Aerik Arkadian

Okay, sure, you’ve done candle magick before. In fact, you might even know most of this information already. But have you ever charged a candle with a guitar? No? That’s what I thought.

I decided to make a video on this topic. If you’d like to save yourself a bit of reading, you can just go right over to the M3 YouTube Channel and check it out! But yeah, I get it, sometimes it’s easier to read.

I’ll cover the same topics in this article. We’ll talk about different types of candles you might encounter, what functions those candles can serve, choosing the right candle for your ritual, how to dress or anoint your candles, and finally, how to use candles in your spellwork. I’ll even show you a short prosperity ritual that you can do at home… and to put my own musical spin on things, I’ll be charging my candle with my guitar, but more on that later!

Types of Candles

There’s tons of different candle styles to choose from. Let’s check some out, but first, go ahead and do yourself a favor. Buy the biggest, cheapest box of candles you can find that includes multiples in all the basic colors. That way, you’ll be stocked up for any impromptu needs that crop up throughout the year. You’d be surprised how fast 100 candles goes.

100 pack of chime candles on Amazon (yeah, even though the box says “birthday candles”)

Chime Candles: We also sometimes call these “spell candles” or “working candles.” They’re fairly thin and 4” tall. Most importantly, they’re cheap. If you go to your neighborhood metaphysical shop, you can typically pick them up for somewhere between $2-3 each, but it’s way cheaper to buy them in bulk.

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Pro Tip: I usually find that chime candles are cheaper to buy online, but novenas are cheaper to buy at the grocery store or dollar store. You can buy the saint candles, too. Yep. Even the Jesus candles! Don’t worry, the labels usually peel right off.

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Other Things That come in Handy

Now that we’ve talked about candles, let’s talk about other things that are related to candles.

Lighter: This is how I personally light candles. I’m a big fan of the ones with long, bendable necks — it makes it really easy to light novenas. I also have a cool electric lighter, which works well if you feel comfortable using electronic devices inside your ritual.

Matches: Matches can definitely light candles too. Some people have a bit of a bias against using matches because they momentarily give off sulfur, which is frequently used in banishings. Am I saying you shouldn’t use them? No. I’m just telling you why other people might say you shouldn’t. Personally, I have nothing against matches. The only reason I don’t use them is because it’s hard to reach inside our novenas once they’ve burned down.

Candle Snuffer: This handy-dandy tool will allow you to easily put your candles out. You’ll want one with an articulating head so it can reach inside novenas. Since we’re on this topic, it’s not necessary to dip the snuffer in the melted wax when you put out a candle. Just be patient and hold it over the flame.

Boline: This is the white-handled knife. You need something to carve wax with, and in my tradition, we don’t use athames to cut anything. If you don’t have a boline, a tooth pick will work.

Candle Holders or Glass Plate: Be cool about fire safety guys. Do you know how many deaths are caused each year by witches performing unsafe candle magick spells? Neither do I, but if you find that statistic, please share it as a warning for others.

Herbs and Oils: You might be using these to dress your candle, so they’re good to have on hand.

Uses

In our coven, a typical ritual includes a variety of different candles, even if we’re not doing candle magick.

Quarter Candles: We’ve tried out several different types of quarter candles. I can remember for our first circles, Selene and I used a pack of votives. They were all white! I took a sharpie and marked the bottoms with “N, W, S, E” so they wouldn’t get mixed up. For a while, we used pillar candles on tall wooden holders, which felt pretty fancy. Recently, however, we’ve been using novenas attached to wall sconces, which gives us way more floor space. Quarter candles should be colored to match their element/direction. In our tradition, that is:

• East: Air, Yellow
• South: Fire, Red
• West: Water, Blue
• North: Earth, Green

Deity Candles: We like to use white novenas on our altar to represent the god and goddess. These candles last for a while, so they go through tons of rituals and carry the energy forward. My personal preference for white candles here is based on the fact that white contains every color. When I think of god/goddess energy, it’s often as pure white light that gets broken down into elemental energies, just like a prism will refract white light into colors.

Light: A purely candlelit ritual does have a nice feel to it, but when we’re reading things, we usually prefer to go with electric lights. We have a tiny music stand light that we clip onto things to help illuminate our book of shadows.

Spellwork: Yep! That’s kind of the point of this whole lesson, right? Using spell candles? Don’t worry, we’re getting there.

But before we choose the perfect candle for our working, there are just a few things to keep in mind…

Choosing a Candle for Your Ritual

Who knew there was so much to think about? Alright, I’m actually getting tired of talking about candles. Let’s talk about something else for a minute. The other day, I had this weird dream where I was training to be a firefighter. There was a giant obstacle course where you had to jump off a building. It was pretty scary stuff. I’ve never wanted to be a firefighter. Weird, right? Maybe the imagery of “fighting fires” has to do with a subconscious feeling of needing help solving problems in real life. Or maybe I just fell asleep to a weird TV show. Who knows! Either way, one thing you could do to help me is subscribing on YouTube or consider supporting me on Patreon. Wow, what a segue! I bet you weren’t expecting that. Okay, back to candles.

