Some banishings need no jar and no fire, only a voice steady enough to mean it and an hour dark enough to carry. “Go, and Take Your Shadow” is a spoken working — a banishing incantation spell that clears an unwelcome presence, habit, or lingering influence from a space using nothing but a bell, a thread of incense smoke, a line of salt, and a firm voice. You name what must leave, and you tell it to go, once and finally. The waning moon takes the words and thins them out of your life the way it thins itself out of the sky.
Correspondences for This Spell
- Colour: black — for endings and removal
- Herbs (in the incense): sage, rosemary, and garlic, or black pepper
- Crystal: black obsidian, or black tourmaline
- Day: Saturday
- Planet: Saturn — ruler of boundaries, endings, and banishment
- Element: Fire — carried here by the incense and its smoke
- Moon: the waning moon, essential to this working, for what decreases in the sky decreases in the home
For the full table of magical associations, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A bell with a clear, carrying tone — a hand bell or a single chime
- A stick or cone of incense (sage, rosemary, or a banishing blend) and a holder
- A small dish of salt — sea salt or plain table salt will both serve
- The door to the room or home you mean to clear
The Best Time to Cast
Cast this in the waning moon — the two weeks between the full moon and the dark — when the moon’s light shrinks a little each night. The spell works by sympathy: as the moon lets go of its own brightness, it lends that momentum to whatever you are releasing. A Saturday deepens the effect, for it is Saturn’s day, and Saturn governs limits, endings, and the closing of doors. Choose a later hour in a quiet house, when the dark is deep enough to carry your voice.
The Working
- Under a waning moon, stand at the center of the room where the thing troubles you most.
- Ring a bell once at each quarter — before you, behind you, to your left and to your right — to wake the corners and clear the air.
- Light a little incense and let the smoke rise between you and the thing you would send off.
- Cast a line of salt across the doorway, a border it may leave by but never return across.
- Speak the incantation aloud and firmly, facing the door, and do not soften your voice on the last line.
- Ring the bell a final time toward the open door, and hold the silence after it until it settles.
- Sweep the salt out over the step and shut the door on the quiet.
The Incantation
I have named you and I know your weight,
and I will not keep you past this date.
Take your shadow, take your sound,
lift your foot from this my ground.
The moon grows thin and so does your stay —
go with it, waning, out and away.
The bell has rung, the line is drawn;
by the time it fades, you will be gone.
Variations & Substitutions
- No bell? A struck singing bowl, a wine glass rung with a wet finger, or two sharp claps at each quarter will wake the corners just as well.
- Incense off-limits? Where smoke is not possible, pass a sprig of fresh rosemary or a lit black candle through the air instead, letting it stand for the element of fire.
- For a stubborn presence, work a pinch of black pepper or a crushed clove of garlic into the salt at the threshold, and repeat the working on three consecutive waning nights rather than one.
A Word on Intent
The Wiccan Rede reminds us: an it harm none, do what ye will. A banishing is not a curse. This working is defensive and releasing — it sends away an influence, a mood, an old attachment, or an unwanted energy, and it closes a door behind it. It is never aimed at harming a person. If someone in particular troubles you, banish the effect they have on your space and your peace, not the person themselves. Name what must leave, mean it, and let the moon carry the rest.
Related Banishing Spells
Find more spoken workings and warded thresholds in the Grimoire, and keep your own record of what you cast and how it settled in your Book of Shadows.