to start with, lets look at some common terms. i’d define them as follows:
wards = long-term protection on spaces (altar, room, etc) - they’re generally seen as permanent despite needing energetic top ups.
shields = temporary personal protection (veiling, amulets, visualization) - you can also shield someone else, either directly or remotely.
cleansing = an act that resets energy to neutral - can be a space, yourself, or an object.
banishing = essentially telling energy or an entity to fuck off (in varying degrees of hostility). i tend to be more nice than mean, especially if that entity is important or likes to hold a grudge.
these concepts get blurred sometimes, and that's fine. most people use them in overlapping ways - it’s just useful for this post (and this blog) to have a list of definitions.
2. why protection work was hard for me at first, and what i do now
i've always found protection work difficult to keep up long-term. i really struggle with doing big rituals consistently (probably the ADHD). i don't have the energy for it. for ages, my protection either just... didn't exist, or it happened in the moment - shielding when something felt off, visualising energy forming around me, stuff like that. the idea of putting wards up every full moon or doing protective cleansings every sunday made me feel exhausted just thinking about it. the energy it took, the way it felt like a chore didn’t feel right, and had me really questioning if witchcraft was for me. i believe that the more energy you give something, the more energy it has - but the more i complicate things, the harder it gets for me, and the less my magick feels like an extension of myself
so instead, i started doing it intuitively. i put my wards up once, and rather than topping them up on a schedule, i check in with them. if they feel off, i fix them. if they feel fine, i leave them! this is something that no one really talks about in protection work, which is: you have to get to know yourself. you have to build trust in your own senses. that comes from meditating, yes, but also from learning to set boundaries, making decisions about what you want your space to feel like, and letting yourself be messy and wrong and curious until you start to learn what "off" feels like. building your intuition will help you sense when you need to top up your wards, when things aren’t right. i visualise a pulse scanning out from me (think like a laser beam), to figure out how my wards are. when my wards are strong, i feel a kind of energetic solidity around me. when they're broken, it feels more like a wooden fence with slats in it, and the energy leaks. things come through that shouldn't. sometimes i feel it energetically. sometimes it's just vibes being off. sometimes my deities let me know. sometimes i don't notice at all until shit starts going sideways.
i also have a servitor who maintains my protective space (his name is alfred (like from batman)). i created him, i feed him energy, and he works like a bouncer: letting only kind-intentioned spirits and energies through. i’ve talked about my “swinging-door” policy here if you want to read more about it, and if you want a separate guide on how to set a servitor up let me know. ultimately, this means that sometimes, if i'm meditating and talking about something, a deity i wasn't expecting shows up. i might think i need aphrodite's help, and freyja turns up instead. or maybe dionysus just wants to hear some gossip. it also allows deities to decide what kind of relationship we have, and let them take the lead. i also send a regular pulse scan out, and if my wards are low I feed energy into them and servitor with visualisation, usually i'll set a five-minute timer and visualise a meter filling up, like i'm charging a battery. i can do this from my bed so it’s decently low effort. again, if you’re like me and find ceremonial magickk feels more performative than a natural extension of yourself, it’s fine to not overcomplicate it! find your own rhythm.
3. advanced protection
i mentioned before about using a shield on someone else, either directly or remotely. taglocks, which you’ll hear mostly used in baneful magickk, are helpful if you're protecting someone else - usually i enchant a crystal or an amulet for them. consent is important here - i don't like remote magick on people without them knowing. for example - my boyfriend (who's very much not a witch) wears a few protective bracelets, one of which is a hematite bracelet from me. it’s sentimental and serves a spiritual function (win-win). you can also shield someone else if you’re with them in person, just by visualising them the same way you’d visualise yourself! this only really works whilst their visible, but can be useful if you and a friend are walking through a busy place and you want to shield you both from the energy.
