parts to getting to know an ingredient.

You can research its functionality if it has an herbal use whether medicinal or culinary - the classifications of herbals help a lot in understanding a component's working in your spell, ie - how it will do what you want it to do. A warming herb has a different effect than a cooling herb, for example. An herb that drys out the body can also be used to dry out a situation. A purgative can be used to clear things.

You can research the historic uses of the spell ingredients - I would look at both medical and magical uses here. Though we have debunked a lot of old medicinal uses and I by no means mean to suggest that you use herbs by their old medical uses, these practices give an idea of the nature of the plant. Over time, particular cultures develop an understanding of specific planets and if you are respectful, you may be able to tap into this shared knowledge.

You can hold and interact with the ingredient. This is a must for me before I will use anything in my spell work. I am an animist - I believe that all objects (both inanimate and animate) have a spirit - both their own individual spirit and a connection to the great over-arching spirit of their class. For instance, the basil plants in my garden are three things: each is its own individual basil plant, also a combined Basil spirit that is growing in my garden, and a piece of the spirit of Sweet Basil as a whole. When learning to work with the energy of a spell ingredient, I need to know how it feels. How it interacts with my energy. Is it calming? Does touching it make me go buzz buzz. How does it smell? How does it taste (if its safe to consume, of course)?

You can grow/harvest/gather/mine that ingredient yourself. This only furthers your knowledge of this ingredient. Did you see it when it was a tiny seedling? Did you plant it in the ground? Did you spend hours in the woods looking for the perfect specimen or find a field full on your walk home from work one day? Sure, the seashell you picked up on the beach may not be as perfect as the one you can buy online but you have already established a personal connection with that shell by choosing to take it home.

There are so many more ways. You can write/photograph/draw your object. You can meditate with it. You can potentially communicate with it through dreams or other means of divination. You can experiment with using this spell ingredient by doing your usual spell work with it in addition or substitution to something that you normally use - did it make a difference? How did working with that ingredient change your magic?

Take notes on the different ingredients you use and become the scientist in your own witchy life.

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Green Witchcraft: A Living Ward Spell

Note: I called this a green witch spell because it calls for caring for a living plant. That means providing it with the correct levels of light and water for its care. You do not have to call yourself a Green Witch to use this spell. You do, on the other hand, need to be able to care for a plant. Be advised. Note: There are a lot of parts to this spell. This isn’t the kind of thing that should be undertaken lightly or can be accomplished, in most cases, in a single weekend. This is by design. Be aware that in assembling the items to complete this spell, you have begun the action of casting it. You are creating a living ward that could live for upwards of ten or twenty years or more – treat it with the reverence it deserves.

This spell is designed to create a living plant ward tl protect you and your environment. It uses a combination of candle magic (as an initial charge for the spell) and green magic to power the spell. I also suggest the use of additional elements such as bindrunes, sigils, or intention papers but they are not necessary. As always with my spells, I expect you to bring your own magic to the table here – how you empower this spell should be determined by how you cast magic.

I will also include some sections on how to interact with your plant ward – they are just that, suggestions. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest.

To Cast This Spell You Will Need:

1 Jar Candle appropriate in size to use as a cachepot (3″, 4″, 5″ or more)

Oils or herbs to anoint your candle (optional)

A paint pen or other permanent marker (optional but recommended)

A plant (I suggest one that you associate with protection magic)

A pot with drainage holes that will fit into your cachepot

Soil, Water, and Sunlight to care for your Plant Ward

The goal of this spell is to prepare a vessel and imbue it with protective energy and then to permanently home a plant in it to create a living ward that you feed with water regularly. Steps 1 and 2 of this spell can be performed congruently or separately. They are interrelated – the size of your plant will dictate the size of your cachepot/candle, so keep this in mind during your choosing process. If you choose a cachepot that is too small for your plant, you will need to transplant it out quickly, defeating this process. If you choose a cachepot that is too large for your plant, you risk root rot. As you might imagine, a dead plant is not an effective ward.

