Protection Magic
“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
the valiant never taste of death but once.”
~william shakespeare, julius caesar
Protection magic is possibly the most publicized type of Santa Muerte spellwork in the media today. Sensationalist stories of how devotees use “black” magic to evade the law and carry out wicked deeds without consequence abound in the general public’s image of what this perceived “Mexican death cult” is all about. Having read this far, you know that this is not true, but because sensationalist stories tend to attract more attention than realistic stories, the public’s perception will always be shaped in whatever way brings in the most financial profit to the media.
While it is true that cartel members and assassins use protection magic to hide from capture or legal consequences, this is true of extremists in any faith whose personal desires outweigh the fundamental teachings of that faith. On a more common basis, protection magic in the Santa Muerte tradition is one of necessity. Rather than the end goal being to protect ourselves from the consequences of knowingly doing harm, the real end goal of protection magic is to be able to live a joyous and peaceful life without negative forces interrupting. This chapter will share three main spells to cover the three main aspects of protecting ourselves through magic.
Cloak of Invisibility
The Cloak of Invisibility is a type of spell common to any tradition that venerates a dark deity. It works by making us invisible to harm. While we don’t literally become invisible, we do go “off radar” to people who are out looking for trouble. Think of this as a type of glamour spell, except instead of gaining attention, the object is to detract attention. Oftentimes, though, the best way to protect ourselves is by avoiding a situation that would endanger us in the first place.
Suggested Tools:
Color/Aspect: Black
Herbs/Scents: Cactus, frankincense, nettle
Minerals: Jet, tourmaline
1. Assemble any tools and get into a meditative state.
2. Visualize yourself standing before La Santa Muerte. You see her enshrouded in her long, flowing, black cloak. Her demeanor is strong, yet loving, like an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove.
3. Commune with her, and ask that she protect you on your journey.
4. Listen to any advice she may have about where you are about to go. Are there warnings? Are there signs of things to stay away from? You may not fully understand now, but when you do come across them in the physical world, remember to take caution.
5. Envision her wrapping her black cloak around you, and as you come out of your meditation, know that you are protected.
A common mistake that a lot of devotees make when performing this spell is overusing it. This is not a spell to be used all day every day. This spell makes us “invisible” by not having us stand out in any discernible way to any onlooker. Thus, people looking for trouble will not target you to be their victim because you “aren’t there” to them. But if we are driving our cars, at our place of work, or interacting with friends and family, we need to be visible and present. This spell is best used when we go out for a walk alone or have to be in a bad area where our chances of being targeted as victims are high. The best thing to do is to avoid such places, but this spell is a good second choice if that’s not possible.
Neutralizing Sphere
The only way to avoid conflict in the world is to avoid the world. The reality of life is that it has its ups and downs, and throughout our lives, we will come face to face with conflict and with people who intentionally wish us harm. Fortunately, the people who knowingly send out negative energy to harm us (also known as “psychic attacks”) are few and far between. It is much more likely that we will be harmed by accidental psychic attacks in the form of collateral damage from people who are so upset and unhappy in life that they can’t help but radiate negative energy out to everyone. Such negative energy wasn’t intended to harm us, but it did all the same. This spell will help combat these psychic attacks (intentional and accidental) through the use of a neutralizing sphere.
Suggested Tools:
Color/Aspect: Black, white
Herbs/Scents: Burdock, frankincense, palo santo, tobacco
Minerals: Diamond, obsidian, jet, tourmaline
1. Assemble any tools and get into a meditative state.
2. In your heart space, imagine a sphere emanating around you from within you.
3. Imagine it expanding away from your body to one and a half times the length of your arm.
4. As you visualize this, feel your physical body reacting. Feel the air around you move differently, as if it is contained inside something, along with you.
5. Commune with La Santa Muerte and ask her to bless this sphere with her touch of death, making it so that all negative energy dies upon coming into contact with the sphere, but that any act of love or kindness can pass through to you unharmed.
6. Thank La Santa Muerte. As you come out of your meditation, know that you are in that sphere until you dismantle it in another meditation.
