Candle Spell to Ruin Business

Candle Spell to Ruin Business

This candle spell was inspired by a curse tablet recovered from Attica. It calls upon Hermes and the Praxidikai. The spell pledges offerings in return for a successful result.

I designed it, but have not (yet) tried it. Please share your results if you do.


Step One: Petition

Write out the following spell BACKWARDS on a small sheet of paper:

I bind and restrain ___ . And you, Dear Goddesses of Vengeance, restrain them; Hermes the Restrainer, restrain ___ and the affairs of ___ and cause the entire business in which ___ is engaged to become entirely contrary and backwords for ___ . I will make offerings to you in exchange for news, Goddesses of Vengeance and Hermes the Restrainer, if ___ fairs badly.

Annoint the (small) petition with either:

  • Dark Arts Oil
  • Prosperity Oil + Poison Hemlock Oil

If using poison hemlock, be smart and go through a reputable seller, like Belladonna’s Botanicals. It doesn’t hurt to wear gloves!


Step Two: Roll Candle

Roll the petition up with a candlewick in a sheet of (preferably black) beeswax. Hold it in your hands and pour your energy and intent into the candles; employ visualisation and speak aloud, if you wish.


Step Three: Incantation

Light the candle and recite the incantion above.


Step Four: Visualisation

Pour more energy and intent into the candle, imaging the flame as a gateway. Envision your will working itself. Let the candle burn all the way down; keep an eye on how it burns. Rolled petition candles burn different from normal candles.


Best done on a Saturday during the late planetary hour of Saturn :+1:

Don’t forget to give the promised offerings if the spell is successful!

:warning::fire: Rolled petition candles burn hotter and less predictably than normal candles! Don’t roll them too tight, try to keep the petition paper small, and absolutely do not leave them unattended. They can crack ceramic plates, set fire to resin, etc. I have found that adding herb mixes helps them to burn more consistently.

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Sorry if I am thinking too hard about this, but by backwards, do you mean the order of the words or by flipping the text (like a mirror)?

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The words are written right to left :slight_smile:

  • Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic & Religion (eds. Christopher Faraone & Dirk Obbink), pg.007

Edit: this one in particular was written in reverse, from bottom to top, from right to left.

  • Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (ed. John G. Gager), pg.156

Second Edit: “Mirror writing” did also happen. But, not in the tablet that inspired this spell.

  • Magic in the Ancient Greek World (Derek Collins), pg.066
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For further clarification, writing the words left to right, so when writing it backwards, it’s “badly fairs target if etc etc etc”?

I’ve been trying to get someone fired from their job for the longest, and the person is still working there, so fuck it, if they won’t fire this person, then the whole damn business will suffer.

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It’s more about the tradition of curse tablets and binding spells; it was a common method of inscription. I kept it in this spell to keep up the connection.

Good luck!!


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If you’d like, I could try to work this spell for you. I would switch out Hermes for Hekate and the Praxidikai for the fates, since I have a relationship with and am regularly in ritual with them. It would give me a chance to test the spell, and help skirt around lust for results.

Send me a PM of your interested, and no worries if not. It would, ofc, be free.

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I read this as a means to help make it look more unintelligible (like forgetting a sigil’s meaning) and the concentration being held while doing this adds to the investment in the rite itself.

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Backwards writing, from what I’ve read, was used when it was meant to effect the target; ie let ___ be backwards, as these words are backwards.

Many of these tablets were written by common people with no real concept of magical practice. They were petitions to spirits. From what I’ve read, even the magicians of Western antiquity didn’t think man had power to influence the world around them; they could only hope to negotiate with / appeal to / threaten / bind spirits into doing things for them.

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Interesting. I’m a little backlogged on my spell work, but may get to this and play with it a bit after that.

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I once knew a curse, I would have to do some digging to find it again but you had a peice of paper cut into a circular shape and you wrote the name of your target going around the circle counter clockwise. I remember it was a curse to bind their tongue from speaking against you. But I cant remember the whole spell.

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“At first glance it is not clear what the intended effect is of mirroring a victim’s name. Literate Greeks often wrote in a manner called boustrophedon, which referred to writing alternatively from left to right and then continuing from right to left, as in the furrows dredged by the oxen in plowing. The phenomenon of backward writing, moreover, is also observable in Greek vase painting, where the names and speech of individuals represented on the vase can be spelled backwards, in accordance with whatever design is aesthetically pleasing to the painter. Thus there are several non-magical precedents for backwards writing. Be that as it may, this does not mean that magical connotations could not have developed around the metaphor of backwardsness or reversal. It has been suggested, for instance, that that writing backwards reflects the reversal of fortune that the practicioner wishes his victim would experience…the metaphor of reversal here may have visual connotations as well. The act of binding could be conceived as a twisting around or a reversal, as if one were binding another person with rope and moved over and under the body, forward and backward…What we have, then, in the backward and mirror writing is a loose affiliation of ideas of reversal, which as always in magic admit of a creative variation and elaboration over time.”

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This is wonderful, thank you for sharing.

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I’m glad you like it :slight_smile:
Thank you for the excellent spirit work tutorials!

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I have a bit of irony for you about about datura, specifically the species (don’t know if they’ve changed its name yet) called Datura Stramonium. It, along with Tobacco (nicotiana tobaccum) and Lobelia (lobelia inflata) we’re once prescribed by Drs in the 1800s to treat Asthma and also for coughs. They actually recommend smoking it (sometimes in saltpeter soaked paper).

No joke somewhere in the house somehow we actually have a couple antique home remedy books from the 1800s one is strictly medical like nursing stuff with picture plates showing stuff like what scarlet fever would look like. The other has about 3 sections. Home remedies, cooking and animal husbandry tips.

The most shocking thing in them is recommending opioids for cranky babies. Like when I saw that in the 3 parter book I did a double take and I swear I said either holy shit or what the fuck when I read that. Opium fir babies. Wtf? I guess it made them sleep if it didn’t kill them but I bet it just made them crankier the next time seeing as it coulda addicted them. Other surprises were remedies requiring red lead or white lead. I’d like to know what the heck I are those besides poisonous?

Think I’ll take a pass on that books remedies.

Love reading your stuff. You have great info.

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Thank you! :slight_smile:

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Hi @Mythopoeia, I tried to PM about this but it says you’re not accepting them :disappointed:

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