The Sundered Name is a banishing sigil spell that dismantles the hold a troubling name has over you — a person, a habit, a hunger that will not leave. There are names that arrive like a draught under the door; in the waning of the moon, a name can be taken apart the way a word is unspelled, letter by letter, until it holds no key to you. Rather than sending harm outward, you unmake the very shape by which the trouble knew your door.
Correspondences for This Spell
- Colour: black — for endings and the clean removal of what no longer serves.
- Herbs: sage, rosemary, and garlic (or black pepper) — cleansing herbs to drive a name from the threshold.
- Crystal: black obsidian (or black tourmaline) — grounding, absorbing, and cutting away attachment.
- Day: Saturday — Saturn’s day, ruling boundaries, banishment, and endings.
- Planet: Saturn — the disciplinarian that closes doors and enforces limits.
- Element: Fire — which chars the sigil to nothing and carries its meaning away as smoke.
- Moon: the waning moon — essential here, its decreasing light drawing the name down to nothing.
For more on aligning your craft, see the correspondences guide.
What You Will Need
- A bell, to still the room and seal the silence at the end.
- A black or grey candle, for the fire that unmakes the sigil.
- A slip of plain paper on which to write and tangle the name.
- A dish of salt, to cut the meaning from the ink.
- A heatproof dish or cauldron in which to burn the paper safely.
The Best Time to Cast
Cast on a waning moon, ideally on a Saturday — Saturn’s day of endings and banishment. As the moon’s light decreases night by night, it lends its diminishing power to the work: what you unmake shrinks with the tide of the sky rather than swimming against it. Avoid the waxing or full moon, whose energy is one of growth and return — the opposite of what a banishing asks.
The Working
- Wait for the moon to wane, then set a black or grey candle at the centre of your table and ring the bell once to still the room.
- On a slip of paper, write the name of what troubles you in a single unbroken line, letting the letters run together into one tangled sigil.
- Study the shape until it no longer reads as a name but as a mere knot of ink with no voice of its own.
- Draw the candle flame close and touch each stroke of the sigil with a pinch of salt, murmuring that this line, and this line, and this are cut.
- Speak the incantation over the paper as the salt drinks the meaning from the ink.
- Feed the slip to the flame, let it char to nothing, and ring the bell a final time to seal the silence behind it.
- Gather the cooled ash and salt and cast them off your land, downwind, where the waning moon can carry them away.
The Incantation
By the moon that thins to nothing,
I unmake the name you wear.
Line by line I cut you loose,
salt and ember, ash and air.
What was written is unwritten,
what was spelled is spelled no more —
go where the dark tide takes you,
and know no road back to my door.
Variations & Substitutions
- No bell? Clap once, sharply, or strike a wine glass with a spoon — any clear single note that marks the start and cuts the silence at the end.
- Deepen the banishing: ring the sigil-paper with sage, rosemary, or black pepper before you burn it, or hold black obsidian in your off hand to absorb the loosened attachment.
- No open flame allowed? Bury the salted, torn slip at the edge of your land instead of burning it, then scatter salt over the spot — earth can swallow a name as surely as fire.
A Word on Intent
This is a spell of release, not retaliation. The Wiccan Rede counsels “an it harm none, do what ye will,” and a banishing honours that only when it stays defensive: you are dismantling a name’s hold on you, not wishing ill on any living soul. Do not bend the working toward harming or cursing a person. Sunder the grip, not the one who held it — and let whatever leaves your door go freely on its way.
Related Banishing Spells
Record your result in your Book of Shadows, and explore more workings in the Grimoire.