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.
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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 essay stems from a debate i had during my “witchy hot take hour", which you can read here for context and make your own mind up (https://www.tumblr.com/witchescollection/788519370587619328/witchy-hot-take-time-if-you-spell-magic-as?source=share). it sprawled into something far bigger than i expected, and i admit, i got a little heated in that discussion, and so I wanted to take a step back and do my own research and re-examine my beliefs and argument. as always, i encourage people to critique this and provide sources i may have missed!
this debate, especially, fascinated me because i received several asks after of arguments defending the idea that spelling magic with a k was racist, and it surprised me that this was such a common point that many people held, and I had yet to come across it. and with that, i wanted to do my due diligence and brush up on my crowley, and elaborate upon my argument: that using ‘magick’ does not make someone racist; it is a term that evolved far beyond crowley’s personal bigotry. that being said, it is crucial to understand crowley’s racism.
crowley’s racism
he was racist, absolutely, and sometimes he held complex stances that muddied the waters, that are incredibly interesting to understand. his work was often contradictory. so, it might be easier here to unpick the arguments made about crowley, and to tease through the exact specifics of crowley’s racism, so we can avoid it in our own practice.
first, is his bastardisation of the kabbalah. he wrote 777 and other qabalistic writings of aleister crowley, a collection of magical correspondences based on the hermetic qabalah, which forms the underlying framework for the hermetic order of the golden dawn. it has origins with the christian cabala, as well as influences in a bunch of other sources (crowley, like most occultists of the time, was a huge fan of mish-mashing “occult” concepts together).
additionally, he spoke ill of other races. this section of the quotev article gets shared around a lot (and therefore, i'm unsure what is the original), so here it is below but with citations added for your benefit.
About the Chinese: “One cannot fraternize with the Chinese of the lower classes; one must treat them with absolute contempt and callousness “(Ch. 55, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley). and "The Chinese does not respect the white man as the Indian does — for his possession of high moral qualities. “(I’m unable to find a source for this one, as of current date).
About Mexicans: “Neither the coyotes nor the turkey-buzzards will touch a dead Mexican. His flesh has been too thoroughly impregnated with chillies and other pungent condiments.” (Ch. 23, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley)
About Blacks: “Where Islam and Christianity meet in open competition, as in some parts of Africa, it is found that only the lowest type of Negro, such as is accustomed to arrange matters with conscience by hanging a rag on a piece of stick, accepts Christianity” (Ch. 36, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley)
About Indians: “I am not fond of Bengalis at the best and he as the worst specimen of his race I have ever seen. He was fat and oily, with small piglike treacherous eyes.” (the only source I can find is secondary (e.g. Leffman or other tumblr posts), if anyone locates the original please let me know).
wyntercraft (archived through thewitchylibrary) discusses how Crowley wrote an essay called “The Jewish Problem Re-Stated” which I’ve linked below and encourage you to read.
it is worth noting, that so far all of crowley’s racism has been contained to his autobiography and non-religious essays. this, of course, bleeds through into thelema, but is at odds with thelema’s more anarchistic (pasi, 2014) and universalistic approach. pasi (2021) does an excellent job analysing more broadly the influence islam and judaism had on crowley (chapter 8 of esoteric transfers and constructions) and the kind of image he constructs of both Islam and “westerners”. He also does a brilliant job analysing Crowley’s overarching political views, (aleister crowley and the temptation of politics, pasi, 2014) and the connection between esoterica and politics. i tell you all this, and invite you to read these sources, because it is essential that we deepen our understanding of crowley’s bigotry far beyond him simply being and asshole or a dickbag. understanding this helps us to understand more about thelema and it’s influences, and that racism is incredibly complex.
"magick" and racism
now, we get to the crux of the debate. is magic with a k racist? and does that, by proxy, make you a racist? to be explicitly clear, as i feel this nuance is often overlooked, my criticism is with the notion that using magic with a k makes you a racist - not that people might feel uncomfortable, or choose not to use it. it’s your practice, and your choice!
this to me, touches on several cornerstones of recent discussion, both political and spiritual.
one - the current ongoing anxiety about racism and anti-racism, especially in america. people feel the need now, more than ever, to know that someone is on their side, as it might mean life or death.
two - the “death of the author” debate, and whether supporting problematic creators makes you problematic (e.g., jk rowling).
