Module 7 — Petition Papers and Loading the Candle | Candle Magic Course
- May 6
- 14 min read
Updated: May 15
Free Course by Everything IFS Academy | Witchcraft Series
Module 7 — Petition Papers and Loading the Candle
What a Petition Paper Does
In candle magic, holding an intention in the mind and committing it to paper produce different workings. Most beginners do not feel the difference at first, because they have not yet experienced what happens to a working when it is fixed in physical form. They light candles with their wishes held silently in their thoughts, and the workings produce results, sometimes. The witch who adds a written petition to her candle work for the first time tends to notice the change immediately. The spell sits differently. It lands harder. It moves through the world with more weight.
The reason is straightforward: writing is commitment. The spoken intention can drift, soften, blur the witch can subtly revise it mid-spell without realizing she has done so, can hedge it by holding it half-heartedly, can let it dissolve into a vaguer wish than she meant. The written intention does not drift. It exists outside the witch now, in ink on paper, fixed in a form that cannot quietly change itself while she is not looking.
A petition paper, in candle magic, is a written statement of the spell's intention, placed under or inside the candle during the working. Petition writing is not an accessory to candle magic it is, in the hoodoo tradition where the practice was most fully developed, a craft in itself with its own depth. Catherine Yronwode wrote an entire book on petition work alone, Paper in My Shoe, and the title comes from a folk practice the witch will meet later in this lesson. Petition is one of the largest pieces of candle magic, and it deserves its own attention.
The other thing writing does, beyond commitment, is give the petition physical existence the witch can act on. Once written, the intention exists on a substrate that can be folded, carried, burned, buried, placed under a candle, slipped into a shoe. The candle burning above or beside that paper transfers its work through the written words, treating the paper as part of the spell's body rather than a label attached to it.
Paper, Ink, and Color
The materials are simpler than the supply industry sometimes suggests.
Parchment paper is traditional and preferred: the thick, slightly textured paper that has carried sacred writing across cultures for millennia. It feels different in the hand than ordinary paper, takes ink well, and tears with deliberate effort rather than crumbling, which means a parchment petition holds up to folding and handling without falling apart in the working. Witchcraft shops sell it in packs sized for spellwork, and a single pack lasts most witches a long time.
Brown paper from a paper bag, cut into squares, is the traditional hoodoo substitute when parchment is not available. The witch with a stack of grocery bags in her kitchen has petition paper without spending a cent. Brown paper has its own tradition: humble, available, connected to the kitchen and the hands that handle the household and it is not a lesser material. Many experienced practitioners prefer brown paper specifically for its folk-tradition associations.
Plain white paper works as well. The witch with neither parchment nor a brown paper bag and a pressing working does not need to delay the spell to acquire fancier materials. The intention, the writing, and the placement are what matter; the paper itself is a substrate.
Dragon's blood ink is the traditional petition ink: deep red, heavy, magically charged through the dragon's blood resin from which it is made. A bottle of dragon's blood ink and a dip pen is the classical setup, and witches who do extensive petition work often build their practice around it. Plain pens in black or blue work for everyday petition writing. Pencil works when nothing else is available, though pencil is less durable and more easily smudged.
Color choice can deepen the working: red ink for love or for any spell that wants force behind it; brown ink for grounded, everyday, earth-rooted work; gold or silver ink for workings focused on deity or spirit relationships, where the metallic colors carry their solar and lunar weights respectively. The witch chooses ink color the way she chooses candle color to match the working's frequency.
Three Principles of Petition Writing
The writing of the petition itself is where craft becomes specific. Three principles run through good petition writing.
Clear Language
The petition is not literary. It is operative. The witch is naming what she wants in language plain enough that the working cannot misunderstand her. Flourishes and metaphors get in the way. I receive abundance with grace and ease is fine. May the cosmic tides of wealth flow into my chalice as the moon waxes toward her fullness is purple prose getting in the way of the spell. The witch writes the way she would write a clear instruction, not the way she would write a poem.
