We touched on cleansing in our last couple posts, including a tarot spread on the theme of cleansing and housekeeping during times of stress. It’s worth diving deeper on this topic. What does cleansing even mean in the context of spirituality, religion, psi, magic, witchcraft, or a tarot practice?
My views don’t speak to or for everyone. Generally, I find semantic conversations in occultsville most helpful and interesting when they clarify where we’re coming from, and contextualize any given writer, artist, note-trader, or meme-slinger’s offerings. I find a lot of semantic bickering and language policing tiresome, but that’s a whole 'nother rant lol.
Just know that my own framings are not the only valid way to approach this, and in most cases, it’s not my concern how others approach these terms for themselves. It’s occasionally helpful to define a thing for the sake of clarifying your own viewpoint and values. The process of defining is an opportunity to mess with meaning. So even when defining in negative terms, I offer these more in the spirit of shifting and expanding meaning than constraining it.
My views don’t speak to or for everyone. Generally, I find semantic conversations in occultsville most helpful and interesting when they clarify where we’re coming from, and contextualize any given writer, artist, note-trader, or meme-slinger’s offerings. I find a lot of semantic bickering and language policing tiresome, but that’s a whole 'nother rant lol.
Just know that my own framings are not the only valid way to approach this, and in most cases, it’s not my concern how others approach these terms for themselves. It’s occasionally helpful to define a thing for the sake of clarifying your own viewpoint and values. The process of defining is an opportunity to mess with meaning. So even when defining in negative terms, I offer these more in the spirit of shifting and expanding meaning than constraining it.
What Cleansing Doesn’t Do For Me
So let’s start with what cleansing is not, as I prefer to approach it. When I talk about psychic cleansing, I’m not talking about the following:
• Cleansing isn’t purity. It doesn’t stop us from being creatures, having needs, or feeling desires. It won’t and shouldn’t reshape us into some ideal, or wash away all our flaws, vulnerabilities, and transgressions. Ritual purification does have a place in some practices, workings, and traditions. Some rites in some cultures require intensive preparation and spiritual deep-cleaning to approach respectfully, safely, and effectively, but that’s a different thing, and not everyone necessarily needs to go there as a matter of routine. Even those rites won’t wash the humanity off your slate. (And if they did, what do you suppose that would mean?) Power, skill, virtue, epiphany, and grace may all be alluring, but they don’t bestow perfection. You don’t need to revile your mammalia or transcend your body to befriend your spirit.
• Cleansing isn’t holier-than-thou-ness. It won’t make us better or more righteous than the next guy, and if/when it leaves us feeling too smug, that’s a downgrade.
• Cleansing isn’t a carte blanche to disregard others’ rights, needs, and humanity. It’s not an excuse to wash our hands of our actual responsibilities, or light-wash and bypass any harm we might cause. It can help us face and move on from our mistakes. Ideally, it shouldn’t make us bigger assholes.
• Cleansing isn’t a call to persecute, purge, or “cleanse” anyone else. Letting go of what’s wrong for us doesn’t have to mean casting aspersions, or over-stepping the bounds of our business.
• Cleansing isn’t a divorce from nature. We might feel cleanest and lightest in heart when up to our elbows in potting soil, sweat-soaked in the middle of the woods, swimming in the ocean, or standing out in the rain.
• Cleansing isn’t imperviousness from outside influence. We keep feeling things, interfacing with the world outside ourselves, and experiencing shit beyond our control. Cleansing might help us manage some sensitivities, but it won’t remove them all. A meaningful and powerful spiritual, symbolic, or magical practice does not mean you stop having problems.
• Cleansing isn’t a panacea. It may protect us from some illness and malaise, but it won’t shield us from all exposure, prevent us from aging, or relieve us of all genetic mishaps. Similarly, illness and disability are NOT signs of impurity, spiritual wrongness, or low-quality life. They spring from the same natural variance and chaos that produce beneficial adaptations and genius too. To celebrate and protect strength and brilliance without also celebrating and protecting vulnerability, imperfection, and divergence disrespects and discards nature.
