More Than You Ever Thought You Wanted To Know About Candle Magic
Article and photos by Bedazzlecat
Basic candle magic that you see in every book and on every website lets you in on the bare minimum of what there is to know about candle magic. Every witch and magician has a few secrets and tips that they have in the back of their mind. Experienced witches have the advantage not only of their own experience, but having had countless conversations and discussion with other witches, and after a while, you’ve taken candle magic from a rote step-by-step operation to a real art.
Some of what’s in this article, you already know if you’ve read anything about candle magic. But some of it may be new to you. Some of it may be useless to you, and some of it may just take your candle magic to a whole new level of awesomeness. Use what you need, discard what you don’t, don’t ever forget to let inspiration guide you to new ways of doing things, then share with others what you’ve learned.
It is important to empower or “charge” a candle before you cast with it. Also, you should choose the candles shape and form as well as color carefully.
Dress taper candles keeping in mind the direction in which they burn. To attract or draw something to you, annoint with oil from top to bottom. To banish, dress from bottom to top, the opposite direction from which the candle burns.
Once a taper is dressed with oil it can be rolled in the appropriate herbs.
Use a burin (or needle, nail, crystal, fingernail) to carve symbols into the candle after you have rolled the candle in herbs so that the symbols will be visible. If you will not be using herbs on the candle, carve it before you dress it with oil.
Pray over your candle out loud before lighting. Use the light of your breath and words. Pray like you mean it and clam what is yours.
For an extra boost of energy and to seal the power into the candle, rub your hands together to create friction, to raise energy. When you have raised enough, pull a “string” of energy out of your right palm and wrap it around the candle as it sits on the pentacle. Once the candle is wrapped in the string of energy, cup both hands around the candle and move them in the same direction you dressed the candle and move them in the same direction you dressed the candle with oil.
When using vigil candles you dress the candle by using a skewer to pierce the candle through to the bottom. Use an appropriate number of holes. 5 for money. 2 for love. 4 for healing, 3 for proteciton, 1 for focus. Then pour oil into the candle and be sure the oil falls into each hole. Sprinkle the top with herbs and draw symbols into the top. Some people decorate vigil and jar candels when they are used for specific purposes and call on specific deities.
Much of the same procedures with tapers can be applied to pillars and votives, but they are easy to carve spells in a spiral up or down the candle according to need. Start at the bottom and write your spell counter clockwise spiraling around the candle to banish, or start at the top and write your spell clockwise to attract.
With tea lites, put a drop of oil and/or a pinch of herbs or powder on top after carving whatever symbols you need on the top. Tea lites and votives that are white in color, you can put them into colored glass holders to use color energy in the spell. This is useful if you don’t want to buy a lot of different colored candles.
If you need a candle to burn fast this technique packs a powerful punch. (Thanks to a Witch named Penda, for this tip!) This works best with taper candles, especially the 4” chime taper candles. Use a fire safe surface far away from anything flammable. I like to use a metal candle holder inside a cast iron cauldron in the middle of the floor but a flat stone also works well, or you can light it on a slab of concrete outside. Glass and ceramic candle holders will explode. You can also melt a bit of wax and stand the candle on the fireproof surface if you don’t have a metal candle holder. Take a piece of paper and write your petition. Roll the petition around the candle. If you want, you can sprinkle herbs in between the candle and the paper. Wrap the paper covered candle with natural thread or yarn. Leave enough of the bare candle at the bottom to place in the holder. Tie it off or seal with a couple of drops of wax. When the candle is lit, it will burn fast and high as the petition catches fire. This is great for emergencies when you need powerful fast action.
Birthday candles are useful for burning every day. Dress with oil the say way you do a taper and light, dripping wax onto the surface you are using and place. I like to use birthday candles to light over my honey jars.
Surround your candles with magical things in patterns of stars, circles,a nd other shapes according to the need. Crystals are very useful for creating a crystal grid or matrix around a candle for spell work. Herbal mixes and powders are great as is salt, cascarilla, and dirt. Place paper sigls, talismans, and petitions beneath your candles to lend power. Mojo bags should be placed in front of the candles.
Altar candles are important in rituals calling on specific powers for invocation. Typically, there is a pair of candles, ideally in black representing polarity. Other color opposites can also be used for different kinds of polarity and can align with a deity’s energy. Color polarity helps to create a magical tension for raising energy. You don’t have to have a dogma attached to this use of polarity, but if you work with a duality of deities, these candle representations work well as representations of that.
Other altar candles are Elemental candles. They are the colors that correspond to the 4 elements and are typically in primary colors, each associated with one of the 4 (or 3, 5, or 7) elements. The usual representation of 4 elements is air=yellow, fire=red, water=blue, earth=green.
