I’ve seen a lot of confusion recently about weather all witches can use Palo santo in their craft and I’ve set out to clear it.
Palo Santo comes from the palo santo tree in South America and its name means ‘holy wood’ or ‘sacred wood’; it is widely used in shamanistic practices around the world and its use can be traced back to as early as the Incan Empire. While it originated and is harvested in South America it is also widely used in Native American practices but it isn’t originally from their culture nor has it ever solely been used by one shamanistic practice; due to it historically being used by shamanistic cultures around the world it isn’t considered part of any closed off culture and can be used by any witch, shaman, or spiritual healer from any background and practice.
I’ve seen a few witches (only on tumblr) inaccurately claim it as ‘their’ own tool and sacred and used only by their ancestors and practice and therefore off limits to others but this is simply incorrect.
*Disclaimer: Do not replace traditional Western Medicine with Palo Santo and especially do not stop taking such medicine unless your doctor says otherwise. Naturopathic medicine is meant to be used in conjuntion with traditional medicine and any who say otherwise are selling you snake oil.*
Point form with explanations below:
Creating/ cleansing a sacred space
Banishing negative energy
Banishes Anxiety and Depression
Imparts Luck when used as a charm
Used as a powerful spiritual connector
Raises vibrations in items or spaces
Can be used as a tea to treat flu, cold, and allergies
Reduces inflammation, anti-septic, anti bacterial (if using the essential oil)
Palo Santo is a powerful cleansing incense. It’s smoke is used to banish and clear negative energies from a space and can therefore be used in cerimonial/ ritual use as well as a cleansing smoke for a witches space, altar and tools.
Palo Santo is also used to help with Anxiety and depression. I have personal experience using it for my PTSD and it does really help take that edge off. (in conjunction with my prescribed medicine too) Ive also used to to banish spirits from my home as they frequently like to stick around and watch me and my partner sleep, one particularly strong one wouldn’t leave until I smoked it out using this.
Palo Santo increases the vibrations of a space or thing and thus can aid in meditation, astral work, and spirit work.
It doesn’t need to be burned to work as well, Palo Santo can be a powerful ingredient for any charm, charm bag or bottle magic spell and its essential oil can be a powerful magical aid as well as a natural medicine.
Now, there is a lot of mis-information out there claiming white sage as endangered, imo solely so that sellers can justify raising prices (as its only sellers who sell to the witch community that falsely claim this) but Palo Santo IS on the protected list. This doesn’t mean its ‘endangered’ however it is illegal to harm or cut down living trees. That being said the Palo Santo used in incense typically is only harvested from fallen/dead wood as only dead wood that’s cured for a year has any use as an incense so I wouldn’t worry too much about ‘over use’.
That being said I also wouldn’t say burning Palo Santo every day exclusively in large quantities is good either. It is a great tool and amazing ingredient to add to your collection and compared to Sage (which has a strong almost cigarette like smoke) it smells far better as its sweet and citrusy.
All in all Palo Santo is one of my favourite tools for my magical practice and i use it in conjuntion with many other sacred herbs, woods and resins and I think you all would love it too.
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