Modern Witchcraft: Beginners Guide

Cleansing, Charging, & Discharging

Most objects and spaces you will use in your craft will repeatedly undergo a Cleansing, Charging, and Discharging cycle. It is another one of those basic building blocks that will allow you to truly understand what it is you are doing in each step of your witchy rituals.

Here's a quick summary of the cycle before I dive into more details:

1. 🧼 The first step is cleansing; this is essentially removing unwanted energies attached to the object, to create a blank canvas for imprinting a new purpose.

2. 🔋 Imprinting the new purpose is what we call charging; this assigns the object's function and fills it with the energy it needs to perform its job (like charging a battery).

3. 🔥 Discharging is the act of releasing the object's energy into the universe, carrying out your will. Discharging can be done by gradually depleting the object's energy over time (e.g. wearing a crystal for a few weeks), or doing it one sudden release (e.g. burning an enchanted bay leaf).

All objects can store some amount of spiritual energy, and it is this energy that is used to carry out your will, or whatever job you have assigned to the object. Some objects are better at storing energy than others. For instance, rocks and crystals are very good at storing energy, and they can be repeatedly cleansed, charged, and discharged for many years without losing their capacity. Candles are also good at storing energy, and very good at discharging it as they are burned. But obviously they can only perform the cycle once, before they are depleted. Metals and woods are also ideal for repeated use in the cleanse, charge, discharge cycle.

Positive & Negative Energy

I have a tendency to separate spiritual energy in "positive" and "negative" energy throughout this book, but the truth is that energy is just energy. It's not good or bad, pure or evil. Rather, it's the energy's interaction with our own energy (and our perception of it) that makes it "positive" or "negative". In more accurate terms...

👉 Negative energy is actually unwanted energy, or energy that is not in alignment with ourselves. In turn, positive energy is that which is in alignment with ourselves. 👈

The reason is because, say if you wanted to cast a hex or curse, you want to utilise energy that we'd normally call "negative". Energy that causes us to feel sad, hurt, vulnerable, scared, etc... typically this would be unwanted energy but if you're working very baneful magick then this energy is desired - it's in alignment with your will. So when you're cleansing something of negativity, you're actually just cleansing it of unwanted energy. In this case, you want to remove anything that will get in the way of your hex; confidence, happiness, protection, etc.

Understanding this concept makes us realise just how important it is to balance out baneful magick with plenty of uplifting magick. When you work with lots of baneful magick, eventually you're going to cleanse away all energy that is not in alignment with yourself; love, healing, connection, purity, optimism, etc. This is how a dark, destructive spiral can develop.

So if you want to work with "positive" energy, make sure you are aligned with it. Do your best to be an honest, respectful, hard-working, wise, and compassionate person - and you'll receive this energy in return. This is a continuous journey of self-improvement, no one expects you to be perfect. Often just the desire to be a better person draws the energy into your alignment.

Cleansing

Most witches believe that all objects and spaces have a kind of "memory". Objects and places can pick up the energy and intention of people and other objects. The energies these objects have picked up and stored don't always match the intent we wish to use them for, so they need to be cleansed.