Something happened recently that broke my heart and made me furious.
A 14-year-old Native American girl that I know and love was at a birthday party when two boys, thinking they were hilarious, told her they should “turn her in to ICE” and collect the bounty. When her mom, a dear friend of mine, told me about this, I could feel my blood boiling.
She’s Native. Born here. Indigenous to this land in a way those kids’ ancestors never will be. And yet she and her mother spent the next week going through the hassle of traveling to get their tribal documentation updated and now carry it everywhere, just in case someone else thinks threatening a child is funny. It’s enraging. It’s inconvenient. But talking to my friend, the girl’s mom…mother to mother it’s also terrifying.
I found out about this because they called me to back up their practical work with magic. And I did what my ancestors taught me to do: I reached for an old Hoodoo formula called Law Keep Away…it was made for situations exactly like those my friends found themselves in today.
Law Keep Away isn’t about hiding who you are. It’s about moving through the world without attracting the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people.
This isn’t anti-law magic. It IS anti-injustice magic.
What you need:
Law Keep Away Incense (Little John to Chew, Devil’s shoestring, and black storax resin)
A charcoal disc and heat-safe burner
Sulfur powder
A black or white candle (optional but recommended)
Your copy of Psalm 35 (I like the KJV and use my Nanna’s Bible but you do you)
Working it:
Perform this on a Saturday at sundown. Light your charcoal and let it ash over. While it heats, light your candle and sit quietly for a moment. Name to yourself — out loud or internally — exactly what you are protecting yourself from. Be specific. Vagueness weakens the work.
When the charcoal is ready, place your incense on it. As the smoke rises, begin reading Psalm 35 slowly and deliberately. Don’t rush it. Read it like you mean every word — because the Psalm is essentially a legal argument made directly to God on your behalf. You are the petitioner. God is the judge. Your enemies are named.
When you finish the Psalm, sit in the smoke a moment. Let it move around you. Then speak plainly into the smoke:
The threshold:
Take your sulfur powder to the main door of your home. Sprinkle it across the threshold from one side to the other in a single pass. As you do, speak:
Closing it up:
Return to your candle and let it burn down if possible, or blow it out and as you do so say: “may the good work go forward.” The work is done when the candle is out.
Repeat the threshold application every Saturday for three weeks if the legal pressure is ongoing, or as a preventative measure seasonally.
The logic running through all of this is consistent: bind the tongue, cloud the eyes, turn the feet away. You are not asking for a miracle, you are building a specific, layered barrier using smoke, earth, scripture, and spoken word.
This is protection for people who’ve learned the hard way that documentation, innocence, and doing nothing wrong don’t always protect you from scrutiny, harassment, or worse.
It’s for families who now have to carry papers “just in case.” For people who know that being unremarkable to certain eyes is sometimes the safest form of visibility. For anyone who needs to move through systems that don’t always serve justice.
My teenage friend deserves to be able to go to birthday parties (and do everything else) without anyone threatening her existence and right to be here. If you know someone who needs this kind of protection, please share this with them.