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It’s close to midnight, you’re in the middle of casting a spell, and you just found out the recipe calls for holy water. Your local occult store is closed, and you can’t wait for home delivery. As a Wiccan newbie, what do you do?
To bless water in Wicca, use pure natural water from the sea, the rain, a stream, or even boiled tap water. Summon the powers of the four cardinal elements. Bless it by invoking deities of your choice, using the moon, the sun, silver and gold, or a combination of these modalities.
In pagan and neo-Pagan rituals, there is no right or wrong way to consecrate water, though each tradition has a modality unique to it. Read on for the specifics of how to bless water in Wicca.
Significance of Water in Wicca
Water is sacred to the world’s leading religions, including pagan and Wiccan traditions, for good reason. Many ceremonial magick traditions require holy water before and during rituals, as it is a principal tool of magick. Pagans and witches use it for cleansing, spells, rituals, or blessings.
Wiccans consecrate water to purify it and remove negative energy before using it to interact with deities. In certain Wiccan traditions, water and salt represent the salt of the sea, viewed as the goddess’s womb, from which all life originates.
Uses of Wiccan Holy Water
- Blessing of oneself, the home, children, and fellow Wiccans
- Placement in an amulet for mobility
- For spells, ceremonies, rituals
- Purification of magickal tools
- Protection from evil entities
- Preparation of potions
- Healing and cleansing
- For confidence, strength, and magickal power
- Exorcism
- Eradication of negative energy
- Harnessing the power of the water/moon/sun elements in rituals
When thinking of uses for blessed water, think of the ways you might use moon water
to give you some ideas.
Also take a look at our guide on elemental magick for inspiration.
Types of Water Used in Blessings
Sea Water
This is considered the most powerful and sacred, as it comes from Mother Nature. Use a clean and capped bottle for collection and storage.
Offer a prayer of thanks or chant words of blessing during collection.
Salt and Water
Magick traditions can accept homemade saltwater in rituals.
Consecrate the water first using your tradition’s guidelines. Then thoroughly mix 1 teaspoon of salt (5ml) to 16 ounces (500ml) of consecrated water and pour into a bottle.
Salt is used to expel evil supernatural entities, so don’t use it in rituals that invoke ancestors or benevolent spirits.
Rainwater
Many traditions regard water collected from a thunderstorm as powerful, so they use it to boost their magickal practice. They believe that if lightning accompanies the storm, the harnessed energy is more potent.
Leave a container outdoors to gather rainwater from the next storm. Rainwater or well water is best used for rituals requesting abundance or fertility. Don’t add salt to water intended for the garden.
Spring Water
Many traditions consider spring water and morning dew (gathered from leaves at sunrise) already purified, so they use it in purification and protection rituals.
Wiccans can add spring water to beauty and curative spellwork.
Don’t use stagnant water in making blessed water. (Some practitioners of folk magic do use it for binding or hexing, though, as in the case of war water/Mars water.)
How to Bless Wiccan Water
To bless water, place one hand over its container (a chalice, for example) and ask your tradition’s deities to purify the water with their powers. Add some salt to the water while blessing it for purification.
Some Wiccans add a pentacle or a blessed athame to the chalice of water.
If you’re a newbie, a pentacle is a sacred talisman inscribed with a pentagram and often used as an earth symbol. An athame is a ritual knife with a black handle and two edges common in modern witchcraft. For a complete guide to altar tools, read our Wiccan altar guide.
Consecration of water in Wicca involves:
- Offering the water to the four cardinal elements’ powers. This ensures that the water is blessed from all directions: north/earth, east/air, south/fire, and west/water.
- Exposing it to moonlight or sunlight.
- Invoking your tradition’s deities.
The Basic Method
This pertains to water blessed without exposure to the elements:
- Pour water into a bowl.
- Place your hands over it while chanting. Form your chant to expel all negativity from it. Then bless it in the name of your tradition’s deity.
- Pour some salt into the water and stir three times clockwise.
- Declare that you have cleansed and consecrated the water in honor of the Divine and have deemed it suitable for purification.
Lunar or Moon Method
Moon water is regular water exposed to moonlight with a magickal intention. Wiccans use the moon’s energy to make water sacred.
Blessed moon water holds the energy and properties of the moon phase to which it was exposed. Often, Wiccans use it if they can’t work during the best moon phase for a spell.
By charging regular tap water with the moon’s energy, they can preserve that energy for later use.
