When it comes to magic, releasing what we don't want is as important as manifesting what we wish for
We wouldn't order new furniture for an overfilled room, without cleaning it first, right? Healing yourself, cutting a karmic bond, transforming yourself by getting rid of bad habits, liberating yourself from a relationship of any kind, releasing low energies plundering your life, or getting rid of anything that doesn't serve you anymore, the reasons to create and perform your own banishing ritual are endless.
NB: I refer there to banishing rituals in general, not to the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram which is a completely different thing of its own.
Today I invite you to explore together how to prepare for such a ritual and will share the simple (but damn effective) way I perform it. We'll also consider how you could personalize it to make it yours, as the more the ritual resonates with you, the more powerful it will be.
What is a banishing ritual?
The purpose of a banishing ritual is to get rid of something, or someone, from your life. By its nature, a cast-banishing ritual is a life-transforming experience. Not only you are liberating yourself from something, you are also making space for something better.
Is it black magick?
In my definition, not at all. I would even say it's the exact opposite: you liberate yourself from a place of self-love, maybe even love in general depending on the context.
Let's imagine someone who wants to end for good a relationship with a toxic pattern: this person knows the relationship is hurting themselves, but this situation is also hurting the other one. Healthy relationships are beneficial and feel good for both parties involved, and logically, a relationship cannot be defined as healthy if somebody is in pain because of it.
Here, cutting the cord means cutting everything, including a desire for revenge, or even expecting the other person to regret something. It is cleansing so deep that we want to go back to a blank page to write our new life without this person in it.
What to consider before performing the spell?
The most important thing to consider is your inner state and feelings: do you really want to banish this thing or person from your life? Do you feel ready for that? Is there any possibility you might regret doing it?
If the reason is no in any way, don't perform the ritual. Why? Well, because it simply won't work, and you'll waste candles and time. The force comes from within, and the ritual is the physical expression of this force. Without it, this is just fancy candle lightning (which might be good, but not effective).
If you don't know the answer to these questions, I would suggest doing shadow work to explore how you really feel and unveil what might be hidden in your unconscious mind. Also note that depending on the context, shadow work might be more than enough to achieve the result you are looking for, without extra ritual. In many cases, untieing the knots and revealing the unknown is enough to get free.
If the answer is a huge, sincere, enthusiastic yes, then we are ready for the juicy part!
Disclaimer: Any kind of deep magical practice might make you feel highly emotional. So I count on you to perform this kind of ritual when you feel good and balanced.
The banishing ritual: what will you need?
Mostly three things:
Protection: this is much deeper than journaling, meditation, or any witchcraft practice you can do quickly. So you'll have to consider how you are planning on protecting yourself from external unwanted energies.
You can read How to cast a magick circle for your rituals to learn all about circle casting
A symbol of the banishment: in the spell I'll share with you, I use a black candle. As a witch completely fond of candle magick, with a fire-dominant chart, I find nothing better than candles to visualize the banishing action. But this is totally personal and should 100 % resonate with you and what you love doing. Some witches never use candles and it doesn't make them less powerful in any way: feel free to adapt and make the ritual yours. For example, dissolving a piece of paper in water would have the same effect as watching the candle burn.
Time: during a ritual, you have to keep focusing. The time you'll invest in this ritual is a fuel of its own, making it effective and powerful. The deeper rooted in your life is the thing you want to banish, the longer your ritual could be. The reason for that is that this time will allow you to feel and observe your emotions, and really process what your life is becoming under your loving care (as you are now taking such good care of yourself by performing this ritual). I use for my rituals candles that take one full day to burn. For this reason, I'll refer in my ritual to energy bubble casting instead of circle casting, as we can't really spend a full day in a circle. The candle shouldn't never be left unattended but it doesn't mean you have to stay close to it all day long.
How to perform my version of the banishing ritual
For this ritual, you'll need:
- A big black candle and a matching candlestick,
- Something to light the candle (you don't want to be looking everywhere for it while performing the ritual),
- A candle snuffer if you need to do the ritual on multiple sessions,
- An athame: if you don't have one, something to engrave the candle, that you can hold comfortably for a long time without hurting yourself,
- Optional: offerings for your deity, spirit guide, spiritual team, or any entity you might invite for support
Cast your energy bubble and see it enveloping yourself completely. Expand it to your workspace, sealing it in your energy.
Take the candle in your hand, fill it with your intentions for this ritual. You might want to do it in silence or speak out loud: do what feels the most natural to you.
Pick a symbol that represents for you this banishment. It should be a symbol powerful to you, but easy enough to be engraved on the candle multiple times.
Take your athame to engrave the symbol in the candle. You'll repeat this action many times until the candle is entirely covered.
Each time you engrave the symbol in the wax, focus on one aspect of this banishment.
Here are some examples:
- By this banishment, I cut the cord definitively,
- I release myself from any karmic contract or bond with this person,
- "Name of the person", you won't contact me anymore and forget my very existence,
- I release any expectation from "name of the person" to ask for forgiveness, I value myself more than any excuses I might receive, so I free myself completely,
- I am done with this bullshit, this bullshit has extended its stay and is now cast away,
- This has no place in my life anymore,
- I am not this person anymore, not now, not ever again,
The emotions you'll feel performing the ritual might be surprising, such as a feeling of gratefulness. Such a deep ritual helps us see the bigger picture. Appreciating certain lessons we learned, or qualities we developed, doesn't mean in any way that the situation isn't unfair, or that we don't deserve to free ourselves from it. Trust your intuition and the process. You might along the way engrave while saying things as "I am grateful for "situation" teaching me to be this "quality you got from it", but now we say goodbye and part forever".
When you have said and explored all aspects of the situation and expressed everything about your expectations, you can now dress the candle on its candle stick, and light it.
Take the time you need to focus on the candle, gaze in the flame, and feel the power of this magical moment. You are so brave for doing that. Whatever you want to banish is burning in front of your eyes. Allow yourself to feel the hope, love, and self-love from your actions.
The ritual will last many hours depending on the candle you chose, so stay near but you don't need to stay this long so close to your candle. So visualize its own bubble: even if you are not at your altar, the candle is part of what you are doing.
As long as the ritual is going, take some moments along the day, or night, to focus again on the candle and feel what is happening.
If you need to go, or if the ritual is so long you want to go to bed, extinguish your candle with the candle snuffer. You'll light it again a bit later.
When the candle is about to end is a particularly magical moment. If the situation / thing / person, was deeply rooted in your life, you might notice the candle "holding on", like a burning string without any wax left. Take the time to watch this candle completely burning as it's the symbol of your life being purified.
The ritual is now done. You might thank entities, and also yourself for being brave and powerful. Remove the bubble and go back to mundane life in the manner you prefer.
I hope you feel now lighter and relieved. By this ritual, you started a new chapter of your life and I wish you the very best for it!