• Cleansing isn’t a permanent state. We’ll keep being cringe and fucking up and generating fresh messes, and we’ll keep needing to clean up time and time again, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
• Cleansing isn’t purity. It doesn’t stop us from being creatures, having needs, or feeling desires. It won’t and shouldn’t reshape us into some ideal, or wash away all our flaws, vulnerabilities, and transgressions. Ritual purification does have a place in some practices, workings, and traditions. Some rites in some cultures require intensive preparation and spiritual deep-cleaning to approach respectfully, safely, and effectively, but that’s a different thing, and not everyone necessarily needs to go there as a matter of routine. Even those rites won’t wash the humanity off your slate. (And if they did, what do you suppose that would mean?) Power, skill, virtue, epiphany, and grace may all be alluring, but they don’t bestow perfection. You don’t need to revile your mammalia or transcend your body to befriend your spirit.
• Cleansing isn’t holier-than-thou-ness. It won’t make us better or more righteous than the next guy, and if/when it leaves us feeling too smug, that’s a downgrade.
• Cleansing isn’t a carte blanche to disregard others’ rights, needs, and humanity. It’s not an excuse to wash our hands of our actual responsibilities, or light-wash and bypass any harm we might cause. It can help us face and move on from our mistakes. Ideally, it shouldn’t make us bigger assholes.
• Cleansing isn’t a call to persecute, purge, or “cleanse” anyone else. Letting go of what’s wrong for us doesn’t have to mean casting aspersions, or over-stepping the bounds of our business.
• Cleansing isn’t a divorce from nature. We might feel cleanest and lightest in heart when up to our elbows in potting soil, sweat-soaked in the middle of the woods, swimming in the ocean, or standing out in the rain.
• Cleansing isn’t imperviousness from outside influence. We keep feeling things, interfacing with the world outside ourselves, and experiencing shit beyond our control. Cleansing might help us manage some sensitivities, but it won’t remove them all. A meaningful and powerful spiritual, symbolic, or magical practice does not mean you stop having problems.
• Cleansing isn’t a panacea. It may protect us from some illness and malaise, but it won’t shield us from all exposure, prevent us from aging, or relieve us of all genetic mishaps. Similarly, illness and disability are NOT signs of impurity, spiritual wrongness, or low-quality life. They spring from the same natural variance and chaos that produce beneficial adaptations and genius too. To celebrate and protect strength and brilliance without also celebrating and protecting vulnerability, imperfection, and divergence disrespects and discards nature.
• Cleansing isn’t a permanent state. We’ll keep being cringe and fucking up and generating fresh messes, and we’ll keep needing to clean up time and time again, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
What Cleansing Does Do For Me: Helpful Approaches
So in a cultural landscape that so often conflates cleansing with purity and judgement, how can we approach spiritual or psychic cleansing in beneficial and peaceable ways that don’t suck? How can we make cleansing a supportive practice, including for marginalized, queer, and ill people?
One trick is to focus on taking care of our own spaces, and try to keep judgement and punishment out of the picture whenever possible. (Easier said than done, depending on what hot nonsense you’re tryna clear from your space!) Another is to view marginalized, queer, and ill people as inherently clean and worthy, spiritually capable, and as deserving of protection and peace as anyone else. And then to DIY this stuff for ourselves.
Beneficial psychic cleansing has a lot to do with boundary maintenance. Our skin is a membrane between our interior bodies and exterior worlds. When we wash our bodies or our food, we’re taking care of our edges, and tending to the places where our selves and our environments overlap. Psychic, spiritual, emotional, and mental cleansing can also be viewed as a practice of forming supportive boundaries, windows, and membranes, and keeping those edges clear, and in good working order. It’s also about recognizing when our boundaries get crossed, weighed down, or mucked up, and gently but firmly moving what doesn’t belong inside our personal bubbles back out.
I like to think of cleansing at its best as an umbrella term for routine psychospiritual housekeeping practices, some physical, some symbolic. These can include:
• Clearing and letting go of what isn’t ours to carry, inhabit, or dwell with.
