Practical Candle Magic: Witchcraft with Wick & Wax

• Author: Rachel Patterson
• Genre: Paranormal/New Age
• Publication Date: December 8, 2023
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications

Thank you to NetGalley and Llewellyn Publications for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Light that flame and set your magic in motion with bestselling author Rachel Patterson’s guide to candle magic. Featuring more than thirty-five spells and exercises, this book guides you through every aspect of working with wick and wax, from the fundamentals to creating your own candle magic. Rachel teaches you how to choose a candle, charge it with intention, dress it with oils and herbs, and complete your spell. She also shows you how to amplify your magic with color, crystals, sigils, grids, tarot cards, and Zodiac signs. Discover candle spells for luck, prosperity, peace, protection, and love. Explore candle divination, candles in ritual and worship, candle work to cast out negativity, and much more. This book makes it easier than ever to start or advance your practice.

I’ve always had a minor (okay, major) obsession with candles. You can always find plenty of scented candles in my room, but it was only recently that I realized how vital candles are to the practice of witchcraft. As an aspiring witch, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and starting to reach out to others. But some books speak to me more than others. This one stood out from the pack.

It seems like the books describing witchcraft fall into two categories: either a very surface-level description of a lot of different aspects of magic and witchcraft, or a super-detailed exploration of one aspect. I was kind of expecting this one to be the second type, but was surprised to find it completely broke the mold and turned out to be a hybrid of both kinds. 

While Patterson focuses exclusively on candle magic, she takes her readers on a pretty thorough journey through all of the different ways it can be used, and all of the different aspects of candle magic to consider—what type of candle, color, how to charge it, choosing oils and herbs to dress it with and how to do that, how to enhance the spell through the use of sigils, rules, oracles, tarot cards, and/or Zodiac signs, as well as making use of the solar/lunar/day of the week/crystal affinities of the spell effects. There are spells and guidance for using candles in divination and meditation. 

Patterson manages to make this book appropriate for both beginner and advanced practitioners. Throughout, she urges readers to trust their own intuition, and go with whatever feels right for them and the spell that they are choosing. However, for the beginners, she also provides simple and easy to follow directions. Each of the spells require items that are easy to obtain, most of them directly from the pantry, and the lists of items aren’t long. I left a ton of bookmarks in my copy, and can’t wait to start practicing candle magic of my own, now that I know how to set up protection, charge items with intention, and feel confident in doing this safely. 

I loved the personal tone that Patterson takes with her readers. It allowed me to feel like I was listening to a trusted mentor or friend who knew more about a topic than I did, rather than reading a blurb of information and then a list of instructions. Her little vignettes add a touch of fun to the book, and this is someone who clearly knows her stuff. Overall, this was a wonderful book that taught me a lot, and will teach me even more with continued readings. If you’re interested, even a little, in candle magic, this is the book for you.

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