Magical Protection and Cord Cutting

During my years as a teacher of Metaphysics and the series Defense Against the Dark Arts, I have encountered questions from students about energy, energy cords or parasitic connections to others and energy vampires. I have read and listened to many opinions on these subjects and find the following blog re-post from Cedar Stevens to be honest and helpful. It conveys many things I have talked about and encouraged students to practice.  Please read the following before going on to read more of my own words on these subjects.

Original is available here:

Cord cutting is a ritual done to remove unhealthy energetic attachments between yourself and another person or persons. I believe that Diane Stein was the first to detail this protocol in her book "Psychic Healing With Spirit Guides and Angels." I will transcribe her tech and append a number of variations that may suit your occasion. This is well-worked magickal practice which has developed considerably since her writing.

It is illuminating to consider what these cords are. The theory is that they are the visualized energy transfer conduit between two people. One is usually the donor, and one is usually on the receptive end. It is a relationship of dependency between a stronger being and a weaker being. If this is sounding unhealthy already, good! However, it has been theorized that these conduits are modeled after the umbilical cord. Your first cord cutting ritual was at birth! That was the severance of the meat of the cord, but there is usually no doubt that an energetic cord of (hopefully) healthy dependance remains between baby-child-young adult and their parents. Cords also form along this umbilical model between friends, lovers, spouses, employees and employers...and unfortunately between predators (aka energy vampires) and their prey.

Because we are all people somewhere on the spectrum of mental health and emotional unbalance, with motives from pure to puerile, there are many opportunities for cords to be formed, whether we like it or not. Some of these connections are healthy, others codependent, others outright malicious.

Diane Stein's original exercise goes:

"Enter the meditative state, ground and center, do full body

relaxation, and invite in your spirit guides, angels, and God/

Goddess/Source. Place protection around yourself. Look within and

ask your guides to show you the first layer of negative chakra cords

to be removed. Look at your solar plexus first. You will see coming

from that center one or more of what look like electric cords plugged

into it. They will seem ugly, dark, or moldy looking, and of various

sizes and thicknesses.

Pick one to focus upon and ask whom it is connected to. You will see,

feel, or know ther person. If it feels right, ask to cut the cord; if

it doesn't feel right, there will be another time. Cutting the cord

does not harm the other person in any way, it just frees your energy

from that person. To cut the cord, visualize scissors or light doing

the job, or ask your guides to cut it or unplug it like a lamp. The

cord will snap back to the person it came from; if it doesn't or there

is a root of it left, ask your guides to take it away. Send light to

the person who has been released, if you can, then fill yourself with

healing light where the plug came out to heal the chakra."

I was taught a variation of this by Reclaiming teachers. We would go to each chakra in turn, starting with the Root Chakra and proceeding up to Third Eye. If you just do Solar Plexus cords, you would miss the cords attached to your Heart with an ex who you can't get over, or the Root Chakra dependencies with a boss who uses your paycheck or job security as a way to control you, and so forth. I disagree with her that there is any “need to know” who the cord is shared with. “Needing to Know” is a trait of obsession which only benefits either the unhealthy attachment at hand, or the tendency to enter into others in the future.

