Roll your own

Ooooh…my first ‘How to’ post, don’t expect many, this is very unlikely to turn into a ‘how to do magic’ blog, there are already millions of folk around who do it much better. This is one of my little personal ritual quirks though, so I thought I’d share in case it inspires anyone.

Candle magic is a great place for anyone to start off their actual spellwork practice. I’m not going to cover a ritual format or anything here – but what I do want to talk to you about is making your own candles, the easy way.

It is my firm opinion that, where possible, one should make their own magical tools, be that phylacteries, amulets, candles, wands, even knives, if one can.

In my opinion the process of creating your own magical items puts you in the position of creator/creatrix right from the off. The item you have made is an extension of you, you have conceived it in your mind and then birthed it with your hands. Using self made items weaves you into and throughout the ritual to a greater degree. As such, I personally feel making one’s own tools adds power to any working, and let’s face it, it can add a hell of a lot of flair too, if you like that kind of thing. I like that kind of thing, I like it a lot.

Making candles sounds so much harder than it needs to be, this is actually one of the easiest ways to personalise your ritual tools. Of course, you can go down the route of buying wax and dye and moulds and melting pots or … and wait for it here … you can buy wax rolling sheets and simply roll your own. I buy mine from a company call Thorne in the UK but they are easy to get everywhere the internet exists.

Magical penetration (phnar) of the materia aside, I also find this a cost and time saving in the long run. Candles aren’t cheap and depending on the working you will want different sizes, shapes and colours, this £25 multipack from Thorne usually lasts me 6 -12 months.

Rolling your own candles really adds flexibility to ritual design, as you can make them to whatever size you want; tall, short, fat, thin, straight, pointy. You can write on the wick before rolling to imbue the candle with the energy of the working before it even begins – examples being the name of a person or a spirit or of something you wish to attract or banish.

You can work small amounts of charged herbs and oils into the candle during the rolling process too so that the anointing of the candle is within the piece, rather than just on the outer surface. I like to roll my candles toward me for attraction work and away from me for anything I’m trying to banish. I talk to them too, I talk to everything I work magic with.

It is probably best to illustrate this with an example and some terrible artificial light mobile phone photography, so here goes nothing:

You will need:
– a candle rolling sheet kit with wax a relevant colour and candle wick
– scissors
– a pen (optional)
– relevant herbs (optional)
– pestle and mortar (if using herbs)
– relevant magical condition or planetary oil for your purpose

The first thing to think about before doing any results based magic is what you really want that result to be and how you want to go about getting it. There is more than one route to any destination after all. Having a clear result and some route for the result to arrive is important.

Lets, for now, assume we want to do a simple candle spell to banish a bad habit, as that is what I’m doing through the first half of January. We would first check our timing, we would want to do any banishing work when the moon is waning (getting smaller) and ideally on a relevant planetary day and hour. I am working on banishing confusion and indecision during the January waning Moon so these candles are for that.

I would also suggest using the actual planetary day and hour to begin your work. Making the candles only takes about 5 minutes maximum, so if you get everything out and ready for your spell beforehand, you can sit down when your planetary app goes ping, and start the process. App wise I use Planetary Hours for Android. There are lots of others, many recommend Time Nomad, but I refuse to use Apple products so can’t comment on that as it is iPhone only.

I’m making this a lunar rite as am focusing on *what I consider* lunar qualities throughout the month of January. Lunar colours, according to ya boy, Agrippa, are silver or Argentine Earth (whatever that is). I don’t have those to hand so I’m choosing the nearest I can, this silvery, greenish grey has a distinctly lunar quality.

Start by cutting the wax to correspond with the length/type of candle you want to make. A typical sheet of beeswax makes a candle of 1 inch thickness and 8 inches high.

I often make very short candles for workings I want to complete before bed, longer candles for things I want to burn for a few hours. Making tapered candles can eke the wax out for more workings too if you are on a budget, also, they are pretty. I’m going to make a taper here, and you can easily work out how to make a straight candles from these pictures too.

Once you have your candle wax cut, cut a corresponding piece of wick, I usually aim for around 1.5 cm longer than the longest point of the candle itself. This is where you would write on the wick, if so desired. Here I have just added the names of the things I want to banish.

You would then add a very small amount of your chosen herbs or oils to the wax before rolling. Very small. Minute. We don’t want to start a house fire here. Suitable herbs for this particular banishing would be hyssop, sage and sea salt, though there are tons of others you could use. You can find lists of correspondences all over the internet, I tend to use a mixture of Agrippan, Wiccan and Hoodoo correspondences.

I mix these together in a pestle and mortar, just a small pinch of each, extolling their relevant virtues of each as I add and combine them, and instructing them in their task ahead. I tend to grind them slightly and then delicately sprinkle over the inside of the wax. Sometimes I add the tiniest amount of an oil to my fingers and dab this inside too, but very little or your candle will not stick when you roll.

Here I used a lunar planetary oil from my chum RRH over at Crucible Hermetic.

Now, it is time to roll. Lay your wick across the inside edge of what will be the centre of the candle. You want the bottom end of the wick to match up with the base edge and the long end you will light to be poking out the top. As this is a banishing candle, I am going to roll the wax away from my body. Before you start to roll you want to just gently turn over the end and form a sort of fold over the wick. Once this is done you can start rolling the wax. Keep an eye on the candle base as you go, so you can ensure it is as flat as possible. You will find it sticks to itself easily – especially if you are in a warm room. If your home is cold you may want to give the wax a super quick blast with a warm hairdryer.

Do not worry if you go wrong, as long as you don’t press too hard, you can unroll and start again. Once you get to the end and you are happy, press a little more firmly toward the base to stick the whole thing together.

Tada! One home made, personalised, hand rolled candle ready for ritual.

Before burning I would speak again to the candle, explaining it’s purpose and add additional oil and a sprinkle of herbs to the outer surface, again not too much lest you banish yourself from your own home through an unfortunate herb laden inferno! Safety first.