We spend most of our time in our homes, now more than ever. But have you ever felt like there was a strange energy in your house? Or thought there was a ghost living in your home? If you want to make your home feel safer and more secure, wards are the way to do so.

A magick ward is a type of defensive magick. Also known as protective magick. Defensive magick is important for any practitioner to know and be skilled at.

Defensive magick serves to protect a person, place, or object and is instrumental in protecting a witch. Especially one who’s undergoing advanced magickal practices like summoning, spirit work, or hex work.

Wards create a magickal or spiritual security net around your space. They are an extremely adaptable type of magick but in today’s post, I will be talking about home wards, ones designed to protect your living space.

What are wards

At their most basic, a ward is a protective barrier around yourself, your room, your home, or just about anything else.

In fact, a magick circle is a ward essentially. The circle is a protective barrier cast around you to conduct your spells safely.

Not only do wards keep things out but they can also keep things in. Similarly, casting a circle allows the practitioner to contain their energy in the space until they’re ready to direct and release it.

If you’ve ever felt like there was negative energy in your home or even an unwanted spirit, but cleansing and banishing didn’t seem to work, wards can help!

When you cleanse a space, it’s often done by removing the negative energy in place. Unless the energy is being transformed by your cleansing, it may come back.

The reason this happens is that a vacuum has been created there, allowing the same energy to fill it again.

Alternatively, perhaps you or someone else in the home are bringing negative energy along with them into the home.

This often happens without us knowing! Especially, when we don’t regularly cleanse and protect ourselves.

But with a ward around your home, you can block negativity from entering and even filter energy so that positivity can enter!

Wards can be incredibly versatile and made to fit your needs, if you can imagine it, you can create it! Of course, that requires willpower, intention, and enough energy to focus and maintain the spell.

How to get started warding

Before you create a ward around your home, the first thing you need to do is cleanse the space. As I described above, wards can keep things in. You probably don’t want to accidentally trap that unwanted energy in your home.

Cleansing your space can be done in a variety of ways. But when it comes to cleansing your whole home, I recommend being as thorough as possible. Not only does this help guarantee that your wards will function as intended, it also helps prepare your space for the wards.

One way of doing this is to clean all of your windows with full moon water and mint essential or any other purifying herb that you enjoy.

Once the windows are clean, I like to draw a banishing pentagram across the surface of the window with my hand or wand.

Additionally, if the weather is nice you can open all the windows up as you cleanse the space. This allows negativity and unwanted spirits to leave the space more readily.

Planning your warding ritual

Now that the space is cleared, it’s time to create the ward itself.

Personally, I have created different types of wards around the different places I’ve lived in ways that fit my needs. When I was living in a dorm room, I focused mostly on creating a simple barrier around my room.

This was simpler than the spell woven around my family home and property, which extends for almost an acre and a half. The wards around my property needed to be flexible to allow wildlife and local nature spirits to pass by without any trouble or discomfort.

In essence, your wards can be adapted to fit whatever situation you find yourself in. These ideas below, are just a few that I’ve used and experienced. Truthfully, this list could be endless, feel free to use your imagination to find what works for you!

Ways to Create home wards

First, by walking the perimeter of your home you can direct energy and establish a simple ward as you go.

In my partner’s apartment, I did this by walking the interior of the dwelling. But for my family home, I walked along the exterior perimeter of the house.

In my experience, creating wards around a home is simpler when drawing the boundary along the outer walls.

As you walk the perimeter, you can include a chant or incantation that outlines the purpose and functions of your ward. You should also try to visualize the barrier taking shape. This might be a glowing translucent barrier against the walls or something else, like placing energetic bricks around your space like a castle wall.

This alone can help build the foundations of a strong protective ward, but there’s plenty more to include. However, the larger your space, the more energy will be required to construct the wards. As well as maintain them.

Therefore, using additional elements and correspondences, wards can be made strong enough to meet your needs.

