Astral Journey Soy Votive Candle | Frankincense & Cypress

Astral travel is one of those spiritual practices that sounds far more dramatic than it actually is. Most of what passes for astral journey work in real practitioners' lives is small, ordinary, and undertaken half-asleep: lucid dreaming, meditative visualization, hypnagogic exploration in the moments before sleep, the slow careful inner-sight work of tracking imagery during deep meditation. Big out-of-body experiences happen, but they happen rarely. The candle is for everything else: the daily, repeated, patient work of opening the third eye, training the inner senses, and learning to travel in the imagination without losing your seat in the body.

This is Crystal Journey's soy votive interpretation of astral-journey work, part of their intention-based soy line. The candle is one hundred percent plant-based soy wax in a thick glass jar, scented with the Crystal Journey astral journey blend of rosemary, frankincense, myrrh, citronella, and cypress, all carried in essential oil. The white wax follows Crystal Journey's intention-color system. White is the long-standing Western correspondence for spirit, the upper chakras, and any working that asks the practitioner to make contact with realms outside the dense everyday body.

The five oils in this blend are not aromatherapeutically random. Rosemary, frankincense, myrrh, and cypress are all classical "psychopomp" plants in Western magical tradition: plants used since antiquity to walk practitioners between waking and dreaming, between this world and the next. Citronella is the contemporary touch, the protective bug-repelling note that keeps astral work tethered enough to come back from.

Key Features

One hundred percent soy wax for a clean, slow burn. Soy wax is plant-derived (typically from soybean oil) and burns more slowly and at a cooler temperature than paraffin, which extends the burn time and tends to produce less soot. Many practitioners with paraffin sensitivities (headaches, scent intolerance, or a general preference for plant-based candles) choose soy specifically for these reasons.

Rosemary, frankincense, myrrh, citronella, and cypress essential oil blend. Crystal Journey's astral journey blend is one of the most traditionally-grounded scents in their lineup. Rosemary opens memory and inner sight, used in European folk magic for vivid dreaming and dreamwork since at least the medieval period. Frankincense and myrrh together carry two thousand years of temple-incense association, the resins burned in nearly every ancient mystery tradition that practiced trance or vision-work. Cypress is the classical funeral plant of Greek and Roman tradition, the tree planted in cemeteries because it was understood to mark the borderland between worlds. Citronella adds a sharp protective note that grounds the working and keeps astral work from drifting too far from the body. The whole blend reads cool, resinous, and slightly green, with a quality of being on the threshold of somewhere else.

Thick glass jar votive for contained burning. Unlike Crystal Journey's standard freestanding herbal votive, this soy votive comes in a thick glass jar that contains the wax pool throughout the burn. The jar makes the candle suitable for indoor altar use without a separate holder, and easier to relight across multiple sessions without drips or wax loss. For dreamwork specifically, practitioners often light this candle at the start of a wind-down ritual and snuff it before sleep; the contained format makes that workflow safer than freestanding candles.

Product Details

• Format: scented soy votive candle in glass jar
• Dimensions: approximately 2 inch diameter by 2.5 inch height (sizes may vary slightly)
• Wax: 100% soy
• Color: white (Crystal Journey's intention-color correspondence for astral, spirit, and upper-chakra work in the soy line; the herbal sister-line uses cream for the same intention)
• Aroma: rosemary, frankincense, myrrh, citronella, and cypress essential oil blend
• Maker: Crystal Journey Candles (soy line)
• Origin: handcrafted in Connecticut, USA
• Burn time: approximately 18 to 20 hours

Ingredients

• 100% soy wax
• Cotton wick (paper and cotton, lead-free per maker)
• Rosemary, frankincense, myrrh, citronella, and cypress essential oil blend
• Glass jar housing

The Spiritual Significance

Astral journey work in folk and ceremonial magic covers a broad inner-sight territory: lucid dreaming, dream incubation, prophetic dreaming, visualization-based pathworking, hypnagogic vision-work, formal astral projection, mediumship preparation, scrying preparation, and the slow training of the practitioner's clairvoyant senses across years. Practitioners light astral candles before dream-incubation rituals, before scrying sessions, before tarot readings that need extra inner-sight clarity, before guided pathworking through Hermetic or Wiccan path systems, before any working where the goal is to move attention from the body's senses to something subtler.

