Traditions

Butter lamps are offered as light dispelling ignorance, often in great numbers for merit, the sick, or the departed.

Votive and vigil candles are lit before images of saints and Mary as a prayer that continues after the person leaves.

Candles are matched to planetary correspondences, days and hours according to grimoire and Golden Dawn systems.

Lamps and candles are lit at ancestral altars, temples and festivals such as the Lantern Festival. Flame flickers can be taken as ancestral presence.

Oil lamps with cotton wicks are lit at dawn and dusk, during puja, and at Diwali. A steady upward flame is considered auspicious.

A spiritual folk practice using dressed and fixed candles, especially glass-encased vigil lights, read for soot, flame and wax as the work progresses.

Shabbat candles, the braided Havdalah candle, Hanukkah lights and the 24-hour yahrzeit memorial candle for a loved one's anniversary.

Candles on ofrendas light the way for returning souls, alongside marigolds, photographs and favourite foods.

Seven-day veladoras are lit for saints and orishas; the jar's soot and the flame's behaviour are watched as signs.

Advent candles, St Lucia crowns, and Bleigiessen (wax or tin pouring) at New Year in Germany and Finland, read like ceromancy.

Melted wax is poured into cold water, often over a person's head, to reveal fortunes or draw out fear (vylivanie). It is also done on St Andrew's Eve and at New Year.

Practical household candle customs passed down through families: wishes on birthday candles, a candle in the window for travellers, and reading drips for omens.

Candles mark the quarters, honour deities and carry intentions in spellwork, often timed to moon phase and sabbats.