In your experiences, what scents do demons hate in general? Or does incense do nothing in banishing them?
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White Sage, Wormwood, Mugwort are my goto smudging herbs. Wormwood is my favourite.
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Based on your experience, how do they react to those herbs?
Also, what if a task requires wormwood and you have to work with a demon?
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For space clearing, unwanted energy is just gone, without questioning why I want it gone. It is unwelcome and should not have been there in the first place, so I don’t ask it how it feels about it.
This does not affect direct personal attachments, and energy inside you not in the space (in my experience): at that point you have a relationship with something that feels it has permission to be there, and that is resolved in other ways. For example, if you are depressed, smudging doesn’t fix depression, but exorcising the energy of depression as if it was a parasite has worked for me before.
Use something else. There are many options, I gave only my general 3 for scents that are repulsive “in general”… so this is now a specific situation and you would adapt to suit.
I recommend asking the entity in question, as at this point they have their preferences.
My biggest fail, was buying a Samael incense online for my work with him, only to have him ask me to go back to white copal as he hated it. So you can’t really just assume what works for other people will automatically work for you. It’s ideal to build this is in as part of the 'getting to know you" bits in the relationship. 
In another example, Dragons Blood is very popular, but now, I dislike that myself. So I use something else that we agree on.
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As always, thank you so much for putting these things in terms a novice witch like me can understand!
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I haven’t noted any spirit that particularly hates any scent. But I have found using the intent to banish and whatever method combined, does do it.
I like to brew my own floor wash, banishing mist etc, I don’t really care too much for heavy smoke or anything like that, personal preference and health issues. I occasionally light incense but my little puffs of smoke are nothing compared to what I see most people do.
Sometimes my husband will come home and be like watch y’a cooking? window wash, plant food, and witch craft, are some of the funnier answers I’ve been able to give.
I even mix herbs to sprinkle on my carpets and vacuum them up later.
Basil, bay, oregano, sage, rosemary and thyme, can all be used to increase psychic senses OR to banish and protect, (once you look into the herbal properties) so imop your intent to banish and what you intend to banish matters more than the scent or herb used
I’ve had similar experience with depressive thoughts and negative thought loops as mulberry- banishing them specifically removes the build up of energy, but doesn’t prevent it from returning, especially if it originated in your own mind.
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Thanks! Maybe I’ll just save my money and use McCormick herbs and salt.
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I usually use whatever is in my kitchen yes I buy herbs just for witchy stuff at times but I buy food grade or teas. Almost anything I’d want for a witchy purpose had a place in the kitchen and is a good resource for nutrients too.
I’m starting to grow my own again for the common kitchen stuff, but a lot of things take months and years y’a know to have a good harvest. 
Last year I plucked thorns of the stems of the rose bush in our yard when I trimmed it back and used the thorns for a real nasty return to sender oil. I call it you fucked with the wrong witch, bitch. Or least that’s what I wrote on the label
I found the thorns pluck whole, right off the stems with a leather man or pair of pliers if you pinch at the bottom. They were really big thorns though due to the size of the bush, so it was time consuming but easy.
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Yeah this makes sense. In my case I’d fixed the underlying issues and the depression had taken on a life of it’s own, so that’s probably why that worked. No minime’s being recreated.
The herbs were alive and as spiritual beings themselves carry their own energy to add to your magick. So the herbs depend on what you want to do. Store bought herbs do too, but the meanings and energy are different. Lavender is the swiss army knife of herbs and can do anything healing.
I like Cunningham’s magickal encyclopedia of herbs to look up commonly used energetic associations, though probably for more European herbs than not. There is likely be a tradition in your country of native plants that you can wild harvest to get the same effects, then dry them by hanging them.
Then you can talk to the living plants as you thank them for being there for you, and this brings more support from the plant to your magick. It’s always worth being good to the Fae. They are powerful, and you can ask them to help you keep your spaces clear of intruders.
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Yep, I do have a copy of Cunningham’s book. It’s a bit too Western, but so is the gateway magickal tradition in our neck of the woods (folk witchcraft knowledge seems to be a closed culture here, and for a good reason).
@Mulberry:
Store bought herbs do too, but the meanings and energy are different.
How so? Do industrial farming and mass-manufacturing processes alter their energetic makeup, and if they do, to what extent?
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It’s affected by all the people who touched them, walked down the store aisle near them etc.
I find you can still connect to the original plant spirit, whether it’s dead or alive still and they are usually quite willing to aid in utilizing the herbal energy in your spices to your benefit.
It can be kinda weird though to hold a pinch of oregano in your hand and search for the plant or spirit it’s connected to, so idk many people who practice quite like me 
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Hmmm, so how do I restore it to its original, readily usable form? I can’t really grow a cinnamon tree in our yard.