In hoodoo and rootwork, astral candles share altar space with mugwort (the dreaming herb), bay laurel (the visioning herb), poppy seeds, amethyst, and selenite. In Wiccan and folk-Pagan practice, astral work is associated with the Moon (especially full and waxing moon timing), with Mondays as the traditional dreaming day, and with the planetary sphere of Yesod in Hermetic Qabalah, the sphere of dreams, illusion, and the lower astral plane. Third Eye chakra (Ajna) and Crown chakra (Sahasrara) practice, drawn from Hindu tantric traditions, treat the upper two chakras as the energetic seat of inner sight, intuition, and contact with consciousness beyond the body. The candle does not deliver visions; it tunes the practitioner's own field for the work.

How To Use

1. Place the candle on a stable, heatproof surface, away from drafts and flammable materials. The thick glass jar contains the wax pool but becomes warm during burning.
2. Cleanse the candle in your usual way before first lighting: pass it through smoke from a smudge stick or palo santo, leave it in moonlight overnight (especially full moon), or sprinkle a light pass of salt around the jar. For dream-incubation work specifically, some practitioners place a sprig of mugwort or bay leaf at the base of the candle.
3. Sit somewhere comfortable, ideally in dim light or by candlelight only. Place a hand lightly on the forehead between the brows (the third eye, Ajna) or on the crown of the head. Breathe slowly, with the eyes soft or closed, three or four breaths in.
4. Light the wick and set your intention. Crystal Journey does not ship printed affirmations with the soy line; intentions are practitioner-set. For astral travel: "I move with safety and return with clarity." For lucid dreaming: "I am awake within my dreaming." For scrying or vision: "I see what is given to me to see, and only that." For dream incubation on a specific question: ask the question aloud or in writing.
5. Sit with the flame for as long as the practice asks. Many practitioners use this candle as a bedtime ritual: light it during the wind-down hour, journal or meditate by its light, set a dreaming intention, and snuff it before sleep. Others light it during scrying, tarot, or pathworking sessions and snuff it when the session ends. When you are finished, snuff the flame (don't blow it out, traditionally), and let the jar cool fully before moving.

Pairs Well With

• Astral Journey Reiki-Charged Pillar Candle: the same astral journey working in Crystal Journey's pillar format, traditional paraffin pillar Reiki-charged for sustained astral and dream practice across many sessions. Where this soy votive is for short bedtime rituals and single sessions, the pillar carries longer workings: multi-night dream incubation, sustained pathworking, weeks of training the inner senses. Light the votive for daily practice, the pillar when the working asks for sustained presence.
• Astral Journey Herbal Votive Candle: the same astral journey working in Crystal Journey's other votive format, traditional paraffin votive in cream, freestanding without glass, with the included paper card carrying Crystal Journey's astral journey affirmation. Choose between the two votives based on wax preference, format (contained jar vs. freestanding), and whether you want the printed affirmation card.
• Third Eye Chakra Pillar Candle: Crystal Journey's pillar candle dedicated to Ajna third-eye-chakra work, the chakra most directly associated with inner sight, clairvoyance, and astral perception. Astral journey work and third-eye work are functionally inseparable: the astral candle sets the intention; the third-eye pillar opens the channel through which the work travels. Pair them on the altar during longer vision-based workings.
• Peace Soy Votive Candle: a sibling in the Crystal Journey soy votive line, dedicated to calming and stillness work. Astral work requires a quiet body and a settled nervous system; agitated practitioners get scattered visions or no visions at all. Light peace first to calm the field, then astral journey to do the work. Both share the plant-based soy wax and glass-jar format for sensory consistency in ritual.
• Protection Soy Votive Candle: a sibling in the soy line dedicated to warding and energetic boundary work. This is non-negotiable for serious astral practice. Practitioners across nearly every tradition that takes astral work seriously light a protection candle alongside their astral work, on the principle that any working that opens the practitioner's field needs a corresponding ward. Light protection before lighting astral; let protection burn longer than astral.
• Throat Chakra Soy Votive Candle: a sibling in the soy line, dedicated to Vishuddha throat-chakra communication work. The throat chakra sits between the heart and the third eye, and traditionally serves as the channel through which inner-sight content gets translated into language. Useful for practitioners who scry, channel, or do mediumship work and need their visions to come through articulately rather than as inchoate impressions.

History & Occult Background

Astral journey practice and dream-incubation rituals are some of the oldest documented spiritual technologies on earth, predating most of the written religious record. The dream-incubation temples of ancient Greece (the Asclepieion at Epidaurus is the most famous) treated sleep as a serious clinical and spiritual practice, with patients sleeping in temple precincts to receive dreams from the god Asclepius. Egyptian funerary texts catalogued astral travel as one of the soul's primary post-death activities, and trained practitioners during life to begin the work early. Tibetan dream yoga, developed across centuries within the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, treats lucid dreaming as a primary spiritual discipline for clarifying the mind's relationship to reality. European folk magic burns dreaming candles on Mondays (the Moon's day, traditionally for dreams and intuition), often with mugwort tucked under the pillow for prophetic dream content.

