Ritual Baths – Your Easy Guide to Spiritual Cleansing

Hi, my loves and welcome to WiccaNow. I’ve been talking about some of my favourite rituals and spells recently, like this abundance spell, a ritual for home protection, an anti-anxiety spell, a spell for better sleep and a spell to break a bad habit. While writing these posts it occurred to me that I should I haven’t talked about something near and dear to me, namely ritual baths. Todays post is all about ritual bathing and includes 11 awesome tips so that you’re next bath is both physcally and spiritually rewarding.

Why Take a Ritual Bath?

Sometimes you just have a really awful day. You’re stressed and tired and all you feel is negativity. At this stage, one of the best things you can do is to take a ritual bath to purify the bad energy you are feeling and turn it into positive energy. Bonus, it’s also really relaxing and if you use an essential oil like lavender it’s also extremely calming.

Even If you haven’t had a bad day, but want to try some complicated spellwork, you should consider a bath to purify anything unwanted that has crept in throughout the day. While I don’t have a ritual bath every time I perform a ritual or cast a spell, I do tend to think they make a difference. I’ll try to have a bath, or a purifying shower, whenever I can before magickal practices. 

A ritual bath acts to cleanse not only the body but also the soul. It helps to clear your mind, re-centre you and make your focus stronger and clearer. The use of certain herbs is really wonderful too. Take some time and study a few of our herb guides like this guide to herbs for protection or this one on herbs for self love. Choose herbs which match your intention i.e. for a love spell choose love herbs. Make sure that any herbs you use are safe for consumption and don’t cause skin irritations!

We all know that hot water, a little space to ourselves and some peace and quiet can work absolute wonders. There is a reason movies so often show people relaxing in a bath. The hot water relaxes sore and strained muscles which gives your mind space to focus on things other than physical discomforts. Enjoy the relaxation of a bath while cleansing yourself energetically for your spellwork. What’s not to love?

My Top 11 Tips and Tricks for Ritual Bathing

1. Having a ritual bath allows you to stop for a minute and think things through, and then lets you wash the negative things away along with the bathwater. When you are having a ritual bath, really sit and focus on the things you want to get rid of. Is this a bad habit or are you thinking about trying a habit-breaking spell? Are you filled with negative thoughts which you want to release so you can replace them with positive ones? Did you have a bad day which you need to wash away? All of these things can be helped with a bath as you are literally washing away anything you want to be rid of when you release the water. 
2. It’s important to set the mood whenever you want to do any spellwork. The same goes for a ritual bath. What makes you feel relaxed and good? Do you have a favourite essential oil? Take your diffuser into the bathroom and put in some relaxing oils. I particularly like lavender but will also use a little peppermint sometimes if I’m feeling too sleepy. 
3. Make sure that you have undisturbed peace and quiet to take your bath. Do you have housemates who need to get ready for a night out and might bang on the door? Kids that need dinner? A dog that hasn’t been for a walk? I know life is busy and there are always things on the go, but it’s important that you set aside a little “me time” if you want this ritual bath to have the desired effect. Walk the dog before you get in the bath, tuck the kids into bed. Tell your housemates you had a hard day and need a relaxing bath and ask them to give you a little space. 

4. If you feel like it, safely light a couple of candles. This gives you a much more relaxing light. I don’t know about you, but my bathroom light definitely isn’t the nicest and really doesn’t make for a relaxing mood. Sometimes I take a small lamp with me or else I use some battery-powered fairy lights to make the bathroom a little cosier. If you are using candles, practise fire safety, please! There is nothing less relaxing than something accidentally catching fire. Also, keep all the lights and lamps AWAY from the water. Electrocution isn’t very relaxing either.
5. If you choose to use a candle, make sure it’s a candle that you don’t plan on doing any magical work with. Candles absorb the energy of where they were lit, so if you have negative energy that you are ridding yourself of with a bath, the candle will pick up that energy and it might negatively affect the success of the spell you cast using that candle. Check out this post on candle magic if you want to know more about this. 

6. Is there music you like to listen to? Play something you love softly in the background in order to achieve peak relaxation. I wouldn’t suggest heavy metal, I don’t think this is going to provide you with the relaxed energy that you need, but you do you! 
7. Make sure you have a nice fluffy towel waiting for you to wrap yourself up in. Use a bathrobe if you have one so that when you step out of the bath you feel like you are stepping into a warm hug. 
8. Add some herbs to your bath. Protection herbs are nice, like rosemary or sage. You can use fresh herbs, essential oils or dried herbs. I prefer fresh ones if I can get them but do whatever is easiest and best for you. I like to put mine into a small cheesecloth bag to contain them. While they look pretty floating around you, you don’t want them clogging up your drain when you empty the water and causing you stress! If you want, you can hang them from the tap of your bathtub so that the water runs through them into the bathtub. 

9. When you are ready, get into the bath. Allow yourself to sink into the water and feel the heat relaxing you. Settle into the feeling of warmth and let relaxation flow through your body. Imagine all of your muscles slowly releasing the tension of the day. Try and clear your mind. 
10. When you are relaxed and feeling good, think about what it was that caused your bad day or negative energy. What do you need to cleanse away? Imagine the warm water teasing the negativity out of you and replacing it with relaxed and positive energy. Let the anger you have over something that went wrong go. Release it into the water. Really focus on this energy release. Imagine it as an invisible particle that each pore of your skin is releasing and let the water dilute and pull it away from you. 
11. When you are ready and have tried to release all the stress and negativity you had built up, step out of the bathtub. Release the water and as you watch it swirl down the drain, imagine all your negative energy swirling down the drain and away from you with the water. Feel the release of this detrimental energy and thank the water for cleansing you of it and the herbs for protecting and purifying you.

What Herbs to Use in a Ritual Bath

You can really use whatever herbs you want for a cleansing bath. Pick something you like the smell of and enjoy using. As mentioned earlier, match your herbs to the intention of the spell you want to cast. Generally, I like to use protection herbs or self-love herbs as I always feel a little vulnerable when soaking in the tub. Check out my botanical witchipedia for a comprehensive guide to magickal herbs and their uses.

My favourite Herbs for a Ritual Bath

• Anise
• Cinnamon
• Eucalyptus
• Fennel
• Juniper
• Lavender
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Witch Hazel

Are Ritual Showers a thing?

I know that not everyone has a bathtub, but don’t worry, you can have a ritual shower instead! You can do everything we’ve just gone over in the shower too. Just make sure to hang your herb sachet about your showerhead so that the water is flowing over the herbs and over you before heading down the drain while taking your negative energy with it. If you are using essential oils, mix a little of these into a body wash or drip them onto your bar of soap.

I’ll leave you with a prayer for cleansing, you can say it before you get in the bath or after you finished your bathing ritual:

Prayer for Cleansing and Ritual Baths

“I cleanse myself of all resentment, critical thought and self condemnation. I purify myself of selfishness, self-flagellation and judgement of my fellow beings. I bathe myself in generosity, self-appreciation, praise and acknowledgement of my own power. I bathe myself in self- acceptance and understanding of my fellow beings. So Mote it Be.”

Until next time my magical lovers,

Blessed Be,

Amaria xoxo

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