Should I Stop Using Salt in Spell Work?

Every couple of months a meme circulates the interwebs. A “witchy PSA” demanding witches stop using salt in earth or ground-based spell work. This meme irritates me to no end. A well intentioned, ill-educated meme shaming and forcing a rule onto all cultures and traditions without doing any background word to its claim.

Why is this meme being shared? Because in movies a large, thick line of salt is often used for casting a circle. A common method of starting magical work. In real life a pinch is often used in protective magics such as spell jars or a line at your door. Not the big, thick line used in movies. Because witchcraft is seeing a surge of online, virtual followers, many new practitioners use pop culture for their base of education. Pouring gallons of salt to form a circle or pentacle can be a problem for nature — nature being something all witches should revere. But how is it harmful?

Table salt is mostly sodium chloride, an essential element for all organic life. When too much (table) salt is put into soil, the plants roots absorb too much sodium chloride which prevents their roots from extracting enough water to sustain the life of the plant. Sounds horrible, so why would I say the meme is incorrect? It assumes a binary, and in doing so shames the spiritual practices observed by people around the world for millennia, including indigenous practices of oppressed peoples. Rather than shaming people out of ignorance, I feel it is better to learn how the sodium and soil interact in your location, if you choose to even use table salt in your practice, and what the moderation is.

So I did that. (Table) salt does flush out of soil, slowly. It can take years given the worst settings, such as poor drainage in areas of little rain. In others areas it can take far less, even just hours of rainfall. Finding the amount of salt that is harmful and staying under that amount is a much better practice. For low drainage soul with little to no rain fall, that amount is roughly 1 gram per gallon of soil. Meaning for every gram of salt used, it needs to be dispersed over at least one gallon worth of soil (or two culinary pinches) or it will harm the plant life until it is washed out. But how is that useful in a practical context, such as your backyard? How do we know how many gallons of soil are under our feet?

A lot more math and science are needed. The soil for the salt to be harmful goes down to your local water table, which will vary widely from location to location. We also need to take into account how far out the salt will run with your local weather patterns in the course of a day, give or take a few hours. If it rains, the salt will dissolve and go a bit wider and if it stays dry it will stay in the area you used it. This will alter the amount of salt you can safely use. There is no way to calculate a safe-for-all-situations rule — which is my guess as to the creation of the meme. Putting a pinch of salt into a spell jar or satchel will only do harm if the sodium content of that soil is already dangerously high, there is little to no drainage and rain is unlikely for some time. Making a long, thick line of salt on grass will kill the grass for about one growing season, but who does that? Sprinkling even a handful of salt at your door will not harm the soil content around your home unless, again, the sodium levels in the soil is already dangerously high, there is poor drainage and the salt quickly washes onto the soil. Thought and common sense are needed here.

Still, why use salt? Why take the chance in harming something, right? Wrong.

EVERYTHING HARMS SOMETHING. The rule of do no harm is BS. Everything we do harms something else. Even just breathing does kill countless living organisms each day. It comes down to weighing the cost vs reward of an action, in all things and not just magical work. Why kill the sage/mugwort/lavender/rosemary/ect. in order to clean the energy in your home? What did that portion of the plant do to you? For some, that won’t be comparable and for others it will make perfect sense. IF we’re willing to kill a plant for our magical purpose, why is it wrong to kill anther plant for magical purposes? Simply, the meme isn’t thought out.

Salt is used in nearly every tradition for purification and/or protection. If a negative entity is attacking a home and someone uses even enough salt to harm some of the plant life in their yard for a growing season, is it any different than fighting and or killing an animal that attacked you while you stumbled into its territory while on a hike? I feel it is not. If I am hiking in the woods and a bear tries to maul me, I will do what I can to survive. My goal isn’t to randomly burst into its home and hurt it, my goal is to survive. Being that it takes more salt than most practitioners use to harm the plant life, there is a low-to-medium risk for what is a high reward in many traditions. Salt is an affordable, easy to obtain, shelf stable protective element in most traditions. It works very well. It, like everything, has a risk. The meme implies the risk is guaranteed devastation for years, the truth is that it takes a great deal of salt to do that.

The other argument is “why not just use something else?” The problem I have with this argument is it assumes for other traditions in order to make an unnecessary substitution where it might not do the job intended. With rare exception, salt is perfectly fine and safe to use; if you forgot that, reread above. Intention is a wonderful tool but intention will never override the natural flow of an element. Everything is its own life force with its own purpose. In addition, generations of people adding to that element’s nature purpose enhances it. In modern pop cultural witchcraft, some like to pretend that all that matters is intention, however the ingredients matter and intention will not override that. If I want to make a calming tea to bless myself with patience before a stressful event but I am out of lavender, a substitution of coffee will not work. My spell work would not succeed no matter how much I will it. Not because I am not a strong or powerful witch but because I used an ingredient with the opposing flow of nature. Oftentimes with salt, it is recommended to replace with anything white. Many suggestions have no protective or purifying properties in any tradition that I am aware of. I acknowledge I am not versed in all traditions. In addition, each tradition will have different and varying uses for various tools. So, while yes, each tool has its core essence, salt will always be a purifier and protectant, there is always an exception. No one should assume their beliefs are universal or that we should enforce our traditions onto others. Egg shells may be protective in some traditions but in others they are used for negative energy to cling to them — often to be discarded after use.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making the decision to not use salt in ground-based spell work. It is perfectly acceptable and for those doing so because they acknowledge that they’re unsure what amount of salt is safe to use, that they’re more comfortable using another tool. It is even a good virtue, in my opinion, to take a precaution when the knowledge is lacking. I take issue with the ignorance of the meme and enforcing a rule upon all others when others DO have the education of how to properly use the tool of salt. Outside of movies, I have never seen, read or heard of anyone tracing a thick line, circle or pentacle of salt on the ground. A witch never stops learning and growing, continuing education as long as they grace this life with their energy. Dismissing something because a meme on social media condemned it is, to me, the antithesis of witchcraft.