For simple workings that do not involve other candles the working candle can be used as a light and energy source. The working candle can be a pillar, vigil or another candle that is of a good size and will last for many uses. Ideal colors are those that align well with your own personal power (astrologically, elementally) or have many general associations. Black, white, and silver are neutral and ideal to use if you do not bother with astrology or don’t align with any one element. You can also just use whichever color makes you feel the most powerful. Working candles can be used for every ritual. You don’t have to use a new candle with working and altar candles for every ritual like you do with spell candles.
Loading a candle is usually done with pillars but can also be done with votives. Use a knife to carve a small hollow in the bottom of the candle. Use a candle warmer or oil burner to melt the wax you remove. Place things within the hollow to lend power to the candle such as herbs, gemstone chips, coins, roots, resins, dirt, personal effects, etc. Pour the melted wax back into the hole over the items and as it hardens, flatten and smooth the wax over with your fingers.
(Photo above: Altar set up for making a working candle)
Here is a method I like to create a working candle for regular use. Get a silver coin (like a Mercury dime) or other piece of silver, a quartz crystal or Herkimer diamond, a lodestone (you can use a small magnetic hematite bead, which are easy to find these days), and a pinch of ground resin (frankincense, myrrh, dragon’s blood, amber, copal). I would also include a bit of your own DNA such as hair, fingernails, or bodily fluid soaked into a tiny bit of cotton or silk. I personally like a small bit of blood from my fingertip soaked into the end of a Q tip. This makes the candle like a battery that is completely attuned to empowering you and your magic. Then when the candle burns down the reusable items can be transferred to the next candle and will strengthen in power over time. I would suggest that you not use your working candle to do anything other than empower you and your work. If you cast spells on/for others, you should have separate candles for that.
Let’s not forget about offertory candles. These are candles that are burned in offering to a spirit. I find that beeswax candles are ideal for this. Beeswax is like food for spirits when it is burned, gives off a pleasant scent on its own, and is all-natural. However, it is expensive, and if you don’t have any, you can use other candles. Sweet and spice-scented soy candles (usually jar candles) are also well-loved by deities and household spirits. For ancestors, I like to use a white or purple votive dressed with spearmint oil. I got this idea from a sorcerer named Moloch (www.molochsorcery.com), who uses spearmint oil on a purple candle as a reward offering to all spirits, but I find that ancestral spirits like this the best.
Some people like to decorate pillar candles on their surface with stones, flowers, leaves, shells, etc. You do this by warming the wax enough to soften it (you can use a hair dryer for this). You then adhere the items or imbed them into the soften wax. Some people also drip wax from another candle over a new candle to adhere stuff to their candle.
A lot of people make a big fuss over using scent in candles. The fact is that most essential oils do not do very well in hot wax, with a few exceptions. And it takes a lot of essential oil to even get a hint of scent because most of the essential oil is ruined by the heat as soon as it hit’s the melted wax. And we all know how expensive essential oils can be! Scented candles used for magic are made with fragrance oils 90% of the time. If using artificial fragrance oils interferes with your magic, avoid all scented candles. If you want essential oils only to scent your candles, stick to dressing unscented candles with essential oils diluted in carrier oils or be willing to spend a LOT of money.
Personally, there is nothing as rewarding as making your own candles. It’s a messy, hard job, but if you ever get the chance you should do it. When I make candles, I use a fragrance oil that corresponds to the purpose of the candle. This is the only exception to my no fragrance oils rule! Essential oils evaporate and break down in heat and I have yet to find an honest magical candlemaker who didn’t use a at least some fragrance oils if thir candles were highly scented. Some gloss them pver as “essence oils” but that’s code for artificially scented oils. Many fragrance oils mimic essential oils pretty well, but I try to find fragrance oils that are safe to use in soaps and lotions so that I also use herbs and resins mixed in with my wax and at the bottom of the candle mold and sprinkled over the top when I top off the candles.
Some people like to make rolled beeswax candles. I’ve done this a few times, but it’s not something that is a staple practice for me. But you take a sheet of beeswax and roll it around the wick. You can add oils and herbs as you roll. (Thanks, Mama Starr for this tip http://oldstyleconjure.com/)
Hopefully, by reading this, you’ve found something new, or inspiration for something new that will enhance your magical experience with candle magic. Below, I’ve included some links to websites and videos that may also be helpful to you.
Some of these videos have more than one part, so I’ve provided to link to part 1 and you’ll have to follow the links to the other parts at the end of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsvci9gofTs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=IFRfBqhmTlU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoAyGhdkS4
http://youtu.be/AqyKapBc2H8
http://www.netplaces.com/candle-making/candlemaking-as-a-sacred-art/making-candle-magic.htm
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/bookofshadows/a/Candle_Magic.htm
http://hecatescauldron.org/Candle%20Magick.htm
http://www.cantrap.net/technique/wax.html
http://www.cantrap.net/theory/wix.html
http://www.moonsmusings.com/pagan/candlemagick.html
