How to Perform a Banishing Ritual: Removing Negative Energy, Toxic People & Unwanted Entities
What Banishing Is and What It Isn't
Banishing is one of the most misunderstood categories in magical practice, and the confusion tends to cluster around a single question: is this a curse? The answer, in almost every case where banishing is properly understood and correctly performed, is no. But the distinction is worth making precisely rather than simply asserting, because the line between the two is intention, and intention is something the practitioner has to examine honestly before beginning any work of this kind.
A banishing is an act of removal and boundary-setting. Its goal is to move something unwanted away from you, your space, or your life. The work is oriented inward and outward from the self: you are clearing your territory, establishing your edges, and removing what has crossed them without permission. The target of a banishing is the presence or influence of something, not the wellbeing of a person. You are ending an attachment, not attacking its source.
A curse is different in structure and in intent. It follows its target with the purpose of causing harm, and it continues working regardless of physical or energetic distance. Where a banishing says "leave and do not return," a curse says "wherever you go, this follows." The distinction is not always clean in the historical record, and some traditional practices sit in territory that serious practitioners in different traditions would assess differently. But for the purposes of this guide, and for the purposes of ethical practice, the operative question before beginning any banishing is this: am I removing something from my life, or am I pursuing someone else into theirs? The first is banishing. The second is not.
Every tradition covered in this guide understands banishing as protective and self-directed. The Hermetic magician performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is clearing and consecrating their own space. The Wiccan practitioner working a salt banishing is releasing what no longer serves them. The Hoodoo practitioner using Hotfoot work is removing an unwanted presence from their immediate environment. None of these are aggressive acts in the cursing sense. All of them are legitimate responses to genuine energetic or relational problems.
Three Types of Banishing
Before choosing a method, identify which type of banishing your situation calls for, because the technique appropriate to one type is not always appropriate to another.
Space banishing addresses negative energy accumulated in a location or an entity present in a physical space. The target is environmental: the atmosphere of a room, a building, or a property. This type of banishing is closely related to cleansing work and often follows or accompanies it.
Personal banishing addresses relationships, situations, habits, or influences you need to remove from your life. The target is a pattern of connection: the toxic friendship, the destructive dynamic, the job that is draining your vitality, the habit that has outlived whatever purpose it once served. Personal banishing works on the energetic cord between you and the thing being removed.
Entity banishing addresses a spirit, attached presence, or non-physical influence that has established itself in a space or around a person. This is the most serious category and the one that warrants the most powerful techniques. If the entity shows signs consistent with demonic presence as described in Strange & Twisted's spirit removal guide, professional religious intervention should accompany or replace personal practice.
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The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, known universally in ceremonial magic as the LBRP, is the foundational banishing practice of the Western magical tradition. Developed within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late nineteenth century and formalized through the work of figures including Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and later refined by Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune, it remains the most widely practiced and most rigorously documented banishing ritual in Western magic. Performed daily by serious ceremonial practitioners, it simultaneously clears a space of unwanted energies and establishes a protected circle aligned with the four cardinal directions and their corresponding archangelic forces.
The ritual has four distinct components performed in sequence.
The Qabalistic Cross
Stand facing east. Take a moment to center yourself completely. The Qabalistic Cross maps divine energy through the body using the framework of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and it both opens and closes the full ritual.
Touch your forehead with your right hand or your index and middle fingers and vibrate the word "Atah," meaning "Thou art" in Hebrew. Speak it from the center of your chest as much as your throat, feeling the vibration move through your body.
Bring your hand down to point toward the ground and vibrate "Malkuth," the Kingdom, the lowest sephira on the Tree of Life, representing the material world.
Bring your hand to your right shoulder and vibrate "ve-Geburah," and the Power.
Bring your hand to your left shoulder and vibrate "ve-Gedulah," and the Glory.
Clasp both hands at the center of your chest and vibrate "le-Olam, Amen," forever, world without end.
