Dear Friends,
There are many items that you’ll need in the practice of magick that won’t be part of your standard altar pieces. We’ve discussed before the altar tools, their purposes and what you should look for, but this time I wanted to talk about the other essentials to magick. I call these my magickal pantry. When you have a well-stocked magickal pantry, you’ll be able to a variety of spells at the drop of the hat, sometimes with the purchase of just a few extra items.While there is something exciting about shopping specifically for one spell and making a trip to the occult shop, frankly, it can sometimes be a pain in the butt. With a good magickal pantry, you’ll be freer to explore different types of spells and magick without making return trips to the shop or paying extra shipping online for multiple orders. Plus, when you buy certain items in bulk, you might find good discounts. A frugal witch is a mindful witch!
The first necessary item on my magickal pantry list is candles. Lots and lots of candles. While you’ll have your pillar Goddess and God candles for your altar, and perhaps your candles for each of the four elements, you’ll want to get your hands on some good spell candles. These are normally about the size of a roll of dimes and can be bought anywhere from .10 to .25 each. I buy white candles in bulk, and then have a collection of other helpful colors. Green for luck, money and job spells. Pink for healing, love and children. Red for passion, quick action and motivation. Purple for psychic energy, meditation and visions. Black for banishing and withdrawing things from your life. There are many other colors that you can use and you can refer to any good correspondence chart to find out what they mean. When you buy, think about the magick that you most often create, and purchase accordingly.
The great thing about these little spell candles, as opposed to tea lights or votives, is that they burn rather quickly. Since you’ll want to leave any candle you use in a spell burning to release the magickal energy, these are great because they don’t present that much of a fire hazard. If you do your spell in the early night hours, you won’t be going to bed with tons of candles lit. I know! I’m a mom, I think about these things.
Herbs are another essential magickal pantry item. I always have sage on hand, in little bundles and loose as well. I also use cinquefoil (which is a good herb for money and luck spells), mugwort (for divinatory purposes), borage (for courage), daisy and dill (for love), hyacinth (for purification), nettle (for protection), rosemary (for friendship and fidelity) and marjoram (for peace and joy).
You’ll also want some incense in your pantry. Both loose incense and loose herbs can be burned using a fireproof dish and some charcoal. You’ll want to get the kind of charcoal that is used to ignite hookahs, and this can be bought in rolls of ten or in a large box rather inexpensively. it’s often worth it to look for charcoal in ethnic food markets, because the price will often be much, much lower than at your local occult shop. For example, a roll of 10 at the local Indian market costs me $1.49 whereas the same roll is $4.00 at the pagan bookstore.
Other odds and ends that you will need include parchment (for which you can substitute blank brown paper bags), felt, thread and needles, buttons, string and natural objects such as rocks, twigs, feathers and pressed flowers. These crafty items can be used to create pouches for spells, poppets and other magickal projects. A word on feathers: While I used to freely collect these from my neighborhood, due to the avian flu I highly recommend buying these from a craft store instead.
You can also add any items that you use on a regular basis, such as sea salt, to your magickal pantry. These items can be kept in one place (I know people who use a tackle box) or stored in a closet along with other household things.
So like a good boy scout, be prepared — and stock your magickal pantry!
Love And Light,
Rose Ariadne, Your Warm And Caring “Resident Witch In Charge”
Thank you for the information
do you have a spell I can use to get rid of a nasty neighbor.I believe she has buried something on my property next to my 17 year olds window.
I am a garden witch…I love herbs and I loved your article in stocking your pantry. I also have a love affair with candles and agree that you can never have enough. Being a practical witch is crucial to the practice as, sometimes the more ‘basic’ an item is, or if you happen to discover it (i.e., outside in your yard, etc.) it is even more magickal as, in a way, it found you.