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I actually meant, grocery store herbs don’t sell Wormwood or White Sage. These are not used in cooking. You asked for repellent herbs for banishing or exorcism. Maybe there are culinary herbs that do this but I don’t know any off the top of my head. Cunningham’s will tell you if they do.
But yes, the factory processing and the Fae are treated badly in modern agriculture, which adds unpleasant energy and dilutes the energy of the Fae some. The plants are industrially grown in poor, polluted soil treated with chemicals not good organic matter, so they are nutrient deficient as well as energy deficient. It will still work though. For most application it’s good enough.
This is mitigated if you can find a local garden center, health food store that works with local producers or side of the road stalls where people sell homegrown produce. And then using the strong clean herbs is a job compared to the dusty, half dead stuff.
Yeah for cinnamon I just buy grocery store as well. Organic or biodynamic if possible.
Then don’t ask them: they’re not the only ones that know plants, and you live in an amazing age where the world’s knowledge is freely available in a tiny supercomputer in your hand. There’s no reason you can’t find out despite them.
Ask the foragers and the survivalists, the sustainable living people and the preppers. Those people understand that we need to have a better connection to the land, and that the land can heal you, wherever you are, without importing herbs from halfway around the world. Nature gives us all we need right where we are.
So talk to those, or buy a kind of book called a “field guide”, and there are probably many youtube videos as well… Find out the names of plants that grow by you, then look up that name + “magickal properties” or “Spiritual Properties” and Hey Presto! you know what it can do.
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I wonder if blessing or praying over each and every handful of dried, store-bought herbs will mitigate the energetic damage caused by the industry.
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Oh I wasn’t even thinking of those, I bought a 2 ounce bag of mugwort when I ran out and I’ve hardly used any…the first time I got mugwort wormwood and skullcap, but I still have some from that order of both skullcap and wormwood.
For some reason these herbs just don’t call to me like the others do
The other thing is they say the herb is much more flavorful, up to something like twenty minutes after harvest…so there’s definitely a loss of energy as it’s separated from its whole too.
Eh you can’t necessarily restore it to original, at least not in appearance, but you can call upon the archetype of the plant or the spirit(s) of the plant(s) your herbs came from.
I like to hold them in my hand, smell them, ask myself what I know about how they are used and think about how their properties will aid my work.
Usually then if I want to communicate with the plant archetype or the spirit(s) (a lot of herbs commercially produced will have leaves taken from several plants due to bulk harvesting methods) I can simply call out something like little sage plant or whatever I need to name it to have something to call, and focus on the energy in my hand and the intent to call that type of spirit.
Just taking a few minutes to think it through like that, can really boost a working because the energy in the herbs then knows what you want it to do. So it may seem silly but I don’t think it is since many plants can be propagated from small cuttings in the right conditions.
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Thanks for the pointers!
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No problem, sorry about all those typos, I really never see them till I come back, despite trying to to. 
Basically you can call energy back to the plant parts you have, from where it originated. When that piece of the plant died, it goes spiritually back to the whole plant spirit, sorta like some claim people might with their higher self or god self.
What I see with plants and their life cycles often matches things I’ve read about people
Some plants live for years before they die and commercially dispensed, but many are a annuals, so. I find it hit and miss on whether they feel embodied somewhere still or not.
But either way wanting to work with the plants energy and the herb you have to boost the working, all on its own, helps a lot imop.
Plus being able to use what you have on hand is super useful. I like cool witchy tools, but honestly I use them mostly as decor.
Even when I use something I’ve charge or channeled energy into, I usually lay it near or around the ritual rather than hold it.
If I’m directing energy I’d rather sit with my palms open towards the candle flames, than hold a wand a point it at something I can’t even imagine I see…
Aphantasia has really helped me to value some things over others though, I sometimes think if I could imagine images on will, that I would indeed probably practice differently than I do
Of course a lot of the reason I use kitchen herbs and teas is there have times I couldn’t afford something specific, so budget buying and learning how to do this without going broke was important to me.
Like I don’t imagine my ancestors went out and bought their herbs if mugwort wasn’t native them. I imagine they knew which herbs were local and at their dispense for the same things. So I kinda feel like I’m simply relearning what they already did, just without the teacher to help me figure it out.
I’m pretty big on getting the nutrients you need from good food sources though- your body tends to absorb them better and vitamins make me sick to my stomach, so I cook with that in mind adding herbs and spices to make a more complete meals, stock teas for different common ailments etc.
I actually made ginger and tumeric okra and chicken/ vegetable soup the other, using ginger tumeric tea… I was out of tumeric… it was really really good…
Most teas have a noticeable affect on a condition like an itchy rash, a headache etc within half of an hour of consumption, so I find them very nice to add to my dr. Mom regiment.
I’m just very into working with intuition and what I can use, I’ve found that if a ritual cost more than you will get out of it, you are probably using stuff you could replace until you can afford better or maybe even permanently if you find something that works well.
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