Rites

87 rites, charms and ceremonies, each told in outline as a custom: a ring of what goes into it, coloured by role, and a drawn frame for every step. Cleanse, gather, circle, speak, light, offer, bind, bury, cast, read, rest, close.

Presented by ClearTrust Customs described as customs, free to read.

RegionAll South Asia Southeast Asia East Asia Central Asia and the Caucasus Middle East North Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Europe North America Latin America and the Caribbean Oceania

Protective rites

Rites that ward a person, house or journey: thresholds, salt, red thread, blessings against the evil eye.

🇺🇸 Protective ritesHoodoo mojo bagA small cloth bag carried for luck or protection, central to African American conjure and hoodoo.🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇦 Protective ritesCasting a Wiccan circleThe opening act of a Wiccan ritual, in which a space is marked and the four quarters are called.

Cleansing and purification

Smoke, water, sweeping and fire used to clear a person or place: limpia, smudging customs, lustration.

🇺🇸 Cleansing and purificationHoodoo floor washingThe Southern custom of washing floors and doorsteps with prepared water, said to clear a home of bad influence.🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Cleansing and purificationSmudging, and who may do itBurning sage, sweetgrass or cedar to cleanse a person or place. Many Indigenous nations hold this as sacred, and non-Indigenous use is debated.

Rites of divination

Set ways of asking and reading the answer: casting, drawing, scrying, and the sessions of diviners.

🇺🇸 🇬🇧 Rites of divinationThe Ouija boardA lettered board with a planchette, patented in 1890 in America, used to ask questions of spirits.

Healing rites

Rites of folk and spiritual healing, said as tradition and never as medical advice.

🇺🇸 Healing ritesPennsylvania German powwowBraucherei, the Pennsylvania German folk healing of prayers, signs and written charms. It is unrelated to Native American powwows.🇺🇸 Healing ritesAppalachian charm for stopping bloodA Scripture verse said by a charmer to stop bleeding, one of the best recorded folk charms of the American South.🇺🇸 Healing ritesNavajo sandpaintingDiné ceremonial paintings of coloured sand made for a healing way. The sacred ones are destroyed after use, and public art versions are made differently.

Spirit work

Mediumship, possession, trance and journeying: rites for meeting the unseen.

🇺🇸 🇬🇧 Spirit workSpiritualist seanceA sitting at which a medium is said to bring messages from the dead, a practice that began in New York State in 1848.