A Beginner’s Guide to Candle Magic
The very first spell that most folks cast happens on our birthdays. Someone lovingly purchases or bakes a cake for us and candles, representing our age, are placed on top. Those candles are lit and as we close our eyes, we are told to make a silent wish and blow them out.
Many believe that this tradition dates back to ancient pagan rituals. Our birthdays were considered to be important since they marked our entry into this world. The candles on the cake held great force and power and, once blown out, the wish was carried by the smoke and sent to the gods. The gods, in turn, would receive the message and grant the wish.
Candles are integral to spell-casting and are arguably the best and most inexpensive way to get started. Most of us have a supply of candles or tealights in our homes, and some light them at night while having dinner, reading a book or writing. However, candles symbolize elements - earth, air, water and fire and, if you have a desire in mind, all you need is fire and the intent to make it happen.
Candle colours and their correspondences
One of the most important aspects of candle magic is to use the right colour candle. Some spells are rigid and need a precise colour or shade of a colour while others are more open-ended. If you are unsure of which candle to use, always use a white candle - it’s a neutral and pure colour that can be used for anything. Here are the main candle colours and their correspondences:
White
- Cleansing homes
- Purifying spaces
- Creating harmony
- Invoking spirits
- Improving communication with others
- Summoning guides and angels
- For use in every situation
Blue
- Promoting restful sleep
- Finding the truth
- Gaining wisdom and knowledge
- Invoking psychic visions
- Calming emotions
- Suppressing anger
- Aiding meditation
- Moving your house
- Becoming more patient with others
- Curing a fever
- Having a better understanding
- Protection
Red
- Promoting strength and vigor
- Rejuvenating energy and stamina
- Conjuring willpower
- Summoning courage
- Inciting passion and sexual love
- Sparking enthusiasm
- Prompting quick results
- Warding off enemies
- Becoming more attractive to others
Pink
- Healing emotions
- Attracting romance
- Becoming more caring
- Inviting peace and tranquility
- Healing rifts
- Banishing selfish emotions
- Protecting family and friendships
- Invoking spiritual healing
- Being more compassionate
Green
- Accumulating money and wealth
- Promoting prosperity and abundance
- Accomplishing goals
- Growing plants
- Attracting luck
- Negotiating employment matters and finding new jobs
- Hastening conception and solving fertility issues
- Casting out greed and resentment
Yellow
- Increasing activity
- Resolving health matters
- Nurturing creativity and imagination
- Passing exams and learning
- Aiding concentration
- Controlling mood swings
- Protecting yourself when travelling
- Persuading others
- Healing problems associated with the head
Orange
- Increasing energy and stamina
- Improving the mind and memory
- Promoting success and luck
- Developing business and career
- Helping those with new jobs
- Clarifying legal matters and justice
- Selling goods or houses
- Capturing a thief or recovering lost property
- Removing fear
Purple
- Summoning spirit help
- Bringing peace and tranquility and harmony
- Improving psychic ability
- Aiding astral projection
- Healing
- Easing sadness
- Improving male energy
- Summoning spiritual protection
Brown
- Attuning with the trees and earth
- Promoting concentration
- Helping with decisiveness
- Protecting animals
- Amplifying assertiveness
- Aiding Friendships
- Bringing material gain
- Gaining mental stability
- Connecting with Mother Nature
- Studying and learning
Silver
- Summoning the Mother Goddess
- Drawing down the moon
- Connecting with lunar animals
- Purifying female energy
- Improving all psychic abilities
- Aiding clairvoyance and the unconscious mind
- Ridding negativity
- Developing intuition
- Interpreting messages in dreams
- Banishing bad habits
Gold
- Healing and enhancing well-being
- Rejuvenating yourself
- Improving intelligence
- Bringing financial gain and wealth
- Winning competitions
- Attracting love and happiness
- Maintaining peace in families
- Cosmic ordering
Black
- Protection
- Strength
- Banishing
- Reversal
- Hex-breaking
Choosing and cleansing your candles
It’s important to magically disinfect your candles before use - most are mass-produced across the world, often in less-than-ideal conditions and, because wax is a vessel for energy, every person that has come into contact with your candle has effectively deposited some of their energy into the wax.
There are many ways to cleanse candles before a spell and most folks have a ritual that works for them. Some people enjoy a prolonged ceremony of candle cleansing while others leave them in the garden to soak up moonlight. Below is a method of cleansing referred to as “anointing” and involves water and oils to prepare the candle before the ritual begins.
Wipe the wax with a paper towel, removing all traces of debris and dust.
Step 2: Prepare a solution
Mix salt and water into a saucepan on medium heat. Once the salt dissolves, let cool.
Standing in front of the sink, hold the candle in your left hand. Pour a small amount of the saline solution over the candle, being careful not to wet the wick. Take a fresh paper towel and dry thoroughly while saying:
“This magickal water cleanses thee,
With good intent and purity.”
With a small paring knife or needle, scratch your full name and your goal into the wax. It doesn’t matter where you inscribe the words, and it’s not important that they’re particularly legible. Once the candle is lit, these words will burn away and give the spell more clout.
Pour some vegetable oil into a small bowl. You can feel free to mix in herbs that are associated with your spell’s intent. Hold the candle in your left hand again. Dip the first finger of your right hand into the oil and run it down the candle from top to bottom in a line. Say this invocation:
“This magickal oil anoints thee, with all things good, magickally.”
Step 6: Rhyming and Repetition
One of the ways we can add more power to a spell is by repeating the incantation over and over. Often, prewritten spells, both ancient and modern, will rhyme with some kind of poetic fluidity. Repetition will help enforce the message.
After repeating your spell the desired number of times, you will need to close the ritual. Choose one of the phrases below to say before looking upward and saying thank you.
“And so it is.”
“The spell is cast.”
“So mote it be.”
Sources other than my grimoire:
Robbins, Shawn, and Charity Bedell. The good witchs guide: a modern-day wiccapedia of magickal ingredients and spells. New York: Sterling Ethos, 2017.
