I got an interesting letter last night, and I asked for permission to publish it.
Hello. I have your “Elements of Ritual” book and I love it. The thing is, you talk about candles and incense as being key essentials to ritual. I’ve been trying to learn as much as I possibly can before I do a whole ritual by myself. My problem is that I’m a college student who lives on campus, where candles and any sort of smoke or fire-related anything is strictly prohibited. I was just wondering if you have any substitution ideas or know where I can find any. I can’t always get the exact tools and things I need for my altar or rituals, which is another reason I haven’t attempted a solitary ritual yet. If you can help, that would be great. Thank you so much and I really love your work.
Blessed be
Good question! I default frequently to candles because they are inexpensive (see, students? I have your needs at heart!) and easy to get a hold of. But dorm rules are something I didn’t consider; especially when I wrote my first book. Here’s what I wrote back (edited a little):
Candles and incense are very helpful, but if you have to substitute, you can. For incense, try using an essential oil or a natural herb. For example, a sprig of fresh rosemary or lavender can be used create scent, or open an essential oil and inhale when Air is needed.
For Fire, substitute a Fire symbol; an unlit candle, a piece of ambera painting of the alchemical symbol for Fire, or perhaps a minature lion; be creative.
When candles are being used for things other than Fire, it depends upon their use. For example, if you used a candle to represent the God, instead, use another God symbol. If you used candles
to mark quarters, use a different sort of boundary marker.Blessed be,
So, those are my thoughts. I’d be interested if you have any additional ideas.
I don’t know how effective this would be, but I always thought lava lamps would look cool as quarter markers.
I love it! If you could keep yourself from snickering.
Hey, I used to hang out with the Radical Faeries. I can keep a straight face in any ritual situation.
I’ve participated in a number of rituals over the years where, for whatever reason, we couldn’t use either candles or incense. Using other items that you associate with the direction/element or symbol work perfectly well. In my first coven when I was in university we would routinely use small statuettes or figurines for the quarters for instance instead of candles.
I’ve also personally done (solitary) rituals using stones carefully selected for their elemental associations as my quarter markers. A piece of volcanic rock works really well as a Fire element symbol.
We also regularly use a feather as an Air symbol if we can’t use either incense or essential oils, and don’t have any fresh aromatic herbs handy. (Some people are allergic to incenses and perfumes so the feather works well in those cases.)
One thing that works very well for people allergic to incense is a potpourri or diffuser, which transmits the scent on steam rather than smoke. However, in the case of a “no flames” college dorm, that wouldn’t be available.
I’d look into electric scent diffusors. Most of them work simply by generating just enough heat to release a slight vapor. (Actually, they work the same way a humidifier does.) I suspect most of them have low enough heat output and power consumption that the college wouldn’t balk at the use of one. (An incandescent light bulb is a bigger fire hazard!)
I had some dried red peppers for Fire and some feathers (or potpourri) for Air when I was in college. I ended up burning candles anyway. 😉 However, those single electric candles that different places sell around Yule are a good substitute.
Okay, but here’s the thing… a lot of times candle magic is used like this — you charge the candle with the power of the whatever, and when the candle is out, or gone, the work is done.
As one who does spells as rarely as… well, as something a person does rarely, I do mostly candle spells. Any ideas on substitutions in this kind of use?
Christmas electric candles that you plug in can make very effective substitutions for candles without the hazards. And on January 5th, they are amazingly inexpensive. Be sure to have a power strip and surge supressor for all the candles for the altar.
For the boundary, I always used a braided string. Just a simple round braid like for a lanyard from kite string, about 28 feet long (and when turned into a Circle, you get about a 9′ diameter Circle), one side colored blue for the “enterance” or the quarters colored their traditional colors. You SEE the boundary, you SEE the colors, and when you are done, pick it up and stick it in your pocket. Handy for outdoor rituals too, environmental impact is nill, and there is little chance someone will trip over it and light their robe on fire.
Roberta, think of other things that last over time. You could do a movement spell (move two objects closer to each other, bit by bit, over time—when they touch, the spell is done). Or you could use consecrated water that is allowed to evaporate. Or charge an offering and give it to a body of running water, or to the wind, or to the earth. There are lots of options.