Why do some magicians suggest to inhale the candle smoke after blowing the candle out? What significance does it have?
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Does blowing out a candle really communicate to the spirits that the magick is done? Is that why some magicians say to snuff the candle flame out instead?
I have never had problems with blowing them out. I know many wiccans that would gasp if they saw you blowing out the candle saying NO, you just ruined everything you have to snuff it out instead! For that reason many years back I bought a snuffer but I ended up leaving it behind in a previous move and have not purchased another one since. Nothing seems to be affected by this, the magick is still strong and the things I ask for still come to fruition.
Ravensascent,Wiccans would gasp at you blowing your candles?What?
And to answer your question on blowing candles,letās look at some of the first candle spells youāve ever tried in your life.Can you remember it?
Blowing your birthday candles.If you take the magick out of it,the proper visualization and all the effective stuff,making birthday wishes and then blowing the candles is a form of candle magickā¦without the magick.Magick without magick is called superstition,so itās Candle Superstition.
These days,however,my friends tell me I look weird,by gazing at a candle on my birthday cake,beguiled by itās dancing,and then blow it,and then inhale the smoke.Of course,no one knows what Iām really doingā¦but on my birthday,I certainly feel more powerful.And as such,these candle spells tend to bear fruit.
Blowing the candle is like all those spells where you bury stuff and canāt look back.It letās you expostulate all the emotions and then walk away,in non-attachment,and tells the powers of magic(or whatever specific system youāre working with):āāI want this.I need this.Bring me this.I trust you.I trust you so much,Iām gonna forget I ever performed this spell,with the knowledge you will bring it to me.āā
EA also said somewhere to inhale the smoke,so that became a habit of mine.I donāt know if it has any purpose,perhaps to inspire(pardon the pun) you to perform physical action for magical workings?Or it may be another step of detachment?Or maybe itās just more theatrical?
I love being theatricalā¦
Yes, Iāve had a handful of wiccans act as if blowing out the candle instead of snuffing just ruined everything. When I reported back a few days later and said. hey it still worked they all said, well it must have just been pure luck on your end. Luck? There is no such thing as luck when magick is involved.
E.A. doesnāt snuff the candles out from what I have read in his books, he always mentions to blow them out and he seems to get really dramatic results soā¦
[quote=āArcaneā]Answered here,not seeing this thread(maybe Lady Eva,or someone could merge them?)
[url=http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/new-magician-help/blowing-or-snuffing-out-a-candle/]http://becomealivinggod.com/forum/new-magician-help/blowing-or-snuffing-out-a-candle/[/url][/quote]
'Tis done. 
And for the rest, oh, thank the gods Iām not aloneā¦ I blow out candles a lot, I do have some of those fancy brass things but they get all sooted up inside and a lot of the time I canāt be bothered. Sometimes Iāll clap my hands over a candle to extinguish it, though that can be tricky.
Iāve not really mentioned it, because just because I do something doesnāt mean itās right obviously, and I didnāt want to fuck up anyone elseās work though promoting my own laziness when everyone seems to think blowing out the candles is a terrible thingā¦ maybe we could form like some secret underground sect of candle blowers or something, heretics among the heretics? 
Seriously Iāve not noticed any difference, itās best to use a snuffer if you have a big pool of molten wax in a pillar candle just in case it splashes, but theyāre messy and fussy and I usually canāt be bothered.
The candle snuffer I had in the past was tricky. I would have the entire bell shaped thing sitting right over top of the flame, the flame completely engulfed inside it and Iād lift it up and the flame was still burning. I literally resorted to burying the end of the snuffer down into the hot melted wax in order to get the flame to go out. Itās impossible to snuff a candle the wrong way, unless you have some serious learning disabilities or something, so I wasnāt doing it wrong. I swear that one I had must have had an air hole in it somewhere, allowing the flame to continue breathing even when covered by the snuffer. It was so much faster to just blow it out. Trust me, I felt like a moron standing there 10 mins. later still fiddling with the snuffer because it would not put the flame out. LOL
I also tried the clapping my hands over the flame thing since I wanted to put it out by not blowing on it but my snuffer was a piece of crap, it fell apart after only 3 uses so I was right, it was just cheaply made, I wasnāt using it wrong. The one and only time I did the clapping thing, I clapped to fast and too hard, not thinking, and the candle flew up outta its holder spraying hot wax all over my shirt (my favorite shirt might I add) and again without thinking, instead of letting it fall to the ground (the flame was already out) I tried to catch. I grabbed it too hard, and the remaining hot wax splashed up onto the wall, the carpet, and all over my now-EX hubbyās Guitar Hero drumset.
I tried to hide it because I knew heād be mad, we just had new carpet installed 2 months prior, and he just bought that drumset. Did you touch my drumset? No, the candle wax touched your drumset. He came home and I had cut a large chunk of the carpet out, like he wasnāt gonna notice that, and I took Windex to his drum set like 9 times and this was a bees wax candle so it never came off. He arrived home to find his entire drumset covered in a slick sticky sheen of bees wax. The more I tried to clean it, the more it just got spread around.
That sounds AWFULā¦ I can so relate though, really stupid annoying shit that happens when you try and do things the ācorrectā elaborate way someoneās told you all about, then you kick yourself afterwards for not just doing it the regular way!
