Module 13 — Designed Workings for Specific Intentions | Candle Magic Course
- May 6
- 21 min read
Updated: May 15
Free Course by Everything IFS Academy | Witchcraft Series
Module 13 — Designed Workings for Specific Intentions
From Components to Coherent Spells
The witch has reached the point in her practice where every component of a working has been laid out separately — candle types, color, carving, dressing, petition, loading, timing, burn-handling, reading, sustained work, figure candles. What she has not yet seen is the components assembled — the moment when a witch standing in her workspace decides what color, which oil, what timing, what candle type, and makes those choices land together as a coherent spell.
That moment of integration is what this module shows her. Eleven workings, walked through as designed systems. The witch is not memorizing recipes. She is watching the design happen — each element selected and aligned with the others until the spell forms a coherent body. By the eleventh working, she has watched enough integrations to do it herself for any spell she will ever cast. The design skill transfers; the recipes do not need to.
The Universal Design Sequence
The basic sequence holds across every working the witch will design. The intent comes first, defined precisely — vague spells produce vague results, and the first work of any working is sharpening what is actually being asked for. From that intent flows the candle type (chime for a single contained session, taper or pillar for longer single workings, seven-day for sustained, figure for representational targeting), the color matched to the working's frequency, and the oils and herbs that align with both. Carving and petition come next — what specifically gets written into the wax, what gets written on the paper, how they bind together. Timing follows — moon phase, day, sometimes hour. Then the space is prepared and the working is executed.
Every spell follows that arc. The choices inside it are what the witch is about to watch get made eleven times.
Working One — Drawing Love into the Witch's Life
The witch wants a new partnership. Not a specific person — she is not aiming the spell at someone she has been thinking about — but an aligned partner the universe might bring. The general drawing.
The candle is a pink chime. Pink because the working is gentle love, the kind that wants to find her warmly rather than burn up to her in flames; red would broadcast on the passion frequency, and that is not what she is asking for. Chime because this is a single-session working, contained, complete in one sitting.
She dresses the candle with rose essential oil in almond carrier, the standard love-correspondence oil diluted properly. After oiling, the candle rolls in dried rose petals and a small pinch of cinnamon — rose for love, cinnamon to give the working momentum so it moves rather than sitting still. The cinnamon stays small; too much turns gentle love into urgent love, and the witch is not asking for urgent.
The carving comes next: her own name three times on the candle. Three rather than seven — this is a simple working, not a deep binding, and three holds the working across past, present, and future without forcing the spell harder than it needs to be. She turns the candle ninety degrees and carves love finds me across the names, the crossing technique sealing the working. The strokes run from base toward wick — the drawing direction, pulling love upward and inward.
The petition is written on parchment, in present tense, positively phrased. Love finds me. I am open to a partner who fits my life. We meet in good time and recognize each other. Folded toward herself three times, matching the number of name repetitions. Placed under the candle holder.
Timing: Friday evening, Venus's day, on the waxing moon so the spell catches the upward tide. She lights the candle with the petition stated aloud, then lets the candle settle into its burn.
The first read she expects is a clean catch — the wick taking the flame readily, the flame settling into a tall steady burn. If the candle catches that way, the working has been received and the spell is moving as designed. If the candle struggles to light, that is the working asking her to look at why — but for a clean love drawing on the right tide with the right preparation, the catch is almost always clean.
When the candle finishes, she buries the wax remains near home. The drawing working roots in. What was drawn stays here.
Working Two — Deepening an Existing Relationship
The witch is in a relationship that already exists; she wants to deepen it — to bring deeper communication, tenderness, and intimacy into a partnership that is good but could be better.
The candle is a lovers candle — two human figures from the figure candle tradition, molded together if the witch wants the specificity. Or two pink chimes lit together if she does not. The lovers candle gives more focused representation; the two chimes give a less committed working that may be appropriate for a relationship still in earlier stages. Color is pink, or pink and red combined the relationship is established, so red's passion can enter the working alongside pink's tenderness without overwhelming it.
The dressing pairs rose oil with a touch of lavender: rose for love, lavender for gentleness and emotional ease. She wants the working to soften the relationship's rough edges, not just bring more love into it.
