Often, I’ll be scrolling through the witchcraft tags and find a lot of images featuring bottles packed with strange ingredients as part of a stunning visual arrangement. Similarly, a lot of movies (such as Harry Potter and others) feature witches, wizards, and other magical practitioners surrounded by dozens upon dozens of strange bottles with yellowing labels. Clearly, popular sentiment associates witchcraft and magick with bottles and jars with arcane contents. This goes beyond the aesthetic, though! Witchcraft involving bottles, jars, and other sealable containers has quite a long and storied history.
Throughout the early modern period in Europe, witch bottles were used by normal ordinary folk to protect themselves against malevolent magic, and I’ve written a bit about this in my own article on that particular flavor of magical working here. I also ran across this more general article about the use of bottles in protective magick. Bottles also have a tradition of being used in other forms of magick, too, as this article describing the commonly-used “sweetening jar” spell explains.
I personally think spells involving jars and bottles are versatile and great for both beginners and experienced practitioners. Of the workings and spells I’ve done over the past year, a good percentage of them involved jars, bottles, or some other sort of similar container. While not every purpose is well-suited to be addressed by a bottle spell, a good many are. Almost any spell involving ingredients (such as those that call for making a potion or charm bag) can be adapted into a bottle spell, as well, which adds to the versatility of this kind of magick.
Different witches, with various theories of magick, will likely have different views on how spell bottles (and spells in general) actually work. For me, bottle spells function in a number of ways depending on how they’re designed. For the most part, the majority of the ones I do utilize the bottle as a sort of symbolic “womb” wherein the spell itself germinates and ultimately comes to manifest as the symbolic ingredients interact in a manner of my choosing. For me, my typical bottle spell is a charm or talisman of sorts, and functions in a similar manner, so mine tend to be designed to affect me personally or my immediate surroundings, and I carry them with me when I need them. Given how much practice I’ve had with bottle and jar spells, I thought I’d write this short(ish) guide to making your own.
The photo above shows some planetary simple bottle charms I made, each harnessing the force of a particular planetary sphere. Bottle spells tend to work for a variety of purposes. Really, with (most, but not all) bottle or jar spells, you’re creating a charm for a specific purpose, and it functions much as (for example) a talisman with a sigil carved into it would. The main difference between that and a bottle spell is that, with the latter your desire is communicated and manifested via the symbolic ingredients rather than a straight-up sketched symbol. As such, any situation where you feel a charm or talismanic object would help can be addressed with a bottle spell.
Keep in mind, though, that, in the absence of taglocks (more about this later), a bottle spell is likely to work based on physical proximity to the bottle. You can use one to affect you and your immediate surroundings, but it’s counterintuitive and less productive to attempt something at a distance with one (unless, again, you have a taglock). For example, a bottle spell would work great for creating a small charm to carry with you and help you remember lectures during classes, but probably wouldn’t be a useful method for blessing a distant online friend seeking help with the same situation.
The above photo shows a healing spell bottle I made, and while you can’t quite see it, deep within it, there’s a taglock the target gave me to help with the spell. I keep mentioning that taglocks change things a bit, and they do. What is a taglock? I’ve written an article about them here, but in short, they’re little bits and material connected to a particular person that can be used as a stand-in for that person and overcome issues of distance. The article explains several different things that work as taglocks, including physical belongings such as bits of clothing, discarded paper, hair, nail clippings, but also more unusual things such as photographs, signatures, and really, anything that has a strong tie to a person’s identity.
Taglocks are a great way of connecting a bottle spell to a particular person, and can allow you to cast such a spell on the person without them physically being present or carrying the bottle around, themselves. This is useful if you’ve got a friend who needs help, but they’re not physically close or able to receive the bottle containing the spell. Taglocks, naturally, can also be used in hexing and cursing, as I’m sure you can easily imagine.
My witch bottle variation explains how to use a taglock from yourself (such as your hair, nails, or a bit of your clothing) to deflect harmful spells, and the concept is the same whether the bottle is designed to affect you, or a distant friend. Of course, in many cases something as intimate as nail clippings might not be readily available, and many witches actually use photographs or snippets of letters, which can also give good results. I actually made a variant on my own witch bottle designed to protect my family, and for some of them, I did end up using photos or bits of paper they’d touched, rather than something containing their DNA.
