In this post, we’re going to discuss writing your own spells and rituals. Spells are a little on the easier side compared to rituals, so we will be learning how to write both. We will be using our previous lessons learned from my prior posts in order to help us with this practice. Writing spells and rituals is a huge passion of mine and I even make my own candles and incense for my spells and rituals. With that being said, let’s begin with learning how to write a spell. Remember, spells are for daily practice and do not need to involve all 5 elements.
- Set Your Intentions
The first step is to set your intentions. What are you wanting to achieve? You need to be very specific with this. Don’t just say, “I want to be happy.” Say, “I am happy with my relationship, career, and life in general starting now.” You can also delve deeper with this and do some shadow work to find the core reason for your unhappiness to make this intention even more specific and successful.
2. Evaluate the Potential Repercussions
If you’re a Wiccan, you know that everything you put out into the world comes back to you threefold. If you’re not a Wiccan, you can choose whether or not you believe in karma. Either way, remember that if you are not specific enough with your intention, the spell could backfire. Let’s say your intention was to make your spouse’s pain go away, as he/she has a chronic condition. Since this is not a specific intention, this could potentially kill your spouse as that is a way for their pain to go away. This is why it is so important to be specific with your intentions for your spells.
3. Select a Method and Materials
Each intention correlates with a specific element. For example, a spell for self-confidence is best done as a fire or water spell. Fire if you’re wanting a more strong and courageous approach to being confident and water if you are wanting a more gentle approach by healing your trauma to become more confident.
We have talked about this in each of my element posts, but each element can be used differently for spell work. Earth can be used as a spell bag, crystal grid, making amulets, burial spells, making teas, spell jars, and gardening. Air can be used as a smoke cleanse, a spell where you blow something away in the wind, potpourri, dandelion wishes, and movement (such as yoga). Water can be used for talking with river spirits, making moon water, making sun water and specific weather waters, freezing spells, seashell release spells, and bath rituals. Fire can be used for cord-cutting, charm making, candle spells, and burning rituals.
Going back to a spell for self-confidence. We have chosen to either do a fire spell or a water spell. If you chose a fire spell, you might want to do a candle spell for this one. If you chose the water spell route, you might want to do a bath ritual.
Now that you have chosen your method of spell, we need to figure out the details of what ingredients we will need. Let’s continue by using the candle spell. In order to choose our candle color, we need to think deeper as to what traits would make us feel more confident. If you need more strength, courage, or charisma, you should pick a red candle. If you need confidence in your mental ability, such as intelligence and psychic abilities, you should choose a purple candle. If you need confidence regarding your communication with others, finding inspiration and creativity, you should choose a blue candle.
Okay, now that we have figured out the color of our candle, do you want to dress the candle or do you want to leave it as is? If you choose to dress your candle, you should start by choosing an oil to infuse with your wax (or if you buy your candle, you can roll the candle in the oil). Apricot kernel oil can be used to increase self-love. Avocado oil can be used for beauty. Evening primrose oil can be used for inner beauty. Grapeseed oil can be used for optimism. Hemp oil can be used for love, happiness, positivity, and psychic ability. Rosehip oil can be used for love and self-love. Sunflower oil is specifically for self-confidence.
Once you choose your oil, you can also dress the candle with herbs. If you buy your candles, just mix the herbs with the oil and roll the candle in it. If you make your own candles, mix the herbs into the melted wax before pouring into the mold or jar. There are many herbs and spices to choose from for self-confidence. These include bay leaves, cedar, cloves, coconut, ginger, ginseng, hops, honeysuckle, fennel seeds, lemon balm, nutmeg, orris root, peppermint, red clover, rosemary, St. John’s wort, valerian, and yarrow. As a Wiccan, I use 3 herbs or spices when dressing my candles.