Present Tense
The petition is written as if the working has already manifested or is currently manifesting, not as a hope for some future moment. Money comes to me easily and in abundance. Not I will have money one day or I hope money will come. The future tense puts the result perpetually out of reach the working keeps creating "future moments where money will arrive" rather than the actual arrival. The present tense pulls the manifestation into now.
Positive Phrasing
The petition states what is rather than what is not. Love finds me rather than I am not alone. My health is restored rather than I am not sick. I am safe in my home rather than no harm comes to me. The working tends to enact what the petition names, and the petition that names absence and negation often enacts those, even when the witch's intention was the opposite. I am not broke contains the word broke, and the working hears it. Money flows to me names what the witch wants to actually happen.
Scoping the Petition
There is a balance the witch develops over time between specificity and openness. Too vague, and the working has nothing concrete to land on. I want things to be better gives the spell no target — better in what way, by what means, for whom? Too specific, and the witch boxes out the universe's better answers. I want this exact job at this exact company starting on the first of next month with this exact salary may close off opportunities that would have served her more than the one she has tightly named. The working petition is specific enough to give the spell direction and open enough to allow multiple paths to the result. I find work that pays me well, uses my real skills, and feels like a fit is specific in what matters and open in how it arrives.
A practical rule that helps: avoid naming specific people when the spell is about a general condition. A witch who wants to draw love into her life does not name the particular person she is currently interested in that closes the spell to anyone else who might actually be the better match. She names the condition (love finds me, an aligned partner enters my life) and lets the working bring whoever fits. When the spell is genuinely about a specific relationship: healing a particular friendship, deepening her connection with her actual partner, repairing a strained tie with a sister then the specific person belongs in the petition, because the working is about that relationship and not about love in general. The witch asks: is this spell about a condition or about a specific person? The answer determines whether the name belongs.
Writing the Target's Name in Repetition
Beyond the body of the petition itself, there is the writing of the target's name, which carries its own technique inherited from hoodoo and now woven through most of contemporary American candle magic.
In hoodoo tradition, the name of the target is written in repetition three, seven, or nine times in a column down the page. The witch picks the count to match the gravity of the working: three for simpler workings, seven for deeper binding, nine for the strongest. Each name is written cleanly, all at once, the witch saying or thinking the name as the pen moves through it.
The target may be the witch herself for self-workings, the witch's own legal name written in repetition is the standard. The target may be another person — and the ethical weights of writing another person's name into a candle working will arrive a few sections from now, because naming another person's life as territory for a spell to move through is not a small thing.
The Crossing Technique
After the name has been written in repetition, the crossing technique completes the binding. The witch turns the paper ninety degrees, the column of names is now horizontal and writes her intention across the names, perpendicular to them. The lines cross. In hoodoo this is called crossing the name, and the technical meaning is precise: the name is now fixed in both directions by the intention. The vertical column says this is the person. The horizontal line cutting across says and this is what the spell does about the person. The two together make a sealed petition.
A name written in repetition without crossing is not fully bound to the working. The witch who writes the intention parallel to the name rather than across it has named a person and named a wish but has not bound the wish to the person. The crossing is not optional in the hoodoo system; it is the closure on the petition.
Folding the Petition
Once the petition is written and the name is crossed, the paper is folded according to the same direction principle that governs carving and anointing. Toward the witch for drawing-in workings the writing facing her own body as the fold closes. Away from the witch for banishing the writing facing away from her body. The folding can be repeated three, seven, or nine times to match the number used in writing the name; numerical consistency layers the working's depth.
Where the Petition Goes
The folded petition is then placed in relation to the candle, and the standard placements have their own logic.
The most common placement: under the candle or the candle holder. The folded petition rests on the working surface, the candle sits on top of it, and the candle burns directly above the paper. The petition burns spiritually while the candle burns physically the intention written on the paper is being processed by the flame above it for the entire duration of the burn.
For glass-encased candles, the petition can be taped to the bottom of the glass so that it travels with the candle and burns alongside it for the full seven days or nine days. Rolled around the candle and tied with string is another option. Slipped into a cavity carved into the candle's base the loading technique that is about to be taught in detail places the petition inside the candle itself.
