Broad Coverage Protection Spells

[Annie Roonie]

The thread about the Z and the hex activation for chant had me thinking back to some broad coverage protection spells.

What I mean by broad coverage protection spell: In advance of doing any other kind of spell work (or as early as possible once confidence is built and skills acquired/learned), you craft a spell to protect you from all malicious magical intent. Maybe a return spell or one that strips any energy from malicious intent and makes an orphan of the malice to be deposited elsewhere, or just one that reflects the whole lot back to the origins. And craft it so it can be re-energized often so it will always be at work.

I don't mean a spell as a coverall for everything, just for magical malicious intent that might find its way to you. That's still pretty broad but intent could be focused, and visualization would have to be symbolic if it were to cover all bases.

I wondered if these kind of spells were done by anyone and if it helps. And if it has not been done, why not? As in, why might such a spell be ineffective? And what ways could this backfire?

I thank you in advance for any thoughts you care to express regarding this.

[Owl]

The thread about the Z and the hex activation for chant had me thinking back to some broad coverage protection spells.

What I mean by broad coverage protection spell: In advance of doing any other kind of spell work (or as early as possible once confidence is built and skills acquired/learned), you craft a spell to protect you from all malicious magical intent. Maybe a return spell or one that strips any energy from malicious intent and makes an orphan of the malice to be deposited elsewhere, or just one that reflects the whole lot back to the origins. And craft it so it can be re-energized often so it will always be at work.

I don't mean a spell as a coverall for everything, just for magical malicious intent that might find its way to you. That's still pretty broad but intent could be focused, and visualization would have to be symbolic if it were to cover all bases.

I wondered if these kind of spells were done by anyone and if it helps. And if it has not been done, why not? As in, why might such a spell be ineffective? And what ways could this backfire?

I thank you in advance for any thoughts you care to express regarding this.

Wouldn't that come under the heading of shielding?

[Annie Roonie]

Wouldn't that come under the heading of shielding?

I guess it would. I've probably misunderstood the different ranges of shielding. I've thought that was more something that was temporary and tied to specific focus like preparing for a time when you'd need to shield yourself from other energies. Whereas a longer range preventative spell might work well even when it is out of mind and might only need to be re-energized by revisiting a previous focus and not necessarily be tied to any specific event or circumstance but rather the mechanism of the spell that prompts the revisit.

I need to read more about shielding. I feel I have a misconception now. Thank you for your input!

[Jenett]

I guess it would. I've probably misunderstood the different ranges of shielding. I've thought that was more something that was temporary and tied to specific focus like preparing for a time when you'd need to shield yourself from other energies.

Shielding can be temporary, but for me, it's usually pretty general. I've had personal shielding up almost all the time (except when in ritual, or in other otherwise-protected spaces) for, um. Since spring of 1996 in one form or another, so that makes it 16 years?

I've obviously adapted it a great deal over that time, and most of the time it runs on autopilot now. (Some filtering of energetic 'noise' around me, though less so than when I worked with teenagers all the time. Teenagers are awesome but the empathic load can be a bit much.)

I also have permanent wards on my home. Again, these have been there for so long (and they're anchored in my harp, primarily) that they're mostly on autopilot, though I deliberately clean them/check them/adjust them a few times a year and if specific situations come up.

The trick with long-term stuff is that you have to have something that continues feeding the intention *or* you need to remember to check in with it regularly. With time and practice, that checking in can be very quick, or about as much deliberate 'effort' as, say, remembering to feed the pet cat is. (You have to do it, but you don't really think about it much.) But building those habits, and the energetic skills to maintain that kind of ease, takes time just like any other skill does.

[RandallS]

The trick with long-term stuff is that you have to have something that continues feeding the intention *or* you need to remember to check in with it regularly.

That's true of my personal shielding, but not true of wards I set up. They don't need any attention from me unless I would have to put them in an area where there is nothing I can tie them to for power. We obviously build our wards differently, but that's not why I'm posting this. I'm now wondering why I create wards that don't need much attention (even of the on autopilot kind) but create my personal shielding in a way that does require attention. Now that I'm actually thinking about the difference, I am trying to figure out why I've never tried to self-power my shields as I do wards. Would this even work? Would there be undesirable side effects if it did? Just thinking "aloud" really.