three - the discussions around cultural appropriation and whiteness that have popped up around the last few years especially.
and four - tumblr’s social currency, that of virtue signalling. nobody wants to be racist, and it feels good knowing you’re not (and gets you notes).
so, let’s look at the arguments in favour of using magic with a k making an individual racist.
wyntercraft makes an interesting argument - they double down on the idea that crowley is awful (as we’ve discussed above) and how he is worshipped, and suggests that using magic with a k is indicating support for crowley, and that all that needs to happen is for people to be educated and stop using the term. additionally, a lot of arguments i’ve seen compare it to a swastika from nazi germany - an (obviously) racist symbol.
as someone who uses magic with a k, here are my arguments in favour of that spelling:
some practitioners on quora, and in other spaces, have found it useful for categorisation and distinguishing between magic with a c (as in, stage magic) (although many people think context clues are enough), and that it’s been adopted by many other practitioners - i’d argue that whilst the spelling started with crowley, it’s evolved so far beyond that and therefore loses a lot of trace of him. there are also several practitioners who use it to differentiate between “low” magic and “high” magick, or “folk” magic and “ceremonial” magick. flyingthehedge also suggests an interesting alternative if this distinction interests you but magic with a k give you the ick - calling stage magic “illusions”. aradia also suggests that spelling it with a k might help trick the subconscious mind into believing into witchcraft easier, therefore helping one manifest and work magic easier.
regarding the swastika analogy, it doesn’t hold. swastikas were symbols of the nazi party who committed the holocaust, and therefore the symbol is directly linked to harm. this was state violence, signified by the swastika. additionally, they’re still continually used by violent hate groups due to their inherent ties to the genocide, too, magic with a k is a linguistic device, not directly linked to any racial harm, and it’s reasoning for usage, and existence is not based in any racism either. the only link is that its original creator (who is now dead and so cannot benefit from the usage of this spelling in anyway, unlike, say, a book sale would) was racist - but i think it’s been so decoupled from crowley’s personal racism that the analogy overreaches. following barthes (death of the author, see above), once a work is public, it’s interpreted & reshaped by a community. magick is now a collective term with diverse meanings, untethered from crowley’s personal bigotry. additionally, as the cultkinkcoven put it best, going out of one’s way to “educate” others, on behalf of people of colour, about their “racism” without explaining the harm, comes across as white saviourism and virtue signalling, and risks watering down real racism.
however, i recognise that in some communities it can be used as a dog whistle. that is, a signifier towards racists that this is a safe space for them. whilst i can certainly understand why that would make someone cautious towards anyone who uses magic with a k (and rightly so, lest racists think they have a safe space with witches), i don’t think it’s enough to accuse someone without racism. their actions should give you an idea of if their racist or not, and you should critique those points. context is essential here.
why i still use it
my position is this: using ‘magick’ does not make someone racist, because while crowley was undeniably racist, the spelling has long since detached from his personal views and does not cause direct harm. the spelling is ethically neutral - it’s crowley’s personal racism we reject, not every tool or term he used. i will continue to use that spelling as i find it useful, even having thought about its origins critically. understanding history does not excuse it, and being anti-racist involves challenging ideas and arguments, rather than simply wanting to say the right things without investigating the reasons why.
sacredness gets a weird rep. people wrap it in quotation marks - "sacred" - like it’s suspicious, a bit woo-woo, or only matters to people who still believe in dusty things. when the news says a site is sacred, you can hear the eyebrow raise. sacredness has become something to justify. something we're expected to prove.
usually it’s tied to religion. to places. to spaces. churches, temples, ancient stone circles. sacred because they matter to someone spiritually - because someone says so.
but that’s not quite it for me.
for me, sacredness is about relationship. it’s about aliveness. the most sacred moments in my life haven’t necessarily felt divine in the way people mean when they think of gods in robes or halos overhead. they’ve felt connected. like the membrane between me and everything else got a little thinner, just for a second. sacredness, for me, is the texture of connection. a ripple of something more that hums when we’re really here.
sometimes it’s the quiet of a cathedral. sometimes it’s sitting in the living room with my grandparents, watching the same film for the eighth time. sometimes it’s the exact moment a storm rolls in and the trees start swaying like they know something i don’t. sacredness, for me, isn’t a reward - it’s a recognition. it’s already there.