She carves both names into the figures (or the chimes) her own first, then her partner's. The two-name carving is appropriate here because the working is genuinely about both of them. (She has her partner's consent for this working, which is part of why she is doing it on a relationship rather than on someone who has not asked for spell work.)
The petition names what is specifically being deepened: communication, tenderness, or intimacy, depending on where the relationship currently feels thin. Specific naming gives the working something to land on. Our communication grows clearer and warmer. We speak the truth of what we feel. We hear each other.
Friday again, waxing moon. Lit with the petition spoken aloud.
The two-figure working is read the same way any lovers candle is — figures melting toward each other enact the deepening; figures melting apart in opposite directions say something the witch may want to look at honestly.
Disposal: buried near home, for continued growth. The working is about a relationship that lives in her home and her life, and the remains stay close.
Working Three — Drawing Money for a Specific Need
The witch needs to come up with rent. The working has a deadline and a number, which means the design has to be sharper than a general prosperity spell.
The candle is a green chime or a green seven-day, depending on urgency and timeline. A chime for a working that needs to land within a week or two; a seven-day for a working where the witch wants the sustained presence to draw the money across the month leading up to the deadline.
She dresses with cinnamon oil — cinnamon for fast action, appropriate when the working has a deadline. The candle rolls in basil and a pinch of mint — basil for prosperity, mint for sustained money flow rather than one-time fluke. The combination broadcasts on the frequency of money arriving in time, in ways that last beyond this single payment.
She carves the specific dollar amount needed into the candle, alongside a Jupiter symbol (the planet of expansion and abundance) and her own name. The carving direction runs base toward wick — drawing in. Specificity matters here; a working that asks for some money produces some money, while a working that asks for the rent amount produces the rent amount.
The petition is written precisely: I receive [the actual amount] before [the actual date] in ways that are clean and clear. Present tense, positive, specific without overconstraining — the working can deliver through unexpected sources like a side gig, a forgotten check, a refund, or a gift, without being boxed into one channel. Folded toward herself, three times.
If the witch wants to load the candle for depth, she carves a small cavity in the base, slips in a small piece of paper currency cut from a bill, and seals it with melted wax. The dollar in the candle is a sympathetic anchor — money calling money.
Timing: Thursday, Jupiter's day for prosperity, on the waxing moon. If she wants to layer the timing, she lights at sunrise for the daily new-beginning current, or during the planetary hour of Jupiter for compound timing. For a major prosperity working with a real deadline, the layering is worth doing.
She reads for how quickly the candle catches and how cleanly it burns. A prosperity candle that catches immediately and burns tall and steady tends to produce a working that lands in time. A candle that struggles, smokes heavily, or burns thin is showing her friction in the working that may need addressing — what about her relationship to money or to this specific need is creating resistance the spell is meeting?
Disposed by burying the remains near home — the working is about money coming in, and what was drawn stays close.
Working Four — Drawing Sustained Prosperity
Sustained prosperity asks for a different design than a specific-amount working. The witch is not asking for a specific amount by a specific date. She is asking for steady abundance in her life: reliable money flow, opening opportunities, and the slow cultivation of financial ease across months.
The candle is a green seven-day glass-encased candle, and the form choice is the design's first major decision. Sustained abundance asks for sustained presence. A chime would be the wrong vessel; a seven-day living on the altar through a full week of the witch's life is the correct one.
She dresses the top of the candle with patchouli oil — patchouli for steady prosperity, more grounded and slower-rolling than cinnamon's fast-action energy. The skewer-loading method places three holes in the top wax, north and southwest and southeast, with basil, bay leaf, and a small piece of mint dropped into each. Basil for prosperity, mint for sustained flow, both at lower intensity than fast-action workings use; bay added for the longer rhythm — bay carries victory and lasting accomplishment in ways shorter workings did not need.
The small exposed top wax holds her own name three times — what fits in the limited space. No specific dollar amount here, because the working is not about a specific amount.
The petition names sustained abundance rather than a specific number. Money flows to me steadily and in good measure. My income grows. Opportunities for prosperity reach me regularly. Folded toward her, taped to the bottom of the glass jar so it travels with the candle through the seven days.
Timing: lit on Thursday at the start of a waxing moon week, so the seven days of burn carry through to full moon. The working starts on Jupiter's day, runs through the rising tide, and concludes with the lunar tide at peak.