[Jenett]

That's true of my personal shielding, but not true of wards I set up. They don't need any attention from me unless I would have to put them in an area where there is nothing I can tie them to for power. We obviously build our wards differently, but that's not why I'm posting this. I'm now wondering why I create wards that don't need much attention (even of the on autopilot kind) but create my personal shielding in a way that does require attention. Now that I'm actually thinking about the difference, I am trying to figure out why I've never tried to self-power my shields as I do wards. Would this even work? Would there be undesirable side effects if it did? Just thinking "aloud" really.

Part of feeding the intention for me is "Is is this still doing the stuff I want it to" adjustments. By and large, those changes aren't very frequent for me - but I've had cases where I've had a situation come up, and adjusted the wards to respond specifically to it.

Oh, as an example: my house wards are designed to make anyone who's actively cheating - i.e. breaking their relationship agreements with a partner - feel a bit uncomfortable in my home, and not want to spend time there. That's one I've tweaked a couple of times over the years, even though the basic concept's been there for a while.

And there've been a couple of times when I knew I'd need to host someone for whom that was true, where I commented out that clause in the warding (to borrow a turn of phrase from programming) temporarily.

It's not an every day thing - but it is something I check in with a couple of times a year, or when specific circumstances change.

[RandallS]

Part of feeding the intention for me is "Is is this still doing the stuff I want it to" adjustments. By and large, those changes aren't very frequent for me - but I've had cases where I've had a situation come up, and adjusted the wards to respond specifically to it.

::nods:: My wards seldom need that type of adjustment. They are designed to keep nasty people/effects away and I can't really imagine any circumstance where that would need to be adjusted. However, you are right, if they were more complex, they probably would require much more attention than I give them now.

[Annie Roonie]

Shielding can be temporary, but for me, it's usually pretty general. I've had personal shielding up almost all the time (except when in ritual, or in other otherwise-protected spaces) for, um. Since spring of 1996 in one form or another, so that makes it 16 years?

Shields can interfere with ritual or other forms of protection. Duly noted. I kind of see why. You'd want to know what energies were around and if a shield was always up, you may not get a full energy picture?

(Some filtering of energetic 'noise' around me, though less so than when I worked with teenagers all the time. Teenagers are awesome but the empathic load can be a bit much.)

I hear that!

I also have permanent wards on my home. Again, these have been there for so long (and they're anchored in my harp, primarily) that they're mostly on autopilot, though I deliberately clean them/check them/adjust them a few times a year and if specific situations come up.

The trick with long-term stuff is that you have to have something that continues feeding the intention *or* you need to remember to check in with it regularly. With time and practice, that checking in can be very quick, or about as much deliberate 'effort' as, say, remembering to feed the pet cat is. (You have to do it, but you don't really think about it much.) But building those habits, and the energetic skills to maintain that kind of ease, takes time just like any other skill does.

So wards anchor to a place and not a person maybe with the exception of tattoos.
Wards need less attention than shields because they gain energy from the place I am guessing after paging about a bit.

And that makes me think of potential shields that could be fed regular energy with frequently refocused intent with a kind of siphoning making them function more like a ward that travels with a person.

For example, let's say a protection spell was cast on the self to ward against malicious magic and magical intent and the revisit was set so that any witnessing of general malice, magical or not, caused the caster to revisit the intent and fortify the shield or warding effect of the shield. Given humans, it would be revisited often.

And if the original intent was not to send back negatively charged energies but to split the energy from the negative intent, send the neutralized energy to the shield and deposit the intent in, say, the compost heap where it could happily rot away and be transformed into usable fertilizer, would this be a viable way to harness human nature for energy instead of actual nature?

This made me think of some folk magic stuff that seems likely fairy tale inspired. There are stories (all oral and afaik only heard by me and maybe relatives) of words that are spoken over new borns that are similar to what I have described, "that whim which cannot harm you though it want, will make you stronger still" kind of thing. And when a gran is tending over the tot later, tot is told simply how to see something and use it in this manner. "Power stay protect the way, impish blight go out of sight. Your new course be found by feeding the ground." The rhymes are quaint but they are very easy for a tot to remember. I was fond of these because of the way they turn an ugh into a hmm long before I ever thought about the dubious ethics of it.