Once you choose your herbs or spices, you can decide if you want the candle to have a scent or not. For giving my candles a scent, I prefer to use organic essential oils rather than fragrance oils, as they actually come from the plant itself and is not lab made. For confidence, you can use any essential oil relating to the solar plexus chakra. These could include lemongrass, fennel, coriander, lime, myrrh, frankincense, juniper, lemon, orange, bergamot, grapefruit, clary sage, lavender, spearmint, eucalyptus, cinnamon, and douglas fir. I personally like to use notes (top, mid, and base) when creating my scent, but that is a little advanced and I can cover this topic at a later time. As a Wiccan, I use 3 essential oils: 1 top note, 1 mid note, and 1 base note.
Now that you have chosen how to dress your candle, do you want to add crystals for an added effect? I personally like citrine for optimism and self-esteem, sunstone for nurturing leadership abilities, bronzite for removing hesitation, pyrite for strengthening willpower and assertiveness, tiger’s eye for enhancing decision making, and carnelian for raising self-worth and courage. Again, as a Wiccan, I choose 3 crystals and place 1 of each on the candle. For both methods of candles (buying vs. making), you can heat up the top of the candle with a heating tool or a blow dryer and place the crystals on top.
I’m getting very advanced and over-the-top with this, I know, but you can also take it a step further and engrave your intentions into the candle. You can use a rune, your own sigil, or write your intention on the candle. The rune Wunjo can be used for happiness, Sowilo can be used for willpower and leadership, Berkano can be used for growth and healing, Ehwaz is specifically for confidence, and Laguz is used for psychic abilities. I will be discussing how to make your own sigils in a later post, but basically you can make one that means “I am confident” or something along those lines. You can even choose to just write “confidence” on the candle.
Let’s not go any further than that and jump to the next step.
4. Decide on a Time
Use my Spell Timings post to help with this. When it comes to spells, you do not really need to worry about planetary hours, but it is best to choose a day of the week or moon phase that correlates with your intentions.
For confidence, I would choose a blue moon, or a waxing crescent moon on a Sunday, Tuesday, or Friday. These all would be dependent on your more specific intentions.
5. Set Up Your Work Area
Make sure your table or counter is cleared off and cleaned. You may decide to place an altar cloth down. Then place your candle or whatever spell items you chose on the altar cloth.
6. Purify Your Body and Work Area
You will want to cleanse your work area before starting the spell. I usually spray my area with new moon water and then do a smoke cleanse for extra purification.
7. Dedicate the Space by Casting a Circle or by the Method of Your Choice
I personally call in the spirits and a deity for my spells, but it is not required. You can simply just cast a protection circle or physically draw a circle around you. Remember, if you need to step out of the circle, you must open the circle before leaving, and close the door to the circle upon re-entering. This can be done by casting your circle in reverse or by creating a gap in your physical circle.
8. State Your Intentions
This goes without saying, but simply state out loud your intention you chose earlier and be specific.
9. Raise and Release Energy
This is where you actually perform the spell. For the purpose of this candle spell, you may simply light the candle, breathe in the smoke and fragrance, and let the candle stay lit until it completely burns out. You may even do fire scrying at this time.
10. Seal Your Spell
“So mote it be” is a common line to seal your spell. Do what you feel comfortable with.
11. Rebalance Your Personal Energy by Grounding
For this, I usually use a meditation. Specifically for confidence, I like to do solar plexus guided meditations. There are plenty of these available for free on YouTube.
12. Release the Dedicated Space
At this time, I like to thank the spirits and/or deity(ies). You can give them an offering, or simply thank them for their assistance.
13. Care for the Magical Supplies Used
This is basically when you clean up after your spell. For candles, you will want to throw away the wick and clean the surface you lit your candle on. If your candle was in the jar, clean out the jar and it can be repurposed. If you used an earth spell, you can bury your magical ingredients or reuse the crystals, if used. If you used any water, I personally give the water to the earth by watering plants, trees, or grass. You can also give the water to your pets. Now, if the water was used to absorb something negative, I usually pour it into the sink or the toilet. As far as ashes go, if something was burned to manifest, I will keep the ashes in a jar to make black salt. If something was burned to release, I will give throw the ashes into the toilet and flush them without looking back.