1 – Choose Your Protective Plant Ward

Ultimately, your plant choice is up to you. There are, however, some things that I think it is important to keep in mind when choosing a plant for a spell like this. The first is that we need to keep this plant alive so choosing a relatively “easy” plant is a good starting place. You know how much time and care you like to put into your plants, now think about this also as the time and care that you want to put into your wards. If you want to maintain your wards more often, you may wish to choose a plant that is more thirsty or time-consuming. If you are more of a set-it-and-forget-it type of magic user, something more low-key may be more your style.

The second thing is that your plant needs to be able to grow effectively in your environment. I would lean towards choosing a plant that you have grown before in your current living space as you will know, for sure, that it is a good fit and will thrive in your home.

Things like rose bushes and herbs have a lot of protective properties but can be difficult to grow in a home environment. I suggest thinking about what protection means to you – there are many ways that plants can be protective (bark, thorns, poisonous leaves, vines that strangle…) besides the obvious protection associations in That Big Green Book.

Keep in mind that the size of the plant in its mature form will come into play here. Some plants can be continually divided to remain in the same pot for a long time while others will outgrow their homes in 1-2 years. A plant that can stay in its cachepot for at least a couple of years – either through the slowness of its growth, division, or because it prefers to be a bit snug in its home – is preferred for this type of spell.

Plants can be expensive but this step doesn’t have to be! Check your local plant groups for free plants or propagate an existing plant you already own. I would suggest that the plant become fully acclimated to your environment before you actually use it in this spell.

2 – Choose You Candle/Cachepot

Once you know what type of plant you want to grow as a ward, it is time to find yourself a vessel to house your ward. Here we are looking for a candle in a pretty jar* that you like enough to keep as a decoration. You may have one in your house already! The one condition is that whatever sized plant you have chosen should be able to fit inside your candle jar as a cachepot. It doesn’t have to fit exactly (there’s a possibility here of choosing a large cachepot to give your plant ward space to be repotted and grow!) but you should be able to comfortably sit your plant into the candle jar.

From there, the choices are very much up to you and virtually endless. You can choose based on a color association that you have with protection magic, or maybe it is the scent of the candle that makes you think of protection here. I suggest choosing a scent that you enjoy (or scentless altogether) as you are going to burn this candle out before we use it as a home for your new plant.

If you make your own candles, there is some amazing room here to further your own magic by choosing an appropriate vessel and then making a protection candle to go inside of it.

Candles, especially bigger jar candles, can be quite expensive. This isn’t about going out and spending a lot of money here (though you can, of course, if you wish). You can often find unburned candles in thrift shops or at discount stores of all kinds.

*If ascetics aren’t important to you, you can skip this step.

3 – Create Your Protection Vessel

Now that you have chosen a vessel, we want to imbue it with the energy of protection. This is basic candle magic 101 and can be done in many different ways. Many people will start by cleansing the candle with their preferred methods. Many people like to write their intentions or sigils/bindrunes/magic symbols onto the candle – you can write all around the outside of the candle to create your own art effect or stick to the bottom of the candle to be more discreet. You want to use a permanent marker that won’t wash off if at all possible.

Some people will meditate with the candle, send their power into it, or imbue it with another energy source such as the sun, moon, or Reiki. Many people dress their candles with magical oils, protective powders, or gemstones.

Do what works for you and your practice. If you need a very basic protective spell, you can draw the Algiz rune on the bottom of your candle, anoint it with olive oil, and add a couple of pieces of finely ground rosemary to the edge of the candle (away from the wick). Please practice fire safety here.

4 – Burn Your Candle

Ultimately, I feel that the goal of this candle burn should be to burn your candle out as efficiently as possible to minimize soot stains on the jar and to burn as much of the wax as possible. To do this requires some candle tending. Generally, to burn a jar candle down completely you need to wait until the top layer of wax has melted before you extinguish it on each burn. The amount of time that will take is determined by a ton of factors: the temperature, the type of wax, the number of wicks, the type of wicks, airflow, and other things as well. You may not be able to let your candle burn for that long with every lighting, but I suggest at least attempting to.

There’s a lot of additional magic that you could add to this step. You could speak words of protection over your candle as you light it. You could light it once a week on a Tuesday in the hour of Mars. You could light it every day for a number of days that is magically significant to you. You could dedicate the candle to a protective force that you work with. Or burn it on a protection altar. You could write a petition paper and place it under the candle while it is burning.