Additional elements to consider for your wards

• Calling upon the four elements and their protective properties.
• Petitioning the assistance of your deities or guardian spirits. Such as animal guides, familiars, angels, etc.
• The use of sigils and other symbols of protection that match your intent. These may include runes, perhaps in the form of bind-runes.
• Amulets/Talismans: After establishing the boundaries for your wards, you can link them to a physical object that makes it easier to maintain them. This object can be inscribed with sigils and symbols or artwork. When maintaining wards, you can easily channel energy into this charm to help renew the wards. For example, the wooden shield I got at a craft store. I plan to paint it and mount it on the wall to act as a battery or control for my wards.
• Spell bottles or bags: If you want to include herbs, crystals, and other correspondences for your wards you can make spell jars to place in the corners of your space. One of my original set-ups involved burying four spell jars at each cardinal direction around my home.
• Physical boundaries: Following a physical boundary, such as the walls of your home, fence line, or even the trees at the edge of your yard, can help focus the intent and maintain a clearer boundary for your wards.
• A Name: Perhaps you want to give your home a name. It can be nice to name it something, which I am planning to write about in the future! Names have power and can evoke specific feelings.

Performing a warding ritual

No matter the method, your warding ritual can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. We’ve already established the cleansing and creating the barrier. So all that’s left is to raise power and direct it through any of the various aids that you wish to include. These aids may include the ones above as well as:

• Crystals
• Herbs
• Candles

Plus many more.

Different intentions you may wish to include

Besides my wards around the edge of my yard and my household ward, I also have a much simpler ward around my room. This ward is designed specifically to keep out emotional energy. As an empath, my room is my safe space where I can be alone, so my ward reflects that.

Furthermore, now that I am raising chickens, I’m currently working on a ward for the chicken coop to help protect them overnight from predators.

Additional intentions can easily be added through the use of things like crystals, herbs, color magick, and incantations.

Guardian Wards

Now, I want to preface that creating a guardian construct or thoughtform can be complicated and requires maintenance and care. In many cases, these aren’t necessary for creating a strong ward.

Frankly, I also recommend that you are experienced and ready to commit to the effort and care that goes into crafting a guardian ward.

But, if you’re covering a large area or need wards that have a level of awareness and discretion, this might be right for you.

Personally, I am in the process of developing a guardian to help me manage and maintain my wards. I am doing so because I have multiple wards with various purposes and find that a guardian or warden can be focused on these barriers better than I can, especially when I’m not home. This little sentinel also helps discern welcomed spiritual guests and visitors from anything that may be actively seeking my harm.

A guardian ward is an energetic construct, a thoughtform, designed and created to manage the wards around your space. Although this construct can be a simple thoughtform, it can be made into a conscious magickal being of sorts – such as a servitor or egregore.

Creating a Guardian

In order to create a guardian ward, you will need a physical object, such as a totem: like an animal, or even an action figure that represents this guardian. After cleansing the object, it will need to be charged with energy. A lot of energy, depending on how specific its functions are. As you charge the object, you will need to set your intentions.

For example, if you want your guardian wards to allow certain things to pass through the wards, you’ll want to specify that. Sigils, burning petitions on paper, or using chants can help set your intentions effectively.

Once this is done, carry the object with you as you set the boundary of your wards or after you’ve made them. As you go you will need to set the intention that this object will guard these wards and help maintain them. These two need to be energetically linked together.

Afterwards, place the guardian somewhere in your space where it can reside. You can perform a full ritual with it to finish creating the wards if you’d like.

If you want to learn more about creating a Home Guardian, I found this post by Avery from the Traveling Witch to be really helpful. In fact, her post got me thinking about how useful a servitor could be for my different wards.

A word of caution

Thoughtforms such as a guardian ward need energy to function and maintain. This can be done by establishing an energy bridge to a source of power; such as the earth or a candle you burn for the construct. You could also channel energy directly into the construct.

