If you’ve ever even dabbled in witchery, you’ve certainly heard the word intention. “Think of your intent as you stir your tea”, “light this candle with intention”, etc. But what does this actually mean? It’s simple enough to reduce intent to an “I want” statement, but ultimately it is the feeling of your intent that is the heart of your witchcraft and the energy behind your magic. A spell without intent is hollow and ineffective, as there is nothing to effect without intent or a goal.

Being in the moment is far more important than intensely and accurately visualizing your intent. Take your time and enjoy the craft. You don’t have to strong-arm your intention, but rather think of it as holding your intention’s hand – a delicate reminder of what energy is propelling your craft. Perhaps your intent isn’t a strong visualization but rather a gentle feeling, and that is okay. Visualization is difficult and is just one method of casting intent, and sometimes it is far too easy to get hung up on the details rather than the big picture of how your intent makes you feel.

An Exercise in Casting Intention

Think back on how you wished upon stars or blew out birthday candles as a child: what mini-rituals felt instinctive to you then? For me, I always blew out birthday candles by envisioning I was “blowing life” into the wish to make it reality. Perhaps when you closed you eyes to wish on a shooting star, you visualized the pony you so desired, right down to the distinct hairs on its mane.

In thinking back to what you instinctively did as a wishing child, reflect on if your methods from your youth still resonate with you. How do you transpose these instincts to how you can cast your intent now? Since there is no right or wrong way to cast your intent, it is best to start out with what feels most natural to you, and that may very well be a reflection of the wish-making processes of your youth.

Still stuck? Here are some more ways of thinking about casting your intent:

• Harnessing how your intent makes you feel
  • For example, if your intent for a spell is to protect your home, think about what a protected and safe home feels like to you, even if it isn’t necessarily visual. Do you hear the soft patter of a cat’s paws on a hardwood floor? Feel the kind energetic presence of relatives in another room? Smell the aroma of a comforting meal on the stovetop? Search for the memories or feelings that match your intent and channel how they make you feel as your intent.
• Sing or hum your intention over your craft
  • Make a playlist tailored for your specific spell. Perhaps the lyrics mirror your intent or the instrumentation symbolizes how your desired outcome makes you feel, but you can pick and choose the songs that will act as the soundtrack to your spellcraft.
• Envisioning the energy of your intent wrap around your ingredients and tools
  • If it helps keep you in the moment, visualize the energy or feeling of your intent weaving its way through your practice. Maybe you visualize the energy of your intent as the literal flame in a spell that burns away and forges your desired outcome. Perhaps you envision it as golden threads of light emerging from your fingertips and dancing through the air around your spellcasting tools. For bath spells and rituals, it can even be as simple as imbuing your bathwater with your intent and letting it wash over you.
• Vocalize your intent
  • Write a simple incantation for your intent. This can be anything from a simple statement (i.e., “my home is protected”) to a word, phrase, or syllables that you devised as a personal constructed language. Your vocalization can be as loud as you want or just the voice inside your head. There is no right or wrong way to do this either – it can be a pre-written prayer or something more akin to stream of consciousness. You can also physically write or draw your intent.
  • If going with the stream of consciousness/free association route, I would advise that you have some method in place to draw you back periodically to your core intent so you don’t get too far off track. One idea is to create a string of beads akin to prayer beads. As you finger the beads, you can circle back to your intent as you pass larger beads, knots, make a full loop, or reach the end of the beadwork.

Ultimately, it is up to you to find the method of imbuing and focusing your intent into your craft. That is what makes your craft uniquely yours and the most powerful. As you grow more confident in spellcasting, you may find that your methods for intention evolve over time as you grow as a practitioner.

Like breath, casting intent is something we do all the time without realizing. Even separated from witchcraft, intent is a key force in our lives. Hell, without realizing it, I wrote this blog post with the intent of (hopefully) illuminating a core part of the craft to my readers. You live your daily life with a multitude of intentions – at work, at home, at play. Despite living our lives with innumerable intentions, it can be difficult to intentionally try to harness intent and direct its energy for a specific use. If intentions in general are akin to breathing, focusing intent can be parallel to mindful or guided breathing exercises. It is something that isn’t necessarily hard, but requires practice and patience.

Featured image: Marriage Good Wishes (19th Century), Smithsonian Design Museum