#protective magic

Great for when someone’s intrusive energy won’t back off.

🧂 You’ll need:

A small jar

A mirror shard (or tin foil inside lid)

Salt

Paper with name/situation

Black string

Add the ingredients, seal it tight, and say: “What you send, I do not keep. Return to sender, clean and deep.”

low-spoons layered wards 🏰🌳🏠

making this response post about my personal warding systems inspired me to describe some methods of warding, especially for those of us with low energy or little time.

i have a more extensive version of this post as an article on my substack.

Photo of a ritual being performed to protect a child from evil spirits. Nigde, Turkey, 1970.

Demon bowls in Aramaic, Hebrew square- and Mandaic script, 4th-8th century Mesopotamia.

Text of the bottom bowl (Wikipedia):

The Schøyen Collection MS 1911/2, Oslo and London. Mandaic script. Mesopotamia, 5th-6th c. A BINDING FOR THE HOUSE AND ABODE OF NANAI DAUGHTER OF IN - AND FOR IHANA SON OF SHISHA. - I AM FEROCIOUS WITH THE DEMONS BUZNAI SON OF MAHIA DIVIDES ... FINDS THE STINKING ONE OVERTURNED, OVERTURNED ... GOAT(?) FROM THE HOUSE OF GISHI ..., AND FROM THE DAUGHTERS AND SONS AND HE IS ENRAGED BY THE RAGE OF THE WOLF THAT IS FROM THE RAGE OF THE TOWN. ON THE CROWN THE STAND, THEY CAST A THRONE ON HIM, ALL THE ANGELS, I STAND AND I STRIKE(?) WITH THE EYE ALL THE ANGELS WHO STAND OVER MY GATE ... AND THE DEVILS SPEAK AND STAND TO DO EVIL

Demon trap bowls were placed with the bottom up under the floors and thresholds of the houses in the Near East. The demons were then believed to be trapped inside the bowl with the magical spells written against them.

Protection powders and potions are common across many cultures. My own mentor taught me a very simple recipe:

Something Hot

Something Sour

Salt

An Enhancer

Tajin has all three base ingredients! The best thing is it is cheap, easily accessible, and you can use the bottle as part of your working.

A Note about Enhancers

Enhancers are added to make the working more potent. In general, they can be divided into a few groups:

Herbs and powders to increase potency. This usually involves ingredients such as asafoetida, camphor, cedar, or yarrow.

Items to tie it to a specific person/spirit

Items to specialize the powder. If you want someone to go away and also not talk about you, you might add something to sweeten their speech.

A triple warding over our door.

One prevents spirits and witches from spying on me in my home. One prevents wandering spirits from infiltrating the home. One empowers our Genius Domi—the spirit of our house itself—to act as a spiritual bouncer of sorts and alert me of any possible siege.

Along with these, I have a powerfully enchanted blade granted to me by the Whitethorn Mother, which is nailed against the inner lintel of our front entreeway. All of this is further supplemented and underscored by one of the most powerful Warding Vessels I have constructed, or encountered anywhere, secreted beneath the wooden boards of our front step.

Her feast day, February 5 was a day to do rituals to protect house and field.

“People sprinkled a special kind of holy water (hátová voda) all over their houses and fields and baked bread from wheat, barley and bran (Agátin chlebíček). After the priest gave the bread his blessing, people fed it to the cattle. The breadcrumbs were placed in the corners of the house and field.”

I collected living water from the creek to consecrate as my hátová voda and made more buchty for bread. The blue vessel holding the hromnička contains salt.

The holy water from this day had another power – whoever drank it wouldn’t get bit by a snake.

Agatha was martyred in Catania, Sicily, near Mount Etna. One year after her death, in 252 AD, the volcano erupted, and lava flowed toward the city. Tradition holds that citizens used her burial veil to stop the lava flow, causing it to instantly halt.

Because her veil saved the city from fire, Agatha became the primary saint invoked against fires, eruptions, and earthquakes. This legend traveled across Europe, making her a "go-to" saint for protection against, and during, uncontrollable fires.

During her martyrdom, she was subjected to being rolled over hot coals mixed with sharp shards. Because she endured this, she was viewed as a saint who conquered the element of fire.

She is often depicted in art with shears or tongs (representing her torture) and sometimes a burning house or smoldering bowl, reinforcing her patronage.

In Central European regions, particularly in the Czech lands, it was customary to bring small loaves of bread to church to be blessed on her feast day. This "Agatha bread" was believed to protect homes from fire and was often fed to cattle for protection.

In agricultural communities, she was invoked to protect fields from fires, storms, and lightning.

