Uncrossing, Banishing, or Protection: Which Comes First and Why the Order Matters

This article gives you the working order for remedial work — uncross, banish if something specific must go, protect, then draw — and how to tell the four jobs apart. What it won't give you is a promise that any of them changes outcomes in the world; the order is tradition and craft, not physics.

The four jobs are not interchangeable

Uncrossing, banishing, protection and drawing get used almost interchangeably online, which is where most of the confusion starts. In practice they do four different things, and mixing them up is like confusing sweeping, evicting, locking up, and furnishing.

Uncrossing removes a condition — the sense of being blocked, crossed, luck running consistently against you. It is non-specific by design. You do not need to identify a source, and in most cases there is not one to identify.

Banishing removes a particular thing: a named person's influence, a habit, a situation you can point at. It is targeted, and it is the heavier working. If you cannot name what you are banishing in one plain sentence, you want uncrossing instead — and there are several situations where banishing is the wrong move even when you can name it, which is the whole subject of when banishing is the wrong tool.

Protection is a boundary. It maintains a state; it does not change one. This single fact explains most of the order: a boundary is indifferent to what is inside it.

Drawing brings something in — money, love, opportunity. It is the work most people actually want, and the one most often attempted first, on top of exactly the conditions the other three exist to deal with.

The four jobs at a glance

Working	What it does	Needs a target?	Position in the order
Uncrossing	Clears a general stuck or crossed condition	No — non-specific by design	1st — always safe to start here
Banishing	Removes one nameable thing or influence	Yes — one plain sentence	2nd — only if something specific remains
Protection	Holds a boundary around the cleared state	No — it guards whatever is inside	3rd — after clearing, never before
Drawing	Invites something new in	A named goal helps	4th — into a cleared, guarded space

Why the order is the order

Think of it as a room rather than a metaphysics. You clear out what is in it, you remove anything specific that does not belong, you lock the door, and then you bring in the furniture. Nobody would furnish a room before emptying it, and nobody would lock the door with the old contents still inside.

Almost every clearing tradition converges on this shape — hoodoo's uncrossing-then-protection sequences, European folk custom's sweep-then-ward habits, even the banish-before-invoke structure of ceremonial magic. The convergence is worth noting precisely because these traditions did not all borrow from each other. The consistent reasoning is practical: protection is a maintenance operation, and maintaining a bad state is worse than not maintaining anything.

The common failure looks like this. Someone feels stuck, buys a protection working because protection is the most marketed category, applies it, and feels no different — or slightly worse, because the stuck feeling now has a boundary around it. Then they escalate: more protection, stronger formulas, the heavy artillery whose lineage we trace in where the Fiery Wall of Protection comes from. The exit from the loop is not stronger protection. It is going back one step and clearing.

Step one in practice: running a seven-day uncrossing

Clear the physical room before the first lighting, not after — the five-minute corners-openings-threshold pass from how to cleanse a room is exactly the right preparation. Then set the candle somewhere it can burn safely and be seen daily.

Traditionally uncrossing opens during a waning moon — the releasing half of the cycle. Useful if you want the structure; not a reason to sit with something for three weeks.

Expect the glass to darken somewhere in the final quarter. On a seven-day candle this is a chimney effect and it means nothing, though it gets read as significant more often on uncrossing candles than on any other kind, precisely because people are already looking for signs. The physics are laid out in why your candle burns black.

Step two, only if needed: banishing

After an uncrossing, sit for a few days before deciding whether anything specific is left. Often the general clearing was the whole job. Banishing earns its place only when something nameable remains: one person's influence, one habit, one recurring situation — and you can put it in a single plain sentence without the word "everything."

If the sentence will not come, that is the diagnostic, not a failure of vocabulary. A feeling has nothing for a targeted working to grip, and lighting a banishing candle at a mood mostly produces a burned candle. The full set of cases where banishing misfires — vague targets, people you still live with, conditions that are actually exhaustion — is worth reading before you reach for one.

Step three: protection, now that it has something to protect

With the space cleared and anything specific dispatched, protection finally makes sense: a boundary around a state worth keeping. This is where the protection formulas belong — the sprays, the warding candles, the threshold work, and the carried stones set out in crystals for protection. Run the same corners-openings-threshold logic: the boundary is defined last, from a settled interior.

