“The body is a place where memory lingers, even when the spirit would let it go” – The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, trans. M.D. Herter Norton, 1949. In many spiritual traditions, the end of a relationship is not considered final when physical contact ceases. Instead, what remains is described as an “energetic tie” – a subtle connection that continues to bind individuals long after the relationship has dissolved, manifesting in intrusive thoughts, recurring dreams or the persistent appearance of an ex-partner or friend in digital (or physical) spaces. For centuries, people have developed ways to sever these spectral residues of intimacy. The practice is often known as “cord cutting”, and it carries a strange mixture of ritual, magic and psychology.
Cord-cutting is not new, despite its popularity in modern witchcraft. In the Greek Magical Papyri (4th century CE), spells instruct practitioners to cut and burn threads to sever influence, countering the more common binding rituals. Italian folk magic employed knotted cords to bind lovers or enemies, with knots ritually undone by fire or water to release them. In Yoruba practice, healers used blades or sacred tools to cut away lingering energies, grounded in the concept of ashe, or life-force power.
Photography Bella Newman
Medieval Europe saw cords cut and buried in churchyards as acts of banishment, while many Indigenous shamanic traditions included cord-cutting in “soul retrieval” or extraction ceremonies. In the 20th century, neopagan and Wiccan practitioners adapted these concepts into the now-familiar ritual of “cord cutting”: imagining a rope binding you to another person, then severing it with a knife or flame. Early New Age writers such as Dion Fortune described “psychic cords” as attachments that weakened autonomy and drained energy, with rituals of cleansing and severing restoring psychic sovereignty. Parallel practices appear globally: in Mexico, curanderas use eggs or knives to cut away lingering attachments; in Eastern Europe, red thread is burned to end toxic relationships; and in Shinto purification rites, ties to harmful spirits or past connections are symbolically dissolved. The idea that we are energetically and metaphorically tied to people we have been intimate with in some way – that we are connected by invisible threads – is also longstanding. In Hindu philosophy, “the nadis” are energy channels, subtle veins through which prana (life force) flows, binding us in affection, and sometimes obsession, to those we have loved. In Taoist practice, qi can be exchanged between people in intimate relationships, creating a field of mutual dependence long after the physical encounter is over. The Japanese myth of the red string of fate, a thread tying lovers across time, has been reimagined endlessly in anime, films and romance fiction. Cutting that string becomes a kind of anti-romance: the deliberate act of unmaking destiny.
In Hollywood, films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) allow us to live out a fantasy of deleting someone from memory – an extreme form of cord-cutting by medical experiment. In the TikTok era, the ritual has been democratised. A quick scroll will reveal dozens of how-to videos: witches burning paper sigils with their ex’s name, spiritual coaches guiding followers through meditation visualisations, even ASMR-style “energetic cuttings” where creators mimic scissors snipping near the microphone to soothe viewers into release. Celebrities are not shy to the powers of witchcraft when it comes to dealing with a breakup. FKA twigs has spoken about energetic entanglements and the need to cleanse after abusive relationships with medicine women Queen Afua. Beyoncé uses ritual as metaphors for breaking ties, and Gwyneth Paltrow has brought the language of energetic release into the mainstream via Goop, which has platformed workshops on “spiritual unbinding” and marketed literal cord-cutting ceremonies as post-breakup healing tools. Other wellness brands now sell “cord0cutting candles” infused with herbs like rue, rosemary, or sage, commodifying heartbreak into a lifestyle aesthetic. The mainstreaming of cord-cutting points to a generational desire for agency. When ghosting and parasocial ties leave people feeling helpless, rituals, whether serious or ironic, offer a way to stage closure. Ultimately, it is clear across centuries and cultures, that humans have always known that love, resentment, or grief leave behind residue. Cord-cutting is simply the act of consciously expelling the residue.
Practical Magic (1998)
Despite its mystical trappings, cord cutting is, at heart, a psychological intervention. It externalises an internal process. To do it, you don’t need special objects, though ritual tools can help focus intention. What matters most is imagination and will. A simple ritual might look like this:
Preparation – Find a quiet space. Light a candle if you like. Sit comfortably. Take a few deep breaths. Visualise the person you want to release standing in front of you. Visualisation – Imagine a cord between you and the person you wish to cut ties with. It may extend from your heart, your stomach, or your throat, wherever you feel the attachment most strongly. Without overthinking it, let the image appear. Severing – Picture yourself holding a tool: a pair of scissors, a flaming sword, a sharp blade of light. With intention, cut the cord. Watch it dissolve, retract, or burn away. Say aloud: “I bless you with love and I release you. I release myself.” Closure – Visualise the cut ends of your energy field sealing with light. Feel yourself whole, unencumbered. Thank yourself for the act of release.
Some people prefer physical props, literally tying a string around their wrist and cutting it off, or writing a name on paper and burning it. Others chant mantras, call on deities, or use herbs to reinforce the symbolic break. The point isn’t whether the cord is “real” in a scientific sense. It’s that your psyche believes in the act of severance, as ritual makes closure more tactile.
In an age of endless digital connection, cutting cords is not just spiritual maintenance but survival. We live in a culture where breakups don’t end, exes watch your stories, friends drift but remain a click away, and old conversations linger in the cloud like frozen ghosts. Cord-cutting, then, is a way to reclaim privacy in an over-connected world. To cut a cord is to reassert autonomy in a culture of entangled ties. Whether you believe in energy fields or simply in the power of imagination, the ritual works because it makes invisible grief visible, giving you something to hold, cut and release, opening yourself towards new possibilities.
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