What does Protection mean in Witchcraft?
Protection is a second step in the process, after cleansing yourself and your space, you will want to put up or refresh your protections. Protection simply means methods of guarding yourself, your space, or certain people, places or things from harm and ill intent. There are three different protection categories. Spacial, Personal and Wards.
Why do I need to protect myself?
Unlike in Harry Potter, “dark wizards” don’t show up in a cloud of purple smoke and call out the spells they cast so you can defend yourself accordingly. There are negative energies that collect and linger, its important to guard against them lingering in your home. There are people who will send ill will and ill intent your way without even realizing it. And then there are those who do so on purpose. It’s important to protect yourself from this – preventatively – so you, your energy, your space and your home and loved ones stay clear and safe. You also want to be sure you are well protected when you work certain spells or rituals especially when working with spirits.
How do you know when to add protections?
Lets say – start with protections. Ideally, you don’t wait until you’ve been robbed to get an alarm system – right? same idea. There really is – in my mind – no limit to how many levels of protection you can have. Add levels of protection when you feel exposed or vulnerable. Trust your gut. It will tell you when you need more. Ideally this should be your second step in any ritual or spell, after cleansing, put up protections.
How do I protect myself? Methods of protection
Remember your intent is everything and truly all you need. I didn’t realize how strong my own protections were – or that I even had any up – until recently when a close friend was doing a vision quest on my behalf – he couldn’t see me. I had to will my protections to open up for him and him alone. It took a few minutes but he found me.
Spacial Protection: have these things on or around you or the area you want to protect – with the intent of protection.
Cast a Circle: great protection before spellwork and rituals
Lock your mirrors: this is a very simple technique using Florida Water (see pdf) where you will wash your mirrors – yes all of them – and using your finger, wet with Florida water, you draw a pentacle at the top (N – earth), bottom (S – fire), left (W – water) and right (E – air) as well as in the center (spirit).
Candles and Incense: I’ll cover Candle Magic in another class but a lot of the herbs and incense I mentioned in the Cleansing Your Space class also contain protective energies. I consider those “two for one” items. Cleanse and protect.
Indoor or Outdoor decorations (enchanted/symbolic): Garden Gnomes, Dream Catchers, Wind Chimes, Fountains, literally anything can have a symbolic protection vibe and can be enchanted to boost that protection.
Natural land (waterways, trees, herbs, stones, etc.) live near a river? got some trees? guess what – protection! plant a garden of protective herbs and flowers, put out a bird feeder. Add some quarts pieces to your garden bed coverings.
Personal Protections: these are made to protect you, are portable and most commonly are jewelry items or enchanted and charged crystals.
Veiling: Literally covering your head, braiding your hair and wearing a wrap or hat of some kind helps protect you against malevolent spirits because you’re covering the crown chakra. (The energy that would go to the crown chakra also becomes focused into the third eye chakra enabling you to see things more clearly). I have a few “slouchy” Rasta hats I’ve made and I wear them often.
Enchanted jewelry, charms, clothes, makeup etc.: You can find charms you can wear or keep near you that contain protective energies. Some people call them lucky items. The Evil Eye is a great example of a protection charm. You can enchant items with protective intent and even incorporate specific stones or crystals into enchanted jewelry to boost the protection.
Manifesting or Envisioning: Quite literally visualizing a barrier or protection around you can manifest a level of invisible protection. Imagine yourself in a bubble or dome, impervious to anything negative or anything sent to hurt you, but still allowing all the beautiful and good energies and things to come to you. You can layer this as many times as you need to feel safe or protected. You can even add specificity to what it will block and even whether or not your protection will also “return to sender”. (we’ll discuss “Return to Sender” in another class)
Herb Satchels: We used to call these mojo bags when I was a kid – I’ve been a witch all my life so for me it used to be a little leather pouch on a long leather chord worn as a necklace that I had some ground sage, rosemary, lavender and a few crystal chips in and even a coin or something I can’t remember exactly. Anything I considered lucky or thought would protect me or bring me good things.
Wards:
Crystals: There are a myriad of stones and crystals that contain protective energies and some are very specific as to what they protect you from/against. You can usually find and buy tumbled or raw stones and keep them in your home, office or magickal working space. (see pdf)
Sigils: a symbol with a mystical or magical meaning (we’ll discuss Sigils in another class because there’s a lot I want to share with you)
Maintaining Protections
Charging – you will want to periodically charge or refresh wards and enchanted items to help ensure they have the necessary energy.
Clearing – wards can collect build up even if they weren’t intended to trap negative energy. Common methods of clearing actually involve taking the wards down altogether and redoing them or cleanse the individual objects used to make the wards and then reenchant the items.
Sub functions of wards
Trapping – Usually geared towards entities – intending to trap them
Circumventing – diverts negative energy/entities away from caster/space/protected person/item
Filtering – allows positive or neutral energies and entities in while keeping out negative
Please feel free to download this 4 page PDF
Recommended Reading
Protection Spells: https://a.co/d/byrUsIJ
Protection and Reversal Spells: https://a.co/d/6DcWCUm
Blackthorn’s Protection Magic: https://a.co/d/2ldcPKz
Magickal Protection: https://a.co/d/befuSdn
By Rust of Nail & Prick of Thorn: https://a.co/d/7ivLa7I
Circe's Grimoire 
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