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candle magic...um, Cat?

To: alt.lucky.w,alt.paranormal.spells.hexes.magic,alt.magick.tyagi
From: catherine yronwode 
Subject: Re: candle magic...um, Cat?
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 07:40:02 GMT

bunghole_999@hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Here's a question on candle color (btw nice article cat, will read it
> more thoroughly tonight when i have more time):

Thanks. 

> I just consulted a root doc/spiritualist as planned and was told that
> green candles were for health not money. Brown are for money. I 
> shopped online and ive found mention of BOTH being used for money.
> Some voodoo/hoodoo workers claim the brown, wiccans and certain other
> hoodoo'ists claim green. Which is it? I've even found contradictory
> info on the many wiccan sites in this matter.

First, you must iunderstand that coloured paraffin candles are a 20th
century invention. Thus candle colour symbolism arose in the minds of
several writers almost simultaneously and the various systems they came
up with are almost mutually exclusive. 

For instance:

In Europe, many people use yellow candles for money (because gold canles
were until rcently very hard to find) and to them, green candles
symbolize a good harvest and thus health and harmony. 

In the USA, where our paper money is always green (unlike in other
nations), most hoodoos have come to accept that green candles represent 
folding money and yellow candles symbolize pocket change. 

The use of brown candles is equally varied -- in some quarters dark blue
candles represent the law (dark blue deing a common colour for the
uniforms of police officers) and thus blue candles are burned for court
cases. But in areas where the police wear brown or olive uniforms or
where people of Catholic persuasion call upon certain brown-garbed
saints for help in legal matters, brown candles have come to be
identified with court cases. This conflict or confusion continues into
the colours of dressing oils: Court Case Oil is usually brown and Law
Keep Away Oil is usually blue. 

Wiccans are a whole 'nother kettle of fish and, frankly, i think that
their colour symbolisms are sometimes so individualistic that i can't
keep track of the ways they vary from hoodoo, which is internally more
consistent, despite its many variations. (Ditto for Wiccan oil recipes;
they are all over the map in terms of ingredients, as far as i can
tell.) 
 
> Also, I've been told by some: "burn black candles to drive out evil
> influences from a home" and by others "NEVER burn black candles 
> unless you know what you are doing" as they are primarily used in 
> negative energy spells to cause harm.

Black candles are used both ways -- to do evil and to drive off evil. In
hoodoo, you must also consder that candles can be manipulated (e.g.
estinguished, turned upside down, or used to burn an artifact
representing someone) so using black candles to drive off evil is easier
to accomplish in hoodoo than in Wiccan or neo-Pagan magic, where candles
are usually set to burn straight through. 

Many hoodoos burn black candles in conjunction with other candles to
drive off evil wihie drawing good. A special form of candle made just
for this purpose is the so-called "double action" (two-colour) jumbo
candle, half black and half another colour to drive evil away. For
instance, the half-black and half-green candle drives away people who
are jinxing your money luck, the half-black and half-red drives off love
jinxes, and the half-black and half-white sends back crossed conditions
and unnatural illness. 

Also, the so-called "reversible" candle (red inside, black outside) is
widely used to drive off jinxes of all kinds as well as to purify any
prmises that are under a jinx. . 

Black cat figural candles are burned for gambling luck, too, there being
no heavy fear of black cats in the African-American tradition as there
is in European folk-magic. 

By the way, i tend to not give people "scary" warnings like the one you
mentioned. If they know enough to want a black candle, then let them
work with it, i say. 

> Btw Cat, the info you provided regarding root doctors and what to
> look for and look out for was extremely helpful. Thanks again. The
> person I consulted fit the criteria for an honest and skilled
> doctor that you listed .

Glad i could help. As i noted already, those posts formed the core of my
newest web page, "Readers, Root Workers, and Black Gypsies" which is now
online at 
     http://www.luckymojo.com/blackgypsies.html

Cordially, 

cat yronwode 

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