S: You're listening to episode number seven casting a circle. Energetic circle casting can be a confusing topic because there are many different ways that it's done and it's done in many different circumstances, all depends on the practitioner and their type of practice but we are going to do our best today as we always do to at least go over the basics and talk about casting circles from our own points of view. So first up, what even is a circle? you might be wondering if you're a complete beginner. A circle or a magic circle is an energetic space you create to work your rituals, ceremonies and divination in. it's either an energetic circle or ceremonial circle which is often seen in Wicca based practices though they accomplish the same thing. so part of what I'm going to be talking about first is energetic circles that's we've already talked about how I am not wiccan and Tara is so she later can give you more insight into ceremonial circle casting.
So a circle is designed to do several things, mainly it's considered to be an energetic bubble that as acting as a protective speaker because when you're inside a bubble you're protected from external energies interfering with your workings and also therefore provides shield particularly when working with spirits or divination, so you're protected from any negative spirits. another trait of the circle is that it's a space where the energy is contained, and we already talked about energy manipulation and how that can be very difficult for a beginner, so a circle can assist in keeping this energy contained until you're ready to set it with your intention an release it all at once. Once you're able to release all that energy at once that will often result in a stronger magical response from the universe so if you can't contain if you're still beginner you can't completely contain it within yourself or directed through your hands just yet ,you like find it escaping if you create this magical circle it contains that energy for you, it helps to do that.
T: yes
S: so we should say that circle casting is not required in magic alone, some religious ceremonies will require one but if you're not following a religious tradition it's not going to be required if you don't find it necessary. so some witches love to do it, do it every single time and some absolutely will never cast a circle in their entire practice so you have to do what works for you and if what we talked about today doesn't work that's completely fine, you don't need to.
If it is something you're interested in though, we will walk you through how you would do it. so energetic circle casting does not require any tools but, as you can imagine, energy. Next week we will be diving into traditional witch tools, and some of those tools like a wand can help with circle casting, but we'll get to that next week because they're helpful but not required. so in order to cast a circle you want to gather any objects you want to use within your divination or spell work that you're going to be doing because once you cast a circle, you're in a protective bubble you don't want to leave that's the whole point, so you don't want to have some tool or candle or something like that that you need that's across the room, you want everything around you so try to get that all together before you start this.
you wanna sit or stand comfortably and then as we talked about last week you want to center ground and draw up the energy from the earth. you want to draw that energy into your hand or a tool if you choose like a wand, and cast it out into a circular shape around your body and then again up over your head and down your back and under your feet until you meet up at the point where you start it, so it's as if you were sitting or standing in the center of a snow globe, that's what you want to imagine. Or a bubble. So you just want to imagine this energetic bubble around you, that you're protected in. That is what casting a circle is. and it's fine if you don't get this right away it's the same as grounding and centering its some thing that comes with practice and working at. And you don't need to have a particular spell that you're trying to work out and you just want to practice casting a circle you can do that. And like I said not required, but if you want to it's a tool that can be really helpful.
So once you've finished your working you also want to close the circle that's very important, to bring that energy back down. and to close the circle you do exactly those exact moves but backwards so draw that energy back around you, come back to the starting point and then bring it back within yourself and put it back into the earth if you need to. and if that sounds confusing that is what we have the last episode dedicated to it, was grounding and centering. See how we went in order there, did that for a reason. Thought about that.
Once you get the technique down you don't actually have to use your hands or a wand ,you can do it simply with your mind and visualization, but I find that for beginners it helps to use your hand to kind of make that bubble and draw that space. so that is the kind of circle casting that I do. on the wicca side of things there is a more ceremonial way to do it in which you can use salt water and you can face each of the four directions and ask the elements for help. That's a more ceremonial way to do that, which I do not understand so I will let Tara dive into wiccan circle casting.
