Browse:Flickering Candle (Volume 1, entries 2902)
Flickering Candle
Volume 1, entries 2902. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → SHRINES: ALTARS - CANDLES - SAINTS; NEW ORLEANS AREA → (2) CANDLES. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2902
You take the dead bones of somebody they's related to. You take nine candles [demonstrates]. Like that a candle like that, you turn that candle up- side down. You write the name of that person on that candle that way. From the bottom to the top. Then you burn that candle thataway [demonstrates]. (Wait a minute! Put that candle upright now, the way it belongs. Do you write the name on it now?) No, no. [Demonstrates.] (Then, all right - you turn the candle upside down, then you write the name from the top down to the bottom. All right. How many times did you say?)
[He did not say. This questioning device I use frequently.]
Nine times.
(Nine times. All right.)
Then you burn this candle - leave it stay down there. At the flicker of that candle thataway, things is going bad; but when the candle burn calm and straight, well then it's all right.
(But you said you burned down that candle, didn't you?)
No, write their name nine times, but you burns just three of the candles.
(Oh, just three of the candles. I see. What color do you burn there?)
Any color.
(I see.)
Wax.
(Just wax candles. You don't burn anything else with - that's all you do?)
Just the candles. (Well, what will that do? Make you [I turned off machine].) [The dead bones did not impress me, I asking no question about them. The important thing here is the flickering candle.]