Each placement is valid. Consistency in the witch's practice matters more than the exact choice picking one method and using it across her workings builds rhythm that develops her petition craft over time, while switching methods every working makes each spell start from zero in this respect.
Loading the Candle
Loading is hoodoo's deepest contribution to petition work. It is what happens when the witch puts material inside the candle itself rather than placing it underneath or beside.
Carving the Cavity and Filling It
A small cavity is carved into the base of the candle about a quarter of an inch to a half-inch deep, roughly a pencil's width across. The witch uses a knife, a sharp pencil, or a small drill bit if she has one, hollowing out a small chamber in what will be the bottom of the candle when it stands upright.
Into that cavity, the witch loads the working's material. A pinch of herbs matching the intention the same herbs she might have rolled the candle in during dressing, but now placed inside rather than outside. The petition paper folded small enough to fit into the cavity. Curios appropriate to the spell small physical objects that carry symbolic or sympathetic weight: a cinnamon chip for warmth and quickening, a dried rose petal for love, a small crystal whose properties match the working, a pinch of graveyard dirt for ancestor work, a tiny written sigil on its own scrap of paper. The cavity holds whatever the witch determines the working needs to carry inside it.
Sealing with Wax
Once the cavity is filled, it is sealed with melted wax. The witch tilts the candle over a plate and lets a few drops of wax drip from the wick or from a separate dripping candle into the cavity. The wax cools and hardens, sealing the loaded material inside the candle's body. The candle is now structurally complete. When it burns, the loaded material inside the base will eventually be reached and released as the burn progresses though for many workings the candle finishes before reaching the base, and the loaded material remains held inside the wax remnant. Both outcomes are valid; the loading is doing its work either way.
Loading Glass-Encased Candles
For glass-encased candles where the base is not accessible, the loading equivalent uses the top of the candle. The witch pierces the exposed top wax with a skewer in three points north, southwest, and southeast in the traditional hoodoo pattern and drops the loading material into each hole. The principle is the same: material is going into the candle's body rather than onto its surface, and the seven-day candle so loaded carries the working from inside.
Personal Concerns: A Hoodoo Concept
Personal concerns is the term hoodoo uses for biological and behavioral material that creates a direct magical link to a specific person.
The category includes: hair taken from a brush, cut deliberately, found on a pillow. Fingernail clippings. Skin — flecks from a callus, skin from a hairbrush. Blood taken with proper sterile precautions, in tiny amounts, from the witch's own body for self-workings. Saliva. Handwriting samples a note in the person's hand, a signature, a journal page. Photographs, especially recent ones where the person is recognizable. Items used in long contact with the person a worn handkerchief, a piece of clothing, a comb, a piece of jewelry that lived against the skin.
In hoodoo tradition, personal concerns are not optional accessories to a working they are the technology that makes a person-targeted spell actually targeted. A working with the right personal concerns is significantly more potent than the same working without them. A candle that contains the witch's own hair burns differently for her than one that does not; a candle that contains a target's hair reaches that target in ways the candle without it cannot. The witch is not making the working stronger through some general energy boost; she is creating a direct magical conduit between the spell and the specific physical body it is meant to affect.
Working with Your Own Personal Concerns
The witch's own personal concerns in self-workings are the cleanest entry point to loading work. The working is hers, the body it concerns is hers, and the material going into the candle is hers. Her own hair from her own brush. Her own nail clippings. A drop of her own blood drawn with a sterile lancet (the kind diabetic patients use for blood-sugar testing cheap, sterile, designed for safe use on one's own body). Her own handwriting on the petition itself. A photograph of herself. This is ethically clean territory. The witch is working on herself with her own material no consent question, no targeting of another person, just the witch herself fully bound into her own working through her own body. Every working she does on herself with her own personal concerns deepens her practice without raising the harder questions that come up when other people's material enters the work.
The Ethics of Loading Another Person's Material
That harder territory deserves real honesty rather than tidy reassurance.