• Dissolving, moving, and releasing any built up mental and emotional baggage from our psyches, spaces, supplies, tools, and projects.
• Brushing off, or if warranted, banishing outside opinions and others’ baggage from our inner lives, bodies, and homes.
• Removing, blocking, and releasing unwanted or troublesome attachments.
• Setting and holding boundaries with local ghosts, especially if you are ghost-sensitive.
• Identifying, detangling, and deprogramming unwanted or troublesome cultural baggage, on a rolling basis, forever. For some, this can start with symbolically clearing or disavowing non-consensual programming or indoctrination. It continues with noticing when that shit starts to auto-re-install itself, as it will when we maintain any connection to society. It’s a worthwhile but endless practice to meet the programmed and propagandized sides of our thought streams and inner landscapes with recognition and constructive disagreement.
• Internet hygiene. Blocking harassment, trolling, or exploitation online. Taking social media breaks. Moderating comments on our own platforms and ignoring them everywhere else. Noting which platforms foster addiction, disinformation, propaganda, and aggression. Setting limits, or even breaking up with platforms or communities that repeatedly try to drag us into fights. (Occasional disagreements are natural and inevitable, but you know when it gets excessive. Constant trolling and discourse-barf may be normalized, but it’s not necessary or net-beneficial to consume on the daily.)
• Decluttering and calming the mind. (Meditation can help here, but it’s not the only pathway.)
• Decluttering and releasing what we don’t want or can’t use within our resources.
• Crafting ecosystems, spaces, and projects that work with us and feel good to inhabit.
• Enjoying physical tidiness and hygiene as grounding and pleasant keys to good-feeling spaces.
• Caring for the body like it’s a home.
• Basking in environments and washes that feel benevolent and reviving.
• Resting, refreshing, and resetting after unpleasant, stressful, or cathartic moments.
• Recharging in solitude or in nature, especially for introverts. Running our own currents until they feel right again.
Approached this way, cleansing overlaps heavily and often begins with our physical cleaning and housekeeping routines. As mentioned in the past post, these don’t have to be constant or spotless. Clean enough is clean enough. A bit of achievable tidying is better than none. Cleaning is generally easier and gentler to manage when you do small amounts regularly than when things pile up past the point of overwhelm. The more mess you’re wading through, the more time and elbow grease it can take to clean up. This all carries over to the psychic side of cleaning.
And let’s acknowledge that some of the above is pretty fucking challenging, and requires cyclical passes throughout our lives to manage. I’m not perfect at this either. Boundary maintenance is a balancing act in the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
One trick is to focus on taking care of our own spaces, and try to keep judgement and punishment out of the picture whenever possible. (Easier said than done, depending on what hot nonsense you’re tryna clear from your space!) Another is to view marginalized, queer, and ill people as inherently clean and worthy, spiritually capable, and as deserving of protection and peace as anyone else. And then to DIY this stuff for ourselves.
Beneficial psychic cleansing has a lot to do with boundary maintenance. Our skin is a membrane between our interior bodies and exterior worlds. When we wash our bodies or our food, we’re taking care of our edges, and tending to the places where our selves and our environments overlap. Psychic, spiritual, emotional, and mental cleansing can also be viewed as a practice of forming supportive boundaries, windows, and membranes, and keeping those edges clear, and in good working order. It’s also about recognizing when our boundaries get crossed, weighed down, or mucked up, and gently but firmly moving what doesn’t belong inside our personal bubbles back out.
I like to think of cleansing at its best as an umbrella term for routine psychospiritual housekeeping practices, some physical, some symbolic. These can include:
• Clearing and letting go of what isn’t ours to carry, inhabit, or dwell with.
• Dissolving, moving, and releasing any built up mental and emotional baggage from our psyches, spaces, supplies, tools, and projects.
• Brushing off, or if warranted, banishing outside opinions and others’ baggage from our inner lives, bodies, and homes.
• Removing, blocking, and releasing unwanted or troublesome attachments.
