ASTRAL CANDLES
by Lady Bridget, © 1998
An astral candle is used in our tradition to represent a person, generally yourself, on the altar. It is used at Esbats to link your subconcious to the group's subconcious. Because the altar represents the subconcious mind, when you are doing work alone, the altar is your subconcious representation. But in a group, it represents the group mind, and so to link ourselves to that group mind, we light our astral candle and place it on the altar. It also signifies that we are here of our own free will, and we intend to fully participate in the coming ritual.
TO MAKE AN ASTRAL CANDLE FOR THE ALTAR
Referring to the table below, you will use a larger candle for the primary color as your base, and a smaller candle for the secondary color. You will carve your name, birthdate, symbol or sigil on the larger candle. You can use a "sacred toothpick" or your athame, or your boline, whatever your tradition or your own personal preferences dictate. You can carve into this candle whatever you use to symbolically represent yourself; whether that be your craft name, or some glyph or sigil. You can put your astrological sign on there also.
Now, use the smaller candle to drip onto the larger one. This is best done over a paper towel, as it gets a bit messy. You can drip in any patterns that please you, spirals, stripes, dots, whatever. When covered to your satisfaction - add breath to your candle by blowing on it. This joins your essence, your breath, to the candle. Hold the candle with your pinky's together, palms out, with the candle resting on your pinky fingers, and the wick up. Start from the base to the wick, blowing up. Turn the candle 1/3 around, and blow from base to wick up again. Turn the candle once more 1/3 turn, and blow again up from base to wick. (3 turns, 3 breaths)
Dressing - anoint with your zodiacal oil by putting oil onto palms and rubbing them vigorously together. Then starting from middle to wick, rub palms on candle up 3 times. Now turn the candle around, so that the base is at the top, and dress from middle to base 3 times. Turn the candle again so that the wick is at the top and then dress from base to wick 3 times. It is not necessary to put more oil on your hands to do this, one application will be enough oil.
Protect this candle because it now has a psychic link to you.
ASTRAL CANDLE COLORS ..> Sign Primary Color Secondary Color
Aquarius blue green
Pisces white green
Aries white pink
Taurus red yellow
Gemini red blue
Cancer green brown
Leo red green
Virgo gold black
Libra black blue
Scorpio brown black
Sagittarius gold red
Capricorn red brown
..>
Once the basic candle is done you can add to it. You can make yourself an astral candle for example, for a money spell, and add green drips and dollar signs on top of your basic astral colors. Or any colors and signs appropriate to the spell you are doing. You should burn it for at least 15 minutes to be effective for spellwork.
Astral candles can be used for many rituals until they are all burned. They should never be discarded, but either stored safely, or allowed to burn out after the last use.