Realize, though, that this may be immaterial to your purposes - if you’re just casting a spell on yourself, a taglock might not even be necessary if circumstances allow you to keep the bottle physically close to you for the duration of the spell. I do this a lot, too, making a bottle and slipping it into my purse or pocket on days when I need that particular spell’s effects most. Even if the spell is meant to work on other people besides you (repelling unwanted advances, for example), as long as you’re central to its purpose, carrying a spell bottle with you can work great.
Choosing a bottle, jar, or other vessel to use in your spell is pretty important. In my opinion, form should always follow function. This means both that you should choose a bottle that will suit your purposes physically, but also that it should have an aesthetic that matches your goal.
I personally recommend those tiny, clear corked bottles (available at almost all hobby stores, in bulk, too) for almost any purpose, and having a supply of them handy is pretty great. I like them because they’re basically blank slates, and I have no negative, nor positive associations for their basic form - they’re just bottles, a canvas on which I can craft a spell. Naturally, I’ve used oddly-shaped or decorative bottles before, too
There are plenty of beautiful specialty bottles available from a variety of shops, both online and off, and you can certainly find interestingly-shaped or decorated bottles just in your day-to-day life which could be repurposed as spell bottles. In some ways, choosing a bottle for a specific purpose could be obvious - if you associate love with the color pink, a self-love spell bottle might take the form of a small pink repurposed make-up bottle.
Realize though, that sorting through tons of possible choices in terms of a bottle to use can get pretty silly, and there’s no need to buy something expensive, either. A simple bottle you can find anywhere will work, provided you don’t associate it already with something that goes against the spell’s purpose. As an example, an empty Coke bottle probably wouldn’t work so well for a spell designed to inspire you to consume less sugar, and a bottle that strongly smells of leftover vodka might not work well for a self-discipline spell.
As I alluded to, before, though, whatever bottle you use must be physically practical above all else. An antique wine bottle might be beautiful, but you cannot very well carry it around with you every day, though it might work well for a home protection spell if left on an altar or in your foyer. Another reason to consider a smaller bottle would be gathering the ingredients to fill it. A giant jar may look impressive and indeed be effective, but why use up so many ingredients filling it when a smaller one works just as well? This is all a matter of personal choice, of course, and if you feel your purpose warrants a large or small bottle, go for it, but I do recommend the smaller ones for most purposes.
I discussed taglocks, and the possibility of using one, earlier, so now, we’ll skip that and discuss regular ingredients for jar and bottle spells. I always try to emphasize that choosing ingredients for a spell is a process involving a great deal of complexity, and it cannot be reduced to looking through a table in a book and choosing herbs under a particular header. Rather, you must consider both what the material means to you, as well as traditional associations, and, in the context of a bottle spell, aesthetic/practical considerations regarding how it’ll fit/work/look within the bottle. Remember - I believe form should follow function, and this is true even when picking ingredients. It sounds silly, but it really is quite helpful if you set things up so the bottle looks pleasing to your own sense of aesthetics.
For your basic jar or bottle spell, choose a series of ingredients that have the proper associations for you, personally. Books, websites, and other material can indeed help with this - it can be fun to read about how mugwort, for example, is associated with the Moon and psychism because of it’s cannabinoids and silver leaves, and reading such descriptions will help you form associations within your mind to make your magick more powerful.
Regardless of what your purpose, I recommend that you allow your personal associations for a given material (herb, gemstones, etc.) to override all other correspondences, period. In other words, if you’re doing a love-drawing bottle and consider using roses, but you yourself have a very negative view of roses, don’t use them, no matter how many books and websites tell you they’re a must. I’ve written a good bit on the nature of ingredients in spells and how they act as symbols - you can read that here, and I hope it’s helpful for beginners working all sorts of spells, including bottle spells.
As I mentioned above, though, another thing to consider when choosing ingredients for a jar or bottle spell is, yes, aesthetics. It really, really helps if your jar or bottle has an appearance that relates to its base purpose in some way, physically. If you’re not using a clear bottle, this is less of an issue, but most witches end up using bottles where the ingredients are visible, so it’s something to think about. This means that I’d recommend love spell bottles that look “pretty” or beautiful to you, the witch, and a bottle for peace that incorporates colors, scents, and a general sensory aesthetic that makes you feel at peace just looking at it. Definitely consider engaging the non-visual senses with a spell bottle - a few drops of essential oil on a cork before closing it up (or inside the bottle) can add a lot to the overall force of the spell, just because it engages you on a different level than just sight.