• Setting and holding boundaries with local ghosts, especially if you are ghost-sensitive.
• Identifying, detangling, and deprogramming unwanted or troublesome cultural baggage, on a rolling basis, forever. For some, this can start with symbolically clearing or disavowing non-consensual programming or indoctrination. It continues with noticing when that shit starts to auto-re-install itself, as it will when we maintain any connection to society. It’s a worthwhile but endless practice to meet the programmed and propagandized sides of our thought streams and inner landscapes with recognition and constructive disagreement.
• Internet hygiene. Blocking harassment, trolling, or exploitation online. Taking social media breaks. Moderating comments on our own platforms and ignoring them everywhere else. Noting which platforms foster addiction, disinformation, propaganda, and aggression. Setting limits, or even breaking up with platforms or communities that repeatedly try to drag us into fights. (Occasional disagreements are natural and inevitable, but you know when it gets excessive. Constant trolling and discourse-barf may be normalized, but it’s not necessary or net-beneficial to consume on the daily.)
• Decluttering and calming the mind. (Meditation can help here, but it’s not the only pathway.)
• Decluttering and releasing what we don’t want or can’t use within our resources.
• Crafting ecosystems, spaces, and projects that work with us and feel good to inhabit.
• Enjoying physical tidiness and hygiene as grounding and pleasant keys to good-feeling spaces.
• Caring for the body like it’s a home.
• Basking in environments and washes that feel benevolent and reviving.
• Resting, refreshing, and resetting after unpleasant, stressful, or cathartic moments.
• Recharging in solitude or in nature, especially for introverts. Running our own currents until they feel right again.
Approached this way, cleansing overlaps heavily and often begins with our physical cleaning and housekeeping routines. As mentioned in the past post, these don’t have to be constant or spotless. Clean enough is clean enough. A bit of achievable tidying is better than none. Cleaning is generally easier and gentler to manage when you do small amounts regularly than when things pile up past the point of overwhelm. The more mess you’re wading through, the more time and elbow grease it can take to clean up. This all carries over to the psychic side of cleaning.
And let’s acknowledge that some of the above is pretty fucking challenging, and requires cyclical passes throughout our lives to manage. I’m not perfect at this either. Boundary maintenance is a balancing act in the best of times, and these are not the best of times.
Materials & Cautions
We can frame the spiritual/psi half of the equation as adding symbolic, sensual, mental, and sympathetic layers to our regular cleaning and hygiene practices, to expand them to the mental and spiritual spheres of our lives.
Popular materials for spiritual cleansing and protection include salt, salt water, and sea water; candles, smoke, and incense; music and bells; herbs and plants like pine, cedar, rosemary, sage, mugwort, and lavender; sun, moon, and star light; smoky quartz, black tourmaline, onyx, amethyst, selenite, and iron; blessed water or holy water; colognes, perfumes, and fragrant washes; citrus; vinegar, baking soda, soap, ammonia, and other household cleaners.
Not all these materials serve the same purpose! Choose the right tools for the right task, use common sense, and look up best practices when picking up new materials. Some basic cautions to watch out for:
• Harsh chemicals are not for living bodies, delicate finishes, compromised respiratory systems, or unventilated spaces.
• Flammable, volatile, and toxic stuff needs to be stored properly, and shouldn’t be left lying around, on altars or hearths where fire happens, or sitting out in open containers. Some materials become flammable or unstable when exposed to light, heat, pressure, other chemicals etc.
•Nothing should be mixed up without knowing how the ingredients react. Never mix ammonia with bleach, and never combine different chemical cleaners in one concoction or cleaning pass! You only want one chemical household cleaner running down your drain at a time.
• Nothing should be burned without checking that it’s burn safe. Never leave open flames unattended. Indoor smoke should be well ventilated. Outdoor burns should observe weather conditions and fire warnings. Mind your fire safety.
•Salt and salt-water should never be poured on inland ground, or on or near plant life. Salting the earth kills the flora and fungi life there and prevents new growth.