You have drawn a cross of light through your body aligned with the Middle Pillar of the Tree of Life. This is the establishment of your axis within the ritual space.
The Four Pentagrams
Still facing east, draw a banishing earth pentagram in the air before you. The banishing earth pentagram begins at the lower left point and moves up to the apex: lower left, up to top, down to lower right, up to upper left, across to upper right, back down to lower left. Draw it with deliberate force, visualizing it blazing in blue-white light. Point to its center and vibrate the divine name "YHVH" (pronounced Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh). Visualize the pentagram flaring bright as the name is spoken.
Turn to face south, maintaining in your mind the line of light connecting the eastern pentagram to where you now stand. Draw the same banishing pentagram and vibrate the name "Adonai."
Turn to face west. Draw the pentagram. Vibrate "Eheieh" (pronounced Eh-heh-yeh).
Turn to face north. Draw the pentagram. Vibrate "AGLA," a Notariqon, a form of abbreviation, constructed from the Hebrew phrase Atah Gibor Le-Olam Adonai, meaning "Thou art mighty forever, O Lord."
Return to face east. You have drawn four pentagrams at the four cardinal points, connected by a circle of light at shoulder height surrounding your entire working space. Visualize this circle clearly: blazing pentagrams at each direction, a continuous line of light connecting them, enclosing a sphere of consecrated space.
The Invocation of the Four Archangels
Stand with your arms extended to the sides, forming a cross with your body. Face east. Speak with authority and presence:
"Before me, Raphael." Visualize the archangel of Air before you: a tall figure robed in yellow and violet, carrying a caduceus, bringing a clean morning wind.
"Behind me, Gabriel." Visualize the archangel of Water at your back: robed in blue and orange, carrying a chalice, surrounded by the sense of deep water and tidal strength.
"On my right hand, Michael." Visualize the archangel of Fire to your right: robed in red and green, carrying a flaming sword, radiating heat and protective ferocity.
"On my left hand, Auriel" (sometimes given as Uriel). Visualize the archangel of Earth to your left: robed in the colors of earth and grain, carrying a sheaf of wheat or a lantern, solid and vast as bedrock.
Speak: "For about me flames the pentagram, and in the column shines the six-rayed star."
Take a moment to hold all four presences simultaneously. You are at the center of a protected space anchored at the four quarters by the four archangels. Feel the completeness of this.
Closing the Qabalistic Cross
Repeat the Qabalistic Cross exactly as performed at the opening: Atah, Malkuth, ve-Geburah, ve-Gedulah, le-Olam, Amen.
The ritual is complete. The space has been cleared and consecrated. Performed daily, the LBRP builds a cumulative protective field around the practitioner and their regular working space. Performed specifically before other magical work, it establishes clean conditions. Performed in response to entity disturbance or accumulated negative energy, it is among the most powerful tools available to the non-clergy practitioner in the Western tradition.
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The Wiccan Salt Banishing Ritual
For practitioners working outside the ceremonial magic framework, the salt banishing is a clean, effective, and traditionally grounded alternative suited to space banishing and personal banishing work.
Gather sea salt, a white or black candle, and a heatproof dish for burning. If you work with a besom (a ritual broom), have it ready. Time this ritual during the waning moon for maximum effectiveness.
Begin by physically sweeping the space, even if it is already clean. The besom is swept from the back of the space toward the front door without touching the ground, moving the energetic residue of the space toward the exit the same way Strange & Twisted's home cleansing guide details for full cleansing work. As you sweep, speak clearly: "I sweep this space clean of all that does not serve me. All stagnant energy, all unwanted presence, all that has lingered beyond its time: you are released and moved out."
Light the candle. Take the salt and walk the perimeter of the space counterclockwise, which in Wiccan practice is the direction of banishing and decrease, sprinkling salt continuously. Speak your banishing with each step: "By salt and will and the turning of the dark moon, I banish from this space all that is unwanted. This space is mine. This space is clear."