A lot of sites and books give recipes for jar or bottle spells, as have I - I’ll be linking to some at the end of this article. Also, plenty of spells meant to be potions (such as teas) can be adapted into bottle spells instead. Just add the ingredients to the bottle instead of infusing them, and make any adaptations necessary to make it work.
Even if you’re doing this, though, you need to put a lot of thought into what goes into your bottle. Don’t just scroll around and find a list on a website of “love ingredients” and pop it all in there for a love spell without researching and contemplating what each of them means within your mind. I’m not saying that recipes from books and websites won’t work, but you need to know why you’re using what you’re using for it to be truly effective. If you’re new, the task may seem daunting, but over time, you’ll quickly learn to balance what you know of traditional correspondences with your own personal associations and aesthetics, and it ends up making the process even more fun.
One interesting thing about bottle spells: you can often use a single one for multiple related purposes. I’ve stressed before how difficult it can be to sigilize a complex series of concepts, and how sigils are best if kept simple and single-purposed, but bottle spells are quite the reverse. While you should always have a clear goal in mind when doing magick, and no one spell can solve all or most of your problems, you can combine related concepts into one bottle spell pretty easily.
For example, if your goal is to have prophetic or visionary dreams, and your bottle is going to sit on your nightstand, you might include ingredients associated with relaxation and sleep as well as divination and visions. You might even add a third purpose by adding herbs associated with communication to heighten the connection between you and unseen forces.
Such a spell would work great, because all those purposes relate to your main goal. It would be a little more complicated, messy, and less effective to cast a bottle spell for two separate, unrelated purposes, though. If you were interested both in heightening your divinatory senses and bringing yourself prosperity, it’d probably be best to do two separate bottles rather than combining them into one, for example. For purposes that all relate, though, a single bottle will work just fine.
Finally, one issue I’d like to address with regards to choosing ingredients is the matter of quantity. When making a potion or other consumable formula (perfume, etc.), the quantity of each ingredient is going to need to fit within certain parameters so that the finished product doesn’t turn out noxious, foul, or poisonous. With a bottle spell, you have quite a bit more leeway! Consider employing numerology (in whatever system you’re comfortable with) to add a layer of symbolism here. If the number four, for example, has particular significance towards your purpose, consider adding bits and ingredients in quantities of four (four scoops, gemstones, etc). It’s an idea I’ve played with quite a bit, but by no means do I do it for every spell. It’s just something to think about, really.
Making (and Using) the Bottle
Making a spell bottle is simple, once the ingredients have been chosen, which is part of what makes this method of witchery ideal for the beginner. If you haven’t read my post on how to enchant and empower ingredients, or haven’t been introduced to the concept of doing so, I suggest perusing that, or reading a bit about it elsewhere and developing your own method. In short, you need to have your own workable method (whatever it may be) for letting the ingredients know what their purpose is within a given spell.
Again, the article I linked explains more about this, but for a spell bottle in particular, I found that it helps to sit and try to sum up a given ingredient’s purpose in as few words as possible and then translate the sentiment of that into whatever process you use to enchant them. I’ve given a lot of my own methods for empowering ingredients in the article I linked above.
With bottle spells, I typically empower/enchant each ingredient just moments before adding it to the bottle, one at a time. I’ll enchant one ingredient, add it, then enchant the next and add it. This works for me, and it may work for you, too, but other people certainly often prefer other methods. I typically also try to sum up the purpose of the entire bottle (in a few words or a short sentence) and enchant the whole thing (on top of what’s already been done with the ingredients) once it’s fully complete.
When it comes to physically adding the ingredients to the bottle and any processes you might put them through beforehand, there are practical considerations. I’ve emphasized several times that I personally feel bottles that have an aesthetic connection to their purpose are more effective. If the bottle you’re working with is clear glass or similar material (as most are), the order and method of adding the ingredients will be a major factor in the appearance of the finished bottle. Thus, keep that in mind when you’re adding things.
