Greetings ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who know better! I am the enchanting Artemis, and this is the laughing craft. There are many many witch memes about “if something makes a spooky noise in your home, make a spookier noise to assert dominance.” memes. This is, esoterically speaking, a very solid option. In the event the source of the spooky noise is a wild animal that got in your home or an intruder, a weapon is a better choice. Because this is a humorous witchcraft blog and not one about violence, I’m going to focus on the former scenario. There are threats beyond your own ego in the occult. Spirits with malevolent intent, creatures of ill fortune, toxic witches, diseases. All sorts of nasty wretched things lurk in the dark spaces of superstition and magickal thinking. Since we are intent on exploring this beautiful, wild realm of occult practices I would be remiss if I didn’t mention methods of warding skills and making protection spells.
The essential idea of protection spells is making your occult space feel safe. What this safety means and feels like is dependent on you. The four essential principles to making protection spells are: discernment, formation, placement, and maintenance. Discernment is essential, without it you’ll never erect a ward. If bad news is following you like flies to terrible odors then you’ll want to put up some shields from the worst of it. Discernment is also good for knowing what kind of protection you need to set up. It might be a piece of black tourmaline on your window, it might be a mystical “f*ck off circle” drawn in ash or salt around your door, or it could be turning your phone off and having a bath with seven different bath products and eleven really nice candles. Self care is witchcraft.
Once you know that there’s a problem you can treat it. Formation is the assembly or acquisition of the ward or protection materials and putting them together in whatever way gives your vibes plus five defense. The methods used in the erection of wards and protective vibes are each fairly simple. To begin with discernment, since the first step is usually a good one to start at, there is a spectrum of warding tricks involved that scale with the proximity of the problem. Early and late divination, to early and late phenomena. Early divination would involve a set ward, something like a light stick balanced precariously on a small flat stone. If the stick shifts, you have a problem. If early divination is seeing dark clouds on the horizon, late divination is seeing the trees bend in the wind before a bad storm hits. This is feeling nauseous in an emotional sense and flipping some negative tarot cards. If you don’t detect the creeping problem don’t punish yourself for it. People get busy, problems sneak up out of nowhere. If a problem arises without foreknowledge. Some early phenomena of a problem might be a slight increase in negative emotions that persist throughout the day, or the thoughts and images you experience might share a theme to the nature of the problem. Late phenomena don’t take much to notice. Things break and pain lasts longer than it should.
Formation methods boil down to familiarity and duration for necessity. I will also recite the five P’s. Proper Preparation Perpetuates Positive Performance. Get the supplies before a problem happens. The general materials for protection spells are live plants, dried herbs, stones, pen and papers for sigils, and jars for the storage and implementation of the dried herbs. Some witches will mention the use of candle wax to seal jars, but I don’t understand why one couldn’t use glue and food dye or just a lot of lace. Live plants work for early divination, if their health fails it’s a bad sign. They are also refreshing to have in your space, which is nice. Dried herbs can be burnt, brewed, or simply bottled depending on taste and safety parameters. Sage is a classic, culturally appropriated, herb burnt for protection. I like to burn mugwort, but rosemary or basil work too. Those are way cheaper and easier to get. The common stones for protection are black obsidian, jet, smoky quartz, quartz, selenite, and citrine. Sigils used for protection purposes are called “Wards”. I channel my sigils, so my wards look like drunken scribbles. A sigil made by subtracting letters from phrases involving safety and well being or using a 5×5 planetary grid (the Mars grid) are also good. I’ll take a moment here to say that a ward can just be an object that is blessed for the sake of protection. There’s no reason you can’t ask a higher power to bless a condom to keep you safe. Jars can be used for storage, but more importantly they can be used for more dynamic wards. Grab those dry herbs and shove a modest mix of them in. Take a small scrap of paper to make a protective sigil on and burn it in the bottle. If you have tiny stone chunks, like rose quartz shards or jet chunks, you can throw those in too. Seal it with candle wax, or glue, or a binding of lace knots. As long as it says closed it’s not a problem how you get it to close.
The placement of the freshly formed wards depends on their material. Put live plants in places the plant will thrive in, this is the simplest one to understand. If you’re burning the dried herbs, observe fire safety protocols wherever you burn them. Don’t leave any burning material unattended. Make sure the burning herbs are not near anything that can easily catch fire. Make sure they are burnt in a suitable container like a metal or glass bowl. Make sure you have a way to put out any uncontrolled flame. Fire safety is important, you can’t be a spooky witch in a self made cottage in the woods if you burn them both down. Stones, the elemental opposite of fire, can be put anywhere and left alone forever. Leaving a chunk of citrine in your sock drawer and forgetting it’s there isn’t good for protection. Don’t buy the gun if you can’t account for the bullets. Protective stones are good on windowsills or on top of door lintels. Make sure you have enough stones for each entrance into your space. Likewise, with wards, make sure to make enough for each wall per cardinal direction. Achilles had his heel, boss monsters have their glowing orbs. Don’t be a boss monster, protect your orbs. Jars being used for protection can be placed in a similar way, but because jars are multiple elements working together I try to have one in or near a central aspect of my space. It might not be the literal center of the space, but it’s the main function of the area. A spot or item that all others gravitate around. Under or beside your bed in your bedroom, or your preferred chair in a common living space, or even a big tree in your yard. If you do leave a jar, or stones, outside then you will need to worry about the elements. Both weather phenomena, and the social variety. Keeping protection spells out of public sight is a good idea, but that will only do so much.
Protections need maintenance. Entropy affects the supernatural as much as the natural. Grim, but true. If I have a knife and enough time, I can cut down a tree. By making sure you have your Super Spooky Laughing Craft Anti Knife Cologne™, you won’t get stabbed by me no matter how much time I have. Maintenance is as necessary and as glamorous as formation. Protection spells and wards need to be recharged on a (somewhat) regular basis. Make reminders with posted notes or phone notifications, or just be super-duper diligent. Live plants are easier to remember because you’ll notice the plant droop when you forget. They just need an adequate balance of water, soil, and sunlight to stay fresh. Dried plants are easier to maintain, as you simply dump any old brews or empty any ashtrays. The dead are way easier to accommodate than the living. Stones can be refreshed by ringing a deep tone bell or tuning fork, or by waving some burning incense or dried herbs around. I also recommend rotating the array clockwise. If there’s a stone on the east, move it to the south and so on. Jars can also be recharged with the deep tones or by burning herbs or incense, but they can stay put.
Magick is weird. It is a subjective practice mired in cultural interference and purposefully perplexing phrasings. Belief is a key factor in its execution but this same factor can hinder a mage in their will. If you sincerely believe you are under attack from chthonic abominations from the previous iteration of the cosmos, getting your mail can be a panic attack inducing chore. The five P’s are all well and good, but there are two P’s that really round out the others. These new P’s are “placid” and “proactive”. Don’t panic, take care of yourself and you’ll be taken care of. Stay on top of your needs and you won’t need to worry about them. At the end of the day, this is about feeling safe in your space. Maybe an anti-bug candle is all you need, or tactile elements like stim toys or comfy clothes. Magick is weird, it’s ability to work is whatever you can make of it.
Wow seven P’s on how to live your life? What is this, Dante’s Purgatorio?
In Dante Allegheri’s Divine Comedy, Dante visits Purgatory and has seven penances carved on his forehead as P’s which are removed as he ascends purgatory’s levels into paradise.