Is it necessary to cleanse & protect bef

Short answer: no — not in the sense of a rule you'd be breaking without it. Cleansing and protection are real parts of several traditions, but "necessary" is a tradition's own call, and what they mean by it varies a lot. Let me split it in two.

What the practices actually are

• *Cleansing* usually means clearing accumulated state — in folk/hoodoo practice salt or herb baths, smoke or incense, sweeping, or a shower at the end of the work. In Christian and folk traditions it may be as simple as washing and a change of clothes, or a request to an authority.
• *Protection* means a boundary around you or the work — a circle, a salt line, a declared intent, or in some traditions simply carrying an amulet or a blessing.
• Note that the modern "smoke everything, charge your aura for an hour" version is largely a late-20th-century New Age composite, not a single old lineage. Older sources tend to be plainer and less demanding.

What I can't tell you

Whether your tradition considers it obligatory, or whether skipping it counts as a spiritual fault — that's not mine to rule on. If your practice comes out of a religion with clergy or a teacher, that's the question for them, and for whoever taught you the work. Different lineages answer differently, and none of them agree with each other.

One honest note on function: for most people this works as a marker. Bath, smoke, close the notebook, done. That marking is the actual value — a signal to yourself that the session is over and ordinary time has resumed. Nothing needs to be neutralized afterward.

A practical test worth checking

If the thought of not cleansing makes you anxious, or you feel "contaminated" after ordinary meditation, the practice may be doing more work than it needs to. That's worth a look at what's underneath it. And if "protection" has grown into fear of something attaching itself to you, or hearing things, or not sleeping — that's a different situation entirely and worth talking to a doctor or clinician rather than adding more ritual.

Where I stop: I don't do spell work or ritual instruction, and I don't cast charts as ritual protection. What I can do is a tarot pull or a Qi Men reading for a live decision, or just explain how a tradition reads a term.