And yeah, the candles that wonāt go outā¦ I figure IF the flameās a living thing, and youāre not supposed to blow it out because itās alive, 1. using a snuffer is like saying to someone āIām going to chop your head off with an axe, not strangle you, because strangling is murder but axes arenātā - and 2. nearly getting it out, but not, and trying again and again, surely thatās like torturing the bloody thing?!
Then your snuffer gets a rim of wax and soot from repeated half-extinguishings, which melts next time you use it, and wrecks white candlesā¦ oh the joys! 
Just going to edit this to add, a few times Iāve been told not to blow a candle out for whatever reason, but most of the time not.
I canāt remember whatās specific to those times, so itās probably a fairly useless comment, but it has some up a few times so whatever. 
To correct myself, it was a mixture of soy and bees wax. The kind that gets so hot that every you burn it, the entire jar of wax turns into hot liquid and not just the top 1" layer. Avoid those by the way! They hold scents very well but they will produce a hellacious mess if spilled.
Iāve never had a candle snuffer,in my life,so I canāt relate to any of your sufferings.Sorry.
And much like Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan,on Walpurgisnacht 1966,I hereby deem this Candle Blower Year 1,founding our very own Cult of the Candle Blowers.
Also,there have been occasions when Iāve had to cough in the middle of ritual(allergies,bleh),and on most occasions,that tends to put the candles out in the middle of ritual.And those rituals did not end up ineffective just because I blew the candles out(by coughing) and then lit them again.
In fact,this is the first time Iām even hearing about candle snuffers!
P.S.Thanks Lady Eva!I know from other forums that the Staff(Administrators,Moderators etc.) have the power to merge two threads together.I owe you,yet another,favor.
Isnāt it odd that no one has brought up the fact that original candle spells werenāt even snuffed or blown out?
The first candle spells werenāt even candle spells,they were bonfires.Fire has always been the gateway to the other realm,and when man learned to use fire for mundane purposes,and then learned to develop magick(at this stage indubitably separating from their primate kin(who are ALL dead because of Darwinisim)),it is only logical to assume that some of the first spells and prophecies were through fire.
Ergo,if you really wanna maintain the novelty of the experience,you donāt need candle snuffers,you can just light a bonfire in your house and blow it out with a bucket of water!
^ Great post!
When I was little I had a Ladybird book, stinky old thing we bought from a second-hand shop, and it said that the first fires people observed came about from lightning strikes - that must have seemed truly incredible to the people back then.
So the first fire magick came from the heavens, and from the look of things, ancient hominids worked their still-quite-hairy little butts off trying to figure out how to create this marvel for themselves.
Thereās a lesson in that, IMO - people who were barely what weād consider humans, seeing awesome and devastating power crashing down from the heavens, and instead of just grovelling to it, they worked hard to take it into their own hands!
Blowing out the flame may āpiss off the fire elementalā; so I read. It may also ācancel out the intentā. I recommend snuffing it w/ anything metallic you have handy: a snuffer, a spoon, a little dagger. Anything! Simple!
Iāve definitely heard that it disrespects fire elementals. Although, I have no experience with fire elementals biting me in the ass for blowing it out, but I snuff just in case.
Iāve read plenty of Wiccan books that say a witch must never blow out a candle, etc. I used my fingers back in the day, but please donāt try this if you have acrylic nails! Anton LaVey said to blow them out, which may in part have been his way of saying, āWhat a bunch of superstitious nonsense!ā, given his open distain for Wiccans. I actually like blowing them out, itās a feeling of asserting my authority.
As for inhaling the molten wax, EA says that symbolises the desire you have expended and āburnt upā in the ritual.
In the majority of African tradition religions blowing out a flame is a sign of canceling the magic. This is because candles are seen as an offering to the spirits, when you suddenly blow it out it is taking away the light they were just offered. Almost like offering the spirit wine and then immediately drinking it. Itās a sign of disrespect. Snuffing the candle circumvents the problem as a candle will naturally snuff itself when deprived of material to burn or lack of oxygen. Just my two cents.
What method would they use?
Just edited my post Eva!
Well, I always blew out the candles when I was a kid because I had religious parents so no access to books that would have told me to snuff instead. I never had any problems on my end as a result of blowing them out. I was lucky that my mom trusted me enough to allow me to have candles in my room, most kids arenāt allowed to have them but I was really mature with stuff like that so I was allowed to have both candles and incense, but if I would have asked my mom to buy a snuffer she wouldāve wondered why I needed one. She wouldāve said, canāt you just blow them out like you have always done? She was the highly suspiscious type anyway. If I would have said I want to snuff them because blowing them can cause them to splatter she would have either said, well I never have that problem with candles youāre just blowing too hard or, well if you canāt extinguish a candle without making a mess then maybe you are not mature enough to use them, and she would have banned me from using them.
But I blew them out for years on end before reading that they should be snuffed instead, so if it never caused problems before, I see no reason to start doing things differently now. Just wave air towards the flame with your hand if you have no snuffer. Besides, snuffers make messes, and they break easily. Just an unnecessary added expense.
Iāve put out candles in various ways depending on my beliefs at the time. Now I use whichever method seems to align symbolically with my intent spontaneously in the moment.