At the front threshold, pour a heavier line of salt and state that the boundary is sealed against return.
For personal banishing of a relationship or situation, write what you are banishing on a piece of paper. At the ritual's close, burn it in the heatproof dish and watch the smoke carry it away from you.
Hoodoo Hotfoot Powder
Hotfoot powder is a traditional Hoodoo formula used to move an unwanted person away from your environment. It is not a curse. Its specific action is departure: encouraging or compelling a specific person to leave a space, a job, a neighborhood, or a situation where their presence is causing harm or unwanted disruption. It does not follow the target once they have gone, and it carries no intent of harm to their physical wellbeing.
Traditional Hotfoot formulas vary among practitioners and rootworkers but typically include ingredients such as red pepper, black pepper, sulfur, and other herbs and minerals associated with heat, movement, and departure. The powder is traditionally sprinkled where the target will walk over it, across a threshold they regularly cross, or in an area they consistently inhabit, with the intention that as they contact the powder they feel an urgency to move on.
Hotfoot work is considered banishing rather than cursing within the Hoodoo tradition when its goal is removal rather than pursuit. The ethical parameters are the same as for any banishing: the work is oriented toward your own peace and safety, not toward causing harm to the person being moved.
The Black Candle Banishing
The black candle banishing addresses the energetic cord between yourself and something you need to release: a relationship, a habit, an attachment, a situation. Black candles in magical tradition absorb and transmute negative energy, and their use in banishing work is documented across both folk magic and Wiccan practice.
Take two candles: one representing yourself, in white or a color you associate with your own identity, and one representing what you are banishing, in black. Connect them with a length of natural fiber cord or thread. Place them on a heatproof surface facing away from each other.
Light both candles. State what you are releasing, specifically and without ambiguity. "I release my connection to [name/situation/pattern]. The cord between us is cut. Their energy returns to them and mine returns to me. I am complete without this connection. It is finished."
Take a pair of scissors and cut the cord between the candles in a single, deliberate cut. Let both candles burn down completely, or as far as is safe. The cut cord can be buried in earth away from your home, symbolically interring the connection.
Moon Timing for Banishing Work
The waning moon, the period from full moon to new moon when the moon's visible face is decreasing, is the optimal window for all banishing work across Wiccan, folk magic, and broadly observed magical timing traditions. Where waxing moon energy draws things toward you, waning moon energy releases and diminishes. You are working with the natural current rather than against it.
The final days before the new moon, the dark moon, carry the most concentrated banishing energy and are appropriate for the most serious banishing work, including entity removal and the severance of deep or long-standing attachments.
Saturday, associated with Saturn, the planet of restriction, endings, and necessary limitation, amplifies banishing work and is the traditional day choice for this category of magic across ceremonial and folk traditions.
What to Do After a Banishing
Every serious practitioner across the traditions covered in this guide will tell you the same thing: a banishing creates a void, and a void will be filled by something. What fills it is either chosen deliberately or chosen by default, and the difference matters.
After any banishing, perform active work to draw in what you want to replace what has been removed. If you have banished a toxic relationship, follow with work to draw healthy connection. If you have cleared a space of negative energy, fill it with protective and welcoming energy through cleansing, blessing, and the placement of protective objects. If you have removed an unwanted attachment, ground yourself thoroughly and invest in practices that build genuine wellbeing: rest, nourishment, beauty, time with people who support you.
The protective work outlined in Strange & Twisted's protection spell guide is a natural complement to any banishing. Clear the ground first. Then build on it deliberately.
Banishing without refilling is like emptying a house and leaving the doors open. The work is half done. Complete it.
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Strange & Twisted covers the full spectrum of magical tradition, from the ceremonial precision of the Golden Dawn to Hoodoo rootwork and Wiccan practice. For space clearing technique that works alongside banishing, visit our home cleansing and protection guides. For entity-specific removal, see our complete spirit removal guide.
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