How to Use It
Hoodoo & Rootwork
- Naming: carve the man’s full name across the chest and dress the candle with an oil chosen for the aim.
- Hot foot: a black figure is dressed with a driving-away oil and burned to make a troublesome man leave the area.
- Pairing: set a red male figure beside a female figure and burn both a little each night, moving them closer together.
Demonology & Black Magick
- Cursing: a black figure is pierced with pins at the points to be afflicted, dressed with a crossing oil and burned upside down or at the waning moon.
- Binding: the figure is wrapped tightly in black cord, with the name spoken at each turn, before or after burning.
Witchcraft & Folk Magick
- Work and money: carve a man’s name into a green figure and burn it on a Thursday for a raise or job.
A Simple Working
- Choose a black figure to send an unwanted man out of your life.
- Carve his name across the chest and the words “go away” down the back.
- Dress it from head to feet with a little castor oil.
- Stand it in a dish and ring the base with black pepper.
- Light it at the waning moon and tell him plainly to leave.
- Burn it a little each night until it is gone, snuffing between sessions.
- Take the remains and pepper to a crossroads far from your home and leave without looking back.
Pairs Well With
- A woman figure candle: for love, pairing and reconciliation work.
- Black pepper: for driving-off and banishing burns.
- Black cord: for binding the figure.
- Sewing pins: for marking or afflicting points on the wax.
What You Receive
A 6 3/4″ nude male figure candle in black, red, pink, purple or green. Moulded candles vary slightly in size, shape and colour and may need levelling at the base to stand straight.
Origin & Lore
Male figure candles come from the same long practice of image magick as poppets and wax dolls, where a likeness is worked as the person it represents. In 20th-century American candle shops these figures became a standard part of rootwork supplies. Black is chosen for banishing, removing and cursing; red for passion; pink for affection; purple for command; green for money and work.
Carve his name into the wax and the candle becomes him: drawn closer, sweetened, bound, or sent away.
Wax images turn up repeatedly in English history. In 1441 Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, was accused with the astrologer Roger Bolingbroke and Margery Jourdemayne, called the Witch of Eye, of using image magick against King Henry VI. Margery was burned, Bolingbroke executed, and the duchess forced to do public penance and imprisoned for life.
Did You Know?
“Poppet”, the old English word for a doll used in image magick, comes from Middle English “popet”, meaning a small child or doll, and shares its root with “puppet”.



