Cemeteries, graveyards and churches

We probably all use the words graveyard and cemetery as interchangeable but they are slightly different.

A graveyard is an older term and usually refers to a burial ground which sits beside a church.  People were buried close to the church or even if you were rich enough in crypts beneath the church.

However, as the population grew new cemeteries were built specifically as burial sites but with no adjoining church.

Either way they are usually very interesting places to visit especially the older ones as they often have really fascinating gravestones.

I find them very peaceful and sacred places to be but they are both understandably considered to be thresholds between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. 

Some of the older spells for protection, banishing, love and hexes call for the spell remnants to be buried in a graveyard.   If you are planning on burying bits and bobs in a graveyard I would be extremely careful about doing so, you don’t want to disturb anyone living or dead, you don’t want to be disrespectful and you definitely don’t want to get caught.

Graveyards and cemeteries unsurprisingly will be full of spirits, ghosts and spiritual entities not all of them with honourable intentions so tread carefully.  Although they are places of immense power that can also be used for good or bad intentions.

If you are going to perform workings in such a place I would highly recommend really getting to know it very well first.  Spend a lot of time there surveying the lay of the land and getting to know the inhabitants and by that I mean the animals such as squirrels and crows that you often find there, but also those souls that are buried beneath the soil. 

A cemetery or graveyard is a threshold but they usually have gates which become the ‘threshold to the threshold’ and the gates are often made of iron, for good reason.  Iron is protective and makes an attempt at keeping out any malevolent or unwanted spirits.  

The gateway of the cemetery or graveyard is also a huge place of power and is perhaps a more suitable and easily accessible place to leave any spells to ‘do their thing’ rather than attempting to bury them inside.

And of course, if you find a graveyard then you will have discovered a church too.  The ones with graveyards will probably be older and incredibly interesting to investigate.  Often churches were built on top of pagan places of worship.

Even the newer churches have a special kind of energy about them and are definitely worth a visit, I promise you won’t turn into dust as you walk through the doors…well probably not.