Chickens Have a Prey Drive: the tiny velociraptor's peckables for protecting the coop
A list of stuff I believe about protections and all such, written in the style of the evil overlord list, which I have been fond of for two decades.
Take what you like, leave the rest behind.
|. The best time to make protections is before you need them. The second best time is when you need them.
You can make a wide variety of protections ahead of time, whether or not you think you'll ever actually need them, and then learn to "pause" or "lay down to bed" the magic until you ever need it.
This provides ample practice in not only spellcasting, but also in magical validation, and learning to pause and restart ongoing spellwork.
2. If your general protections fail, make specific ones.
3. Unless you have specific information that a failed ward was already out of energy when its boundaries were tested, recharging it is probably not going to fix your problem.
4. Protections change things. If you create a protection and it changes nothing about your life, it probably was not cast well.
If you created a protection against advertisements, something about your life should change. The wifi goes down and you can't go on the internet. Someone reblogs a post explaining how to install adblockers. Something happens every single time an ad comes up on screen, thereby distracting you. Where once you slavered with rage at advertisements, now you barely notice them and feel emotionally numb when you do. Etc.
A corollary to the above rule: if you need a way to verify preventative protections against things that are already not happening, use your same spellcasting techniques to make protections against things that are already happening, and see if you can get them to stop.
5. Protections using only "visualization" without energy work, spellwork, prayers, petitions, magical sacrifice, or other forms of metaphysical empowerment, are often ineffective/inert. This is because imagining things really hard is not automatically an act of magic.
Conceptualize visualized energies as being empty shells that then need to be filled up with some kind of metaphysical power. They hold a little energy on their own, but without being solidified, they will fade away over time.
6. It's possible to empower protections only with your personal belief or faith that they will work. But this is a bad idea for most people.
Willpower is not infinite. At a certain point, it runs out.
Willpower runs out faster if you use a lot of it.
The "batteries" of any spell drain faster when that spell is actively being used, I.E., protections run out of energy faster when they are being tested.
Building a spell that relies on your personal willpower to protect you means that you are betting you will have enough willpower during a time of high personal stress to keep the protection going.
Not only that, but metaphysically speaking, it is completely possible for the strength of your personal willpower to simply be weaker than whatever it is you want to protect against.
(Shout out to the energy suns who have no idea what I'm talking about)
7. Ask for help when you need it.
Please note: this does not say engage in a formal petition ritual, or pay spirits for services, or whatever. It says what it means: ask for help.
Ask your gods, spirits, and ancestors. Ask the house and the trees. Ask the sky and the grass. Ask your stuffed animals and your old spell vessels. Ask grace itself.
You do not need to know their names. You do not need to have an ongoing, perfect, healthy relationship beforehand. Just ask.
8. Depending on how you're doing it, cleansing and banishing are not the same thing.
9. Powerful and effective protection spells can be performed with one (1) correspondence.
There is a time and place to make elaborate oils using 13 consecrated ingredients, and that time and place is after you've dealt with this current spiritual emergency. You can spend those new XP points earned in combat on leveling up your badass premade potions.
Addendum to the above rule: the one (1) powerful correspondence will be found in your kitchen.
10. If you performed a cleansing/banishing/protection/whatever and the Symptom was not resolved, then the whatever failed and you need to try again.
11. Wards can and do trap unwanted presences inside.
If you do not have protections up, only place them after you've banished.
If you already have wards, temporarily pause them or "open them up" so that things can get through.
Or be very clever and construct wards in such a way that things can get out, but not in.
12. Don't wait before you begin taking care of hauntings or malefica.
Don't wait to research and order arcane little herb packets you read off correspondence lists. Don't wait for powerful magical timings. Begin acting.
If you actually are dealing with a serious problem that needs special circumstances to be resolved, you probably won't have the data you need until you start trying to solve the problem, and see first hand what works and what doesn't work.
13. Many protections are best conceptualized as treatments, not cures.
A fence will rot if it is not maintained. Permanency in spellwork is a lofty goal that is difficult to achieve. If you are not tending to your protections and re-upping them as needed, they are going to burn out and over time, eventually degrade and fail.
One solution is to intentionally put to bed various protections you don't need in the moment, and waking them up as desired.
Beginner-level energy work protections, like shields, often only last 24h or even much less.
14. Ask yourself what may be going on with "advanced" practitioners who say they don't use and don't need protections.
Have they cultivated personal power that deters spiritual intrusions? Are they spirit workers or worshipers who receive spiritual protection outside of spellwork? Do they have a powerful natural talent for personal protection that they don't realize they're using? Do they have an ongoing routine of personal cleansing and empowerments that stop problems before they arise? Do they walk a personal path that simply never intersects with dangerous spiritual situations?
When you see someone say, "I don't protect and I've never needed to," this should not be taken to mean that if you need to protect, something is wrong with you.
15. While it may be useful to have a heavy-handed protection amulet around in case you need it, cloaking yourself, your property, or your life in powerful protections may cause problems.
16. If you need protection, you need it.
17. It's wise to keep track of what protections you've cast, especially for the prolific spellcaster. Protections can have long-lasting and unexpected implications.
18. It's wise to construct protections with the foresight that you may need to pause their effects or modify their exact focus.
19. Putting things around the four corners of the property really does work great.
20. "Protection" may be best conceptualized as an umbrella term that contains many aspects: building walls, hiding from prying eyes, forming good relationships, preemptively resolving conflict, removing aggressors, and diplomacy.
It's better to have a stick than not have a stick, but a stick is still a poor tool when only talking things out will do.
21. "No, fuck off" might be a powerful act of magic, but it's not like practitioners are out here developing whole-ass spells and rituals for protections just for funsies.
22. You do not need to confirm that something is Going On before engaging in a course of self-cleansing, banishment, and protections - just in case.
23. The best protection spell is one which you are able to cast when you need it.
24. Shielding is a useful trick, and is a good introduction to energy work.
On-demand energy work protections may be draining to many, especially to those who aren't really energy workers and who don't actively develop that muscle or battery.
If you find yourself needing daily protection but are becoming fatigued by relying on energy work, try switching to a protective amulet empowered by evoking correspondences or through prayers - anything that draws on external energy. These tend to hold their charge for much longer.
25. Protection won't shield you from symptoms of your disorder or illness, but they may be able to assist with limiting stressors and triggers.
26. For those finding that the regular upkeep of necessary protections has become too draining, experiment with enchanting batches of oils, waters, incense, etc., to easily feed spell vessels.
27. The astute witch will note that protections can and will block the ability of ancestors, guides, guardians, and other forms of desired spirit contact.
28. The practitioner who desires to fucketh about with their dreams does well to first protect their dreams.
