Candle magic is the simplest working in the Craft, and usually the first that anyone tries. It needs a candle, a purpose and some attention, and it rewards being done properly.
Witches have always worked by candlelight. A flame is the element of fire made small enough to sit on a table, and it is the most natural focus there is: the eye goes to it of its own accord, and the mind follows. A candle lit for a purpose, with full attention, is a small rite complete in itself. It is also, if it is done carelessly, the commonest way for a witch to set fire to the curtains.
Choosing a candle
Any candle will do, but it should be new, and kept for the purpose. A candle that has lit a dinner party has had a dinner party's attention. Plain household candles and small tapers are ideal, and short ones are best for a first working, because a candle that takes nine hours to burn down is a commitment.
The colour may be chosen for the purpose, by the correspondences: green for a garden, blue for healing, red for courage. White will serve for anything. Unscented candles are generally better, so that any scent in the working is one you have chosen.
Inscribing
A candle can be inscribed with whatever focuses the purpose: a name, a word, a date, a symbol, a sign from one of the magical alphabets, or a small drawing of the thing desired. In a circle this is done with the white-handled knife, the practical blade of the working tools. At home a darning needle or a sharpened stick does as well. Warm the candle in the hand first, and the wax will cut cleanly.
Keep it simple. A single word cut with full attention is worth more than a column of runes copied from a book while thinking about something else.
Dressing
To dress a candle is to anoint it with oil. Olive oil from the kitchen is perfectly good, and an essential oil chosen for the purpose may be added to it, a drop or two at most. Many witches rub the oil from the middle of the candle towards the ends when working to send something out, and from the ends towards the middle when working to draw something in. Use very little: an oily candle smokes and gutters, and oil makes wax burn hotter.
Some people roll a dressed candle in finely crumbled dried herbs, or hollow out the base of a thick pillar candle, pack the hollow with a herb such as lavender and seal it with melted wax, so that the scent is released when the flame burns down to it. Both are pretty, and both make the candle flare. If you try them, use a sturdy dish, keep the herbs fine and few, and watch it.
The working
- Decide exactly what you are working for, in one sentence, and write it down. If you cannot put it in one sentence, you are not ready.
- Prepare your space, and centre yourself. A cast circle is not necessary for a small working, but some marking of the space and the time is.
- Hold the unlit candle in both hands and fill it with the purpose. See the thing already done, with every sense you can bring to it, as described on the page about visualisation.
- Inscribe and dress it, if you are going to, still holding the image.
- Set it in its holder and light it. Say the purpose aloud, in your own words, plainly. Rhymes are traditional and help some people. They are not required.
- Sit with the flame for a while, holding the image. When the attention begins to slip, stop.
- Give thanks, ground yourself, and get on with whatever ordinary action the purpose requires.
Letting it burn
Some witches let the candle burn down in one sitting. Others burn it for a set time each night, often over seven nights, snuffing it between. Either is right, provided that it is never left alone. We snuff rather than blow out the flame, a custom with no better reason behind it than that it is quieter and does not spatter wax over the altar.
When the candle has burned down, what is left can be buried, or simply thrown away with thanks. It should not be melted down for another purpose. Then put the working out of mind, which is the hardest instruction in this whole page and the most important. Magic that is fretted over does not work well, and the page on magic explains why release matters.
A word on the moon. A candle for increase is best lit in the waxing moon and one for ending in the waning, as the page on working with the moon explains. Some books say that a black candle, burned first, clears the way for a working on the wrong tide. We have no use for the theory. Either wait for the right tide, or turn the working round, as that page describes.
A candle for someone else
The commonest candle magic is for another person: someone ill, or in trouble, or facing something hard. Ask them first. Magic is not worked on anyone's behalf without their agreement, as the page on magic explains, and that includes healing. Once they have agreed, inscribe their name, hold them in mind well and happy, and let the candle burn. Do not ring them afterwards to say that you did it.
Keeping it safe
Fire
Never leave a burning candle unattended, and never go to sleep with one lit. Use a stable holder on a heatproof surface, well away from curtains, shelves, paper, hair and loose sleeves. Keep candles out of reach of children and animals. Oils and herbs make wax burn faster and higher. Tea lights become very hot underneath and should stand on a dish. If you are going to work by candlelight often, a smoke alarm and a fire blanket are part of the furniture of a witch's house, and no less magical than anything else in it.
In our coven
The coven's candles for the year are laid on the altar and blessed at Candlemas, and every candle lit in our circles comes from that store. At Yule the first light is kindled from the stub of the previous year's Yule candle. Most of us, at home, keep a small box of candles from the blessed store for the times when a friend telephones with bad news.