Separation (back to back) candle

How to Use It

Hoodoo & Rootwork

• Break-up: carve the man’s and woman’s names on their figures, dress the candle with a Separation or Break-Up oil, and burn it a little each night.
• Cutting: on the last night, cut through the base with a knife and set the two figures down in different rooms or at opposite ends of the house.
• Cat and dog: lay black cat hair and black dog hair around the base so the pair fight like cats and dogs.

Demonology & Black Magick

• A harder break-up uses Goofer dust or graveyard dirt around the candle, with the remains of each figure disposed of in different places.
• Some workers burn each half upside down on separate nights to drive the two further apart.

A Simple Working

• Carve each person’s name on the figure that represents them.
• Dress the candle with a few drops of Separation oil, working outward from the join.
• Sprinkle black pepper around the base.
• Burn it for a short time each night, snuffing between sessions.
• On the last night, cut the two figures apart at the base.
• Burn each half separately until both are done.
• Dispose of the two remains in two different directions, far from each other.

Pairs Well With

• Separation oil: the classic dressing for break-up work.
• Black pepper: to sow discord around the base.
• A ritual knife: for cutting the figures apart.
• Graveyard dirt: for heavier break-up work.

What You Receive

A separation candle moulded as a male and female figure back to back, joined at the base: 6 1/2″ in black or red, or 8″ in black. Moulded candles vary slightly and may need levelling at the base.

Origin & Lore

Separation candles, also sold as back to back candles, are a 20th-century candle-shop form used in rootwork break-up work. The two figures turn away from each other and meet only at the base, so the worker can cut them apart. Black is the usual colour for ending and severing; red is used when the work focuses on ending passion between the pair.

Two figures who will not look at each other, held together only by the wax beneath their feet: cut that, and the couple stands apart.

Break-up work is well documented in the hoodoo interviews collected by Harry Middleton Hyatt in the American South between 1936 and 1940 and later published as Hoodoo-Conjuration-Witchcraft-Rootwork. His informants describe separating couples with mixed animal hairs, crossed sticks and names written back to back on paper, the same idea this candle puts into wax.