I personally think that including your plant in the spell here is very useful for creating a connection – I would keep my plant near the burning candle as the spell progressed to strengthen the connection between the plant and the energy of the candle burn that fuels the spell.

Continue with this step until your candle has completely burned out. From here you want to clean out your vessel of any remaining wax, soot, or other leftovers from your candle burn. Take care to try not to remove any protection symbols on the jar, but things happen. It’s okay to go back over and redraw your protection sigils if you have to here.

5 – Put Your Plant into its New Home

Note that I do not say PLANT your plant into its new home. We are using the candle jar here as a CACHE POT, not the direct home of your houseplant. This is because your houseplant likes to have drainage holes and the candle jar has none.

As you do this, you might wish to talk with your plant about how and why you are putting it into its new home. This is when, in my practice, I would Name the plant if I had not discovered its name prior. Giving a plant a name creates a connection between the spirit of that exact plant and you; it also gives you a nice way of addressing the spirit of the plant! (if you don’t do spirit work, feel free to skip this step) I like to tell my plants that I am enlisting them in the protection spell that I have cast and asking their permission.

Place your plant in a place where it will get its needs met and watch it grow! Congratulations, you have just made yourself a living ward.

6 – Care For Your Living Ward

Properly caring for your plant wards is an important part of this spell and is a type of repetitive magical focus. The goal is to focus on your plant as it grows and check up on its needs. This allows you to feed your spell as you water your plant and the growth of the plant feeds the ward itself. Forge a connection to your plant as you care for it – think about its growth, think about the magic that you imbued into the creation of the ward, and think about the candle burning that fueled the spell! Depending on your sensitivities, you may be able to “feel” the ward.

Over time, you may want to burn additional candles to add power to your living ward. You can do so by anointing the candles in the same way that you did your original (with the same symbols, oils, and herbs) and burning it close by to your plant. Depending on your practice, you may also be able to change the ward with sunlight, moonlight, or words of power. Use what you are good at here!

It is wise to remember that this is still warding/protection magic so I would refrain from telling people about your ward or sharing photos of it on social media.

7 – Troubleshooting this Spell

Eventually, depending on your plant ward, your plant may outgrow the container that this spell was built for. Consider this to be a great success! You choose to continue to work with this plant by transplanting the plant into a larger pot, finding a new vessel, and casting the spell again – or -by finding a new plant sized small enough to fit into your current vessel. You may be able to divide your plant and keep a part of it for your spell while “retiring” the rest. (think about the power of continually dividing a pothos and each time creating ANOTHER living plant ward that you put in a different space in your house…) What to do if your plant ward dies or is not doing well: This happens to the best of us. Some people might consider a plant ward dying to be a sign that something magically is amis in your environment. You need to decide for yourself if that makes sense to you. I would consider what is going wrong with your plant – have you been under or over-watering it? Is it dying because it’s too rootbound and needs to be repotted? Does it have a plant pest? Did it scorch in direct sunlight?

You not caring for your plant properly is almost never going to be a sign that somebody else is messing with you. But if your plant ward is suddenly dying for no reason (and you’ve thoroughly checked the reasons) – do some divination on it, please. Also, unpot your plant and check the roots because that’s always the best practice.

If you need to move house, you will need to decide what to do with your plant ward. If the ward is more designed around protecting you as a person, it may be able to move to your new place. If it is designed around protecting your space, it should probably be recast in the new location. In that case, I would choose a new jar candle and cast the spell anew. When in doubt, I suggest casting a new spell.

8 – Variations on a Theme

Though this spell is written to create a protective ward, it can be altered easily to fit most other long-term goals. You could use a plant associated with tranquility to make your space more peaceful, as an example. I suggest sticking to magical goals that affect your environment or your person here. The reason for this is that I believe that this spell works because you and your plants share the air in your house – you breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and your plants “breathe” in carbon dioxide and “breathe” out air. If your belief system of how magic works differently, your experience may vary.

There are always ways to vary this spell to suit your needs - if you come up with a cool one and feel like sharing, I'd love to hear about it!

If you like my work, you can support me by tipping me over on Ko-Fi or by purchasing an astrology report that I will write just for you.

