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Saturday, August 23, 2014

Protecting Your Book of Shadows: Botanical Protection Spell

I decided to write this post after Witchfire over at Book of Mirrors wrote a post titled Student-Teacher Relationships. In it, she addresses an issue she had recently come upon on a pagan message board. A student of the craft was asking for curses to place on their BOS so that when their teacher (the person teaching them the craft) asked to see it, she/he would be harmed. This student said the teacher made them uncomfortable each time they asked to see the BOS. Either way, I am going to say it: This is WRONG. First of all, you shouldn't be learning the craft from someone who makes you uncomfortable. Second, when faced with someone that makes you uncomfortable, someone you picked to learn from, your first instinct should not be to curse them. This student needs to seriously rethink their path. It's like shooting a guest you invited over for dinner because they asked for extra potatoes. Come on. Please don't ever put curses on your BOS. You never know if and when it will backfire on you. It's better instead to put protection spells on it. This way, your BOS is safe from others and won't hurt you or anyone else by accident. When in doubt, avoid "violent" spells. Sometimes the universe gets things mixed up, and it's better if the spell was "peaceful."

Today I would like to share my Book of Shadows Botanical Protection Spell. I don't just use this for my BOS, but for all my pagan books and notebooks, even the notebook I use for planning this blog. This is actually very, very simple.

Protecting Your Book of Shadows

Supplies:
     Sage Cleaning Bundle
     Your Book of Shadows
     Whole dried Mugwort
     Whole dried Wormwood
     Whole dried St. John's Wort

  1. First, cleanse your BOS using a sage smudge. Sage is great at removing any negative energy from objects. While cleansing, imagine the negative energy leaving the book and entering the earth. 
  2. Next place the MugwortWormwood, and St. John's Wort between the pages of your BOS. Make them part of the design. MugwortWormwood, and St. John's Wort is all believed to physically preserve books by keeping page-nibbling vermin away as well as provide spiritual protection. As you do so imagine their energies encircling and protecting your BOS while saying:
    "With these herbs, I protect this book from prying eyes and harm."

Simple and much more effective than cursing someone. If you are looking at protecting all your books, keeping living versions of these plants in and around your library.

How do you protect your BOS?


10 comments :

  1. It's been my experience that the younger ones (no offense meant) are the quickest to jump on the "how do you curse" bandwagon. Your words here are very well spoken and have given this Crone much to think about. I've never felt the need to protect my BOS, but I think I will. I'm having to reconstruct it from the ground up, having lost my electronic version in the switch from Windows 7 to 10. I'm still hoping it's lurking around out there somewhere, but the one lesson I've learned from this is to ALWAYS HAVE A HARD COPY!!!!

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    1. I hear you there! I find more often than not young, new witches want to use magic to seek revenge or just be mean. I think a lot of that has to do with maturity.

      I'm sorry about your BOS. I lost my electronic copy way back when when my old laptop crashed. The good things is we have great cloud storage nowadays. Backing it up to One Drive or Dropbox is easy. If you are looking for extra security I recently heard of a new cloud storage endorsed by Snowden called SpiderOak. May be a good place to store a BOS if you are particularly worried.

      Thanks for reading!

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    2. That's horrible that people near or my age are doing that. I guess it really just depends on when you start, who you learn it from, and why you started. I'm a teen and the reason I started making a book of shadows and learning all of this was because of a possibility that someone is going to curse the neighboorhood I live in. So, I started to learn protection and shielding. I would also hope that they know about the potential danger they could cause because of that threefold rule(sorry if that's not what its called. It's how I remember it.) I also have a friend who is around my age who is practicing some divinity. Sorry if I started rambling ;-; but it sucks that people want to curse each other.

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    3. I was a teen when I started practicing. My practice has definitely matured since then, and those entering the craft for whatever reason will grow too. Those prone to cursing tend not to be Wiccan, so the Three Fold Law often does not apply to them, or at least they don't believe in it. I don't, although I do think the Universe has a way of working everything out for the better of everyone involved. Sometimes that appears as something "bad" happening, but it really isn't bad in the long run.

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  2. How can I bless my grimoire if I am using a note program? I cannot get a physical copy because I am in the broom closet.

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    1. That's perfectly fine. Write the blessing in Note, say it aloud, envision the book being cleansed and blessed and filled with your energy and you're done! You don't have to have a physical copy in order to do a ritual. Furthermore, you can use emojis to represent different ingredients, such as a salt shaker for protection and cleansing. You can include those around the pages, especially on the blessing page etc to act as a secondary measure of protection and cleansing. I hope that helps!

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    2. This is a pretty old comment but I hope it still finds you well and helps. When using a notetaking app or website look for one that allows drawing; that way you can still use your own hand writing that way you can do this ritual the way she says too with no problem!

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  3. I'm a beginner witch and I finally decided to use the peace and love symbol to protect mine but also to protect it from any kind of black magic so I can be sure at least even if someone finds it that my spells won't be use for evil. It honestly brings a lot of relief because I don't want to harm anyone. It just felt right to use it :)

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  4. The idea of curses hadn't really occurred to me. I've just always wanted to be able to heal and help life thrive. I just have no idea how to get started.

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    1. I am a curse-friendly witch, but cursing an object you use frequently is a recipe for disaster. Sometimes people get caught up in the heat of the moment and forget to think things through all the way. As a scientist and science teacher, I was taught to run a risk assessment on every potential lab I wanted to conduct. This allows me to judge whether or not the lab is worth it and what potential risks I need to plan for. The same approach should be used when casting spells. Its just good practice.

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