Electric vs Flame: I’m not sure if this necessary to say, but battery-operated candles do not count as magickal tools in my book. What else do we call these? “Flameless” … how about “Fake?” When you’re doing candle magick, you actually need something that is going to burn. I have occasionally seen people use flameless candles for their deity candles on the altar, and I’ll give that a pass because I didn’t notice until the ritual was over.

Scented or Unscented: If you can help it, don’t use scented candles for magick. Most scented candles use synthetic chemicals to mimic the aromas of essential oils. An unscented candle is like a blank slate, ready for you to customize with whatever intention you desire.

Burn Time: As a general guideline, you can figure most ritual candles will burn at a rate of 1 hour per inch, but the exact time will depend on the type of wax used. Beeswax candles usually burn the longest, paraffin wax candles are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, and soy wax candles usually have the shortest burn time. If you don’t know for sure, your candle is probably paraffin wax.

Putting Them Out: Will your candle burn straight through or will you need to put them out? Try not to blow them out. This is commonly seen as “scattering the energy.” That’s why it’s crucial to have a decent candle snuffer. Personally, once I’ve lit a working candle, I really don’t like to put it out. I feel like it interrupts the energy.

Safety: If your candle is going to burn for 3 hours, will you be sitting with it the whole time? It’s a good idea to keep them on glass plates or in candle holders, but you should never leave them unattended. If we have candle that needs to burn all night, it goes in an empty bathtub.

Dressing or Annointing

This is one of the most important steps in the candle magick process. You’ll add oils, symbols, and/or herbs to your candle. This starts to transform it into a magickal object instead of just a piece of wax.

I find it usually works best to do things in the following order:

• Carving
• Oil
• Herbs

I rarely add herbs to my candles, but that’s another topic. You do you! What I want to focus on right now is adding the oil — there are few different schools of thought on this.

One option is to start at the bottom and move up if you want to invoke, or start at the top and move down if you want to banish. For invocation, like a prosperity ritual, you could start at the very bottom of the candle and rub oil upwards until you reach the top. For banishing, like a purification ritual, you could start at the very top of the candle and rub oil downwards until you reach the bottom.

Another option is to start in the middle and work your way up, thinking about whatever aspects of the energy you want to raise, then go back to the middle and work your way down thinking about whatever aspects of the energy you’d like to ground out. As an example of this, if I was doing a healing candle, I might start in the middle and rub oil upwards while thinking about raising the healing energy. Then, I’d go back to the middle and rub oil downwards while thinking about grounding out negativity or fear surrounding a health condition.

As you dress the candle, visualize the successful outcome of your magick! If you’re working in a group, you can take turns and pass the candle around in a circle until it’s fully covered in oil.

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A Simple Prosperity Candle Ritual

This is an easy spell you can do at home. Who doesn’t want more money, right?

You’ll need:

• Green candle (gold also works and white can substitute for almost anything)
• Cinammon oil (you may substitute another oil you associate with money)
• Boline or other carving tool (a toothpick works)
• Glass plate or candle holder

Okay, if you like rhymes, here’s your spell:

Air, Water, Earth and Fire

Bring the money I desire

It took me approximately 15 seconds to come up with that, so if you have a better one, by all means please share it in the comments.

Let’s get started!

Now we’re going to dress the candle with oil. I use cinnamon oil because I associate it with money. Start at the bottom of the candle and work your way up a few times while visualizing the money coming into your life.

Secure the candle to the glass plate by melting the bottom a tad or stick it in a handy candle holder.

Charge the candle, chant the spell, light it, and let the magick do its work!

Charging Candles with music

Charging an item is the act of adding your energy and intention to it. This is an important moment, but it can also be very personal. There’s lots of different ways to charge things and it’s only limited by your imagination. You could…

• Hold the item in your hands and visualize energy flowing into it
• Take a deep breath and exhale into an item
• Dance and chant

But don’t forget, you can charge things with music too! In the video, I strum some guitar chords in front of the candle with the intention of charging it. Did you catch that italicized portion? It’s rather important. Noise without intention is just noise. Noise with intention is magick. Sound waves are powerful and completely underutilized in most practices. If you don’t play guitar (or any other instrument), here are some other options for sound charging:

• Tuning forks
• Singing bowls
• Drum
• Clap and stomp
• Sing

If you think chanting a spell is powerful, just imagine what happens if you add a melody and turn it into a song. You’re raising your vibration and sending that energetic frequency straight into an object.

Conclusions

To some, candle magick might seem simplistic, basic, and overdone. It is simple, yes, but most importantly… it’s effective. After all, candles are inherently magickal. Every candle start as a solid. The fire melts the wax into a liquid. When the liquid evaporates, it turns into a gas, which rises to carry our intentions to the heavens.

Hope you had fun with this! If you’ve got a basic topic that you’d like me to put a musical spin on, please feel free to reach out and let me know!