Norse Animism is based on the notion that we can socialize with the world and that the world socializes in return.

Which means our relationship with anything is inherently collaborative. We are not just interactinv with things, but participating in their existence as they participate in ours.

Witch tip:

Winter season is upon us, which means that these types of candle holders in the shape of a tiny house will be sold as Christmas decoration again. These are amazing as home wards, to bring warmth and joy to the home, and for protection spells!

- Paint protective symbols on them or in them - charge the tealight you put in there with protection magic or magic for a happy home - choose tealights (or make them) with scents that you associate with protection or cozyness/happiness - lay a wreath around it as a symbol of your protective ward, for example a small wreath made of rosemary, or a plain metal (iron) one - you could even lay a circle of salt around it - charge the candle to become your hearth, the basis of all magics to be worked for the home - also good for working with hearth deities such as Hestia - also can be used as a house for a servitor created to protect the home - paint it in happy colours to attract joy and happiness to your home - instead of a candle, fill it with herbs, crystals, and other symbols to attract magic into your home (sort of like an open spelljar or an altar) - use it as a focus when working with the "spirit" or "soul" of your home - charge it specifically to eliminate strife and negativity within the home during the holidays

The possibilities are endless!

Housewarming Magic

For when you’ve moved into a new living situation or are ready for a new start <3

Finding your home/moving:

House hunting crystals

Spell jar to find a house

Spell for your dream house

Spell for securing a home/property purchase

Property locater spell for house-hunting

Moving witch tips

Moving house cleansing ritual

The witch’s moving checklist

Cleansing:

A deep room cleanse

To absorb negative energy from a room

Magical spring cleaning tips

Summer house cleansing

Witchy cleaners

Clean house powder

Home cleansing tips

Thoroughly clearing spaces

Crystals to cleanse the home

Cleansing your space without smoke

Low energy cleaning + cleansing

Warding + Protection:

A crash course on warding

To ward the home

Threshold magic 101

Protect my home spell

Home protection steam spell

Simple home protection jar spell

Room/home protection

Protection oil for windows and doors

Sharehouse peace witch’s ladder

Wall of fire property & house protection spell

Protection (wind) chimes

The Rowan cross

Protecting the property

Check out the sigils below!

Sigils:

For a magical and happy home

Find a home that will bring you happiness

My new home suits me well

I have found a safe place to rent in my price range

Sospidonum

This space is full of life, light, and bright energy

My home is safe

This home is safe for all

This home is a safe and healthy environment

My house is protected from unwanted influences

My home is protected

I live well on my own

Witchin’ it up:

Happy home spell jar

Home sweet home spell jar

Hestia’s house blessing

House to home spell

Laundry magic

Pleasing household spirits

When a bad guest leaves

Building a magical home

The magical home

Herbal home blessing

Odds and ends:

Magic, and power, in homemaking

The history and creation of witch bottles

Bringing nature inside

Cottage witch tips

Hearth witch tips

The basics of kitchen and cottage witchcraft

You may also like:

Bedridden witch: garden / stale energy / kitchen edition

Spells for job seekers

Travel witchery

Updated April of 2024. Please inform me of broken links via ask-box. Click original post to check for updates!

You can literally just ask your ingredients/tools what they are best at, or if they'll be helpful in a specific spell, or for advice on how to best utilize them.

Yes, you can, right now. You can just do it, whether or not you're a spirit medium or can "visualize".

Don't get me wrong, I find cultural and historical research of correspondences to be very important. But also, just ask the thyme in your cupboard what it likes to do in its spare time. (Bonus points if you take notes and compare to your research later on)

Here's how I do it. I call it my "pinging" method, like how a modem pings a server. Here's how:

Prepare your question.

If you want to be polite, start with a, "hello, is anyone there?" Although admittedly this is more for animists. If you believe you're just reading energies and there is no indwelling spirit, why not get right to it?

Questions to explore utility and correspondences include:

"Magically speaking, what are you best at?"

"If I added you to this spell, how would you influence/affect it?"

"What kind of intents are you best at supporting?"

"What kind of magic do you not like to be involved in?"

"What other ingredients do you work well with?"

"What other ingredients do you not get along with?"

