House Magick for Beginners: How to Befriend Your House Spirits
Spirits don’t only dwell in forests or ancient groves. They live in our homes, too. They linger in the walls that hold our stories, the doorways that greet us daily, and the cozy corners that feel somehow more alive than the rest of the room.
In this guide, we’ll explore house magick, the ancient practice of working with the spirit of your home, and learn how to build a respectful, nurturing relationship with your house spirits.
What Is House Magick?
House Magick is based on the idea that your home is enspirited. I always imagine the concept of house magick a bit like Howl’s Moving Castle from the Ghibli movie. You have the castle itself, which feels like a living entity. And then there’s Calcifer, the spirit who lives inside and protects it. That’s very much how I see house magick. I believe that a home holds its own kind of memory and energy, like an imprint of everything that’s happened within its walls. And that there is also a spirit, or sometimes several, who dwell inside and watch over it.
The two pillars of House Magick
I’ve also found that when it comes to house magick, there are two main areas to focus on:
Keeping unwanted energies out.
Cultivating the energies you want within.
The first step in House Magick
When we talk about house magick, it’s important to start by asking: what is a home, really? You might say, “Well, it’s the apartment or house where I live.”And while that’s technically true, there’s so much more to your home than just the walls around you. Your home is the place you return to every day and hopefully a safe, grounding space where you can recharge, feel inspired, and connect with your magickal practice. A place that nourishes you on every level.
So when we talk about house magick, it’s crucial to acknowledge that we all have a relationship with our home in that sense itself.
If you want to explore your relationship with your current home, simply ask yourself: How do I feel when I walk through my front door? Do I feel calm and at peace, or do I feel drained, unmotivated, or even frustrated?
Acknowledging your relationship with your home is an important first step. Because in shamanic belief, when you think about something long enough, that thought can manifest as a kind of energy or thought-entity. So if you constantly think that you dislike your home, that feeling and thought can imprint itself on the home’s memory. And that energy can make it harder to build a positive relationship with the house spirits who live there. After all, it’s their home too!
Even if it’s not yet your dream space .. your home shelters you, and that alone is something to be grateful for. Cultivating gratitude and working with your house spirits will only deepen your connection and make your space feel more magickal and alive.
What Are House Spirits?
House spirits appear in nearly every culture around the world. Their names may differ from place to place, but their appearances and their roles are often surprisingly similar! Now, there’s a difference between a house deity and a house spirit.
🕯️ House Deities vs. House Spirits
A house deity (sometimes also referred to as a household god) is a powerful divine being who protects the home and hearth. Hestia for example, the Greek goddess of the hearth, is a house deity. And there’s a beautiful old custom I once read about that shows that people, when moving home, brought their house deity with them - or a spark of it! When moving into a new home, they carried the flame of their old hearth with them, for example by lighting a torch or candle from the previous fire and using that to kindle the first flame in their new space. It’s just a beautiful symbol of continuity and carrying a house deity of your old home into the new one in my opinion!
A house spirit, on the other hand, is a smaller but still very influential presence ( I’m lacking another word so smaller is by no means to discredit the being!). These are the Brownies in Scottish folklore, the Nisse of Scandinavia and the Kobolds of German folklore, to just name a few. House spirits are often tied to the land or to former inhabitants. They can be wonderful helpers with daily household tasks, or mischievous tricksters, depending on how they’re treated. I was told that in Slavic folklore there lives a spirit called the Domovoy, who is deeply connected to a family and their home. It stays with the family for generations, as long as they remain honorable. But if the family falls into disgrace, the Domovoy may become offended and leave.
One thought that really helped me understand my relationship with my home and its inhabitants is shifting my perspective from “I live here” to “I’m sharing space with a spirit or maybe even several spirits.”
Why do House Spirits become part of a specific home?
So why is it now, that House Spirits become part of a specific house? For me, a house can have one or more spirits that emerge from many different influences.
Some House Spirits may become part of a house because of the materials the house was built with. In Germany we have many folklores that talk about spirits dwelling within certain trees, and I can only imagine that building a house from that tree could lead to a spirit sticking to this building in the end.
Another influence could be the land it stands on or the families who have lived within its walls.
Sometimes, natural features in the surrounding environment can make a location more conducive to spiritual activity, like certain types of stone.
And I once read that some of these spirits may have even traveled with families who immigrated to new countries long ago, hitching a ride across oceans to stay with the people they had bonded with. I’ve always found that such a beautiful and fascinating idea.