She tends the candle daily — visiting it each morning or evening to hold the working in mind, sometimes re-stating the petition aloud. The daily tending is itself part of the working's mechanism; her presence to the spell across the week is what makes sustained work different from brief work.
She reads the candle across the days — clean burning days versus days with smoke, glass clearing in stages versus blackening, the patterns the seven-day burn reveals over time. A seven-day candle that burns clean for the full week and finishes with white smoke is the working settling into her life; the prosperity it called is now rooted.
Disposal: buried near home when the candle finishes. The working is about ongoing abundance in her life, and what was drawn stays where she lives.
Working Five — Protection of the Home
The witch wants protection — for her household, against threats specific or general, with the working's force directed outward from her home rather than drawing anything in.
The candle is black, for protection and absorbing. A pillar or a chime depending on the scale of the working — a serious sustained version benefits from the pillar's longer burn; a smaller defensive working can use a chime.
She dresses with frankincense oil, alone or blended with rosemary. The candle rolls in rosemary, juniper needles, and black salt — the dark protective herbs that show up across nearly every defensive tradition.
She carves her own name and a warding sigil into the candle. The carving direction is wick toward base — banishing direction, sending threats out and away rather than drawing anything inward. This is the opposite direction from drawing workings, and the candle's whole geometry now broadcasts out, away, gone.
The petition names what is being protected against, specific if the threat is known and general if it is not. I am protected from harm in all forms. My home is sealed against ill intent. Threats find no purchase here. Folded away from herself, in the banishing fold direction — pushing what would harm her away rather than drawing it close.
Timing: Tuesday (Mars day) for active defense, or Saturday (Saturn day) for serious binding. Waning moon if she is banishing an existing threat (sending it away with the receding tide). Waxing moon if she is building defensive force around the home (gathering the warding energy as the moon grows).
She lights the candle at the home's threshold or the central altar — physical placement matters in defensive work. The threshold is the boundary between her home and the world; the altar is the home's energetic center. Either choice anchors the working in the home it is meant to protect.
She reads for heavy smoking as a positive sign in this working — the candle clearing what it is meant to clear, the working actively doing its job. She reads the wax shape for defensive form — wax pooling around the candle in a circle, hard pointed shapes rising from the melt, wax climbing the holder upward. These are the working's body showing her what was done.
Disposal: at the property line or buried at the edge of the home. The working stays at the boundary, marking the line the threat will not cross.
Working Six — Physical Healing
The witch is doing a healing working for the body — her own, or another person's with their explicit consent. Healing workings on people who have not consented are off-limits even when the witch's intentions are loving; the body in question gets to choose whether magical work moves through it.
The candle is blue or green — blue for general healing and calm restoration, green for vitality and growth. The choice depends on what the healing is asking for. A nervous system worn thin asks for blue's steadiness; a body recovering strength asks for green's renewing force.
The form is a chime for an acute small healing, a pillar or seven-day for chronic conditions or sustained recovery work. The form follows the healing's timeline.
She dresses with lavender, chamomile, or eucalyptus oil — lavender for the body's calm, chamomile for gentle restoration, eucalyptus for clearing what needs clearing. The candle rolls in crushed lavender, chamomile flowers, and a small pinch of sage — the standard healing herb combination that shows up across most folk traditions.
She carves the recipient's name — her own, or the consenting other's. She names the specific condition or area if it helps target the working: back pain, the old injury, the chest, the sleeplessness. She does not need to be medical about it; she names what she is asking healing for in plain language.
The petition names the healing being asked for. Direction depends on the healing's shape. Health drawn in — base toward wick on the carving, fold toward herself on the petition, the working is calling restoration toward the body. Illness sent out — wick toward base on the carving, fold away on the petition, the working is releasing what does not belong. Some healing workings combine both directions across two candles or two phases of a working.
Timing: Sunday for active solar healing (energy returning to the body, vitality being called) or Monday for lunar gentle healing (calm restoration, sleep, the body's quieter recovery work).
She reads for clean burn and clean smoke — the working moving smoothly without resistance. Heavy smoke or struggling flame in a healing working can indicate the body's resistance to healing it has not yet consented to, or unaddressed emotional content underneath the physical condition.
