Energetic Space Cleansing: Why I Do It and How I Keep It Simple

At its core, energetic space cleansing is simply the practice of releasing energy that feels heavy, stagnant, unwanted, or no longer useful. While people often think of cleansing a home, the same principles can apply to objects, animals, and even ourselves.

The good news is that you do not ne…

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Sound as a Magical Tool Most People Forget About

When people think about magical tools, they usually think about candles, herbs, incense, smoke cleansing, crystals, oils, all of the visual things. But one of the oldest and most effective magical tools available to us is sound.

And the funny thing is, people are already using sound in magical ways without always realizing it.

Church bells. Drumming. Chanting. Clapping. Singing. Repetitive rhythms. Even the superstition to bang pots and pans on New Year’s Eve to drive out bad luck. Human beings have always understood on some level that sound changes the atmosphere of a space and shifts the state of the body.

The human body responds to vibration.

That matters in magical practice.

Why Sound Works So Well in Magic

Sound moves energy differently than smoke does.

When I smoke cleanse a room through saining or another smoke cleansing method, I tend to work intentionally through corners, thresholds, and specific areas. Smoke has a directional quality to it.

That makes sound incredibly useful for energetic clearing, raising energy in ritual, meditation, trance work, and even healing work.

And unlike smoke cleansing, sound can be used almost anywhere.

There are places where smoke is impractical or inappropriate. Apartment buildings. Shared office spaces. Homes with respiratory sensitivities. Hospitals. Public settings.

Sound gives you another option.

You Do Not Need Expensive Magical Tools

I love magical tools. I really do. I collect them. I enjoy them. I think there is joy in surrounding yourself with objects that help anchor your practice.

But you absolutely do not need expensive tools to work with sound.

You can clap your hands.

You can stomp your feet.

You can hum.

You can chant.

You can drum on a Tupperware container with a wooden spoon if that is what you have available.

You can pick up two sticks from the yard and strike them together.

Magic has always been about working with what is available to you.

My Favorite Ways to Use Sound in Practice

I use singing bowls quite a bit because I find them deeply meditative. There is something about the sustained tone that settles my nervous system almost immediately.

I will often walk room to room using a singing bowl or a bell when I want to shift the feeling in the house.

And no, I do not personally believe you have to rigidly follow complicated rules about moving through every corner in a perfect sequence. Sound naturally disperses through space. I work more intuitively with it.

I also love bells. There is a reason bells appear in so much folklore and spiritual tradition. Big bells are not just heard. They are felt.

You feel church bells in your chest.

That vibration will resonate with the vibration of your body.

Historically, bells were often believed to ward away harmful spirits or disruptive influences. Folklore around church bells is full of stories about protection, thresholds, and spiritual authority. People understood instinctively that sound changes atmosphere.

Drumming Changes Group Energy Fast

If you have ever participated in group drumming, chanting, or singing during ritual, you have probably noticed how quickly it synchronizes people.

Rhythm pulls people together.

It creates shared momentum.

It raises energy remarkably fast.

Even simple repetitive percussion changes the feeling of a ritual space. You do not need to be a musician. You do not need technical skill. In many traditions, rhythm matters far more than complexity.

There is a reason repetitive sound shows up over and over in spiritual practices around the world.

It changes consciousness.

Sound and Meditation

I struggled with meditation for years.

I had what I call “monkey brain.” I would sit down, attempt to meditate for two minutes, and immediately start thinking about everything else I should be doing.

Sound changed that for me.

Specifically, binaural beats helped tremendously. Having sound to focus on gave my mind somewhere to settle instead of trying to force myself into silence.

Now I can meditate for much longer periods without fighting myself the entire time.

For some people, silence is calming.

For others, silence is loud.

Sound can act as an anchor.

Everyday Objects Can Become Magical Musical Tools

One of the things I enjoy most about sound work is how accessible it is.

Some of my favorite magical sound tools are not traditionally magical at all.

Wind chimes hanging near an open window.

A simple hand bell.

A wine glass that sings when you run your finger around the rim.

Rattles.

Bones.

A kalimba.

A tuning fork.

Or honestly, just listening to nature.

Wind through trees.

Rain.

Birdsong.

Flowing water.

We are surrounded by sound constantly. The question is whether we are using it intentionally.

Sound as Energetic Clearing

One of the most overlooked uses for sound in magic is energetic clearing.

People tend to default immediately to smoke cleansing. And I love smoke cleansing. I use saining regularly.

But sound clearing can sometimes work better, especially when energy feels stagnant, emotionally heavy, or “stuck.”

Clapping in corners.

Ringing bells.

Drumming.

Chanting.

Loud rhythmic noise has historically been used to drive out unwanted energy.

That idea appears over and over because people noticed that sound changes the feeling of a place.

You do not need fancy ceremonial tools to experience that shift.

You just need intention and vibration.

The Important Thing Is to Experiment

One of the best things you can do in magical practice is experiment.

Try different rhythms.

Try different tones.

Some sounds energize. Some calm. Some ground. Some clear. Some raise energy quickly.

And because sound is so physical, you will often notice the effects immediately.

