What is a Subtractive Spell?

In Daoist practice, some of the most powerful workings remove instead of add. Western witchcraft calls them protection spells, hexes, or banishing rituals. I call them subtractive.

For many of us, we begin our journey in magic practice by engaging in attractant spells. Much like learning math, we learn addition before we learn subtraction.

Subtractive magic works by removing or reducing. While it can be about an unwanted pattern, an unwanted person’s influence or presence, a harmful policy, or something else that has grown beyond its life-giving proportion, the fundamental quality of this style of spell is about removing it one degree at a time, working with allies that are suited to the task.

How to cast a subtractive spell

Write the name of what you are working on. Remove one letter per line until nothing is left. It should look something like this:

PATTERN

PATTER

PATTE

PATT

PAT

PA

P

The candle, dressed with materia (Angelica, Black Pepper, Mugwort, Onion Peels, Agrimony are good for this) burns through each reduction. By the time you reach the last letter, the energy has degenerated down to almost nothing. Release the remnants into salt and discard them in a moving body of water (or another Yin source).

The spirits read the form and understand what is being asked. A subtractive working says: I am actively telling something to leave / dissolve and then begin withdrawing my attention from it, so it has no more fuel to feed off of. 

Subtractive spells are one thread in CRAFTING THE ARCANE, my 12-part self-study series on witchcraft, spell work, and magic technique. And if you would rather hand the working off to me entirely, spell services open seasonally.

Following the spirits,

Mimi
Spirit medium and occultist