Disposal varies by the working's direction. Running water for sending illness away — what was released is carried off by the moving water. Buried near home for drawing health — what was drawn stays close and takes root in the body that lives in the home.
Working Seven — Emotional Healing
Emotional healing is its own working, distinct from physical healing even though the categories overlap. The witch is doing healing work for grief, anger, fear, heartbreak, or an old wound that has not closed. The body of the spell looks different because emotional healing asks for gentleness rather than force.
The candle is pink — gentle love, including self-love. The healing of the heart begins with the heart being held tenderly, not pushed.
She dresses with lavender oil, rolls in chamomile and rose petals. The combination is the gentlest she has — nothing forceful, fast-acting, or meant to break through. The working is meant to soothe.
The carving holds her own name and the word for what is being healed — grief, anger, fear, or whatever specific wound the working names. Naming it is part of letting it pass.
The petition is written tenderly. Not aggressive, not forceful. I let this grief soften. I let this anger pass. I let this fear release me. Present tense, in the voice the witch would use to speak to a hurting friend.
Timing: Friday for love-and-tenderness or Monday for emotional and lunar gentleness. Either day fits. The witch chooses by feel.
The working is read with attention to whether the candle burns gently — a tall, steady, small-to-medium flame is what she wants. The active workings (drawing, banishing, protection) sometimes benefit from larger flames; this one does not. Emotional healing asks the candle to burn softly, to do its work without dramatic action. A flame that leaps high in this working may be telling her the healing is being approached with too much force.
Disposal: burning the remnants if practical, in a contained outdoor fire or fire pit. The working is about release, and burning what was used for the working completes the release physically.
Working Eight — Cleansing the Home
The home has felt heavy. Stagnant energy, residue from a difficult time, the lingering presence of someone who has left and whose energetic imprint is still in the rooms. The witch wants to clear it.
The candle is white — the universal cleansing color. The form depends on the working's scope: a single white chime in a central location for focused cleansing, tealights placed at the corners of the home for a perimeter cleansing, or a larger white candle (pillar or seven-day) for a sustained clearing of accumulated heaviness.
She dresses with lemon oil, frankincense oil, or rosemary oil — the bright cleansing scents that clear without lingering. The candle rolls in rosemary, lavender, and sea salt. The combination is the standard cleansing herbal blend across nearly every working tradition.
She carves the words this home is cleansed into the candle, or a similar simple direct phrase. No personal names on this working — the cleansing is not targeted at a person but at the home's energetic field.
The carving direction is outward from the middle, in both directions. Cleansing is a sending working — what is being cleansed is being released outward from the space.
The petition names what is being cleared. General energetic stagnation. The residue of the difficult time, named honestly. The lingering presence of the person who has left. Anything that does not serve the household's wellbeing. Folded away from her.
Timing: waning moon, any day. The waning tide carries off what is being cleansed. Day-of-week is less important than moon phase for this working — though Sunday for solar clearing or Saturday for the deeper banishing rhythm both work well.
The witch can light the candle and walk through the home with it, carrying the working room by room, saying clearing words in each space. Or place it centrally and let it burn while she sits with the working. Both methods work; the walking method is more active and often produces faster shifts in the home's feel.
She reads for heavy smoking as a good sign — the working is clearing what it is meant to clear, and the smoke is the residue leaving. White or gray smoke that disperses into the home and out through any open windows is the working actively doing its job.
Disposal: away from home, since the working has been collecting and releasing what was in the home. The remains do not stay close. Bury them at a distance, or take them to a public trash receptacle elsewhere with intention that what was cleared stays gone.
Working Nine — Communication and Clarity
The witch has a difficult conversation coming up, or needs mental clarity for a piece of work that has felt foggy, or wants insight into a question that has been unclear. The working is asking for the mind to sharpen and the words to land cleanly.
The candle is yellow — the color of mind, communication, and solar mental clarity. Chime for a single conversation or a single moment of needed clarity. Taper for sustained clarity over the working days of a project or week.
She dresses with peppermint or rosemary oil — peppermint for sharp clear thinking, rosemary for memory and clarity. The candle rolls in rosemary, alone or with a small pinch of bay for the cleaner thinking bay carries.