A witch who loads her candle with another person's hair, used without that person's consent, is performing magical targeting on that person without permission. This is not a small thing. The personal concern creates a real magical link to the target. The working, whatever it is, now has direct access to that target's life. Depending on what the working is intended to do bind, control, influence, draw the target toward the witch, harm the target this crosses from personal spellwork into magical manipulation of a specific human being who did not agree to be the subject of the spell.
Different traditions handle this differently, and the honest teaching names the variation rather than smoothing it over. Some hoodoo practice explicitly allows for binding and compelling workings when the witch believes the working is justified protective bindings against someone who is harming her, compelling workings to make a debtor pay what they owe, retribution workings against someone who has done real harm. Hoodoo as a tradition has never been pacifist about magical action against people who deserve it, and there are deep folk practices around using personal concerns for serious workings on other humans. Other traditions reject all non-consensual magical targeting of others, holding that the consent question outweighs whatever justification the witch feels she has.
This course names the technology and names the question. It does not resolve the ethical disagreement, because the disagreement runs through living traditions and is not the course's to settle on behalf of practitioners working in different lineages. The recommendation, especially for beginning students: work with the witch's own personal concerns for self-focused workings. Hold off on workings that target other people through their personal concerns until the witch has developed her own ethical position with experience, until she has thought hard enough about consent and intention and consequence to know where her own line is and why. The technology will still be there when she is ready. Loading another person's material into a candle is not a beginner skill, and rushing into it produces workings the witch may regret and may not be able to undo.
Name Paper in the Shoe
One final piece of petition tradition is worth naming: the name paper in the shoe. This is the practice that gives Yronwode's book its title. The witch writes a petition for a working, most often a road-opening, success, or opportunity-drawing spell and folds it small enough to fit into her own shoe. She places the folded paper inside the shoe she will wear, and steps on it every time she walks through her day.
The walking activates the petition. Every step is a small repetition of the working the witch is literally moving through the world with her intention pressed against the sole of her foot, carrying the petition into every place she goes. Often this practice is combined with a candle burning on her altar at home: the candle powers the working, the walking activates it. Over the days the petition stays in the shoe (until it falls apart or the working manifests), the witch is doing magic continuously without sitting down for it. The petition does not have to live under a candle to do its work.
Don't Confuse Complexity with Power
The witch reading this teaching for the first time may feel some pressure to do all of it on every working: write a parchment petition in dragon's blood ink with the name crossed in repetition, fold it the right number of times, load the candle with a cavity full of herbs and curios and personal concerns, seal it with wax. This pressure is misplaced.
A well-written petition placed under a well-dressed candle is a complete working loading is an advanced technique that adds depth but is not required, and beginner's candle work with clean petitions and good dressing produces real results for years, if the witch never moves beyond that level of preparation. Loading enters the practice as the witch develops, when she finds workings that specifically call for it, when the simpler preparation no longer feels sufficient for what she is asking the spell to do. There is no rush to add complexity for its own sake. The candle works harder not because more was packed into it but because the witch's working was clearer, her preparation more focused, her intention more present.
What the Petition and Loading Together Do
The petition names what the candle is for. The loading puts the witch's own life into the wax. Both fix the working in physical form, where it can do its work first written, then folded, then placed or sealed inside the candle's body. The intention is no longer a thought the witch is holding. It is an object the spell is moving through, and the spell now has the weight it needs to land.
Internal Family Systems & Parts Work Integration Practice
IFS Parts Journaling
Petition writing begins when an intention becomes clear enough to place on the page.
For this practice, take five to ten minutes, or longer if desired. Find a notebook, journal, or blank page.
Think of one intention that feels present in your life right now. It might be protection, healing, love, clarity, prosperity, release, peace, courage, communication, or another focus your system chooses.
Notice which intention stirs something in a part of you. Have that part share what it wants you to understand before this intention becomes a written petition.
If it helps, choose one of these questions:
What feels clear enough to write down?
What feels too vague, too exposed, or not ready to commit to paper?
What would help this intention feel honest, respectful, and clean?
Let the writing come in whatever form feels natural: sentences, fragments, objections, questions, 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, consent, commitment, and the kind of intention your system may be ready to name.
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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