Protection Magick: What You Need To Know

Protection magic, shielding, and warding are all practices that I have learned from instinctual experience; it has never been my biggest area of focus nor expertise. I see these kinds of magic as a natural extension of self-defense. Just as I don't need much instruction to protect myself when confronted physically, or in an argument, I didn't need much to build protective magic habits. Honestly I've never even thought much about it until I began recording my practices. Still, I have my means of psychic self defense. I sleep with a large chunk of black tourmaline by my bed to protect the room as I sleep and rest. Smoky quartz, obsidian, and black kyanite are all great choices for protective stones to keep around. These, and many other choices for protective charms, are useful to have in the form of jewelry, or in your pocket (or bra), or even left on your desk or in your car.

For home protection you can do things like plant rosemary around your property, hang a hamsa near your door, and make offerings to the land it's built on. Salt is a common ingredient in folk magic spellcraft and ritual around the world. It is known to repel evil and to purify. You can use salt inside the home to draw protective boundaries at doorways and windows, but be aware that spreading it around the perimeter of the home outdoors will kill plants you might have growing there. I like to salt the windowsills and doorways, cleanse the home with smoke, and then sweep it back up. The warding still sticks, even if the salt is swept back up. You can recycle it into black salt (recipe in cleansing section). Black salt can also be used for warding windows and doorways.

Mirrors are the perfect tool for self-protection, as they just reflect a person's energy back to them. I used this strategy when my neighbor's cacophonous grew to be too much. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I commissioned a small mirror etched with the Eye of Horus (an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, restoration, and good health) and placed it in the corner of the window where my desk sits looking outside, facing the yard where my rowdy neighbors liked to party outside. Now they keep their rowdyness to a dull roar and keep it away from where I do my studies and practice. Truly, a miracle for my mental health, and it restored my studio to feeling like a place of restfulness. To use this tactic, place a mirror between you and the person/place of annoyance when you grow weary of the bother and need some reprieve. It is literally that simple!

Witch's bottles are a very old folk magic tradition to pull any ugliness away from the home. The earliest written record of this form of spellcraft in Suffolk, England, in Joseph Glanvill's Saducismus Triumphatus, or Evidence concerning Witches and Apparitions, 1681. They are hidden away deep inside the house (even inside the structure itself) or outside buried somewhere on the property. The bottles are often filled with every ugly, sharp, grotesque, and repulsive thing that the maker can think of, as well as herbs, and lastly, the urine of the witch willing the protection (guidance on creating one of these follows). The idea is that the bottle attracts terrible entities and all ill intent and traps them inside, impaling them and getting them stuck on the sharp objects contained within. This is a traditional remedy for hex breaking and dealing with dark magic coming from other witches.

Shielding is a useful skill when you find yourself in an environment where you feel overwhelmed. You can shield by directing your energy to expand your aura. To push your aura outward, first feel the energy center of your body running along your spine and invite it to surround your body. Once you can feel that you are inside the envelope of your aura, push that boundary outward and harden it to create a shield between you and your surroundings. This might sound silly or obscure, but this is a book on esoteric practices related to magic and witchcraft, so I am assuming you already have some intuitive understanding here. It may take practice for you to get in touch with your own energy and be able to direct it. Meditation is the best way to practice this. The first time I did this I was inside the Seattle Art Museum. I was unexpectedly overcome with a freakishly strange feeling after entering a wooden-walled room originally built in Chiavenna, Italy in the last half of the 1500s. The structure had been moved and rebuilt on the site. Once I entered the room I felt an unshakable and overwhelming disquiet. Without even thinking about it, I drew my energy up and around me. In my mind's eye, I enveloped myself inside an oval void of black-silver. Once I was shielded by this egg in the likeness of gleaming hematite, I felt calm and protected - strange anxiety gone. It felt as if some invisible thing wanted to come with me when I left that room and I reflexively knew how to protect myself. At the time I had no idea this was a common practice, nor what it was called. Using that visualization must have been the simplest path to protection in my mind. Drawing on that gemstone earth energy as a tool for emanating a shield of protective energy was completely reflexive, but it was exactly what I needed at the moment.

Think about what self protective measures you might already practice and how you might be able to consciously strengthen and expand on them. Do you keep crystals around for protection? You might like to learn about salt cleansing and grow deeper into defensive Earth energy practices. If you've got one of those mass produced blue Turkish evil eye symbols hanging around (called a Nazar Boncuk), consider what symbols your own culture uses to ward off baleful energies and if you might like to use those instead. If you like to burn sage around your home to cleanse and protect from malefic energies, you might make it more personal by burying a witch's bottle in your yard. Or if you're the type to hang a little quartz crystal in your car from the rear view, think about adding a little charm in the shape of a protective deity. The quartz is a purifying and amplifying stone, why not invite a spirit to amplify its protection to keep you safe from harm while traveling in the world? There are as many options to choose from as there are witches to choose them.