The five oils Crystal Journey selected for this blend are drawn directly from this lineage. Rosemary appears in medieval European dream-magic recipes; bay laurel and rosemary together formed the standard British folk-magic dreaming charm. Frankincense and myrrh are the temple-incense plants of the entire Eastern Mediterranean magical tradition, used in any working that crossed worlds. Cypress is the funeral tree of Greco-Roman antiquity, planted in cemeteries because the tradition understood it to mark thresholds between living and dead, this world and the next. Citronella is the modern protective addition, anchoring the working in the body so the practitioner returns from it.

Crystal Journey Candles is a Connecticut family company that has long made intention-dedicated candles, drawing on a synthesis of folk-magic, aromatherapy, and Reiki traditions. The Herbal Magic line and the Soy line both use the same intention vocabulary; they differ in wax, scent, and format. The astral journey blend has remained essentially unchanged across the company's history. The wax color in the soy line (white) and the herbal line (cream) are very close, suggesting the maker considers astral journey work essentially "white" or "spirit-colored" in either format.

The candle is not magic that gives you visions you have not earned through practice; it is a tool that focuses your own inner-sight work. Pair it with the slow daily practices of dream journaling, meditation, scrying with a black mirror or bowl of water, mugwort tea before bed, and consistent sleep hygiene, and the working takes hold over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between this Astral Journey Soy Votive and the Astral Journey Reiki-Charged Pillar?

Both are Crystal Journey astral journey candles with the same scent blend and intention. The soy votive is the smaller plant-based format in a glass jar, around 18 to 20 hours of burn, ideal for short bedtime rituals or single dreamwork sessions. The Reiki-charged pillar is a larger paraffin pillar candle additionally infused with Reiki energy, with a much longer burn time, ideal for sustained workings spread across many sessions: multi-night dream incubation, longer pathworking, or training the astral senses over weeks.

Why is the soy version white while the herbal sister-version is cream?

The two are nearly identical in color and intention; the soy line goes a clean white while the herbal line goes slightly more off-white. Both signal upper-chakra and spirit work in Western color-correspondence systems. This is the second sibling pair in Crystal Journey's lineup where the soy and herbal versions diverge in color (the other being Motivation, where soy is pink and herbal is cranberry-red), but the divergence here is much subtler.

What does "astral journey" actually mean in practice?

Most of the time, far less dramatic than the term suggests. The phrase covers a broad family of inner-sight practices: lucid dreaming, dream incubation, visualization-based pathworking, hypnagogic vision-work in the moments between waking and sleep, scrying preparation, and the slow training of the practitioner's clairvoyant senses. Full out-of-body astral projection happens but is rare even for serious practitioners; the candle's most common use is for the everyday dreamwork and inner-sight practice that adds up over years.

Is this candle safe to use during sleep or active dreaming?

The candle itself is not safe to leave burning during sleep, like any open flame; always snuff it before bed. For dreamwork, the standard ritual is to light the candle during the wind-down hour, journal or meditate by its light, set a dreaming intention or write a question for incubation, and snuff the flame as the last action before lying down. The scent and intention carry into sleep; the flame does not need to.

Are the oils essential oils or fragrance oils?

Crystal Journey markets the soy line as essential oil blends rather than synthetic fragrance, and the company describes the astral journey blend as the listed essential oils carried in soy wax. Some scented-candle makers use a mix of essential oils and aroma compounds for stability; if pure-essential-oil candles are a strict ritual requirement, ask the maker directly before purchasing.

Should I light a protection candle alongside this one?

Yes, especially for serious astral work. Practitioners across nearly every tradition that takes astral practice seriously consider warding non-negotiable: any working that opens the practitioner's field to other-worldly content needs a corresponding boundary so that what comes in is what the practitioner invited. Light protection first; let it burn longer than the astral candle; snuff astral first when ending the session. Crystal Journey's Protection Soy Votive is a natural ritual partner.

When should I light an astral journey candle?

Common moments: before bed during a dream-incubation ritual; before scrying or tarot work that asks for extra inner-sight clarity; during pathworking through Hermetic, Wiccan, or kabbalistic path systems; on Mondays following folk-magic timing; during the full or waxing moon for amplified dreaming work; before mediumship or channeling practice; or during any sustained meditation that tracks imagery rather than working with the breath alone.