T: so I am, in my practice I don't use much, I don't have many circles except for religious ceremonies so with removing specific religious ceremony circles I'm going to just give a very broad overview on how I do it and how I find it helpful. And going back to beginners, I highly recommend starting with a wand. I found that very helpful as a beginner, Because you can see where you're directing the energy until you get good at visualizing and feeling the energy I find that looking at it and seeing where I'm going is really good. going into the Wiccan way as well if you are walking the circle and you start at the north and you walk around to the east south west and back to north in order to open or to make your circle it's really nice if you have a wand or salt water or something that you can visually see that you're making your circle, I find that a very very helpful when I started.
as you mentioned there's a lot of religious aspects to making circles, there's a lot of ceremonies involving circles and there's so many ways to make a circle that I'm not going to try and describe all of them because there's so many. when we go into specific religious practices, I might do that in the later episode we can talk about how I make a circle for different ceremonies, because I do use the technique in different ways depending on the holiday or the ritual work I'm doing.
S: so it's interesting I did not know that it would change.
T: it does and it can, I should say. some people cast circle the same way every time and there's nothing wrong with that. I personally modify it based on what I'm working or what ceremony I'm doing. so it's just a matter of personal preference generally, but one thing that I did wanna point out and you always always always want to open the circle at the end and ground the energy. a really good description and why I always visualize a bubble is - what happens when you pop a bubble without warning? It explodes out ward. you don't want your energy exploding violently outward into the universe, I don't care what you're casting or what you're working on that's not how you want to introduce that intention into the world. you really want to be a lot gentler than that. So I highly recommend practicing just casting then circle And breaking it naturally, making sure that you're not, like you said, getting all your tools and getting ready but practicing just casting a circle is very I found it very very useful when I was getting started, just a practice directing my energy outside myself. and so visual representations are helpful and sorry it was more just casting a circle then religious aspect, but there's so many different on Ways that you can cast a circle and if you're in a group setting it's gonna be completely different then if you do it as a solitary practitioner, so casting a circle is both very general and easy in theory, and completely complex when you get to the details and how you're doing and why you're doing it so.
S: yes I can be very specific if you end up joining a coven that is wiccan based, each one is going to be different between groups, everyone's going to have their own way of doing it.
T: Yes when I did work with a coven, a one point We not only all were walked the circle we all walk the circle with specific elements so we actually circled four times and then we did a fifth Time to close it with spirit, so it's I don't do that personally when I do it myself, but as a group it works really really really well. so it just depends on what working you're trying to do, the intention on what you're trying to do and then your group setting or solitary setting as well because like you said the most important thing is the energy direction. but you can do so many things to direct that energy so that was a lot of information that may have been a little rambly.
S: No that's a lot of good information and I know it is kind of hard we are just listening to us over a podcast so it can be kind of hard to visualize exactly like these kind of emotions and things that we're talking about, so if you want to kind of see this in practice, especially from a wiccan perspective where you are using the directions and elements, Then we went to direct you to harmony nice on YouTube she is a British Youtuber, you probably already know her she's absolute adorable, but she has a whole playlist called and enchanted endeavors and she talks a lot about Wiccan based witchcraft and she has a YouTube video dedicated solely to casting a circle and watching her cast a circle with a wiccan tradition in mind so if you have a hard time visualizing what kind of like we're talking the movements were kind of talking about here, I definitely want to direct you to that video, that would be very helpful for beginners.
T: yes like I said it to me personally that's why I started using a Wand first because it was so much easier for me to visualize the energy being directed via a wan then myself directing it I no longer use the wand and haven't in years because I actually think it's a distraction but when you're first getting started the visualization really helps I think.
S: yes I agree I think that is all I have.
T: I will say everyone Cast circle slightly differently in my experience I know but I first got started I cast a circle with a friend of mine and we were literally bumped into each other like we could not figure out how you put it together so when you start, focus on your own circle first before you try and incorporate other people.
S: that's a good tip.
T: that's all I got.
S: well if you have any specific questions for us please let us know by leaving us a voicemail if you listen through to the end it'll tell you how to do that or find us on Instagram witchWednesdayspodcast and leave us a comment there too. that is all we have for you this week we will see you next week.
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