In any event, these types of tales were never told me by anyone who had deities to whom they were devoted outside of Christian ones. And given the human characteristics of some pagan deities, could this type of thing offend them in its hubris to truncate any intent or method of theirs at all?

And if anything like this were to be a viable and usable type of shield/ward amalgam it seems like a shut off would be an appropriate thing to build in given what you've noted about ritual and other protected spaces. Not to mention having to find ways to witness malice in action or *dread* put oneself in the position to be subject to it thereby screwing with the intent. Not that it would be difficult to find or do, but certainly, it could be depressing and possibly distract from acts of compassion if not made a matter of habit early on. And now it sounds vampiric to me. Oy.

I too am just thinking aloud a bit. And now think this could be more complicated than safety and caution requires.

And procrastinating.

[Jenett]

Shields can interfere with ritual or other forms of protection. Duly noted. I kind of see why. You'd want to know what energies were around and if a shield was always up, you may not get a full energy picture?

A couple of reasons, though that's part of it.

1) Walking around with shielding is like walking around with clothing. Clothing is a very nice thing, but there's things that we want to remove it for (Bathing. Skin-to-skin contact with someone we love. Doctor appointments.) Shielding is like that for me: it is a very useful tool, but it also blocks - or at least damps - some kinds of information that are really useful, enjoyable, or relationship-building.



2) Related to that last one: when doing close personal ritual with other people (by which I don't mean larger public ritual, but coven-type working, with people you trust), shielding is sort of rude. You're saying "Yes, I want to do energetically intimate stuff with you, but I don't want you to get your energy mixed with mine."

There are times that's appropriate - the way that safer sex conversations are appropriate - but there are better and worse ways to have that conversation when it's needed.

(I layer my shields, so my usual practice is to drop the outer most ones in public ritual, but leave up the inner ones which are about filtering and balancing in larger group rituals. With people I trust, all of it comes down, but at about the point the circle is scribed.)

3) I do think that shielding all the time can be a little like wearing glasses or corrective lenses all the time - useful, but there's things you also miss, like what your natural unaltered experience of the world is. Nothing wrong with using tools to help you, but it's also good to keep an eye on the baseline from time to time and see what's changed.

Wards need less attention than shields because they gain energy from the place I am guessing after paging about a bit.

Depends on how they're set.

Honestly, I think I throw more energy directly at my wards than I do at my shields, but that's partly because of part of my ritual process: extra energy gets fed back into the wards and some tradition-specific reserves, rather than getting grounded out.

For example, let's say a protection spell was cast on the self to ward against malicious magic and magical intent and the revisit was set so that any witnessing of general malice, magical or not, caused the caster to revisit the intent and fortify the shield or warding effect of the shield. Given humans, it would be revisited often.

Again, depends on design. One very small part of my shielding is against negative intent. (Maybe one part in 10? Less?) The rest is about helping me manage my own energy (in crowds, when working with emotionally varied students, when being in a difficult situation, in balancing day to day needs and filtering the input I'm paying the most attention to so I can do more useful things with it.) Lots of flagging of "Hey, note this.", not as much blocking.

For negative stuff, I mostly want to flag it so I can make a deliberate choice about what to do with it, or do very general protective stuff (no one bug me while I'm walking down this street. I need a lot less of that now I've moved to tiny little rural college town than I did living in Minneapolis - there's just plain fewer people.)

I sort of believe that magic works like most of the world: I have a shower at night because there's dirt in the world, but it's mostly not aimed at me, and 99% of the time, I am not that filthy, but there's still some dust or grime or whatever.

My shields work the same way: I am mostly not worried about directed negativity, but there's a certain amount of residual dust and grime in the environment, and I'd rather not get it on me. (I have stepped things up when I have reason to - really bad group dynamics issues, for example. But even there, I think it's rarely been directed negativity, and far more often high but unfocused strong emotion.)