When you feel under attack, it’s natural to want to fight back. An eye for an eye, that’s the common thinking. Before you load up on attack spells, gather your coven together, and set your sights on revenge, it’s imperative that you take time to analyze the situation and properly build your own defenses up. This ritual and the underlying text will help put you in the right frame of mind and focus your energies where they need to be focused. What it will not do, is provide offensive spells, validation for negativity, or reinforce those things which you feel are causing you harm or stresses. The last thing you ever want to do when you’re already feeling vulnerable, is to feed the fear.
In many cases, the feeling of being under attack is a convergence of trauma, stress, loss, and destabilization that has hit all at once. It’s a lot to handle, especially since it seems to come from every direction. A spiritual attack can quickly render you weak, disoriented, paranoid, and unable to find peace, even in the places you once felt were safe spaces.
How Spiritual Attackers See Their Victims
Most spiritual attacks exploit one or more of these primary four areas to ‘twist the knife’ so to speak: basically, using existing issues and adding fuel to their painful fires. As we know, negative energy is quite powerful and can be used to supercharge an attack, just as positive energy can be used for a strong defense. An example would be a bully who knows dark and intimate details about a student’s parents and uses them to blackmail, taunt, or harm that person. In this example, the attacks are made further damaging as they incorporate real facts and situations.
Identity and belonging wounds
Often times, attackers will look for weaknesses in an individual prior to engaging with a spiritual attack. If the person is an outsider in their own family, a black sheep, suffered emotional or physical abuse, or had the feeling of not belonging, there’s a strong chance those facts will be used against them. Also, those who live on the fringe of society, outcasts or those who’ve given up their place or identity can be victimized.
Real-world external stressors
When multiple real-world problems are evident, the attacks manifest as a distorted form of trauma stacking. As multiple high-threat events happen close together, the nervous system stops being able to separate coincidence from danger. The attacker sees an exponential benefit to their attack campaign as the victim starts distrusting everyone and everything, even if it’s a random coincidence. Examples of real-world stressors might include being assaulted/robbed, legal issues with spouse/partner/children, housing insecurity, food insecurity, lack of true intimacy in their lives, being accused of a crime, issues with alcohol or other controlled substances.
Betrayal by people who are close to you or related to you
Betrayal opens up huge spiritual wounds. It leaves you extremely vulnerable to spiritual attacks and possibly physical attacks. If the individual is already teetering on the edge, a betrayal can be catastrophic. The sad thing about betrayal is that it comes from the ones we trust, the people we share our deepest darkness with, our spouses, families, even mothers and fathers. Wounds from betrayal can take years, even decades to heal, and the risk of incidents being exploited are quite high. Once a victim, always a victim, some might say.
Trauma, either physical or emotional
The last area that we focus on is trauma. We’ve already seen examples of trauma is the three prior situations, but unfortunately, this topic is more widespread and tragic. Trauma just doesn’t hurt; it rewrites how a person feels about everything around them. Emotions switch off, the mind grows numb, and a cloud of negativity seems to spill out in every direction, making the person a prime target for a spiritual attack. These can be the worst of the worst of physical abuses, exploitation, abandonment, violence, emotional damage which can lead to permanent mental issues, of anything else that strips the person of their own feeling of safety.
First Be Defensive
Protective practices, whether they take the form of a ritual, prayers, breathwork, or even simple moments of stillness, give the nervous system something it desperately craves when life feels threatening: a sense of containment. The goal is to create a small, deliberate space where the world is on pause and the body is allowed to rest, not reminded of threats against it. When someone lights a candle, holds a stone, breathes in smoke, or repeats a quiet phrase of intention, they are signaling to themselves that they are allowed to be protected and not subjected to the will of any attack.
Taking a defense posture is like building an inner refuge, a safe space, a place of steadiness and logic that provides time to analyze and eventually face the uncertainty of a dangerous spiritual world without being overwhelmed by it. Protective magick is not the warding off of negative forces or people, but rather the cultivation of a deep inner calm, a rooted presence, so strong that chaos cannot shake its foundations. You are making yourself a suit of supernatural armor with a fully functioning and focused brain inside, a brain safe from the tricks low vibrating people try to play to get their way. Once you’ve begun your journey into self-care, you’ll feel lighter, rise higher, and see that the slings and arrows of lesser beings cannot harm you.
The Homeward Circle; Grounding and Protection Ritual
You’ll want to find a comfortable space, one with no distractions, and complete privacy. Grounding is creating a connection with the energy of the earth and using it to center yourself – for this reason many people choose to do this ritual nude, with no jewelry, or accessories. This working is done when you feel scattered, threatened, or pulled out of yourself. Again, remember that its purpose is not to fight anything, but to call your power back to your own body and form the shield of safety you need to navigate the world around us.
Before beginning, take a salt bath, scrub your skin clean of any beauty products, makeup, lotion, etc.