I tend to, for the most part, layer my ingredients rather neatly, and I use a small pencil to tamp each layer down, if possible. I also often incorporate symbolism into the order of ingredients in the bottle. My usual jar spell will include some gemstones or other minerals, some herbs and plants, and some flowers, but may include other ingredients, as well. Typically, I’ll add a few stones first, then layer on the herbs, one after the other, and then add a few more stones, topping it with flowers. I’ll usually choose one ingredient that I consider the most important, and it goes in the very center of the bottle.
I do this because it makes it feel as if I’m “planting” my intention in the ground, surrounded by plant matter and minerals, with the flowers, which represent the spell’s manifestation, atop. This won’t, naturally, be everyone’s cup of tea, but it does give an idea of the sort of thought that you can put into this.
When the bottle is full, mostly full, or as full as you’d like it, you can then close it up with whatever stopper, cork, or lid you’re using. If you plan on carrying the bottle around with you, this is a must to keep the ingredients from spilling out. I honestly recommend closing the bottle, anyways, even if it’s just going to be sitting somewhere, because it makes things less messy if you accidentally tip it over. The issue of whether to actually seal the bottle will mostly be a personal choice, though.
Traditionally, witch bottles were typically sealed, but there are reasons you might want it to remain openable. I, for one, have refrained from sealing a few spell bottles that included fragrant ingredients, because pulling out the cork for a few seconds and inhaling the scent was part of the spell for me. Of course, as well, any spell bottle meant to be disposed of or destroyed at a later date, or which will contain perishable ingredients shouldn’t be sealed. Hint: A great way to ruin your sweetening spell is to allow the sweet stuff in the bottle to go rancid around the taglock. It’s just something to think about.
Above, you can see the wax-sealed tops of some bottle charms I made for my last giveaway. If you do decide to seal it up, consider using wax. Proper sealing wax in a variety of colors is available at most craft stores, and candle wax works too, though not as well. I’ve mentioned improvising a couple times, and have, in the past, sealed small bottle charms with colored nail polish. With those small clear, corked bottles I mentioned, you can seal them pretty well if you’re careful by just pushing the cork very deep into the bottle, but obviously not all the way through the neck.
Once it’s sealed (or not) and finished, empower/charge/enchant it using your preferred method. Then it either goes with you, or remains in an area where it can easily work its magick. The traditional witch bottle protection charms were buried or otherwise stowed in threshold areas of the household in order to protect the inhabitants from anything entering the home. A spell bottle designed to give you confidence, conversely, would probably be best carried with you surreptitiously into situations where its effects are needed. Where you put your bottle charm after creating and enchanting it really depends on you and what effect you want it to have. There’s been some talk about bottle spells involving taglocks and where to put them, and I honestly just stow those in a cupboard, as do some other witches I know.
I label most of my bottle charms in some way. The above one was labeled shortly after my first attempt to use it, actually. it was a prosperity charm, hence the dollar signs. I labeled it cheekily with “Oh Crap” because the effects it ended up having were far too chaotic to make it useful, so I just stashed it rather than continuing to carry it as a charm. This lessened the effects and made them less chaotic and unpredictable, but I ended up dismantling the bottle in the end.
If you need to dismantle a charm bottle for any reason (for example, if the effects are untoward or undesirable), most methods of purification commonly used (censing with purifying smoke, dousing in saltwater, burying in the ground for a period of time) may work for you, provided you’ve the proper intent. As to physically destroying it, please do so in a way that won’t cause undue damage to the environment. Not everyone thinks about such things, but it’s a concern. I unfortunately cannot really give specific instructions for dismantling a bottle charm on a physical level, though, because that depends on what’s in it. For most charms, just flaking off the wax following a purification and popping out the cork or lid and tossing the herbal ingredients into compost will work while saving any gemstones for future use, but if you’ve got other, more unusual ingredients in there, do be careful and mindful of how they should be disposed of.
Here’s a list of the bottle charms I’ve published here on Tumblr.
A Venus Bottle Charm for Love Magick
A Saturn Bottle Charm for Discipline
Gaining an Ally Sweetening Bottle Charm
My Version of the Classic Witch’s Protection Bottle
Bottle Charm for Motivation
A Bottle Charm as a Pendulum
I hope you enjoyed this article, and that it was both entertaining and informative. I will be opening my divination shop soon, and if you’d like to support my writing and endeavors in the meantime, donations are always appreciated. If there’s a topic you would like me to write about, or if you have any questions, please do send me a message or an ask, but do please read my FAQ and master page beforehand to see if I’ve already addressed your question.
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