Focus on the thing which you would like to communicate with.

Avoid performing this technique on living animals, as it often scares them :(

Have it in your field of vision, or touch it, or do whatever you need to do in order to feel focused on it.

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know, aka OBFUK (my handy acronym I use to replace "visualize," which I ordered that way because it kind of sounds like "oh f*ck," as in, "oh f*ck, the ubiquitous use of the word 'visualize' has caused many witches to be ironically equipped with blinders that require energy perception and control to be funneled through a filter of sightedness and images, which for many is counter-intuitive and detrimental to their practice"). Anyway -

Observe, Believe, Feel, Understand, or Know that the object which you would like to communicate with is aware of you and will hear you when you send your question.

Send your prepared question.

Speak or think your question to the object. OBFUK that the object receives your question.

Anticipate receiving the answer.

Listen, here's the downfall of this technique: You need a wee bit of open space in your mind. No, you don't have to be a meditator to do this technique (I did it for years before I began meditating). You just need enough space for the answer to arrive.

I have found that ideally, this means actively anticipating receiving your answer for 1-3 seconds.

This works on the same meditative trick as, "wait for your next thought to come and it never will." The force of anticipation itself is what creates an open platform for your answer to arrive at.

Your mind does not have to be "totally clear". You can have a lot of tabs open and still be able to pull off this technique.

Analyze what comes.

We will all get answers in different ways. Repeat: there is no golden standard for how you are "supposed" to receive your answer. Here are some ways your answer might appear to you:

Snippets of memories, songs, scenes, verses, or literature pop into your awareness.

A fully or partially formulated concept comes to you all at once.

You are strongly reminded of something (say, the god Aries, or a soothing woodland scene).

An image or images come to your mind's eye, either still or animated.

Nothing seems to come to mind at all, but certain things on your altar or around your house, or certain colors, suddenly stand out or seem especially relevant.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel energy moving on or around you.

Nothing seems to come to mind, but you feel as if you can smell or taste something that wasn't there before.

It is unlikely that you will hear a voice in your mind that says, "hi, I'm Basil, and I'm good at..." Our particularly clairaudientally blessed friends may receive such information, but the rest of us are likely going to have to apply some level of interpretation to what we receive.

Be aware that if you're talking to something with an indwelling spirit, it may not be interested in trotting out answers to your question, and may have questions of its own, or something else it wants you to know instead.

Ask more questions, or say goodbye.

I believe good manners go a long way, so even if you feel you haven't received any answer, it's polite to send a message like, "thank you for your time, have a good day."

Your answers are now UPG.

I really want us all to understand this!

UPG stands for Unverified Personal Gnosis. It means that you have personally received information through spiritual means, however, that information is not necessarily agreed upon or accepted by anyone else but you.

Please don't go around sharing your UPG as if it is actually verified spiritual canon!

Even if that information is totally cohesive within your personally constructed spiritual system, I'm sorry, but your personal spiritual system is not universal.

If I have a communication session with my rosemary plant, and it tells me, "yes, I'm a plant of protection and dreams [community accepted correspondence], but that's only one side of me; I'm also a spirit of evil, nightmares, and destruction, and that's why I can also defend against them [unverified personal gnosis]," it is wildly misleading of me to go on Tumblr and post a new rosemary correspondence that includes "cursing, nightmares, and destruction" as if everyone needs to automatically accept and believe my own claims.

It is now on you to experiment with the information you receive, compare it to other resources, and decide if what you heard was valid, legitimate information for a certain group, tradition, or practice, or if it is untrue, or if it is only true for you.

Your UPG might end up being totally valid and verified by others (this is then called verified personal gnosis) and this is such an exciting, wonderful, and validating thing to experience.

However, every single time I have a question about a spirit or god, and someone says, "hold on, I'll ask them!" and comes back 5 minutes later with an answer they assume I should accept as canon, I want to reach through the screen and slap them.

Your spirit communication is not automatically spiritual canon, and should probably undergo many steps of testing and verification before EVEN YOU accept it as true.

Troubleshooting

"It isn't possible for me to complete the active anticipation portion, what could I do instead?"