Magic does not always have to be elaborate to be effective.

Sometimes it is as simple as ringing a bell and feeling the room change.

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The Pendulum Is Not the Magic. Your Relationship With It Is.

Modern spirituality often treats pendulums as fancy, mystical objects.

A crystal on a chain. An metal weight inscribed with symbols.

But historically, divination tools were not fancy. Folk magic has always been deeply practical.

You made do with what you had.

A key on a string works.

A pendant necklace works.

A button tied to thread works.

Even the inner workings of a watch can become symbolic divination tools if they carry meaning connected to time, destiny, or the future.

The object becomes a focal point through which intuition, subconscious pattern recognition, energy work, or spiritual communication can move.

The Pendulum as a Conversation With the Unseen

One of the biggest misconceptions about pendulum work is that it functions like a supernatural fortune-telling machine.

In reality, pendulum work often operates more like a conversation.

Sometimes that conversation may feel spiritual.

Sometimes psychological.

Sometimes energetic.

Sometimes deeply intuitive.

The mechanism itself is less important than the experience of meaningful interaction.

For some practitioners, pendulum movement represents communication with guides, ancestors, or spirits.

For others, it reflects subconscious knowledge surfacing through tiny unconscious movements of the body.

For many, it may be both.

And perhaps the most honest answer is this:

No one fully knows why it works as consistently as it sometimes does.

But many people who practice regularly find that it does work.

Why Beginners Often Struggle

New practitioners frequently expect dramatic results immediately.

The process begins simply:

Ask questions you already know the answer to

Observe how your pendulum responds

Learn your personal “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” movements

Practice consistently

For one person, “yes” may move in circles.

For another, it may swing vertically.

There is no universal language.

The relationship develops through repetition.

Roadblocks to Accurate Readings

And importantly, beginners often overlook one major factor:

Emotional attachment distorts readings.

If you desperately want a particular outcome, your energy can unconsciously influence the result. That is why experienced practitioners often recommend starting with emotionally neutral questions before moving into higher-stakes topics.

In many ways, pendulum work becomes a practice in honesty with yourself.

The Questions Matter More Than Most People Realize

One of the most overlooked skills in divination is learning how to ask good questions.

Pendulum readings are rarely improved by asking vague or emotionally loaded questions like:

“Will my life work out?”

“Is this person my soulmate?”

“Will everything be okay?”

Specificity matters.

Clarity matters.

Because the pendulum often answers the question exactly as asked — not necessarily as intended.

Experienced practitioners know this well.

The wrong wording can create misleading answers, contradictory readings, or “trickster” outcomes where the response is technically accurate but practically unhelpful.

In that sense, pendulum work resembles old folklore about wishes and bargains:

you must be careful and precise with language.

Divination as Access to the Subconscious

One of the most fascinating aspects of pendulum practice is its ability to bypass conscious thought patterns.

People use pendulums to explore:

• recurring dreams

• internal fears

• emotional blocks

• hidden assumptions

• decision-making patterns

• intuitive responses

In this way, pendulum work can function almost like symbolic psychological excavation.

The conscious mind tells stories.

The subconscious often reveals patterns.

And whether one interprets that through psychology, spirituality, energy work, or folklore depends largely on personal worldview.

Folk Magic Has Always Included Divination

Divination is not separate from folk magic traditions. It has always been woven into them.

Historically, people used divination for intensely practical reasons:

• locating water

• finding lost objects

• diagnosing imbalance

• making decisions

• assessing danger

• interpreting dreams

• evaluating relationships

Even practices modern people dismiss as strange — like dowsing for water — have long histories of practical application.

In some communities, dowsers were hired professionally because their methods consistently produced results.

That tension between skepticism and lived experience has always existed in magical practice.

Something can sound improbable and still function meaningfully for the people using it.

Pendulum Work Is a Practice, Not a Shortcut

One of the biggest mistakes people make is treating divination as instant certainty.

But like every magical practice, pendulum work develops over time.

You learn:

• how your body responds

• how your intuition speaks

• how symbolism operates in your life

• how emotional attachment affects readings

• how to refine questions

• how to recognize when something feels “off”

And perhaps most importantly, you learn discernment.

Not every answer should be accepted blindly.

Not every reading should dictate your life.

Divination works best when it deepens awareness rather than replacing personal responsibility.

The Sacred Does Not Require Expensive Tools

One of the oldest lessons in folk magic is this:

The sacred is often built from ordinary things.

A tea strainer can become a pendulum.

A necklace can become a divination tool.

A key can become an oracle.

Magic has never depended on aesthetics, luxury, or performance.

It depends on attention.

On relationship.

On symbolic meaning.

On the willingness to listen carefully to what moves beneath the surface of ordinary life.

And perhaps that is why pendulum work continues to endure across generations of practitioners:

Because sometimes the smallest movements reveal the deepest truths.

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I recently joined Laureen Quick on Unscripted & Unstoppable which is for women over 50.

We had a conversation about energy.

For many women, midlife brings a shift that’s hard to explain. You feel more tired. More sensitive to your environment. Less able to push through the way you once did.

And the assumption is often that something is wrong.

