A Witch’s Ingredients: Charcoal
Charcoal is what is left over after burning wood in a fire or other plant material that has been used in not only witchcraft but medicine and art for centuries. This ingredient is often a well forgotten or overlooked one, but it is truly an easy obtainable ingredient to harness for your craft.
Elements: Charcoal is often related to 3 main elements- Fire, Earth and Air. Often it is related to earth due to the charcoal being created from wood, air due to the porous light nature and its relation to smoke and to fire due to fire being the energy that creates and transforms it. Though often most associate charcoal with fire.
Correspondences: Unity, Purification, Banishing, Cleansing, Protection, Warding, Concentration
Colors: Black, Gray, Ashen White
The History of Charcoal Use
In witchcraft charcoal was often used for ink making to write in grimoires by mixing the charcoal (or ash) with water and vinegar. Sticks of charcoal were used for drawing, inscribing and warding. Crushed charcoal would be mixed into salt to create black salt and casted about the home or property to absorb negative energies and ward against negative entities. Lining windows or doorways with charcoal dust was said to keep away illness and misfortune and cleanse those who entered the home.
Charcoal has been used in medicine for centuries, some of the latest uses dating to the times of Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. In ancient times it was often used to prevent wounds from festering by pressing charcoal into the wound and wrapping it with clothe. Egyptians and Native Americans both have history of grinding up charcoal into dust to mix with water (or milk) to drink to cure a number of ailments including food poisoning, influenza, stomach cramping and other digestive issues.
Throughout Europe charcoal was used as a ‘cure all’ for numerous ailments including epilepsy, seizures, contraception and infection. Though charcoal definitely isn’t a cure all, it was popularly used to help settle upset stomachs, calm vomiting and aid in digestion. Later several doctors discovered the use of charcoal to counteract poisons by ingesting it with a poison, greatly nullifying the effects of the poison making them minimal in nature. During the 1800s was when activated charcoal became the main type of charcoal used for medical purposes.
Modernly, charcoal is still used for many of the same things. Witches of all kinds use charcoal for sigil drawing and for circle casting and a sorted few still use charcoal to create ink and paint for their grimoires and spell writing.
Black Salt is still popularly made by witches by mixing salt with charcoal (1:1). Black salt is used to absorb negative energy, banish out negative entities and to ward against unwanted guests entering your home. Black salt is often used to line entry points of the home or the outlines of the property to ward and to cleanse a room or home spreading it about the home then sweeping or vacuuming it up after about an hour is the popular technique. Often charcoal is used in sachet spells to help boost their energy and prevent them from getting ‘dirtied’ by negative energy too quickly similar to adding salt to a spell sachet or even jar spells. It can also be placed or used in a spell to represent the element of fire or upon an altar for the same purpose.
In Cosmic Witchcraft it is common to use charcoal to align with the planet Saturn and sometimes Jupiter. Often it is used in spells related to justice, cleansing and ridding oneself of negativity. The blackness of charcoal can also be used to represent the blackness of the night sky itself or to represent black holes in negativity removal spells.
In Bath magick it is popular to use charcoal face masks, charcoal soap or charcoal bath salts to help cleanse oneself and remove negative energies tied to them. Glamor spells using charcoal often are for concealment and to vanish from the gaze of those who you wish not to see you such as protection at night or protection from judgement. In these cases charcoal is often added to sachets or small travel jar spells for invisibility or used for drawn sigils held on the person.
Artist’s charcoal can be used to replace standard charcoal in spells such as making black salt or for the purpose of sigil making. Though artist’s charcoal should never be used in cases of bath magick or to be ingested due to safety reasons. Grilling charcoal should never be used in place of natural charcoal due to it being often mixed with gasoline or other lighting fluids. It is not safe to get onto the skin and certainly not to ingest under any circumstances.
Charcoal is still used today for medical uses of calming stomachs and easing digestive issues though mostly activated charcoal is used now. One should not ingest wood charcoal straight from a fire! Especially not if lighter fluid or kerosine was used in the fire. If one wishes to use charcoal for medical use at home purchase it properly from a pharmacy. Charcoal is still used in hospitals for its properties of absorbing toxins ingested such as when a person has alcohol poisoning or believed to have ingested poisons, this again tends to be a mix of activated charcoal.
In skin care charcoal is used to replenish and cleanse the skin, often used for clearing out pores of bacteria, dirt and sweat to help fight and prevent blackheads and acne. It is often used in facial masks of varying kinds due to its properties of clearing out the skin, these types of masks include but are not limited to: charcoal peeling masks, charcoal mud masks, charcoal cotton masks, charcoal bubbling masks and more. This is also why charcoal soap is quite popular for those wishing to cleanse their skin. The charcoal used in these beauty masks is a type of activated charcoal though it is often mixed with several other ingredients to fight acne and blackheads.
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