Items You’ll Need (See Appendix)
A small stone – black tourmaline, smoky quartz, or hematite
Dried rosemary and lavender
Frankincense, copal, cedar, or pine resin (or a small bundle of dried herb to burn)
A candle
Light your candle and the incense or herb bundle. Let the smoke rise naturally and fill your space, wave it toward your body and all around you. Allow yourself to relax and engage with the smoke. Sit comfortably with both feet on the ground. Place your chosen stone in your non-dominant hand and the rosemary & lavender in the other hand.
Close your eyes and take slow breaths, making each exhale longer than the inhale. Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw soften. Let the world around you slow. Do this for as long as you wish – the benefit is always positive. Focus on your own presence, your body at rest, the feeling of comfort in this chosen space. You are one with yourself.
Now focus on the weight of the stone in your hand. Tumble it, feel the shape, the flaws, the texture, embrace it as yours and your alone. This is your anchor, now and forever. It represents the part of you that is solid, present, and here.
Next focus on the herbs in your other hand. They may be dry, but are soft, safe, and protective. They are your wings.
Say quietly or in your mind – “I call my true self back to myself. I call my energy back from the universe.”
Now more deep breaths, taking in the smoke and incense. Observe how it moves, floats, and fades. Nothing in it stays fixed. Nothing clings forever. The smoke rides the currents of the air, through time and space, drifting carelessly while rising higher and higher.
Say quietly of in your mind – “I release that which no longer serves me. I release what does not belong to me.”
Let your attention sink downward, not to the ground, but down into your body – Start with your root, at the base of your spine – it governs safety, survival, and belonging. This is where trauma, housing insecurity, and family instability live in the body. Release those things that are troubling you. Next your lower abdomen – it governs emotion, pleasure, creativity, and connection. When it’s blocked, people feel numb, ashamed, or disconnected from their own desires and relationships. Release the shame and guilt that has descended upon you. Now the Solar Plexus, the source of personal power and self-worth. It’s where your boundaries live. When it’s wounded, people feel powerless, controlled, or afraid to take up space. Feed your personal power with earth energy. Next focus on your heart, for the heart is more than just the center of your life, it is where you feel the most, especially the pain of betrayal and sorrow. Focus your energy and release the sorrow, forgive those who have betrayed you – they cannot harm you anymore. Next pay attention to your throat, it is your voice that has been silenced. Make yourself heard once again. Your third eye resides in your forehead, it rules over perception. Open it and see the truth of the world around you – real truths can stand up to scrutiny. Now your crown, the top of your head – that is your connection to the spiritual world and your identity within it. Your stability and your ability to raise your vibration depends on this vital link to the cosmos. Focus on that connection.
From bottom to top, you are now an open vessel. Nothing remains hidden, nothing remains that is without value, your spirit is clean and ready to receive.
Before you rise, you must ground. A soft, luminous field of energy exists around your body. It is not a wall but rather spiritual armor. A boundary that you control, you and none other. Anything that is not yours simply falls away from it. It is your protection and remains with you at all times.
Say quietly or in your mind: “I am safe in this body, my body. I am held by the earth by my own choosing, free to escape at any time I decide to leave. I am allowed to rest. I am allowed to speak, and see, and hear, and grow. I matter. I belong.”
Remain in place, focus on your anchor to keep you still. Now breathe and absorb the energy that the Earth provides. Your spirit is renewed.
When you are ready, extinguish the candle and the incense with intention.
Bury the herbs in the earth, carry the stone with you for all of your days. It is not a talisman against danger, rather a reminder of the calm, centered, steady place you’ve just created and can spiritually return to in times of need.
Now rest, meditate, observe, and understand.
Appendix
In choosing the right stone, use this as your guide – you want stones that say, “I am here”, not “I am under attack.”
Black tourmaline is ideal. People experience it as protective, but what it actually does is provide weight, texture, and focus. Holding it while breathing gives the body something solid to return to.
Smoky quartz does the same but with a gentler emotional tone. It’s excellent for people who feel overwhelmed, scattered, or “not in their body.” It’s often described as absorbing negativity, but what it really does is anchor awareness.
Hematite is heavy, cool, and very physical. It pulls attention down out of the head and back into the body.
We use lavender as it calms and softens. We use rosemary as it clears mental clutter and sharpens focus without creating alarm. (Both are especially good when people feel watched, tense, or unsafe.)
Frankincense is one of the strongest grounding resins there is. It has been used for thousands of years in temples, churches, and healing spaces because it deepens the breath and quiets mental noise. People experience it as sacred and protective, but its real power is that it shifts the brain into a slower, calmer rhythm. (It’s especially good for people who feel disconnected from their bodies or spiritually overwhelmed.)
Copal is lighter and clearer than frankincense. It’s excellent for people who feel “clouded,” confused, or emotionally heavy. Burning copal creates a sense of fresh space without stirring intensity or fear.
Pine or cedar work very well for people who feel like they’re not grounded. Wood resins smell like forests for a reason — they bring the body back into a physical, earthly state. They’re associated with protection across cultures because they remind the nervous system what stability feels like.
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