planet goth... haunted house
the entrance hall
ceromancy
Halloween is traditionally the time to invoke spirits to foresee the future. One way to summon them is by the dark art of ceromancy – dropping hot wax into water and observing the shapes that form as the wax cools.
Like reading tea leaves, the shapes are said by some to give hints to your future. However, even if you think it’s all stuff and nonsense, it's still quite fun to do.
NB Take care as you need to use a lighted candle for this experiment. You may need adult supervision.
you will need:
• A candle, any colour you like
• A bowl of water
Light the candle and watch how the wax near the candle melts. You'll see that solid wax is opaque, but that it becomes transparent as it melts.
When you have a good pool of liquid wax in the top of the candle, think hard about your future and any questions that you want answered… Take the candle and tip it so the liquid wax drops into the bowl of water.
The wax instantly sets and floats on the water. What shapes have been created? Do they resemble anything that could tell you about the future? A ring, for example, is said to mean there might be a marriage on the cards, a worm means that you may soon be facing trouble, and an egg foretells exciting new developments in your life. (You may get quite a lot of eggs and worms, unsurprisingly.)
If you use a large square candle, you will have a bigger pool of wax to pour into the water, creating bigger, more interesting shapes…
what's happening?
Wax melts at around 60°C, depending on its exact components. It’s opaque when solid because all the molecules are stacked together and scatter light in many directions. When it melts, the wax molecules are no longer stuck rigidly in place but can flow past one another. This less ordered formation lets light pass straight through and the wax becomes transparent.
Wax is an oily substance, so it doesn’t mix with water. But when it hits the water, it’s going fast enough to penetrate the surface. The molten wax quickly cools in the water and becomes solid again, locked into its strange, opaque, shapes. As candle wax is less dense than water, the shapes rise to the surface of the bowl so you can get a close look at them… and learn about your future life (perhaps)?!
Click here to see the list of Ceromancy Image Meanings.
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