And finally, there are the house spirits from folklore - the ones that naturally dwell within homes.
Because yes, your home can have one house spirit, but often there are multiple spirits dwelling within the same space. One might reside in the lower areas of the home like the basement, while another watches over the upper floors. There could also be a separate spirit connected to your kitchen or the living room where there may be a hearth.
these spirits are unique to the building itself. They are part of the home
Do all houses have House Spirits living in them?
Here’s a thought that might be controversial … but I’ll say it anyway: Even though I truly believe that house spirits dwell in many homes and buildings, I don’t think they live in all of them.
That’s something that came to me while doing all my research on this topic. With the rise of big cities (all the concrete, noise, and lack of greenery) I imagine that many spirits who thrive in nature may have moved on to dwellings that are closer to forests, trees, or open landscapes. Most of the house spirits I’ve read about in folklore were deeply connected to nature and they often lived near forests or more rural areas. And maybe that’s why so many of these myths and stories still come from places like the Black Forest in Germany, where nature and the homes of people have always been intertwined.
But if you live in a city, don’t be discouraged!
I would try to sense if there is a house spirit living in the building or maybe even a few of them, and then start building up the connection. And we’ll talk about how to do that in just a moment. If you don’t sense any house spirit, you can still absolutely connect with your home itself. Remember, even the home itself holds memory and energy. Nurture that relationship and fill it with love and gratitude.
Why you should befriend your house spirits
Building a relationship with your house spirits means that you are creating powerful allies. These spirits can help protect your home, your family, and of course your pets, if you have any fur babies. As your relationship grows, you might notice subtle signs of their presence: like small gifts, feeling more comfort and at peace or the feeling of being gently watched over.
How to befriend your house spirits
First of all: Just like any relationship, it takes time and care to build trust with your house spirits. Sometimes, the spirits in your home won’t respond right away - and that’s okay. But from my own experience, I can say that the house spirits are actually relieved if you seriously try to build a relationship!
✨ Acknowledge the House Spirit
The most important thing when connecting with your house spirit is acknowledging it! This really is the bare minimum if you want to connect with your house spirits. House spirits usually make their presence known, but it’s up to us to recognize this presence then. By acknowledging and working with these spirits, you begin to create a powerful relationship that fosters protection, and harmony within your home, and also strengthens your magickal practice as a whole.
So, if you haven’t already, take a moment to introduce yourself to the spirit of your home.
Talk to it throughout the day and let it know that you wish to build a relationship.
You can greet it when you come home and say goodbye when you leave, or even ask it to watch over your space while you’re away.
🕯️ Create a House Spirit Altar
You can also dedicate a small corner of your home to your house spirit, like a little altar or shrine. I love the idea of a small altar because it shows genuine effort and that effort rarely goes unnoticed. You can leave small gifts, offerings, or items that feel connected to your home or to the spirit you sense there. It’s best to place the altar where you feel their presence most strongly. This could be near a doorway, a hearth, or just your favorite cozy corner. In Feng Shui there is something called the heart center in your home, and I have my magickal altar there and down on this shelf I have little gifts for my house spirits. You could include a picture of your home, a symbolic item, or something that feels intuitively right to this spirit. Really listen to your intuition here.
And don’t be surprised if little gifts start to appear! Like something you’d misplaced suddenly shows up again, or you find an unexpected trinket in the garden. The spirits have their own playful ways of saying hello.
Possible Gifts / Offerings:
You can be as simple or as creative as you like, it’s all about intention! And a lot of it is trial and error, to be honest. If I’m not sure what a specific house spirit enjoys, I simply offer what feels right to me and usually, they respond in some way. For example, I might suddenly find mushrooms growing in my garden afterwards. :)
But here are some ideas to get you started*
🍞 Food or water
🎶 Singing or dancing
🌿 Herbs, flowers, or plants
🧹 Cleaning your home
🍎 Dried or fresh fruits
🥛 Milk and honey
Over time, you’ll also naturally learn the rhythm of your offerings. Whether your spirits prefer gifts daily, weekly, seasonally, or only during special occasions.
*Make sure that food offerings don’t sit out too long. You’ll usually feel when it’s time to remove them, and then either throw them away respectfully or return them to nature (if it’s safe to do so and won’t harm wildlife). And of course make sure that whatever you leave out is safe and out of reach of pets and children.
