My First "Demon" Altar

[User1265455]

I really like it, especially with the image of the demon in the picture frame.
Displaying the altar in a bookshelf is a good idea. I have one closet with shelves, so that's something to consider.
My family is much nosier, lol. I feel your frustration.
I have cedar wood essential oil, don't know if that's fine for now - I usually use oils, resins, or take a herb and dry it and burn it as incense. Are cedar smudge sticks/wands fine?
Will try get the incense stick (as mentioned here in the thread) sometime.

That I am not 100% sure, I want to say the ceder smudge sticks are if you burn it as a offering. Its basically pure, raw incense at that point. I dont know enough about essential oils as they are a touch bit to new age for me. I tried to keep it as traditional as possible. Dry herbs as a "loose incense" is actually what I want to get around to making. It just needs charcoal disks which make more smoke and I will be more in the target range :'(. The problem I am having now is the top of the book shelfs are actually to tight to the candles. I need to find short blue candles. I may cut one of my tapers and see if that works! Until then haha. Cedar wands are probably preferred! I actually am super new to this all and I haven't even communicated with Stolas once(YET!).

Re: the charcoal disks smoking a lot... it's more expensive but - the coconut charcoal for hookah pipes makes NO smoke, and also doesn't have a scent or a flavor (which is why it's used for hookah pipes). It burns much cleaner. Because it's used in hookah pipes, it also burns faster so when your half-hour long ritual is over, you don't have to wait three hours for the charcoal to die, or grab it up with tongs and throw it into water.

[sunman]

Next time I am in town I will have to grab one. The problem is, if anyone smells it, they instantly question it. They also dont like it at all so I cant even light it for myself :'( oh well, I will figure it out. I had to redo it because the candles were too close to the second shelf. I took the shelf out and added candles that were shorter. Its still super hot but its safer now. It even looks better in my opinion.

IMAG0586.jpg (43.34 KiB) Viewed 11815 times

[Yekarah]

Be careful of the black tapers and some of the votives are only black on the outside - they've got one coat of black and the rest of the candle is white. The black tealights, however, I can confirm, are solid black. Every year we go to walmart and buy an entire box of them (they sell them in packs of 8, but a box has 10 packs).

I have taper candles that are one color on the outside and white underneath, no solid colors. Does that mean they are less effective? Could they be offensive to the spirit I am inviting in ritual?
I'll keep looking for solid color candles, including black, otherwise I will probably go ahead and make my own.

[Oflight Lokebrenna]

Since it's Fall right now (USA), it's VERY easy to find owl themed stuff. Not sure why owls become so popular this time of year, but not complaining! Very easy to find blue colored owl things. I have, unintentionally, gotten myself matching ceramic blue owl mugs, a candy type dish, cookie jar, and toothpick holder (okay that one was a gift). They each came from different stores. These items are easy to find, shouldn't be too pricey, and easy to incorporate while remaining discreet if needed.

[User1265455]

Be careful of the black tapers and some of the votives are only black on the outside - they've got one coat of black and the rest of the candle is white. The black tealights, however, I can confirm, are solid black. Every year we go to walmart and buy an entire box of them (they sell them in packs of 8, but a box has 10 packs).

I have taper candles that are one color on the outside and white underneath, no solid colors. Does that mean they are less effective? Could they be offensive to the spirit I am inviting in ritual?
I'll keep looking for solid color candles, including black, otherwise I will probably go ahead and make my own.

One of the things that you will probably eventually discover in your studies is that color magick is a thing. Here's a fairly decent explanation of the bare bones basics of colors and their meanings - and the second link is a table with all the information neatly organized. The third one is from a different website, but it has explanations for some colors that the first website does not include.

http://www.witchipedia.com/main:colors
http://www.witchipedia.com/table:color-correspondences
https://www.themagickalcat.com/Articles.asp?ID=241

So the reason that you want solid color candles is that you want a solid energy. When you have a candle with mixed colors, you get mixed energy. For the black coated white candles, you get black associations very briefly (binding, protection, banishing, grounding) and then you get GRAY associations (Loneliness, glamour, contemplation, removing negative influence), and then FINALLY you get white (all-purpose, purity, innocence, consecration).

Now think of that pattern. Binding and protection, loneliness, all-purpose (supporting the other two colors) consecration. Burning a black coated white candle could quite possibly be basically asking for long-term depression.

Muddy colors are never a good thing.

[Chrysopaelian]

I really like it, especially with the image of the demon in the picture frame.
Displaying the altar in a bookshelf is a good idea. I have one closet with shelves, so that's something to consider.
My family is much nosier, lol. I feel your frustration.
I have cedar wood essential oil, don't know if that's fine for now - I usually use oils, resins, or take a herb and dry it and burn it as incense. Are cedar smudge sticks/wands fine?
Will try get the incense stick (as mentioned here in the thread) sometime.