This technique is specifically a telepathic one; you receive communication within your mind. If doing so on the fly isn't possible, I'd recommend trying an entirely different technique, such as asking the same questions through tarot or another divination system, or petitioning the ingredient for a dream.

"I don't think I'm receiving any answers, what do I do?"

Not all spirits want to talk to us. Or from a secular perspective, not everything is imbued with enough energy for us to get a reading, or that energy may be hard to access or understand.

Objects which are very often used in witchcraft, such as magical and culinary herbs, minerals, and animal parts, often have something to say. (Perhaps the reason they are used in magic is because they're so willing to work with us in the first place!)

You can also gently cleanse the object and offer it some incense or water, then invite the spirit/energies back, and see if that changes your results.

Or, you may need to try contacting it over several days, maybe also with feeding and cleansing, before it responds. (Remember, it takes the object energy to communicate with us, whether it is a spirit or just a lump of energy, something must be expended to send you a message).

Plus also: This technique is a skill you need to practice. If I tell you how to hold a guitar and how to make three cords, it's still going to take you a minute to strum out Wonderwall. I recommend a minimum of hours of practice before you write off your own psychic abilities.

"I don't know how to tell the difference between a spiritual answer and my own thoughts."

Practice, practice, practice - and verify. Also be patient and gentle with yourself, and move forward with the understanding that far from 100% of people are magically born with thought patterns clear, regular, or tame enough to easily (or ever) track.

Perhaps the best way to move verify is to communicate with common ingredients in witchcraft, ask them for information, and then verify it against information online. Don't give up too quickly; common correspondence lists are often oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Your herb might have given you a snippet of information commonly ignored by mainstream witchcraft.

"I'm only getting invalid answers - my rose quartz told me it's used for blood magic and banishing."

Try cleansing and charging objects before you read on them. For beginners, it may be difficult to discern whether you're contacting an object, or the energies it's sucked up or wallowed in.

There may be an indwelling spirit or energy "haunting" the object and returning invalid or silly answers. Try reading on different objects and see if your luck improves.

You may be particularly psychically closed off. When I don't properly connect, I get all kinds of nonsense that seems like a real answer, when it's just my random thought generator (un)helpfully trying to fill in the blanks. General practice of divination and spellwork will assist you. I would avoid using this technique to practice, as it may confuse your discernment to accept your inner voice as external communication. Set it aside and come back to it after a couple of months and see if there are changes.

Similarly, the spirit might just not want to talk to you, or isn't present in the item (or, the energies you seek to understand don't exist in that item).

The spirit may be giving you valid information that most people just don't agree with. My UPG for rosemary is that it is sort of an "uncrossing" agent for your life in general - part of the way it protects you is to align things around you so that misfortune is diverted. It's not a good luck charm, this is just how it achieves its goal of protection. This isn't totally off the wall; I think almost everyone agrees that rosemary is protective, powerful, and "high vibrations." But I don't think I'm going to find anyone else talking about how rosemary works the way it does, so I'm not going to be able to cross-check this anyway. But even if they do, they might talk about a different aspect of rosemary or something else it does. So I'm caught in a limbo where this information is true for me and the plant works that way every time I use it, but I can still never verify that with my community. If your answers aren't totally out of left field, you may be receiving genuine information about how the object wants to work with you. But that doesn't mean you will ever be able to verify that with your community.

So You've Got a Spirit Problem: An Adept's Guide to Taking Care of Business

Knowing how to do magic is not at all the same thing as knowing how to solve a problem.

Here is a map to one trail through this irritating, often murky, forest. The steps are generally presented in the order I'd recommend taking them, but naturally the details of execution are up to you.

This guide assumes that as someone who knows how to do magic, you may be called upon to assist others from time to time, so there is a distinction made between you as the practitioner, and the victim of a haunting.

Never rely on visualization-only techniques.

There is a difference between Energy Work and visualization. If someone has told you that all you need to do to protect yourself from spirits is to imagine that they cannot hurt you, they are wrong.

Yes, where your attention goes, energy flows - but as it turns out, real spirits are probably more powerful than the wispy energy patterns sprinkled about by you imagining stuff really hard.

I have met many a practitioner who was convinced they were up against an incredibly powerful spirit, because years of visualization did nothing. The first time they cast an actual spell with real power (that takes like 45 minutes of prep and 15 minutes of execution), the spirit was gone.