This spell, unlike the Cloak of Invisibility, has no effect on the way people visually perceive you. They cannot sense the sphere around you, and, to them, nothing about you has changed. If any psychic attacks (intentional or accidental) come toward you, they will be immediately neutralized by the sphere around you.
The sphere itself can be personalized in any way most suitable to you. I prefer to imagine an opaque, geometric crystal sphere around me wherein the psychic attacks are neutralized and safely refract toward the ground. Another popular choice is a sphere of dense smoke that confuses the energy, ultimately leaving it lost and neutralized in the smokescreen. However you visualize this neutralizing sphere is entirely up to you.
Two words of warning with this spell, though. First, never visualize a mirror sphere. Mirrors have the ability to reflect energy, which sends it right back to where it came from—or toward an innocent bystander. While the “avenger” in us would love to give people a taste of their own medicine, the karmic consequences would ultimately come back at us, making it not worth it. Besides, the vast majority of psychic attacks are accidental, and the last thing someone so entrenched in suffering needs is to feel even worse by being shot back with their own wayward energy. Such people are more to be pitied than scorned.
The second warning is not to overuse this spell. That sphere is essentially your own energy, and having it out and expanded all day every day is incredibly draining. My suggestion is to create a discreet signaling device to have it expand and retract at will so that when you sense negative energy being shot in your direction, you can efficiently neutralize it and go back to normal. My personal signaling device is to hold my thumb, index, and middle finger together. It is discreet enough to be done in any social setting, yet distinct enough to only have my fingers in that position if I intend to expand the sphere. A common one among devotees is crossing the index and middle finger, and some clench their nondominant hand into a fist. The choice of the signaling device is yours, but be sure that you develop one so as to be efficient with your energy.
Slashing Self-Sabotage
We are our own worst enemy. Nothing sabotages our hopes, dreams, ambitions, and future more than ourselves. Advanced devotees in the Santa Muerte Mysteries understand that they are ultimately responsible for everything in their lives—all good things and all bad things. While common human tendency makes us want to credit ourselves only for our successes and blame our failures on other people or circumstances, true magical practitioners know that all that occurs in our lives does so because of what we choose to do and not do. These choices are the result of the beliefs, knowledge, and thinking centered in our minds. Thus, if we can control our minds, we can control our destinies.
The way you can begin to take control of your mind is to become aware of it. How many times have you said or done things that you later regretted, simply because you were on mental autopilot or giving a knee-jerk reaction? And how many more times have you been negative or abusive in your thinking, knowing you could get away with such insults because no one can hear them? As magical practitioners, we know that our thoughts are energy that always goes out to the universe and creates our reality, whether intentional or not. This spell will help you take control over those negative thoughts so you can better train your mind to naturally be more positive, thus effortlessly creating a positive reality for you.
Necessary Tools:
Energy signaling device (the same one described in the previous Neutralizing Sphere spell)
Suggested Tools:
Color/Aspect: Black, white
Herbs/Scents: Grape, jasmine, licorice, peppermint, sandalwood, yerba mate
Minerals: Amethyst, pyrite, obsidian, tourmaline
1. Assemble any tools and get into a meditative state.
2. Visualize the energy in your heart space traveling up your chest, down your arm, and into your hand.
3. Feel the energy pool in your hand, gaining more and more energy.
4. Imagine a target in front of you not too far away.
5. Enact your signaling device (the same you use to summon your neutralizing sphere), and as you do, imagine the scythe of La Santa Muerte descending from the shadows and slashing the target.
6. Ask that La Santa Muerte bless this routine to become your mechanism for destroying your own negative thoughts.
The objective of this spell is twofold: to become aware of how frequently you think negative, self-sabotaging thoughts and to neutralize those thoughts before they completely merge with the universe and become your reality.
You’ll be amazed how often you will use this spell throughout the first week; I know I was. Every time you make a mean or insulting comment about something, someone else, or yourself, use the spell to quickly visualize the thought and slash it out of existence. Every time you doubt yourself, give an excuse, or pity yourself, use the spell. Any negative thought whatsoever is reason to use the spell. In time, the need to neutralize your own thoughts will lessen as you become more self-aware of your own mind and its autopilot instinct is trained to be more positive.