i think that’s why my practice is so folk-rooted. it’s messy. it’s human. it’s not about towering rituals or perfect words - more about warmth, about relationship, about what it means to show up with your whole self.
the first time sacredness really clicked for me, i was fifteen. desperate for a god, like so many tumblr witches before me. i thought i wanted to work with loki - mostly because i liked marvel and chaos and wanted someone to answer. i spent months trying to force it - trance after trance, incense, music - and when something did finally come through, it wasn’t what i expected. loki said no. kindly, but clearly. i wasn’t ready. it wasn’t the right fit.
and he was right.
years later, he came back. now, we talk often. but at fifteen? i was all nerves and need. trembling. i hadn’t yet learned how to hold the weight of sacredness. not yet. and that was okay.
beyond “non-religious”
i think we’ve misunderstood the word secular. it doesn’t just mean “not religious” - at least not to me. it means disconnection. disconnection from myth, from meaning, from softness. we see it in how people treat stories. they pick them apart looking for plot holes instead of asking what the story is trying to hold. we’ve been trained to treat meaning like a trapdoor. either it makes rational sense or it’s nonsense.
but sacredness doesn’t care if it makes sense.
we’ve all brushed up against it - even those who reject religion. we worship all sorts of things, sometimes without realising. celebrities. aesthetics. book series. political ideals. we’re always building little temples, even in the secular world. we’re just using different language.
but some of those temples are built on shaky ground. i get wary when people put humans on pedestals - real or fictional. because art is sacred, yes - but it’s sacred because of how it connects us. not because the thing itself is flawless.
a lot of these pseudo-sacred spaces are built on scarcity. they whisper that you’re not enough unless you buy the merch, join the fandom, pledge yourself to the narrative. they make you feel like you’re missing something only they can offer. and that illusion? it’s dangerous. it strips us of our wholeness. makes us forget that we already are.
but noticing it? that’s the first step in pulling your power back.
you can't bottle sacredness
you can’t contain the sacred. you can’t pin it down and say “this is what it feels like” and expect that to be true for everyone. some people walk through a forest and feel god in every leaf. others need incense, or silence, or the sound of someone they love laughing in the kitchen.
trying to explain it to someone who’s never felt it - or doesn’t want to - is like trying to explain colour to someone who’s only seen in greyscale. and that’s not a judgment. just a truth.
you can sit in a circle of witches and still tell who’s in their practice, and who’s just memorised the buzzwords. sacredness changes how people speak. how they move. it’s not performative. it’s not polished. it’s not always gentle. sometimes it’s rage. sometimes it’s grief. sometimes it’s the ache of wanting more.
we forget that even in religious or spiritual spaces, materialism creeps in. the idea that you need to buy your way to connection. that there’s a formula. a product. a course. a list of herbs and crystals and chants that will unlock divinity like a cheat code.
but sacredness isn’t neat. it’s not scientific. it’s closer to poetry than to logic. it shows up when you’re not looking. it moves sideways. it feels like something - but only you can describe what.
i talk a lot about “working the space” in my practice. because that’s what it is. a working. an energy. a conversation. a co-creation. the most powerful moments i’ve had in ritual or trance or spellwork have felt like something stepping in - but also like something stepping out of me at the same time. magick is like pulling thread from your own ribcage and weaving it into something that speaks.
and when it lands? when you feel it?
there are no words. if you’ve been there, you know.
sacredness isn’t gone - it’s buried
the thing is, sacredness isn’t lost. it’s just been smothered. colonised. repackaged. it’s been twisted by capitalism and burnt out by overexposure. but it’s still there.
in our phones. in our music. in our families. in our books. in the space between breath and body. we just don’t always notice it, because noticing requires vulnerability. and most of us are terrified to feel that deeply. because it means risking loss.
but sacredness doesn’t need to be loud or dramatic. it just needs to be real.
if you’ve come to witchcraft looking for sacredness, you’re not alone. and you don’t need to earn it. it’s already in you. in how you speak to your plants. in how you light your candles. in how you let yourself feel things, even when they’re inconvenient.
this practice isn’t about believing in gods or spirits because someone said to. it’s about meeting them. about co-existing. about working with the current, not against it. sacredness isn’t a reward. it’s not a prize for doing things “right.” it’s a verb. it’s an action. it’s how we relate to the world - and how we let the world relate back.
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thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed this, even though it's a bit abstract. i'm trying something new!