another thing worth mentioning, and this goes for all advanced practices, is that the most potent magick is that which is a natural extension of the self, and that doesn’t feel like a chore (more on that in another #moaw post). veiling is one of my favourite low-key protective acts. so is wearing enchanted jewellery. both of these work at the subconscious level, and have the added benefit for those in the broom closet of being pretty discrete (you can veil with anything over your head! doesn’t have to be a headscarf). i'm messy, so i don't clean my space often, but when i do, i notice the energetic shift - it’s one of the most underrated methods of cleansing, and again, very discrete. another method is setting up my digital boundaries! curating what i consume, who i let into my digital space, and noticing what drains me. this is energy work too. protection work doesn’t mean much if you’re then bringing negative energy into your space through your phone.
and here's a big one: know your land. get to know the spirits around you. build good relationships. that way, you're not doing protection alone - you have backup. if something breaches your wards, you have plant spirits, ancestors, deities, and the land itself helping you notice, and you can (with consent) draw from their energy or ask for their support. so even when i'm tired or distracted, i'm not unprotected.
4. “i think something’s in my space - help!”
don’t worry! i’ve created a handy flow-chart below to help!
step one: diagnose it
is it just negative energy from an interaction you had? have you been behind on cleansing? is it something mundane?
→ if yes → cleanse and reset your space
→ if no or unsure → keep going
step two: what is the entity?
use some method of divination to figure out who the entity is! some good questions to get started:
what do they want?
are they trying to communicate?
did i do something wrong?
is this a known spirit? have we interacted before?
is it just some local energy passing through?
step three: response
if it’s just lingering energy → cleanse
if you accidentally offended something → apologise or offer something meaningful, and keep talking - depending on the level of upset, you might be able to salvage this and forge a new relationship
if they’re just cranky for no reason → be compassionate, but banish! sometimes entities (especially ghosts) take out their anger on random folks, and you might just be unlucky.
if they won’t leave/are actively making things worse → banish!
step four: check your wards
do the pulse technique i mentioned earlier (or whatever works for you), and figure out how the entity got in - are your wards fractured? did you forget to energise your servitor? whatever it is, diagnose it and work on it.
step five: reflect and learn
most strong negative energies don’t just wander into your space for fun. hopefully by now you’ve figured out the root cause - write that down and reflect on the experience!
5. final thoughts
banishing is, firstly, a boundary. it's no different than saying "hey, i don't want to talk about that right now” or “please leave my house.” it can be kind. it can be neutral. it can be mean. it's just a way of telling an entity to leave. i think there’s this misconception in the community that banishing is negative, and it can be, but it doesn’t have to be. and sometimes the kindest thing is to send stuck energy moving if you can’t help it and it’s causing a nuisance (or being actively damaging).
and honestly? you're probably fine. when i was starting out, i wasn't talking to spirits or doing anything risky. i could've skipped protection entirely and been fine. as i got more confident, i started staying in places where the vibe felt off, just out of curiosity, because now i know how to handle it if something weird happens.
you're probably not going to get haunted by a demon. you probably don't need ten layers of magickal protection. if you're not poking around the otherworld, antagonising spirits, or diving into deep trance work, you're probably okay. there’s so much fear-mongering out there, and i get why - better safe than sorry - but take a moment to remember that everything will be okay, and if you fuck around and find out and need a hand, there’s many resources and many people here on witchblr to ask.
and if you’re gonna keep fucking around and finding out? good on you - but you might need stronger wards than someone like myself, who stays pretty far away from the fucking around part of witchcraft now.
--
thank you for reading this! i hope this was helpful, and if you have any questions or add-ons please reblog/reply or send an ask. just a reminder: everything i wrote here is my opinion, and i know people will have different methods, and i encourage y’all to share those! and if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like for this longer form series (tagged #moaw if you’d like to read the others), please also send me an ask.
this is your daily reminder that water is NOT a lazy offering! the gods appreciate anything you can give to them, and it's more about the intention than the physical offering anyway.