14. Keep Records
You will want to keep track of your spells in your book of shadows. I personally write down the moon phase with its current zodiac, the current sun zodiac, the time the spell was performed, the date, the name of the spell, the ingredients, the steps, any incantation used (if any), and how it went for you. Write down ways you could improve the spell. Reflect on the spell in a week, a month, and a year to show if you notice a difference in that time.
So that concludes spell writing. Now, let’s get into ritual writing.
Basically, ritual writing has the same steps as spell writing. The main differences are that rituals incorporate all of the elements and they are typically done at a specific time.
You will need to have a tool in the north for earth. This can be sand, salt, chalk, clay, humus, mud, acorns, antlers, bones, a broom, coins, a disk, flowers, horns, metals, crystals, moss, river rocks, roots, and seeds. You will need a tool in the east for air. This can be incense, balloons, bells, besoms, bubbles, dandelion seeds, feathers, floating lanterns, flute, harp, kite, pinwheel, perfumes, quills, ribbons, wand, weathervane, whirlygig, whistle, wind chime, or wings. You will need a tool in the south for fire. This can be ashes, an athame, candles, cayenne pepper, charcoal, chili peppers, cinnamon, lava rock, pumice, or a wand. You will need a tool in the west for water. You can use ammonite, belemnite, a blue bowl of water, a cauldron, a chalice of water, comb, coral, crab shell & claws, driftwood, fishing net, hagstone, mermaid’s purse, mirror, pearls, sand dollars, seahorses, sea glass, seaweed, shark teeth, shells, or witch balls. And for spirit, you can choose the spirits, deities, ancestors, or whoever you are working with. For the spirits, I draw a pentacle. For deities, I usually choose a god and a goddess and place offerings for them. For ancestors, I will leave an offering. For spirit guides, I will use a figurine or statue.
You can have rituals for the new moon, the full moon, the sabbats, the planets moving into a new zodiac, or more complex spells that require more assistance.
Let’s say we want to do a full moon ritual for Sagittarius. This happens on Saturday, June 3rd. The full moon is known for saying thanks and letting go. Sagittarius is known for confidence, reorientation and foresight, making decisions, long-term planning, and commitment. Saturdays are known for abstract thought, higher study, setting goals, transformation, banishing negativity, protection, creativity, manifestation, meditation, exorcisms, psychic attacks, and locating lost items and people. With this in mind, we can incorporate multiple practices into our ritual.
For my full moon rituals, I like to have multiple practices incorporated. I usually start off (after cleansing my space), drinking an herbal tea made with full moon water. I stir the tea with my intentions in mind. Since the full moon is about release (it can also be about manifestation depending on your belief), I might want to stir my tea counter-clockwise to release any anxiety or fear that is hindering my confidence. If I want to, I can then stir my tea clockwise and manifest my intentions by using affirmations. Sagittarius is mainly associated with the third eye chakra, but it can also be associated with the solar plexus chakra. I would use affirmations for one of these chakras and then drink my tea. After my tea ceremony, I usually ground myself by meditating or doing yoga. After grounding myself, I will use some sort of divination method. I personally do a tarot spread for the specific event that my ritual is for. You can also do scrying, rune casting, bone throwing, etc. I interpret these readings and thank the spirits and deities for being with me. After doing my divination method, I will journal (new moon) or do shadow work (full moon). At the end, I will thank those who I worked with and close the circle.
I use the same practices for the majority of my rituals. It is completely up to you which activities you would like to incorporate. I would just make sure it correlates with your intention.
So now. you know how to write spells and rituals. Feel free to message me with any questions and follow me on my socials. I will be adding new content on my Patreon soon including the many herbs and their correspondences, multiple spells and rituals, tarot meanings, rune meanings, etc. It is all in the works and will be available on my Patreon for as low as $5 a month.
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