That I am not 100% sure, I want to say the ceder smudge sticks are if you burn it as a offering. Its basically pure, raw incense at that point. I dont know enough about essential oils as they are a touch bit to new age for me. I tried to keep it as traditional as possible. Dry herbs as a "loose incense" is actually what I want to get around to making. It just needs charcoal disks which make more smoke and I will be more in the target range :'(. The problem I am having now is the top of the book shelfs are actually to tight to the candles. I need to find short blue candles. I may cut one of my tapers and see if that works! Until then haha. Cedar wands are probably preferred! I actually am super new to this all and I haven't even communicated with Stolas once(YET!).

I have dabbled in making my own incense, but haven't made my own cedar incense yet. I ended up getting my cedar from a local festival (we have a lot of local festivals). If you live in the USA and end up wanting to make cones that don't include some other bark, silver maple inner bark is a good alternative to imported bark that works well and can be found in just about any park in the Midwestern US.

[sunman]

I really like it, especially with the image of the demon in the picture frame.
Displaying the altar in a bookshelf is a good idea. I have one closet with shelves, so that's something to consider.
My family is much nosier, lol. I feel your frustration.
I have cedar wood essential oil, don't know if that's fine for now - I usually use oils, resins, or take a herb and dry it and burn it as incense. Are cedar smudge sticks/wands fine?
Will try get the incense stick (as mentioned here in the thread) sometime.

That I am not 100% sure, I want to say the ceder smudge sticks are if you burn it as a offering. Its basically pure, raw incense at that point. I dont know enough about essential oils as they are a touch bit to new age for me. I tried to keep it as traditional as possible. Dry herbs as a "loose incense" is actually what I want to get around to making. It just needs charcoal disks which make more smoke and I will be more in the target range :'(. The problem I am having now is the top of the book shelfs are actually to tight to the candles. I need to find short blue candles. I may cut one of my tapers and see if that works! Until then haha. Cedar wands are probably preferred! I actually am super new to this all and I haven't even communicated with Stolas once(YET!).

I have dabbled in making my own incense, but haven't made my own cedar incense yet. I ended up getting my cedar from a local festival (we have a lot of local festivals). If you live in the USA and end up wanting to make cones that don't include some other bark, silver maple inner bark is a good alternative to imported bark that works well and can be found in just about any park in the Midwestern US.

The materials to make loose incense is pretty cheap. I am also pretty sure I have wild cedar around here. I just have to get my lazy butt outside. Hey, still not able to message people here, check your discord mate

[laalbieglna]

Fat taper-style black candles available at Hobby Lobby! They don't support birth control or Judaism, but are your one stop shop for the Dark Artes!!!!!

[laalbieglna]

I have taper candles that are one color on the outside and white underneath, no solid colors. Does that mean they are less effective? Could they be offensive to the spirit I am inviting in ritual?

I can't speak for every spirit out there, and there are probably some who have their own strong opinions, but in my experience it depends on how YOU work. I've used a colored strip of cloth tied to a stick when I couldn't light a candle, incense-free rituals for the four years I had infants, a doTerra diffuser with the light on to replace both candles and incense ... magic and spirit work persist even when people have literally nothing to their names -- consider HooDoo: the entire tradition came from people who were enslaved and so poor they had nothing to work with except what they could scrape together from common household items. It's why the tradition still works with things like vinegar, laundry detergent, dirt, water, string, spit, and urine. I think there's something to be said for specific intent and resources and wanting to do things as nicely and fancy as you can for your deities and spirits when you have the resources... but when you do not for whatever reason, there is always SOMETHING you can do, and there is no reason for the perfect to be the enemy of the good enough. So I personally feel that wrapped candles or white candles or no candles at all or the electric light above your stove can potentially be just as effective as solid colored candles. I still like to buy colored spell/chime candles by the dozens from Amazon.

[User1265455]

I have taper candles that are one color on the outside and white underneath, no solid colors. Does that mean they are less effective? Could they be offensive to the spirit I am inviting in ritual?

I can't speak for every spirit out there, and there are probably some who have their own strong opinions, but in my experience it depends on how YOU work. I've used a colored strip of cloth tied to a stick when I couldn't light a candle, incense-free rituals for the four years I had infants, a doTerra diffuser with the light on to replace both candles and incense ... magic and spirit work persist even when people have literally nothing to their names -- consider HooDoo: the entire tradition came from people who were enslaved and so poor they had nothing to work with except what they could scrape together from common household items. It's why the tradition still works with things like vinegar, laundry detergent, dirt, water, string, spit, and urine. I think there's something to be said for specific intent and resources and wanting to do things as nicely and fancy as you can for your deities and spirits when you have the resources... but when you do not for whatever reason, there is always SOMETHING you can do, and there is no reason for the perfect to be the enemy of the good enough. So I personally feel that wrapped candles or white candles or no candles at all or the electric light above your stove can potentially be just as effective as solid colored candles. I still like to buy colored spell/chime candles by the dozens from Amazon.

Beautifully stated... sometimes, I forget... I like to hide in boxes. Not everyone should. Thank you.