Lily oil

How to Use It

Folk Catholicism & Spiritism

• Marian altars: anoint a white candle with lily oil and set it before an image of the Virgin with fresh white flowers for blessing and protection of the household.
• Saints’ work: Saint Joseph and Saint Anthony of Padua are both shown holding lilies, and lily oil is a natural dressing for their candles and statues.
• Funerals and novenas: a drop on a candle for the dead during the nine nights of prayer after a death.

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Breaking unwanted love ties: lily is traditionally used to break a love spell; dress a white candle and burn it while naming the tie to be cut.
• Protection: wipe a little on the front door and on windows of a child’s room.
• Ancestor offerings: dress a white candle and place it beside a glass of water on the ancestor altar.

Ceremonial & Occult Magick

• Lunar consecration: lily’s lunar correspondence suits anointing a silver bowl, scrying mirror or moon talisman on the night of the full moon.

A Simple Working

• On a Monday or the night of the full moon, place a white candle beside a glass of fresh water.
• Dress the candle from the wick down with lily oil.
• Set a photograph or written name of the person you are honouring under the glass.
• Light the candle and speak to them plainly: their name, a memory and a blessing.
• Sit with it for a while, then let the candle burn down.
• Pour the water out at the foot of a tree the next morning.

Pairs Well With

• A white chime candle: the classic colour for lily’s purity and blessing.
• Holy water: for Marian and saint altars.
• A Saint Joseph statue: the saint traditionally pictured with the lily.
• Myrrh oil: a deeper resin note for prayers for the dead.

What You Receive

Lily oil in 2 dram, 1 oz and 16 oz (1 lb) sizes.

Origin & Lore

The Madonna lily (Lilium candidum) has been grown around the Mediterranean for thousands of years, appearing in Minoan frescoes on Crete. In Christian use the white lily became the emblem of the Virgin Mary and of chaste saints, and the Easter lily (Lilium longiflorum) is now the church flower of the Resurrection and a fixture of funerals.

Painters of the Annunciation nearly always put a white lily in the scene, sometimes in the angel’s hand and sometimes in a vase at Mary’s side: one flower to say ‘pure’ without a word.

A late Greek tale has the white lily springing from drops of Hera’s milk that fell to earth while she nursed the infant Heracles, the same spill that made the Milky Way. Medieval Christians reread the flower as the Virgin’s own, which is how it came to be called the Madonna lily. Cunningham’s herbal gives lily to the Moon and Water and lists it for protection and for breaking love spells.