And then, only then, the drawing work — the money candle, the love candle, the new moon petition. Drawing into a cleared and guarded space is the entire point of the sequence; drawing into a crossed one is how people conclude that "nothing works."

Quiz: which working do you actually need right now?

Four questions. Answer for the situation that made you open this article.

Voices from practice

Three patterns we hear constantly when the order comes up:

"I owned three protection candles before anyone told me protection was step three. The week I finally ran an uncrossing first was the week the whole thing stopped feeling like decoration." — the single most common story in this category

"I kept trying to banish 'all the negativity.' Writing one plain sentence showed me I couldn't — there was no it. Uncrossing fit, and the pressure to find a villain just dissolved." — a shift many people describe once they meet the naming test

"The pause between steps was the advice I ignored longest. Two ordinary days between candles told me more than any flame ever did." — from practitioners who learned to leave gaps in the sequence

What we don't promise

We don't promise that uncrossing, banishing or protection workings change external circumstances — that jobs appear, people change, or luck turns. These are traditional framings and personal practice, not demonstrated mechanisms.

We don't promise that a correctly ordered sequence "works" where a disordered one failed. The order is craft knowledge: it makes the practice coherent and readable to you. That is its documented value.

We don't promise diagnostic meaning in wax, soot or flame behavior. Glass darkens for reasons of wick and draft, on schedule, regardless of your situation.

And one boundary stated plainly: persistent stuckness, exhaustion and the sense that nothing moves are also how depression presents. Clearing work is a reasonable thing to do alongside getting that looked at by a professional. It is not a reasonable thing to do instead.

Practically: how to work with this

Default to uncrossing. When in doubt, it is the step that is never wrong, needs no target, and costs one candle and one honest petition.

Apply the one-sentence test before any banishing. Nameable in one plain sentence: proceed. Not nameable: back to step one.

Put protection last and renew it at thresholds. New moon, new home, after conflict — a boundary is maintained, not installed once.

Leave gaps and keep notes. Two or three ordinary days between steps; one line per day about what actually feels different. The notebook, not the flame, is your instrument panel.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between uncrossing and banishing?

Uncrossing clears a general stuck or crossed condition and needs no identified source. Banishing removes one specific, nameable thing — a person's influence, a habit, a situation. If you cannot name the target in one plain sentence, uncrossing is the right tool.

Should I do protection before or after cleansing?

After — always. Protection holds a boundary around whatever state exists when you set it. Applied to an uncleared space, it holds the problem in. Clear first, banish if something specific remains, then protect.

When should I start an uncrossing candle?

Tradition favors the waning moon, the releasing half of the cycle, and many practitioners use it for the structure it gives. But an uncrossing is never wrong to start when the need is real — do not sit in a crossed condition for three weeks waiting for a calendar.

What do I write on an uncrossing petition?

One or two plain sentences naming the pattern you are releasing — a situation, a habit, a run of luck. Specific enough to be releasable, honest enough to be yours. "Everything bad" is not a petition; it gives the work nothing to hold.

My candle glass turned black — does that mean the work failed?

No. On seven-day candles, soot on the upper glass is a chimney effect driven by wick length, drafts and container shape. It appears on schedule regardless of your situation and reads as an omen only because uncrossing makes people watch for signs.

What comes after the uncrossing is done?

Something that builds. An uncrossing leaves an empty room, and empty is only an improvement if you fill it — a boundary next, then drawing or setting work into the cleared space.

The same clear-then-build order applies in the bath: a cleansing soak first, a protection soak the night after. We have written out both in the guide to the spiritual bath for cleansing and protection.

Sources & further reading

• Catherine Yronwode: Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic (2002) — uncrossing, banishing and protection formulas and their traditional sequence
• Harry M. Hyatt: Hoodoo – Conjuration – Witchcraft – Rootwork (1935–1978) — field interviews documenting uncrossing as a distinct remedial category
• Israel Regardie: The Golden Dawn (1937) — the banish-before-invoke structure in Western ceremonial practice
• National Institute of Mental Health: depression symptoms and when to seek help (updated 2024) — nimh.nih.gov
• Related on the blog: When banishing is the wrong tool · How to cleanse a room · Fiery Wall of Protection: the origins

The candles for every step of the sequence live in Ritual Candles; the clearing mists are in Ritual Oils & Sprays.