There is no need to cut cords from the Crown Chakra. This is the chakra of the Higher Power, and cords to this chakra only attach to the Divine nature we all share.
We also used actual knives to cut our cords, and the ideal would be your ritual Athame. I have a very gnarly Boline for this work!
Some cords of love lost or codependency are re-formed out of habit, and this is why we should repeat this operation every day for a week or so to get over whatever grief or unhealthy attachment.
Some very persistent Energy Vampires are very aware of this magickal act, and will know when their feed tube is cut off, and reattach it. I have heard of and used a couple of these strategies, but really this is a very rare situation which should be scrutinized to eliminate that the source is not an internal one.
1) First, realize that any agent who seeks to feed off your energy is inherently confessing that they are weak and you are strong. This knowledge will ALWAYS give you the advantage in such a struggle. Most victims feel powerless compared to their predator, but this is a cheap mind trick which is often the ONLY developed skill of the vampire. If they were truly more powerful than you, they would not need you at all.
2) Use Banishing oil or Four Thieves Vinegar to rinse the ritual knife, athame, scissors, etc., before and after the cord cutting. Four Thieves Vinegar is used to eliminate and bring dissolution to enemies, hexes, and the like. The Witch Bottle technology is a similar way to diffuse negative magick sent your way.
3) Instead of allowing the cord to "snap back" to the vampire, plug it back into either the Crown Chakra or another Fountain of positive energy such as a Unicorn Spirit Guide, Guardian Angel, or the like. The needy party is then flooded with more energy than they know what to do with, and become healed by communion with the Divine. Sometimes otherwise positive romantic relationships can become discordant or veer into unhealthy or codependent terrain. You might try re-attaching your cords to your Beloved to the Crown Chakra, to bring the relationship back under the guardianship of each other's Higher Power.
4) Instead of allowing the cord to snap back, plug it into some large, immobile, and useless material object, such as a junk van on a wrecker lot, or a building that is always on the market that nobody will buy. This connection will cost the parasite more energy than they can afford, and theoretically they will give up after a few more attempts to re-attach.
5) You can hand the severed cord off to any God, Goddess, Spirit Guide, Totem Animal, or Ancestor that you are on good terms with, and ask them to take care of this for you. 
6) Attach the severed cord to a mirror. Put the mirror in a black bag or pouch some place away from your home where it will be undisturbed for some time. This metaphysically causes the perpetrator to reflect on what they are doing and receive the energy they are giving.
Some of these techniques are tried and true, and others are more experimental Defense Against the Dark Arts. I would definitely ask for feedback on how these or the many other versions have worked for you.
Most importantly, since Nature and Magick abhor a vacuum, return to mundane life and replace the negative energies with protection, self blessing, forward focus, and dedication to your own Will. DO NOT OBSESS on your little problem. (Vampyers love obsession...) Try to think of it as something you will have to remind yourself to do, like taking an antibiotic on time every day. Other than that, you have much more important things to do with your life!
Cedar Stevens
Sept 2012

To Spend My Life on Meaningful Things

I've decided that when I distill all the things that i've experienced in my life...a few stand the #testoftime #Passion #direction. My new goals and choices will be centered around facilitation of these topics or quests for learning/understanding:

• Chance as expressed through Games (eg Card Games, MTG).
• Divination and Future Sight or Psychic Awareness.
• Alchemy and Transmutation (through Spiritual Science Applications and the Discovery of New Methods of Transformation.
• The Alchemy of Plants, Nature and Mushrooms.
• Magnetism and Metal (especially conductive metals like Gold).
• Inter-dimensional Awareness/Other Lives/Karma/Parallel Universe Theory.
• Magick and the Mysteries of East and West.
• Shamanism and the practices of talented individuals who break the rules of science to procure knowledge or miracles.
(Continue reading here or check out my original blog at Alchemyz.com)

I doubt that any of my choices from this point on will exclude these concepts and my long term awareness of their presence in my life. Some experiences include: reading all the Dune Books (the Masterpiece work of Frank Herbert), hearing the songs of many plants and fungi, having foretelling dreams. I have loved many people and been both betrayed and betrayer. I consider my experience of life to be wholly spiritual and at times I feel like an interloper here on Terra because I relate to so few on a deep level while still enjoy communicating with everyone (primarily to learn what motivates them or as Marshall Rosenberg would call it "what's alive in them"). I've learned (or attempted to learn) about five spoken world languages and have traveled all over 'Merica. I still look for Sasquatch, Bigfoot and the Yeti but to no avail. One of my best friends from Oregon, is hoping to catch a photo of the man. If I ever found a Bigfoot I would probably just eat mushrooms with him and teach him about Magic The Gathering. I was once a ghost hunter with a friend who became of Lutheran Priest in San Diego.

My friend, dear brother and teacher, Dennis Sharmahd taught me that the best time to plant a tree is "20

years ago" and that always sets me wondering why human life is so short. I wonder is that ever enters his mind. A Taoist person, teacher and friend of mine from ASU (Arizona State University), taught me last year that worry and thoughts of mortality lead to such things. He taught me that the best practice is to be focused upon youth and longevity if one desires to live a long time. I believe trees live a long time in relation to human lifespan, and thus their thoughts must be something congruent to "regeneration" all the time. Oh, to be a tree or a sandworm or a mushroom mycelium that lives around thousands of miles.

