Binding Reapers

Binding reapers is a very complex ritual that has very powerful and very dark roots in magic. The ritual requires several steps and objects but once completed, the person performing the ritual has full control of the reaper, including its abilities, although forcing the reaper to perform death transference required an additional set of ritual altogether.

The ritual is very dangerous and delicate. A misstep or disruption could destroy the bind and set the reaper free. Additionally, as most reapers are neutral and follow the natural order, forcing them to kill a person who is not yet meant to die, coupled with transferring that person’s life to another who is supposed to die, would incite their anger. Sam Winchester described the ritual as ‘putting a dog leash on a great white”. One practitioner of the ritual was killed by the very reaper she bound.

More powerful beings, like demons, could bind reapers without the use of any ritual.

Binding
A spell must be performed to bind the reaper. The binding ritual also requires a black altar with bones, human blood, several crosses, with at least one Coptic cross. The Coptic cross must be ubiquitous—the altar has to have one, the performer of the ritual also has to have on around himself or herself to keep the reaper under control.

Forcing Death Transference
For the reaper to perform death transference, the person or being controlling the reaper had to mark a photograph of the target. The photograph is then placed in the middle of the altar. The person controlling the reaper must then recite a prayer while holding onto a Coptic cross. Disruption of this ritual by destroying the cross would set the reaper free.

Incapacitation
This required trapping the reaper in a set of sigils, not unlike trapping a demon in a devil’s trap. However, the sigils not only prevented a reaper’s abilities or movement—it also induces a comatose state to the reaper inside. The sigils could hold at least two reapers.

Crowley, as King of Hell, negated a reaper from escaping him without any recognizable ritual.