However, the more work that goes into creating this construct, the more developed it becomes. This can lead to it becoming a sentient being like a servitor or even an egregore.

These beings need a healthy relationship with you, they will require energy to function and work, but they may also wish to communicate or learn. The occasional offering of something nice isn’t a bad idea either.

Although I haven’t experienced a dangerous servitor, if they no longer work as needed or have become unwelcome, then they will need to be bound, banished, or destroyed. Of course, I haven’t experienced one going awry like that before, but it’s not something that can be created and forgot about.

As I work more with my guardian, I will be sure to let you know more about our experience.

Household Spirits

Some homes have their own household spirits. These are common in the mythos and beliefs of many different cultures. I wanted to touch on them because they are an important consideration in developing your wards.

Most household spirits shouldn’t have a problem with wards, but it can be worthwhile to ask them about it beforehand.

Here at my home, we have a detached storage shed/workspace, now the ward around my home doesn’t include that space. So if the spirit goes out there, it needs to be able to pass through freely. This is the same reason why the ward around the property is designed to allow local spirits to pass freely as well.

Household spirits like Brownies, Domovoi, Lares/Penates, and Tomte all have different beliefs, opinions, and personalities in their various cultures. It’s worth getting to know them and learning about them in order to bring your home into harmony.

Maintaining your wards

Even with an established energy bridge that helps feed the wards the energy necessary to function, it’s important to remember to maintain them. Especially if the wards have been actively repelling or filtering negative energy and entities. This is something that I think can be done annually. But you may wish to do it seasonally. Perhaps when you cleanse your home and bless it you also feed the wards with energy.

Perhaps it’s lighting a candle and channeling energy into the space while visualizing the wards glowing with energy. Or maybe you channel the energy into the wards as you walk the perimeter again. It doesn’t need to be too complex.

In all honesty, the simpler your wards, the easier they will be to build and maintain. It all comes down to intention. Some intentions are easier than others. If the wards block energy it may build-up. But the same can be said of filtering or any other method.

Things to Consider

Depending on your living situation, your wards can be designed to work for your space. At home, I don’t own this house, my parents do.

As such, I asked my mom if she was comfortable with me creating a “protective barrier around the house”. This can help because the home’s genius loci may potentially respond differently to you than it would to the owner, but also to consider the ethics of casting a spell around your family’s home.

However, I will say that this may not be necessary, especially if you are in the broom closet or are unable to ask. You see, my thoughts on this situation are as follows:

We consider our homes to be our safe places. They feel safe and inviting. So if you are warding the space to keep it safe, then are you really affecting someone else’s will?

Similarly, I tied the wards in my partner’s apartment to an amulet. Once the amulet is removed, the wards should dissolve. I also have a ritual prepared to dissolve them when the time comes. This method is perfect for rented spaces or dorm rooms.

Home Blessings

Briefly, I want to touch on Home Blessings.

Blessings, like wards, are a form of household magick. But a blessing serves a different purpose. It’s a method of cleansing and shaping the energy of your home to match your intentions. For example, a home blessing could help make your space feel more peaceful, inviting, or calming.

Currently, I am working on a post about home blessings. I believe they can really help you reshape your space and turn a house into a home. For more information on home blessings and magick in the home, I recommend reading Arin Murphy-Hiscock’s The House Witch. Arin Murphy-Hiscock also covers wards really nicely.

This book goes into great detail about hearthcraft. An often overlooked aspect of Witchcraft in the home!

Conclusion

Our homes are sacred. With the help of warding and defensive magick we can protect ourselves from spiritual harm and negativity, I like to think my wards would help in the event of storm damage or tricking robbers into avoiding my house. But I can’t attest to whether that works or not.

Protective magick is a fundamental skill for any witch. Wards are a great practice to get started. I know I covered a lot in this post, but there is so much more I plan to share.

If you have more to say or have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on social media or comment below!