At this point, I am on tangents that make up my daily thoughts. I feel its important, no matter who you are, to visit a pot farm and just feel what it is like to be around such verdant and lust producers of oxygen and life force energy. Or just a forest like in the Pacific Northwest. I recommend a cannabis farm like the one I visited this

summer, outdoors with people who take care and have subtle awareness that the plants have some kind of soul, no matter if its the same or smaller than that of humans. I spread reishi mushroom spores across the trees they cut down to replace with cannabis plants; hopefully these spores bring mushrooms and medicine to that place next year and the cycle of nature starts again with my joyful intervention.

To supplement my tangents, I am writing today from Bisbee AZ where I come to retreat and reflect upon my website offerings of late In Bisbee, I always have vivid dreams. For the reminder of this blog I will share some, that I dare to interpret as meaningful. This morning I had two dreams: The first and earliest morning dream was about (edit. coming soon: something about silver and it's three states another dream alchemy lesson)...

The second was about visiting a local Tempe AZ comic book store and talking with a friend of mine as we walked out into the parking lot. Oddly enough the landscape of the shopping center had changed but was familiar and there was a school for Asian philosophy and society for children in that area that I don't remember being there in waking life. The school and its faculty seemed to be celebrating the Equinox September 2016 by sharing cultural history and philosophy with parents and children. Instead of going to my car and leaving, I crossed the parking lot and attended an event where the teacher was having people from the audience take an ancient Asian weapon such as a sword or spear or halberd from a pile of these to hold it, unsheathe it, and let everyone see the inscription on the metal. The instructor was also sharing her interpretation of the I-ching hexagrams and their meanings with people who cast yarrow sticks from a red cylinder tube. The blades contained a script unreadable to me and I waiting in line for my turn with selection and interpretation

while others seemed to be having readings that were agreeable and seemed to satisfy their need to know something about their future or to be entertained.

When it was my turn, I drew a Guan Dou (ancient Chinese weapon like a halberd) and unsheathed it before the instructor was ready. I was scolded for this (it was deemed "bad luck"), then she took me to look at a wall with metal overlaid Chinese characters in it and pointed out the one that meant "gold." The instructor that I would know it because I understood that Copper came before Gold. I still don't full understand this but at the time while staring at the calligraphy, it made sense (imagine that, i'm dreaming) and I agreed with her. She lead me back to the demonstration area where the Guan Dou was. I again unsheathed it, flipped it around from my battle hand, my right, and spin to land point down in my left hand. (I'll have to demonstrate in a video, if I can find a spear to borrow, or Heather Fiore my Gung Fu teacher from SD CA, maybe she has one). The woman instructor in my dream explained the process of my intentions behind moving my weapon from my right hand to my left hand and it felt true. She said something about waiting and being ready with the yin handle holding the yang instrument of war in a defensive contemplative position. Then she pointed out a connection between the inscription and the I-ching...i didn't seen the normal hexagrams of the I-ching (I-jing) on the blade but more Chinese characters which I had only her interpretation of their meanings.

In this world, my body tossed and my head turned and I opened my eyes to see an I-ching book in the living room of my friend's house whose floor I left on the night before. I was shocked but I closed my eyes because it was bright and I wanted to remember my dream in detail. I recalled the dream and decided that I must have subconsciously learned something from the books around me and possibly from the I-ching book a few feet away from my head. This book was familiar as it was the same book that my friend Jason Stahl and I looked through a few years prior to help identify the crystal correlation between minerals, the human body centers and the I-ching. I think it's a something that I can't further discuss because it's a sensitive work that I don't consider mine to publish or explain.

Anyhow, I grabbed the book and searched through it. I found the entry on Guan and hexagram 20 and it felt reasonable and helpful advice to get me through this time in my life. I'm still reading and looking into it and attempting to identify the Chinese symbols I saw for "gold" on the wall inscriptions.

Before Gold their was Copper, before Copper there was...

Is this a code? Dreams are communication forums. This isn't that strange to me. Although, I wake up feeling quite disturbed or at least perplexed often. Maybe it's time to visit China. Just in case this reality is a dream or will feel like a dream when I become aware of my next life (when I die here), I feel the truth and importance of exploring as much of this place as possible... especially history first hand by visiting ancient places.

Off to talk with an immortal Emperor and his terracotta warriors,

Capt. Hugh Trevahr Alkemi

PS. Dave Campbell and Lorina Q perhaps you can help me with the mysteries of my past lives in Asia, perhaps it was during the Bronze Age or Copper Age (Copper before Gold aka Bronze)