Fancy that.

Please place the mask over your own mouth and nose before assisting others.

Spirit hauntings often affect more than one person. Household members, social groups, entire Discord servers - it happens.

Attend to your own personal protections first. If this is your first rodeo, a few suggestions:

We may assume there is a timeline pressure; by the time you're called in to help, things may have become rough. There is no need to avoid taking care of the problem for months while you carefully craft a system of protections.

Obtain or recharge a single personal amulet of protection, especially one crafted against malefic spirits (as opposed to a general protection). Charge it and wear it for the duration of this process.

Obtain or recharge a single household ward for your own home, if you are not the one being haunted. If your home is already under spiritual attack, now may not be the right time to place wards. Read on for details.

Obtain or recharge a single ward for your sleeping space, a heavy-handed one that strongly protects your sleep, and strongly limits spirit movement into your room.

For the duration of solving this problem, engage in spiritual cleansing techniques more often. Also ensure you are getting enough calories and rest - depending on how resistant the problem is, your ongoing energy may be required for some time, and burnout helps no one.

Gather as many details as possible.

If you are assisting another person, get down (in writing) as many details as you can about when the haunting began, who it affects, the symptoms, any locations where the spirit is present, etc.

Consider that sometimes the spirit haunting is caused by a spirit which cannot be banished, like local nature spirits who are going to dwell there regardless of your actions. Whether you need to approach the situation as a warrior or a diplomat should be ideally figured out before you begin taking actions.

Make sure wards are not trapping the spirit inside.

If there is a potential that this is happening, open up or partially dismantle a ward (this can often done by opening a household door or window with Intent) so the spirit can leave.

Ask it to leave.

Not, "leave me/my friend alone." Not, "go away."

"Please leave this household permanently, and do not come back."

Combining this with a good-faith offering can help a lot. Place the offering outside, ideally beyond the property line, but we all do what we gotta do.

"Please leave this household permanently. I have placed an offering of [stuff] outside for you, because we are not enemies. This offering is yours if you accept these conditions: that you leave this property and do not come back. Please accept this offering, and leave."

Tell it to leave.

"You must leave this household, and all the people in it. This is not your home. Authority has been given to me to revoke any invitation which brought you here. Leave now of your own volition. If you do not leave, force and aggression will be used against you to force you to leave."

And if that doesn't solve it, time to get down and dirty.

Maybe you didn't even ask it to leave, because you arrived well after that was already attempted. If things have already escalated:

Prepare personal protections for everyone involved.

If you cannot reasonably do so, teach them how to shield through energy work. Remember that there are many inherently protective amulets found in nature which do not require much (or any) magic to be worked over them before they are effective; employ these to your advantage.

Optional: Figure out the spirit's weaknesses.

This step may be especially useful if banishments have already been attempted, and failed.

Gather a wide variety of magical symbols, amulets, talismans, and objects charged with various energies.

Find the spirit or connect to its energy (ideally behind a mirror, or through a protected scrying device, or using some other technique so it can't see you).

Hold up each symbol, object, etc., up to the spirit in turn. See how the spirit is affected. Take notes (ideally, have an assistant who can take notes as you describe what you're seeing).

Suppose the spirit seems totally unaffected by watery energies or solar symbols, but seems very affected by fiery energies and iron - now you have helpful answers.

Combine your discoveries with information about any previous banishments that may have been attempted to aid you in choosing your next course of action.

Less optional, but still optional: Perform divination

1. DO NOT CONVERSE WITH THE GODDAMN SPIRIT.

2. You do not need to know everything about the spirit before you get rid of it.

It drives me fucking CRAZY when people refuse to banish or get rid of obviously harmful spirits because they want to know its backstory, its personality traits, its gemsona, its full natal chart, and its favorite comfort foods first.

"We can't banish it until we know why it's doing this!"

The fuck you can't.

If your attitude is literally that it's okay for beings to hurt you as long as they have a good reason for it... Or you're not going to set boundaries unless you know why someone has crossed you...

I don't know what to tell you.

And hey, by the way, if it's an obviously bad spirit that you've already acknowledged is harming you, IT'S GOING TO LIE TO YOU AND MANIPULATE YOU.

