How to Cast a Spell
Using your Metaphysical Senses
Find yourself, if you can, in nature, either sitting on the earth or standing with your feet planted, barefoot. Try to choose whatever feels most natural. If you cannot go outside, try to light some incense or smoke to cleanse your space, and make sure you are somewhere you feel comfortable. Once you are, take three deep breaths, focusing on the inhale while allowing all other thoughts — especially any distracting thoughts of the “self” — and allow those to wash over you, without focus and without any emotional response. Then try to feel the earth; feel its energy and vibration, and try to match it, and connect with it. Feel your sacrum nudge the earth as you breathe, growing ever more grounded; rooting ever-deeper into the earth and her healing energies. If you recognize any extra energy or tension in your body, let gravity gift it back to the earth, as she will gratefully recycle the energy that you don’t have any need for. Whether you are grounding yourself to continue with one of the following practices, or to welcome yourself to a mindful meditation, or you’re preparing your mind for the day, taking a moment for yourself to ground into our earth is super beneficial. Try to carry this feeling with you as you move on from this grounding exercise.
We each possess the potential for psychic abilities. The term “psychic” has so many negative reputations by this point, that we may feel immediately off-put. But if we choose to let go of that discomfort, we may find that we already possess a gift ourselves and that it is far from nonsense, as it truly is a part of us when we open ourselves to it. Children naturally possess and show signs of many psychic abilities. What happens as we age is, we build walls to protect ourselves from certain experiences and points of confusion. If we have, perhaps, built up a stigma in our own minds regarding the term “psychic” because society did it for you with propaganda, then you will associate the term “psychic” with fears of being an outcast, or “weird” and outside the societal norm. Then our consciousness begins to lose the ability to harness and control its spirit power.
Rituals † Incantations
All a spell needs to be is a combination of objects, each with a particular meaning or symbolism attached to them, that is then interwoven with the querent’s intention to channel it into reality and manifest the desired result. However, there are certain rules that, if surveyed, can aid the spell, or give it the energetic shove that it needs.
Most magical rituals begin in the east or are oriented in that direction, as it is the direction of the rising sun. Each direction also aligns with an element and a time of day as such: East, Dawn, and Air; South, Noon and Fire; West, Sunset and Water; and then North, Night and Earth. Also, timing plays a crucial role in the success of a spell, so it’s best to align your spell with all of the correlating energies and symbolisms that you can, while remembering that clarity is key, so you don’t want to overwhelm or confuse your intention with too much complication.
Every item has a symbolism, or an energetic frequency, running a current of electricity through it, and how we, as witches, combine the elements to manifest — with the intention for specific outcomes — is how we cast our spells out into the universe. The best thing to do is start collecting glossaries. Like I said, my books are all sorts of glossaries on the symbolisms and meanings behind the different elements. There is symbolism and focused energetic frequency behind every animal, essential oil, color, crystal, thought, symbol, word, herb, God or Goddess, flower, tarot card, astrological sign or planetary alignment, that once you understand these, and you understand the rules of magic, you’ll be the regular little hedgewitch, making magick on the go, to improve your life, and as a result, improving the lives of those you engage with as you spread your light energy ‘every witch place’ you go!
You could cast spells nonstop, all day and all night, anywhere you want to if you wanted to. But… that’s a lot of energy that you’re messing with, and it probably isn’t going to end up being the best thing for the longevity of your life if you do so! Below I listed some traditional rituals, passed down through the eons, along with some tried and true spells from my own home grimoire.
● Full Moon Ritual:
■ Go outside
■ Sit under the risen moon’s glow
■ Call on spirit guides and teachers to be with you
■ Call the moon down to be present — call her into your heart
■ Offer desires forth: for the world, yourself, your loved ones
■ Speak out loud how you wish to create impact in the world through love (don’t hold the love back out of fear, self-judgement, or insecurities)
■ Make an offering of a flower, crystal, herb, love letter, tobacco or the like…
● Sage Dream Ritual:
■ Write a wish on a sage leaf
■ Place it under your pillow for three nights
■ If you dream your wish in that time, your wish will be materialized, and you are to remove the wish and bury it in the ground
■ If you don’t dream your wish within three nights, you are to bury it again, regardless, and start again.
■ To aid this ritual, take a few drops of Herkimer diamond crystal elixir before bed, or up to three times a day.
Remember that the first spells were ever written, and all spells were once written by somewhat timid practicing witches just like you! You will want to, oftentimes, write an incantation, to work with as a spell. Chants, affirmations, and incantations are all ways of using language to more clearly communicate to the universe that which is your intention, to then manifest your desire. To practice writing incantations, you could do some general writing exercises to get the creative juices flowing! Focuses your mind on an intention, and try to write how, why, and what it is that you want to receive. Practice writing things, in rhyme, if possible, but always with an intentional rhythm. I’ve got a few examples of my own for you to use as examples for your own spells, or you can try them for yourself! Though I’ve got to say that the more you can use your own writing, the closer to your personal true intention a spell will be, and the clearer, then, will your intention be to the universe. Many witches will end a spell by saying “So be it”, or “Blessed Be” as a way of finalizing their spell. Other times they will use a phrase like, “Be gone”, or “I banish thee”, for any banishing spell.
● An example love spell:
Whether I’m wrong
Or whether I’m right
Please let him be mine
Before the stroke of twelve tonight
I would cast this spell by taking a rose quartz, wrapping it in red chord with a collected feather, drop two drops of Ylang Ylang oil — one on the stone and one on my heart.
● An example protection charm:
I will feel no more fear
I will shed no more tears
From now on I’m free
Do your might to protect me
I would cast this spell by taking a black tourmaline and setting it on my heart center. Then I would light a protection candle, and raise my athame (dagger) to the sky as I recite my spell.
A few other helpful witchy secrets as spells:
● For anxiety, put a few drops of a grounding oil, such as Sandalwood, Frankincense, or Northern Lights Black Spruce on the back of your neck and near the base of your spine. Hold the palms of your hands over these parts of your spine — one over your tailbone, or sacral chakra, and one over the back of your neck, where your throat chakra resides. Take deep breaths, in and out, and say a personal mantra to yourself. One of mine for anxiety is “none of this matters” — I will repeat this to myself over and over until my root chakra is grounded again.
● For curing the hiccups, inhaling dill will help big time — take a huge whiff, or keep it under your nose for a little while.
● A lemon stuck full of pins of different colors always brings good luck.
● To manifest abundance, wear aventurine stones near your throat chakra, place abundance oil on your wrists and third eye, and ask the universe, with the clearest intentions and joy filling up your body, for what it is you desire.
By Mariesa Faer, author of How to Cast Real Spells: An Introduction to Wiccan Spells, Magic, and Witchcraft