She carves the topic that needs clarity, or the conversation's purpose. Not a name, unless the conversation is with a specific person whose communication she wants to be clear; in that case, the person's name appears alongside the topic.
The petition names the specific communication or clarity she is asking for. I speak clearly with [person] about [topic]. We hear each other and find understanding. Or: My mind is clear on [project]. The path forward becomes visible. Specific to the situation.
Timing: Wednesday, Mercury's day for communication and mind. Any moon phase — these workings are less moon-dependent than other types — but waxing moon for better reception of what the witch is asking for to take hold.
She lights the candle before the conversation, or before the work that needs clarity. The candle's burn happens during or before the situation it is preparing the witch for. A clarity working lit two hours before a difficult meeting often produces a meeting that goes better than either party expected.
She reads for a tall, steady flame — clear thinking is broadcasting on the right frequency. A flickering or dancing flame in this working can mean active forces around the communication; she reads context to determine if those forces are favorable or are interference.
Disposal: burning the remnants for the release-into-completion direction. The working has done its work; what remains is fully consumed.
Working Ten — Releasing a Person or Pattern
The witch is releasing something or someone that no longer belongs in her life — a relationship that has ended but is still occupying her thoughts, a pattern she has been caught in, or a person she has been entangled with and needs to be free of. The working is sending the connection out, away, gone.
The candle is black or gray — black for the deeper banishing, gray for the more neutral release that is not condemning the released person but simply letting them go. The form is a chime for a contained single-session release, or a seven-day for a sustained release where the witch needs the ongoing working to help her let go across days.
She dresses with frankincense oil and a small pinch of sage — frankincense for clean release, sage for clearing what is being released. The candle rolls in rosemary and black salt.
She carves the name of the person or pattern being released. The direction of the carving is wick toward base — banishing, sending out and down. The working is geometrically pushing the released thing away from her.
If the release is from harm received — if the person being released has hurt her, or the pattern has harmed her in ways she is now ending — she butts the candle. The base is cut off, the new wick exposed at what was the bottom, and the candle now burns from the inverted orientation. The butting flips the energetic relationship: what had power over her is now beneath, what came first now comes last, and the working enacts the reversal physically.
The petition is written precisely. I release [name or pattern]. I am free of [name or pattern]. We walk our own paths. What was bound between us is unbound. The language matters. Vague releases produce incomplete releases. The witch names what specifically she is letting go of and what specifically she is asking for in its place — usually freedom, peace, her own life back.
Folded away from her, in the banishing direction.
Timing: waning moon for the receding tide, Saturday for Saturn's banishing weight.
She reads carefully. Release workings sometimes burn with grief — heavy wax pools, gray smoke, a steady but somber flame. This is the working showing her that what is being released was loved. The witch is taught what that looks like so she does not panic when a release working feels heavy. Heavy is appropriate. Heavy is the working honoring what is being let go of.
Disposal: far from home. The release leaves and does not return. Disposed at a crossroads, in a public trash receptacle in another neighborhood, or in running water if she has access to it. The remains do not come back to where she lives.
Working Eleven — Road-Opening
The witch's life feels stuck — opportunities blocked, paths refusing to move, her current situation no longer flowing. She needs the channels of her life to open again. This is the Abre Camino tradition — Road Opener — and the working is named honestly as hoodoo in origin.
The candle is yellow or orange — yellow for clarity and movement of mind, orange for the burst-of-momentum opening. Either color works; the witch chooses by which dimension of stuckness she is addressing.
She dresses with Road Opener oil if she has it — the hoodoo condition oil specifically formulated for this working. If she does not have the prepared oil, she can substitute lemon oil with a touch of cinnamon as a simpler approximation, though she should know that Road Opener oil from a hoodoo practitioner is the form the tradition itself uses. The candle rolls in bay leaf and a small piece of dried ginger — bay for victory and the opening of paths, ginger for fast movement.
She carves her own name and the word open into the candle. The carving direction is base toward wick — drawing the openness toward her, pulling the paths into her life.
The petition names where the path needs to open. The road opens for me in [the area where she is stuck]. Doors that have been closed swing open. What has been blocked moves freely. Specific to her situation.
Timing: waxing moon, Sunday or Wednesday. Sunday for solar new beginnings; Wednesday for Mercury's mental and travel-and-movement current. Both days work for road-opening.
