In addition to making your custom buttons at Portland Button Works, at The Spiral House Shop we offer 100s of our own designs that can be put on pinback buttons of various sizes, magnets, or hand mirrors.

Here's a snippet from 'Protection Work in Folk Magic: Herbs, Spells, & Charms for Protecting Yourself & Others' — and an upcoming bonus post is going to focus on more methods of protecting protestors and protecting/boosting their goals. | Support on Ko-Fi

Protection from Violence, Assault, & Harassment:

Sator Squares:

Pennsylvania Dutch variation of a Sator Square found in 'Long Lost Friend' by German-American Pennsylvania Dutch healer and charm worker, John George Hohman; published in 1820.

The Sator Square / Rotas-Sator Square is a palindromic word square used as a magical charm or amulet. It's been around for quite some time (with the oldest known square possibly being from as early as AD 50) and has been found to have been used historically throughout Europe, Africa, Asia Minor, and the Americas. As to its origins and intended purpose, no one knows for sure, but the Sator Square has come to have a number of magical uses, including as a tool for curing ailments, aiding in childbirth, putting out fires, and, in fitting with the theme of this piece, in protection magic.

Medieval Sator Square etched into a wall; Oppède-le-Vieux, France.

There are many variations of Sator Squares / Rotas-Sator Squares, but the most common forms consist of five rows of five words, each with five letters, arranged in a 5x5 grid. The Rotas-Sator Square (in which rotas is the word listed first, pictured below on the left) was the more common in pre-medieval use, but the Sator Square (in which sator is listed first, pictured below on the right) became far more prevalently used than the Rotas-Sator variation at some point in medieval Europe.

Rotas-Sator Square (left) and Sator Square (right).

In Southern Appalachian and some Southeastern folk practices within the United States, one can use a Sator Square for protection from violence or assault against your person.

What to do:

-Write out a Sator Square or Rotas-Sator Square and carry the charm with you. It can be kept in the pocket, especially a shirt pocket, in the shoe, or even be sewn into one's clothes.

All of us practicing magic publicly should probably be doing more evil-eye removal, uncrossing, and cursebreaking than we do. Protective wards and servitors are great, but even if we never leave our enchanted sanctuaries, some things will still get through. To that end, evolving variations of this spell have become a regular part of my magical protection and spiritual hygiene regimen. I shared a…