There's a hell of a lot of people out there who have fully acknowledged the absolute hell a spirit has caused them, but they want to talk to it because idk, why wouldn't you want to talk to your own personal torturer, and thirty minutes later they're accepting the spirit as their new guardian and building it an altar.

So.

Divination is useful to help determine the outcome of your banishing actions and to give you insight into how to perform your operations effectively. This is a really good idea if you don't have a million years to randomly try stuff until something sticks.

It is not to become penpals with a harmful spirit who has already shown you its intent towards you.

Telling a spirit something, or sending messages, is extremely different from two-way communication. Don't open yourself up to a force that is causing active harm.

So now you've got to banish.

Your banishment will be greatly increased in efficacy if you surround it with supportive actions. The ability to employ any of these techniques of course varies depending on situation. Employ as many of them as possible.

Petition benevolent spirits, ancestors, and divinity to assist and support your workings.

Include as many people as affected by the haunting as you can.

Flood the house with supportive and helpful energies.

A floor wash or steam pot will be very helpful. Smoking out an entire house is difficult to get away with these days, but a fine option. If you can't get to the whole house, especially try to work on the areas where the spirit is known to be present.

Protective symbols hung about, including saint candles, also tends to assist in shaking the spirit "loose" from its moorings.

Loud and cheerful music, fresh air, and a generally upbeat mood helps the proceedings a great deal.

If it is determined that the spirit is attached to a single person, focus applying smoke, blessed waters, and talismans to their person.

Trap the spirit inside of something.

When you banish a spirit, where does it go? Just outside the property line? All the way across town? To the ends of the earth? How long until it finds its way back?

A cobalt-blue bottle filled with sand is a handy spirit trap. The spirit will eventually be freed again, before this world is over - and likely, quite a bit before that. Research why and how spirit traps work, and what techniques may be used to occupy the spirit for a great length of time before it can escape.

Perform your banishment.

As this post is for those who already know how to do magic, I leave the details up to you. Reflect on what you've learned about the spirit up until that time, and utilize powers which seem best suited to cross it.

Relying upon your personal power alone is not advised. Draw from sources greater than yourself. Asking divinity and benevolent spirits to arrive and support the working while you undertake it is a fine idea.

Once the spirit is gone, or trapped, dispose of various implements and clean up as you normally do.

Cleanse the home or person if you haven't.

Any technique will do.

Set up home wards if they did not already exist.

This includes helping others understand how to maintain protections in their own home.

Listen to yourself, or the person you are helping.

Mighty sorcerer though you are, it is possible that the spirit was not actually removed when you performed your banishment. Do not discard gut feelings or intuitions that the situation is not fully at rest.

You may need help, or new techniques, or simply ongoing effort applied to the situation before it is completely resolved. Every now and then, rare as it may be, the solution is really just to apply protection and go about your business.

Taper off healing, cleansing, and spiritual hygiene back to your normal levels.

Even if a spirit has been correctly removed, a person or place may have sustained actual spiritual damage. Instead of immediately dropping extra spiritual self-care when the spirit is gone, try maintaining it for a little while (especially if your normal level is zero). Staying clean and hygienic will help spiritual injuries heal on their own. Mundane actions, such as continuing to get enough food and rest (where possible), will also help.

If you are helping another, give them steps for things like cleansing baths how how to clean their own aura.

What do you use deadnettle for?

Mostly I use it for magic pertaining to happiness, growth, beauty, or opportunity. I also associate deadnettle with the ability to make proper use of available resources, so I sometimes add it to a spell if a little bit of flexibility, fortitude, or Making The Best Of Things is called for.

Purple deadnettle is an early spring flower, very popular with the bees, and it grows abundantly pretty much anywhere it can find loose damp soil. It turns my yard into an oasis of tiny bell-shaped wildflowers and happily bumbling bees long before the early summer clover begins to bloom. This sweet little flower was one of the first gifts my new home gave me and it helped kickstart the bond I'm developing with the land.

(Apparently, it's also edible, although I've never tried it.)

Pictured: A patch of purple deadnettle in my yard, with vetchweed and dandelion puffballs mixed in.