Hyssop and vervain are particularly ancient space cleansers. Hyssop is cited in biblical accounts of Temple cleansings, although there is some doubt as to whether the herbal species now identified as hyssop is actually the same as the one in the Bible. Regardless, what we know today as hyssop has been used as a potent spiritual cleanser for centuries.
Vervain was used to cleanse the temples and altars of ancient Greece and Rome. Effective separately, the two herbs share an affinity and combine well together.
Make a strong infusion from the herbs.
Add this to a bucket of salted floorwash water together with white vinegar.
Make a single use broom, particularly from vervain and/or hyssop. Use it to asperge and scrub with the infusion.
When you’ve completed the cleansing spell, dispose of the used water outside your home. Take the boom apart and scatter the parts outside.
Any broom may be used in this spell, homemade or commercial, however it must be discarded at the conclusion of the spell.
Add an infusion of lemongrass and some white or rice vinegar to a bucket filled with water. (If you have time to make lemongrass vinegar, this is even more effective than the infusion.)
Dip a broom into the bucket of floorwash and sweep the area from the center working your way outwards. This does not need to be a commercial broom. A branch with attached stiff herbs is fine, however a mop may not be substituted.
When complete dump the wash water outside and discard the broom at a crossroad.
This spell incorporates a single-use magickal purification broom.
Use one or any combination of the following herbals: broom, cedar, fennel, hyssop, rosemary, sage, vervain.
Arrange the herbs and tie them to the bottom of a branch with raffia, visualizing, charging and knotting. (Any branch may be used, however an ash branch is considered particularly powerful.)
Sprinkle with salted water or any preferred purification formula.
Sweep the area.
Disassemble the broom outside, away from the cleansed space.
Bury the components in the ground or toss them into living waters, flowing away from you.
You thought witches’ brooms were only for flying? Or perhaps they’re for ambience? Think again: a broom is as effective a spiritual cleanser as it is a household cleaning tool. Some maintain special ritual brooms for magickal use only. Some spells call for really special ritual brooms, intended to be used only once then destroyed, while other spells utilize any available broom, including the one you use for regular daily sweeping.
Many spellcrafters are paralyzed by the idea of making a mistake. They have some vague conception of their lives imploding if they add the oregano before the deer’s tongue grass, or if the candle is lit before the incense.
Part of the spellcrafting process involves having the courage to take your life into your hands and commit yourself to making a difference. There’s no way around that. In fact, it’s one of the greatest truth of accepted that he or she can make a difference in his or her life. As a spellcrafter, you possess the power to initiate change. If you’re petrified of doing something wrong, though, you’re not even giving yourself the opportunity to make a difference, let alone the chance to make a mistake–or to succeed.
Resolve right now to allow yourself to make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn. “Be willing to look like a beginner in order to be an expert,” says creative coach Jill Badonksy and she’s right: everyone has to start somewhere. When you learned to ride a bicycle, you fell off and skinned your knees over and over until your finally mastered the trick of balancing on two narrow, moving tires. Spellcrafting can be a much less painful experience as long as you remember to come up with a clearly defined goal, to think through your spell carefully, and to consider the consequences. Practice gives you experience to apply to your future spells. Note, however, that practice does not make perfect in the subjective area of spellcraft.. Life is a work in progress, after all. Things are rarely perfect.
What about the magick of the moment? What about those times where you’re swept up by emotion and you perform a spontaneous spell right then and there?
Spontaneous spells can be lovely, deep, and very meaningful. There’s no rule anywhere insisting that every spell has to be thought and planned out to the last detail. If you’re standing on the seashore under a full moon and your heart swells, then by all means do what you feel inspired to do.
Just write it down when you get back home. Scribble down as best you can what you said and what you did. You can use a spell record sheet, or you can record it in a journal reserved for spellcrafting. A journal like this can also record meditations, questions, dreams and bits of research, and over time can become a beautiful and personal record of your evolution as a spellcrafter. Knowledge is power and the more knowledge you acquire from studying your success and failures, the more power you have over your abilities and your life.
Ground and Center before all magickal work to avoid depleting personal energy levels. Begin by being still, gathering within and releasing through the fee (and palms if need be) into the ground all static, chaotic internal energies. Now feel the inner calmness, centered around the heart, and draw up through the feet strong Earth energy (through the floor if indoor), feeling the power and energy rising up and intertwining with your own energies up through the legs, body, arms, neck, and head, out the top, circled around and up again until all portions of the body are in balance. Once this power is felt and is in balance, then Circle Casting, Ritual, Divination, and Spell Work may begin.
Grounding after all magickal work to avoid overload of personal energy levels; touch the Earth/floor with palms of the hands after magickal work and feel the excess energy drain out, leaving a balance of personal energy, augmented only by that amount of Earth necessary for healthy functioning of the body. Too much retained energy will result in headache, depression, or irritability. Too Little will result in fatigue, depression or faintness. You must find the inner balance and adjust according to how you feel.
Lost and Away powder (recipe below) has various uses, in addition to banishment. It’s also used to establish personal and psychic boundaries, as well as to prevent someone else from encroaching on those boundaries.
Write your target’s name thirteen times on a square of paper.
Sprinkle Lost and Away Powder on this paper.
Fold the paper up, always folding away from you.
Seal it with sealing wax, preferably red.
Bury this paper but mark the spot
Leave it buried for thirteen days, watering daily with War water
On the fourteenth day dig it uup and burn it .
Lost & Away Powder Recipe
Dirt from a crossroad
Mistletoe
Sulfur
Orris
Sage
Sometimes it’s not clear what or who needs to be banished. There’s just a prevailing sense of evil that needs to be expelled. This spell is most effective during the Dark Moon. An iron hammer is required, as is a flat rock and either a coffin nail or an old rusty nail.
Hammer the nail against the rock. The goal is not to pierce the rock but merely to score it three times across the face. Visualize what you are dispelling while you hammer.
Bury the stone far away.
Carry the nail in a red mojo bag, together with some crossroads and/or graveyard dirt.
Invite a number of people both living and otherwise.
Dress for dinner. Set the table beautifully. Make sure there are sufficient chairs and place settings for the unseen guests.
Do not speak at all. Do not serve yourself. Everyone must serve others, living or otherwise. Allow yourself to become sensitive to the desires of others. (You may also designate specific people to serve as waiters.)
When the meal is over, dishes cleared away and everyone has left the table (and the dead have presumably departed), discuss experiences, perceptions, and insights.
Do you wish to dine with Dr. Dee, Madame Blavatsky and Mamzelle Marie Laveau?Invite them? Perhaps you’d rather share a meal with your late great-grandmother. Invite her,,, too? Dumb Suppers are ritual meals enacted with between living and the dead. “Dumb” indicates not lack of intelligence but that these meals(and any communication) are conducted in silence. While the dead are formally invited to attend, all cooking and serving is done by the living. Although a dumb supper may be served at any time, traditionally they are scheduled to coincide with Halloween the time of year when the veil between realms is thinnest. Extend specific invitations or allow yourself to be surprised by who shows up.
Witches Of The Craft® 