Here we are again! I’m working to get through some of the backlog of questions from Ask A Witch. If you’ve send in a question and it hasn’t been answered let you may very well see it pop up here soon! So keep reading. 🙂 Today’s question is one that I’ve been asked a few times in the past and one that was actually an issue for me once so I’m happy to help with this!
I’m a 14 year old Witch, and I’m not aloud to use incense, though I love it, because of my mom’s allergic to it. Also, I can’t light candles because of her boyfriend. He’ll yell and hit and whatnot because of fire and the fact that it’s religious related (he hates everything) and blah blah blah. Well here’s the question I suppose: Is there any good substitute for incense and candles?
~ Ivory
Thanks for your question Ivory! It’s actually not an uncommon question. When I was in college I wasn’t able to use incense or candles in my dorm room and had to have other ways to work with them when I wanted. So I know that sometimes you just have to get creative.
One thing though that I just have say, from looking at your question, is that if your mother’s boyfriend is hitting you, or anyone for that matter, there is absolutely nothing that makes that OK. Please, please make sure you tell someone and get some help if this is going on in your home. You might be a minor living under your mother’s roof but this doesn’t make you a literal or figurative punching bag. So just something that I would be remiss to not comment on.
OK, so back to incense and candles!
Incense is easy to replace. There are two different things you can do here and both work well depending on the material you’re working with. If you’re using fresh or dried herbs as incense, or if you’re working with powdered incense, you can place it in a bowl or dish and place it on your altar. The essence of what, the energy that it carries, will still be there. When we burn incense we see the smoke carrying our wishes to you Gods and to the Upper Realms. It can be seen that the smell of the herbs on the altar are still carrying these things, even though we can’t create the smoke. The energy and the power from the scent of the herbs or incense is still there and will still be able to carrying our wishes to the Universe.
Another option is to create ritual misters. These are great and the smell will be there but it will be faint and shouldn’t bother anyone that isn’t directly in the line of the spray. For this you’ll need a small spray bottle (you can get this at drug stores and places like Target or Walmart quite easily). Fill the bottle with water (personally I use bottled spring water) and then add about 15-20 drops of essential oils that go along with your work. For example if you were going to burn sage and lavender herbs for incense use about 10 drops of each in your bottle of water. I would use a small spray bottle like the kinds you might find in the health and beauty section, not the big kinds that you would find with cleaning supplies. You may need to test and play around with the amount of oils used for the bottle that you buy. This same technique can be used with magickally blended oils too; if you would have used healing incense you can use blended healing magickal oil to make a healing mister. Then just spray it around your space in place of incense.
As for candles. it’s a little tricky because it would depend on what it is that you’re using them for. If you’re planning to use them just for light or symbolic purposes on your altar there are a number of different options for flameless candles. There are LED tea lights, votives, and pillars and they come in all kinds of colors. If you were going to use them for spells then you’ll just need to find another method of spellcasting. There are many, many spell casting techniques out there that do not rely on burning candles at all such as herbal magick and mojo bags, poppet spells, and working with spell jars.
It can sometimes be a little tricky to have to rearrange your magickal work because of things like this,but as the saying goes “Where there’s a Witch there’s a way!” You can always find a way to work around this if you are willing to experiment and be creative!
Excellent Advice,in everyway!!!
Hi, I was wondering if you could help me. I love to burn incense with my candles but I can’t burn the incense anymore because my boyfriend (soulmate) has a reaction to it. He says he can’t breathe. He used to be ok with it years ago but stopped using it once he quit smoking about 7 years ago. I think it is all in his head because he has no problems being in front of a smoky grill. however if I say the word incense, he starts coughing. I feel he has attached negative feelings and attributes to incense. He told me a while ago that he associated it with pot use and he is not in that frame of mind anymore. I have never smoked pot but I have always burned incense because it calms me and it clears my space. I feel like I cannot do that anymore. I am limited to oils and candles now. I was wondering what your opinion was on this and if you thought there was any way possible to rid him of this negative feeling towards incense. I have the perfect relationship. The only thing missing is the ability to burn my incense.
Hi Nicole,
Honestly, I think that if it is such a big issue for your boyfriend and you’re sharing a home together, you need to be able to compromise. Unfortunately I think that the compromise in your case may be to find alternatives to incense, of which there are many. If you burn sage I can understand why he would associate it with pot because white sage does have a bit of a pot-like smell to it. He may very well have attached negative feelings to the use of incense, but I don’t really know that there’s much you can do to remove that.
Yes, incense is relaxing and it clears the space, but there are other things that do both of these things. But no worries, there are other things you can do.
I can’t do much to help you with incense being your preference. But to get the same effects of incense there are two things you can do with oils that work very well. The first is to burn oils in an oil diffuser. Simple and easy, add a little oil to some water in the tray of the diffuser and you use a tea light under the water dish to heat it, causing it to emit the smell, essence, and energy of the oil.
You can also create mister bottles. These are my favorite and something that I use often. I used to have no choice but to do this when I was in college because we weren’t allowed to burn anything, not even candles. You get a small spray bottle, easily found at health food stores in the health and beauty department, and fill with cold water. Then add about 8-10 drops of your chosen oil. Add a small piece of clear quartz to keep it pure, shake, and spray. One of these that is very popular are what are called “smudge sprays” which is just sage essential oil mixed with water. If you want something that’s going to clear your space just as good as incense, this is your go to! It has the added element of using water which brings in negative ions to your space which clears and lightens the vibration of the space by balancing out the buildup of negative ions.
I understand not wanting to give up your incense, but if the practical use of it is your practical concern aside from your sheer enjoyment of it, there are certainly other ways to go. 🙂
Good luck!
I hope this doesn’t sound stupid, I’m kinda new to this; I was wondering if it was possible to substitute a candle for an incense? I don’t have any incenses and there isn’t a store nearby that I can buy some…
If a spell calls for cinnamon inscents can I use cinnamon candles instead
Possibly…it really just depends on what the incense is being used for {like it if it has a specific function in the spell}. But when it comes to your candles you also want to make sure you’re not replacing another candle with a cinnamon one just for the sake of having the cinnamon in there. I’ll tell you, I personally HATE cinnamon incense. The smell of burning cinnamon is like the scent of Satan as far as I’m concerned. So what I do is actually diffuse Cinnamon Bark essential oil. You can do it with either one of those little altar top oil burners that you put a candle in to warm or a water based diffuser. But just remember that incense has a specific reason for being used magickally, so you need to just look at your spell and be sure that you’re not removing an actual function by replacing incense with something else.