• Citrus juice and oil does not go on your skin, unless it’s an ingredient or fragrance in some HBA product formulated specially for cosmetic use. It's fine to handle citrus fruits for culinary use, but lemon juice can cause photo sensitivity and burns if left on the skin. You don't want to bathe in that stuff or use it in DIY cosmetics.
• Most undiluted essential oils can cause skin irritation and adverse reactions.
• Essential oils and perfumes are not edible.
• Many crystals and minerals should not go near water or liquids. Some dissolve, and some leech harmful compounds into the water. Do not put random rocks or crystals into your drinking beverages just because they’re pretty or symbolic! Some are insoluble and water safe, but unless you’re 100% sure what you’re working with, and that it's food-safe, file this under aesthetic dumb ways to die (or get really sick).
• Some medicinal and cooking herbs interfere with certain medications and conditions, or shouldn’t be consumed while pregnant or nursing. Talk to your doctor about herbal supplements, and stay on top of what’s safe for your body to consume and inhale.
• Direct sunlight will bleach inks, dyes, colored fabrics, and artwork, and sometimes faster than you’d think.
• Abrasive cleaning methods, liquids, and solutions can severely damage vintage, antique, and patinated items.
• Some cleansing practices and materials are culturally specific, and/or closed practices, and that’s worth respecting.
Popular materials for spiritual cleansing and protection include salt, salt water, and sea water; candles, smoke, and incense; music and bells; herbs and plants like pine, cedar, rosemary, sage, mugwort, and lavender; sun, moon, and star light; smoky quartz, black tourmaline, onyx, amethyst, selenite, and iron; blessed water or holy water; colognes, perfumes, and fragrant washes; citrus; vinegar, baking soda, soap, ammonia, and other household cleaners.
Not all these materials serve the same purpose! Choose the right tools for the right task, use common sense, and look up best practices when picking up new materials. Some basic cautions to watch out for:
• Harsh chemicals are not for living bodies, delicate finishes, compromised respiratory systems, or unventilated spaces.
• Flammable, volatile, and toxic stuff needs to be stored properly, and shouldn’t be left lying around, on altars or hearths where fire happens, or sitting out in open containers. Some materials become flammable or unstable when exposed to light, heat, pressure, other chemicals etc.
•Nothing should be mixed up without knowing how the ingredients react. Never mix ammonia with bleach, and never combine different chemical cleaners in one concoction or cleaning pass! You only want one chemical household cleaner running down your drain at a time.
• Nothing should be burned without checking that it’s burn safe. Never leave open flames unattended. Indoor smoke should be well ventilated. Outdoor burns should observe weather conditions and fire warnings. Mind your fire safety.
•Salt and salt-water should never be poured on inland ground, or on or near plant life. Salting the earth kills the flora and fungi life there and prevents new growth.
• Citrus juice and oil does not go on your skin, unless it’s an ingredient or fragrance in some HBA product formulated specially for cosmetic use. It's fine to handle citrus fruits for culinary use, but lemon juice can cause photo sensitivity and burns if left on the skin. You don't want to bathe in that stuff or use it in DIY cosmetics.
• Most undiluted essential oils can cause skin irritation and adverse reactions.
• Essential oils and perfumes are not edible.
• Many crystals and minerals should not go near water or liquids. Some dissolve, and some leech harmful compounds into the water. Do not put random rocks or crystals into your drinking beverages just because they’re pretty or symbolic! Some are insoluble and water safe, but unless you’re 100% sure what you’re working with, and that it's food-safe, file this under aesthetic dumb ways to die (or get really sick).
• Some medicinal and cooking herbs interfere with certain medications and conditions, or shouldn’t be consumed while pregnant or nursing. Talk to your doctor about herbal supplements, and stay on top of what’s safe for your body to consume and inhale.
• Direct sunlight will bleach inks, dyes, colored fabrics, and artwork, and sometimes faster than you’d think.
• Abrasive cleaning methods, liquids, and solutions can severely damage vintage, antique, and patinated items.
• Some cleansing practices and materials are culturally specific, and/or closed practices, and that’s worth respecting.
