Also called circle of protection, magic circle, casting a circle with salt, salt line
A ring of salt poured on the floor around a person or a working space to mark a protected area that harmful influences cannot cross, drawing on the much older magic circle of ritual magic.
TraditionEuropean ritual magic and folk salt lore, as adapted in modern witchcraft
RegionEurope and North America
EraAncient roots; salt circles mainly 20th century to present
Moon○ Full moon
DayAny
ElementEarth
Difficulty●○○ Simple
Time20 minutes plus whatever you do inside it
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Sweep and clear the floor. Choose a hard floor so the salt can be swept up easily.
Anchor one end of the cord at the center and walk the other end round to see the size of your circle.
Starting in the east, pour a thin steady line of salt clockwise all the way round, leaving no gap where the ends meet.
Step inside before closing the last few inches, or leave a small doorway in the north, as the Key of Solomon does, and close it once you are in.
Stand or sit in the center and say what the circle is for, for example: within this ring only peace and good may enter.
Do your meditation, prayer or candle work inside. Stay in the circle until you are done.
To close, thank whatever you called on, then sweep the salt from the circle counter-clockwise and throw it away outside, not on soil you want to grow things in.
Take care: Salt is slippery on smooth floors and harmful to pets who lick it in quantity, so sweep it up promptly. Keep any candle well inside the circle and away from your clothes, and never pour salt onto lawns or garden beds.
Versions across time and place
i
The Key of Solomon's circle of art
Renaissance ceremonial magic · 16th to 17th century manuscripts; translated 1889
The magician fixes a sickle at the center, uses a nine-foot cord to trace the circumference with a consecrated sword or black-hilted knife, adds further rings a foot apart with divine names and symbols, and leaves a gap toward the north to enter by. Salt in this text is blessed and cast into the magician's purifying bath rather than poured as the circle itself.
Uses: sickle, nine-foot cord, consecrated knife or sword, holy names
Recorded in: S. L. MacGregor Mathers (trans.), The Key of Solomon the King (London: George Redway, 1889)
ii
Zisurrû, the Mesopotamian flour circle
Babylonian and Assyrian exorcism · Second and first millennium BCE
Mesopotamian exorcists drew protective circles called zisurrû with flour or powdered grain around a sick person or a ritual space, choosing different powders against different threats. It is the oldest well-documented ancestor of the poured protective circle.
Uses: flour or powdered grain
Recorded in: Wikipedia, Magic circle (citing Markham Geller)
iii
Wiccan circle casting
Modern Wicca and witchcraft · 1950s to present
Wiccans cast a circle about nine feet across, often marked with chalk, cord or salt, with candles at the four quarters. Salt water is commonly sprinkled around it to consecrate it, and leaving the circle requires cutting a doorway.
Uses: salt, water, four quarter candles
Recorded in: Wikipedia, Magic circle; Scott Cunningham, Raymond Buckland
History
Protective circles are among the oldest recorded magical acts. Mesopotamian exorcists drew zisurrû rings of flour, and the grimoires of Renaissance Europe, including the Key of Solomon that MacGregor Mathers translated in 1889, gave detailed instructions for a consecrated circle with divine names. Folk practice drew its own circles too; Jewish and German birth customs recorded from the 16th to 18th centuries placed a protective ring around a woman in labor.
Salt has separate protective credentials: it was blessed in Christian rites, thrown after unwelcome visitors in British and African American folk magic, and laid across thresholds. Pouring the circle itself in salt is mostly a 20th-century development of Wicca and modern witchcraft, and it was made famous by horror films and television that show salt lines stopping ghosts. The version here joins the old measured circle with that modern habit.