She reads for whether the candle catches readily. A road-opening working has a particularly clear first read: a stuck working will refuse to catch, and the refusal is itself the working's first message. The roads have been so blocked that even the candle that was going to open them cannot start. When this happens, the witch sits with the working — what is so blocked that even the spell cannot begin? Sometimes the answer is that she needs to do clearing work first, before road-opening can take hold. Sometimes the candle's reluctance is itself the unblocking; she sits with what is blocked, names it honestly, and tries again, and the candle catches the second time.
Disposal: at a crossroads — the traditional hoodoo disposal for road-opening, where many paths meet. The working has been about opening paths; the remains go to the place where paths converge, signaling to the working's own logic that the opening it asked for is now part of the larger field of possibility.
Self-First as the Ethical Entry Point
For beginners, every working in this module can be turned inward — done on the witch's own life, body, home, patterns, or stuck roads. Self-first is the ethically clean entry point. The skill of designing transfers; learning on her own life first is the safest path. The witch grows into workings on others as she develops her own discernment, and there is no rush.
Intuition Built on the Conventional System
At some point in the witch's developing practice, she will want to depart from convention — choosing color, oil, or timing by personal sense rather than the textbook. This is appropriate when the intuition is informed (when she knows the convention and is overriding it for a specific reason) and inappropriate when it is uninformed (when she is overriding because she did not learn the convention in the first place).
The mature witch's intuition is built on top of the conventional system, not in the absence of it. She can choose blue for a prosperity working because something specific in this particular spell wants the steadier water-element frequency rather than green's growth, and the choice is mature. The witch who picks blue because she has not learned that green is the prosperity color is not adjusting; she is skipping the foundation.
Intuition over correspondence is a master move. Intuition instead of correspondence is a beginner's avoidance.
Common Construction Errors
Construction errors show up in beginner workings, and the witch is taught to recognize them in her own designs before she lights the candle.
Components that pull in different directions — a cleansing herb in a drawing working, a banishing oil paired with a love-drawing color, a release petition under a draw-in carved candle. The working tangles. The witch reads her assembled spell and asks whether every element pulls in the same direction. If not, the design needs to be revised.
The herb-pile-on — the witch loads ten correspondences onto one candle, thinking more must be better. The working chokes on its own complexity. Three or four well-chosen components do far more than ten components piled in. Restraint is a craft.
A petition that says one thing while the witch wants another — the most common error and the most invisible. She writes I find a partner who treats me well, but what she actually wants underneath is I am ready to stop chasing the partners who have hurt me. The surface petition produces surface results that do not address what she was really asking for. She is taught to read her own petitions for what they actually say underneath, and to revise them until the surface and the depth match.
The witch reads her own working before she lights it, asking whether the elements all pull together and whether the design matches her real intent or just her surface intent. She catches the errors at the design stage rather than discovering them in a working that smokes heavily and lands wrong.
The Witch as Designer
Every working is a small designed system. The witch designs it — the components are her materials, the intent her commission. The working she builds is hers, with her composition, her hand, her signature in fire. What she designs next will be hers — built for her situation, by her integration of these elements.
Internal Family Systems & Parts Work Integration Practice
IFS Parts Journaling
Designing a candle working begins by noticing what your system is actually asking for.
For this practice, take five to ten minutes, or longer if desired. Find a notebook, journal, or blank page.
Think about the idea of designing your own candle working instead of following a ready-made recipe.
Notice what comes up inside your system. A part may feel excited, overwhelmed, curious, cautious, confident, intimidated, creative, doubtful, or eager to begin.
Choose the response that feels strongest and let that part write first.
Have it share what it wants you to understand about creating a working with intention, structure, and care.
If it helps, choose one of these questions:
What feels empowering about designing a working myself?
What feels overwhelming about choosing the candle, color, herbs, petition, timing, and disposal?
What would help me keep the working simple, clear, and aligned?
Let the writing come in whatever form feels natural: sentences, fragments, questions, objections, images, memories, or simple notes. When the writing feels complete, pause and read what came through. Notice what this part is showing you about clarity, simplicity, confidence, and the kind of magical design your system may be ready to practice.
When you are ready, put the pen down. Take a final moment to acknowledge and thank the parts of you that showed up for this practice.
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