Part of my witchcraft 101 series
Step 1: Decide what you want your spell to do
I’d argue that this is probably one of your most important parts to spell writing. If you don’t really know what kind of spell to cast, you’re not going to cast an effective spell. When I personally started out on my journey, I looked up spells on tumblr tags or Google to get an idea of what I wanted my spell to be and adapted them to fit my vision. You can do it this way, too, but if you want to do it entirely from scratch, decide on what your focus is.
Step 2: Refine your intent.
In online witch communities, you’re going to hear a lot about something called intent. Intent is what makes a spell a spell. It’s what you want your spell to do. For example, let’s say I want to do a love spell. What kind of love spell do I want to create? One to attract a new lover? To make myself more attractive to others? Be careful when thinking about this, though, especially with love magic because certain intentions can breach the whole free will thing and casting a spell on others without their consent is never a good thing. Intent is moving beyond what kind of spell you want to do and moving towards what your spell is. It’s the whole heart of your spell.
Step 3: Decide what kind of spell you want to do.
This can be anything from a baking, cooking, bath, tea, etc. spell. What kind of spell you decide to create will require you to be careful with your components since if you’re going to create a potion that you ingest, you absolutely should not use essential oils in that potion since they are not meant to be consumed. There’s also things like jar spells that are very popular in the witchblr community but they’re not always good for the environment so if your spell is supposed to be buried, you’ll want to perhaps consider a different type of spell. The world is your oyster.
Step 4: Decide on your components.
Components are the parts that make up your spell. So things like herbs, crystals, vinegars, oils, essential oils, etc. Each component will have different associations so if you’re wanting to create a spell for waking up, you won’t want to put lavender in it since lavender is often used for sleeping spells. Witchipedia I find has a good comprehensive list of correspondences but for more obscure herbs, I find just a rudimentary Google search often does the trick. If you find a correspondence that doesn’t feel right in your gut, then you don’t have to use that correspondence for the herb or you can just find a different herb altogether. For example. when I was creating a protection spell bag last summer, I used mistletoe in my bag and mistletoe is often associated with sexual love, fertility, male potency etc., but I find it has more protective qualities because it is a poisonous herb. This is also where I’ll remind you to be mindful of what kind of spell you’re making. If you’re making protection muffins, you’re not going to want to throw mistletoe into that bad boy since it is poisonous.
Step 4a: Research your components.
This! Is! Important! Especially for herbs that you use. Be extra careful with ingesting herbs, especially ones like St. John’s Wort, since SJW does interact with a lot of medicines, like beta blockers, and it can reduce the effectiveness. tl;dr just be careful of what you’re putting in your body and if Google isn’t giving you a solid answer, always talk to your doctor beforehand.
Taglocks are things that tie your spell to a target. For example, in my protection spells, I tend to put my hair in it. You can also use a personal sigil, a bindrune that represents you, a photo, blood/other bodily fluids, etc. to represent your target. If your target is not yourself, ensure that you get bodily fluids from the third party ethically. Basically, don’t go around cutting people’s hair off or sticking them with a needle to get their blood. Just … be considerate and also get individuals’ consent.
Step 5: Put your spell together!
This is the fun part! This is where you get to throw all your ingredients together! I find that listening to music when I curate my spells helps me focus my intent. This is where you’ll do the actual baking part of your spell if you’re doing a baking spell or putting components into the spell bag and so forth.
I often seal my spell with wax, if it’s a jar spell, or runes, if it’s a baking spell, or stirring clockwise if it’s a cooking spell. With bag spells, I tend to just sew the bag up and hang it where the intent will be magnified. For example, my protection spell last summer was to protect me at school so I hung it in my locker. If your protection spell is for your home, you’re going to want to have your spell somewhere near your home, and so forth. You can also seal your spells with a kiss.
Step 7: Charging your spell.
Charging your spell isn’t always necessary. With protection spells, I tend to let them just do their thing but if your spell isn’t really manifesting, I’d go back and recharge it with some intent. To do that, you can use crystals (pyramid stones I find are really good generator stones. So is selenite), or you can charge your spell in the moonlight or sunlight, with an orgasm, etc.
A lot of people opt to use incantations in their spell work. That’s not something that I really tend to do unless I’m casting a circle, but if it’s something you’re interested in doing, have at it! A lot of people say that your incantations need to rhyme, but I find that’s not really true since when you’re creating your incantation, you’re carefully selecting the words and imbuing them with your own power.
Optional: Casting circles.
A lot of sources will also state that in order to “properly” cast a spell, you’ll need to cast a circle. The way I cast my circles is like this:
1) Face the North and point or hold your wand or a crystal etc.. “Hail to the watchtower of the North, the element of Earth. I call upon you to watch over and protect this space.”
2) Face the East. “Hail to the watchtower of the East, the element of Air. I call upon you to watch over and protect this space.”
3) Face the South. “Hail to the watchtower of the South, the element of Fire. I call upon you to watch over and protect this space.”
4) Face the West. “Hail to the watchtower of the West, the element of Water. I call upon you to watch over and protect this space.”
I then turn in a circle clockwise three times (not too quickly). To uncast the circle, go the opposite of what I’ve written and thank the watchtowers for protecting your space.
There you go! Your spell is set. You can dispose of your spell however you feel is right (i.e. curses tend to get buried away from your home, protection jar spells will stay in a dark corner, etc.) but congratulations! You’ve created a spell! Write it down in your grimoire! Be proud of your spell! You did amazing work! If you still have any questions or need me to clarify things, my ask box is open! 🍑
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