But what if that’s not the case? What if what you’re experiencing is actually information?

In the conversation, we explored the idea that energy isn’t abstract — it’s physical. Your body runs on electrical impulses. Your thoughts, your movements, your emotions — all of it is part of an energetic system.

And that system is constantly responding to what’s around you.

We talked about how modern life — especially constant exposure to electronics and stimulation — can shift your energy in ways you may not even realize.

And we looked at the role your own thoughts and beliefs play — including the stories we tell ourselves about aging. Because those stories don’t just live in the mind. They shape how we feel. How we behave. And how we experience our lives.

Perhaps the most important shift we explored is this:

From trying to control your energy to listening to what it might be telling you.

And learning to understand your energy may be one of the most important parts of that.

Keep your magick alive

P.S. If you want to engage in conversations like this in a like minded community, join me

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Wherever you find people, there have also generally been stories about magick. From folklore and urban legends to pop culture and superstitions, magick is a way to explain the mysteries around us. It offers a sense of control in a dangerous world, can connect us to nature and its rhythms, and helps us interpret seemingly random events, both positive and negative. Through spell working, rituals, and ceremonies, people have long tried to create favorable outcomes, connect with deities, and build community.

Working magick might involve the use of crystals, bones, herbs, charms for luck and protection, cycles of nature, the elements, talismans, ritual tools, or ceremonial dress. There may be activities such as prayer, spell casting, burning of candles and herbs, or divination.

Add to that the idea of a magickal world all around us that may have spirits, fairies, cryptids, monsters, supernatural creatures, portals, energy healing, ley lines, and celestial influence.

All this and more create a massive system of beliefs in matters beyond the mundane. When thinking about magick, there are certainly true believers as well as hardcore skeptics, but most people fall somewhere between the two, which means we have magick in every corner of our lives.

With such a vast and complex belief system comes a great deal of controversy. There are debates about cultural appropriation, symbolism, the properties that various objects intrinsically have, deities, what types of magick are suitable, and the “right” way to practice them.

The biggest question, though, is whether or not any of it is real. Can people astral project? Are there supernatural creatures and deities? Are mediums truly talking to spirits that have passed over? Do spells really work?

An idea or belief system is not necessarily illogical simply because it is false, and we see scientific theory evolve over time as new information becomes available. Before we understood how viruses and bacteria can cause illness, the concepts of humors, angering the gods, or even a spiteful neighbor working with dark forces would have all been logical when a mysterious illness struck one family but not another.

The law of parsimony (also known as Occam’s razor) is a philosophical tool used to discard the most unlikely of explanations. In essence, it states that when faced with competing explanations of a given phenomenon, the simplest one is the most likely.

However, in the case of magick and the supernatural underdetermination, which is the idea that the amount of evidence available to us at a given time may not be sufficient to inform us on what beliefs to hold, comes into play. When a medium gives you a reading, is it spirits connecting, mind reading, or perhaps just using general enough statements that will apply to most people? I have certainly experienced some wildly specific and accurate readings that involved things I didn’t know myself but found out later to be true.

When we see a grainy picture of the Loch Ness monster, the image could be doctored, it might be an optical illusion, or perhaps a massive creature that only shows itself when no one who happens to have a steady hand and a phone with a decent camera is about. So, how do we know what to believe?

Falsifiability is a standard for the evaluation of theories first introduced by Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). Any theory can be falsified if it can be refuted with an empirical test. Trying to evaluate the theory that “all magick is real” by verification would entail finding every example of magick and proving it is real. Disproving it would be relatively easy because there are so many scammers, hucksters, and cheats out there plying their bogus readings, cures, and spells on naïve consumers.

However, the statement “some magick is real” is different in that only one positive case would verify that it is, indeed, real. The debate around whether magick is real cannot end at “I have never seen it, so it must not be real,” simply because there are just as many people that can say, “I have seen magickal things happen, so it is real.” In practical terms, magick in and of itself can never be falsified.

Alternately, the idea that there is a “correct” way to do magick can never be verified because there is always a chance that if one way works, another might work as well. So, while we will look at some of what we know to be real and if it can be defined as magick, we won’t look at any specific spells, practices, or rituals. There are a vast number of books of spells and rituals, and an endless supply of the same online. Our purpose here is to explore the nature of magick and our beliefs around it, not to be a supernatural recipe book.

So, where does this leave us? A good start is to delve into a definition of magick. One of the reasons it is so hard to sort out whether magick exists or not is that there are as many definitions of what it is as there are people.

It is easy to see why people are skeptical of magick when their go-to example is something along the lines of waving a wand and making someone float in the air. It is also easy to see why some people become true believers when they experience the unexplainable and only have the supernatural as a way to provide context.

However, there may be something more subtle occurring that can explain what magick is by using what is provable to address the arguments about magick. We can do so without begging the question and leading ourselves to one end of the spectrum or the other of its existence.

The way to do this is to look at what we know to be real and build upon our knowledge from there. It isn’t important if something is fantastical-sounding if we focus instead on breaking down what we know to be true and determining if we have enough knowledge to either verify or falsify magick and its role in our lives.

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