As a saint of protection, she was included in invocations against natural calamities, including lightning and violent storms (tempests).

The blessing of candles (similar to Candlemas) and the "holy water" (hátová voda) on February 5th was believed to ward off evil and protect against the dangers of severe weather.

Uses:

deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye

cures for sickness, bad luck, or poor harvest

trap and ultimately break curses

kill the witch or wizard who cursed the person

Contents:

needles/ pins / nails (bent & colorful)

red wine / vinegar / salt / oils

sprite traps / knotted thread

taglocks: urine / hair / menses / spit / natal chart* / imagery*

bottle / jug (see Bartmann jugs)

sea water

earth / sand / stones

feathers / shells / bone

plant matter / thorns / rosemary / lemon

coins / glass

ashes

Locations:

buried in walls

near or under the hearth / chimney stack / fireplace

buried at the farthest corner of the property

placed in an inconspicuous spot in the house

thrown into a fire (killing the witch)

"... He therefore advised him to take a Bottle, and put his Wives Urine into it, together with Pins and Needles and Nails, and Cork them up and set the Bottle to the Fire well corkt, which when it had felt a while the heat of the Fire began to move and joggle a little, but he for sureness took the Fire shovel, and held it hard upon the Cork, And as he thought, he felt something one while on this side, another while on that, shove the Fire shovel off, which he still quickly put on Again, but at last at one shoving the Cork bounced out, and the Urine, Pins, Nails and Needles all flew up, and gave a report like a Pistol, and his Wife continued in the same trouble and languishment still. Not long after, the Old Man came to the house again, and inquired of the Man of the house how his Wife did. Who answered, as ill as ever, if not worse. He askt him if he had followed his direction. Yes, says he, and told him the event as is above said. Ha, quoth he, it seems it was too nimble for you. But now I will put you in a way that will make the business sure. Take your Wive’s Urine as before, and Cork, it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat..." Joseph Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus

Sprite Trap: Set at night, constructed at sunrise blackthorn, red thread and animal hair. Once caught, the threads were removed and sealed in a witch bottle.

Interest in creating charms or other types of items to protect against evil magic or bad luck goes far back in human history. This type of magical practice is known as apotropaic magic, with apotropaic meaning 'to ward off' in Ancient Greek. Some of these magics also invoked particular gods that had apotropaic powers. Apotropaic magic can be broadly divided into symbols, objects, and ritual actions.

By Unknown artist - User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2007-02-09, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2207942

Apotropaic symbols could be used independently, drawn onto walls or tattooed onto a person, to ward off evil magics, such as eyes, which the Ancient Greeks would paint onto drinking vessels to protect the drinker from evil spirits, or many cultures in the Mediterranean painted on their fishing boats. Faces were also common ways to avert evil by placing faces with wild features above doors, known as Gorgons among the Ancient Greeks, which evolved into gargoyles and other grotesques in later buildings.

By Anonymous (Egypt) - Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18844323

Symbols and objects had a lot of overlap. Household gods such as Heka, the ancient Egyptian deity of magic, and the goddess of fertility, the hippopotamus-shaped Taweret, were two that were often invoked. Bes, an Egyptian god who was likely developed from Nubian/Kushite sources, was also considered a protector of households, particularly of women and children. Many rituals to protect against ill-omens were performed in the home rather than in temples. The ancient Egyptians also used wands decorated with a procession of deities to protect during child birth. Incantation bowls, bowls with protective prayers written in a spiral and symbols, were often buried under houses in Mesopotamia to protect those living within from various forms of evil. Several Native American cultures used spider web-like dreamcatchers to protect against nightmares

By TyB - https://www.flickr.com/photos/tylerbell/4099738562/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15839582

Phalloi, or phallus shaped objects, were used by several cultures to ward off evil. The Ancient Greeks often had stone reliefs above their doorways with many three-dimensional ones across the Greek world to protect travelers. The Romans felt that envy would harm the person being envied so used phalluses, among other images, to cause laughter and thus ward off envy.

Source: https://nancyjardine.blogspot.com/2013/04/ritual-beltane.html

Rituals are a bit harder to trace in the ancient world, relying on those rituals either being written about or surviving into the modern world. One of these rituals is dressing boys as girls to avert the evil eye. Whether this was about practicality of having one type of clothing for children, as happened before the advent of modern manufacturing, or because girls weren't targets of the evil eye is uncertain. Among the druids of the ancient Celts drove cattle between two bonfires to protect them against disease, something that was still practiced at least through the 19th century in parts of Ireland and Scotland.