Keep your home as clean as possible but only cleanse energy as needed.
Keep your home as clean as you can. Remember, we shift our perspective from: I live here to: I’m sharing this space with a spirit or spirits. Even if you move, the house spirit will remain there. By keeping everything clean and tidy you show respect for the home you currently live in and therefore you show respect for the spirit network in your home.
But there is one thing that is super important here: because there is the superstition that you need to sage your home regularly. But this could actually be super contra productive when it comes to cultivating the relationship to your house spirits!
There is herbs that are getting rid of all the energies in your home, and you don’t want to banish ALL the spirits from your home, right? you want to keep the benevolent ones and not give the impression that you want everything gone like NOW. Because we try to build up a relationship but if you give the impression that no spirit is welcome, that’s not a good start.
I would probably ask the house spirits what’s good to use for cleansing and what’s not harmful to them and then listen to that impulse.
Find activities to do together.
Find activities that you can do together with your house spirit. It’s not asking them to do anything it’s just like:
Hey, I’m going to cook dinner, do you want to spend time with me while doing so? You could also cook a little bit more and place it somewhere for the house spirit.
When cleaning your home you could ask them to tell you which one of your essential oil sprays they would like you to use.
When you are decorating, ask them if there is anything that they would like.
By including them they kind of become part of your family and I love that.
Again, if they have been ignored for a long time, it may take more effort, but if you seriously keep showing up for them, they will acknowledge you and you will feel that.
Protect their peace
Once you have built a connection with your house spirit, you can start to do some research on them.
What kind of house spirit is it?
What is the folklore around it?
Where do they reside within your home?
Knowing the folklore surrounding a house spirit can be very helpful, as it allows you to understand the spirit’s likes and dislikes based on the experiences of people and families over hundreds of years. For example doorways are considered a natural place for some spirits to reside or dwell, and some spirits may also reside in doorways. The slavic house spirit domovoy for example is believed to stay with a home and its inhabitants, and the doorway is a key part of its domain. So it goes without saying but this means that slamming doors is a no go as this could knock them from their place of choice and as you can imagine, this would probably upset these spirits!
🏡 When Moving to a New Home
There’s one special situation when it comes to house magick, and that’s when you’re moving into a new home. Now, many people (this was including me, in the beginning of my magickal witchy journey) tend to do rush in and immediately cleanse the place from top to bottom, removing all residual energies and then inviting in “better” ones. But that approach can actually be super counterproductive as we already talked about. Imagine introducing yourself to the house spirits as the new tenant and then, right away, energetically saying:
“Hi! Nice to meet you, but now get out.” 😅
Get Familiar With the Energy of the Home
The first step really is to take your time to get familiar with the energy of the home.
Does it feel like there’s energy from former inhabitants still lingering?
Does this place feel peaceful? Or is there tension, frustration, or sadness?
Does it feel active or maybe even asleep?
Does the home has a certain presence? (If you visited an old castle for example you’ll know exactly what I mean)
Do you feel welcomed and is the spirit of the house willing to become your ally?
Really get familiar with the energy of your new home and ask the house spirits what kind of cleansing is safe for them, or trust your intuition so you won’t disturbe the spirits who already live there.
Introduce Yourself
Next you want to introduce yourself. When you first arrive, introduce yourself and your family, if you have one. Let the spirits know that you’re moving in and explain your intentions. Really let them know what they can expect from you. Maybe you’re renting the space only for a short amount of time, or maybe you even bought the home. Let them know you intend to take care of it and treat it with respect. I read that often times, the house spirits will withdraw when strangers enter their space, especially during the moving process when there’s so much chaos and noise, which I think we can all understand. You might not notice them at all, or maybe sense their presence in the quieter corners of your home. They may even feel protective over the building, so this could show as sudden anxiety. This is simply their way of communicating.
Be respectful. Speak with them gently, and tell them that you understand this is their home too and that you wish to share this place in harmony with them.
Give the Spirits Time
After this first introduction, give them time to observe you. Proof them that you are serious before reaching out again. And again: listen to your intuition here, it will tell you when it is time to reach out again.
I hope this little guide to house magick and house spirits was helpful to you! And I would love to read your experiences with this topic so make sure to comment them down below! I also made a youtube video about it, if you want to watch me talking about house magick for nearly an hour! 😅
Have a magickal day,
Bebea