Cleansing Practices For Tarot
Honestly, you could dedicate a whole book to specific practices and recipes. Let’s wrap up here with some popular cleansing techniques you might enjoy trying in your tarot practice. This following practices are non-exhaustive, highly adaptable, and optional:
• Bless, consecrate, or anoint new decks, according to whatever beliefs or traditions you observe. (Oh hey, if you're looking for new decks, check out the Black Ink Tarot Kickstarter.)
• Note that exposure to oil and candle wax will stain the artwork and can alter or thin your card stock. Some people like their decks witchy, rough around the edges, and loved to death—self included. Just be aware that many cleansing and anointing materials and craft supplies can damage card decks. If you want to keep a deck in mint condition as a piece of art or a collector’s item, it’s best not to handle it too much, and not to use it for readings.
• Make your space feel better before reading by tidying up clutter where you read, lighting a candle or some incense, and ringing a bell or putting on some calming background music. None of this is necessary to ready accurately, but it’s nice, and can make a session feel more intentional and clear.
• Clear your mind before reading with a quick meditation, prayer, count-down, or whatever gets you “in the zone.”
• Shuffle before and after your readings, before putting the cards away. Rotate your decks and give each some rest and breathing space between depth sessions.
• Store your decks with rocks, crystals, herbal sachets, talismans or other symbolic tokens.
• Wrap a deck in a cloth or box you don’t mind fading, and place it in direct sunlight for an afternoon, on a clean, sunny windowsill, or outside if you have undisturbed, private space to work with.
• Place your deck under full moonlight, again in a window with good moon exposure, or outside if you can on a clear, dry night.
• Sort your cards back into factory order, then shuffle twenty-two times with the intention to completely refresh and reset the deck from the influence of prior readings.
Wash, dry, and maybe perfume the cloth or reading back you use to store your deck. (Again, mind that oily or wet perfumes can stain and wear your cards.)
• Spot clean grease, fingerprints, or spills off individual cards with a soft, dry microfiber cloth.
• Spiritually cleanse decks with incense smoke or a votive lit for the purpose, placed by the resting deck.
• Bless, consecrate, or anoint new decks, according to whatever beliefs or traditions you observe. (Oh hey, if you're looking for new decks, check out the Black Ink Tarot Kickstarter.)
• Note that exposure to oil and candle wax will stain the artwork and can alter or thin your card stock. Some people like their decks witchy, rough around the edges, and loved to death—self included. Just be aware that many cleansing and anointing materials and craft supplies can damage card decks. If you want to keep a deck in mint condition as a piece of art or a collector’s item, it’s best not to handle it too much, and not to use it for readings.
• Make your space feel better before reading by tidying up clutter where you read, lighting a candle or some incense, and ringing a bell or putting on some calming background music. None of this is necessary to ready accurately, but it’s nice, and can make a session feel more intentional and clear.
• Clear your mind before reading with a quick meditation, prayer, count-down, or whatever gets you “in the zone.”
• Shuffle before and after your readings, before putting the cards away. Rotate your decks and give each some rest and breathing space between depth sessions.
• Store your decks with rocks, crystals, herbal sachets, talismans or other symbolic tokens.
• Wrap a deck in a cloth or box you don’t mind fading, and place it in direct sunlight for an afternoon, on a clean, sunny windowsill, or outside if you have undisturbed, private space to work with.
• Place your deck under full moonlight, again in a window with good moon exposure, or outside if you can on a clear, dry night.
• Sort your cards back into factory order, then shuffle twenty-two times with the intention to completely refresh and reset the deck from the influence of prior readings.
Wash, dry, and maybe perfume the cloth or reading back you use to store your deck. (Again, mind that oily or wet perfumes can stain and wear your cards.)
• Spot clean grease, fingerprints, or spills off individual cards with a soft, dry microfiber cloth.
• Spiritually cleanse decks with incense smoke or a votive lit for the purpose, placed by the resting deck.
Have fun with these! Do you like to cleanse your tarot and oracle decks? What’s your favorite method? Feel free to share notes in the comments.
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