How to Make Moon Water
Leave water outside after sunset, then bring it back in before sunrise. If you use a jar to hold the water, turn it upside down in an area free of debris, plants, and buildings to get maximum moonlight exposure.
You’re not limited to the full moon. You can make moon water during any lunar phase while chanting a spell.
For the most potent liquid, leave water outside for three consecutive nights: before, during, and after the full moon.
If your intention is to attract magick, leave the water out during the waxing phase. If it’s to banish magick, do so during the waning phase.
Why Use Moon Water in Rituals
- Maintain health
- Complement meditations
- Add to baths
- Improve one’s financial status
- Cleanse the home
- Water plants
- Harness the energies of the Zodiac
- Consecrate gemstones and crystals
Effects of Moon Water
The effects of moon water depend on you set the water out to charge—during any of the eight lunar phases categorized into four stages: new moon, waxing moon, full moon, and waning moon. Each phase has a unique energy.
According to the Zodiac, when Wiccans harness the moon’s energy, its properties will be infused in the water. They also harvest the power of a “super” moon and its transformative power during an eclipse.
Gemstones and crystals are also high-octane tools for absorbing, amplifying, or storing energy. They can be charged separately or together with your moon water.
When you charge them with intention under the moon, they are infused with lunar magick qualities: mystery, protection, and intuition.
Solar Method
Solar water is highly charged water used in spells related to power, leadership, pride, ego, vitality, confidence, dignity, and honor.
Use solar water to enhance the effectiveness of spells.
How to Make Solar Water
Leave a jar of tap water out after sunrise, then bring it in before sunset. The jar should be located in an area with the most sun exposure.
To inject more potency to solar water, expose it to the sun at its peak.
Tips
- Strictly follow exposure times to avoid having two opposing energies (sun versus moon) present in the water.
- Consecration won’t take place if you distrust the process.
- Don’t rely on commercially bottled spring water. Get it from a natural source, like a river. Boil it for 10 minutes to ensure it’s purified.
- Use blessed water within a year of its blessing because its magick wears off over time.
- Depending on the source and cleanliness of the holy water, drink it to benefit from its energy before dispensing spells or adding water to them.
- You can buy readymade, bottled holy water ($15) from The Alchemist Cauldron’s Etsy store.
- Many Wiccans keep a chalice of blessed water on the altar. This is a great way to eliminate negative energy that may tamper with your rituals.
- If you’re in a pinch, you can use holy water blessed by the divinity of another religion or tradition (if your own tradition allows it). It won’t align your own particular craft, but it will have been infused with positive and loving energies.
Silver and Gold Method
Use Earthy metals to bless water.
Place a container of water—with an item made of silver (spoon, coin) in it—outside on the night of a full moon. Leave it out overnight for the moonlight to bless it.
Before sunrise, bring in the container, remove the silver piece, then store the water in a sealed bottle. Use it before the next full moon.
For rituals related to the sun, curative measures, or positive energy generation, follow the same procedure as above but instead use a gold piece.
Proper Disposal of Holy Water
Out of respect for the Higher Power solicited to bless the water, don’t discard any remainder down the drain. Do any of these instead:
- Use it to quench a parched indoor plant.
- Present it as an offering at the base of a tree.
- Pour it over salt of equal proportion. Allow the moisture to evaporate. Mix the dried salt with ordinary water to transfer the energy. This will consecrate the new water.
Conclusion
Most laypeople think that consecrated water is the domain of dogmatic religious leaders and spiritual healers. We are hoping that this article has dispelled this belief and opened up the noble practice to ordinary folk.
We wish you luck in your use of it for good intentions, especially the care of Mother Earth and the healing of all her ailing inhabitants.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Holy water
- Wikipedia: Ceremonial magic
- WikiHow: How to Make Wiccan Blessed Water
- Raymond Buckland: Wicca for Life—The Way of the Craft from Birth to Summerland
- Wiccan Spells: A Spell to Bless Water
- Wiccan Spells: The Essence of Magick
- Etsy: Pagan Holy Water
- Learn Religions: Consecrate Your Magical Tools
- Witchcraft by Laynë: The Wiccan Rede
- Pinterest: Wendy’s Herbs n More
- True Potential: Altar Set Up & Blessing, Book of Shadows Pages, Wicca
- Wishbonix: The Benefits of Blessed Moon Water
- Spells 8: A Moon Water Recipe for Every Phase—Boost Your Magic Powers
- Sacred Hands Coven: Witchery—How to Create Sun Water and Moon Waters
- Sacred Hands Coven: Witchery—How to Make Mars Water
