A recipe for a Road Opener candle spell, seeking advice for improvement

[khloexia]

Last time I performed the Road Opener candle spell, divination showed that the ritual's effect tended more toward guiding the direction, and the result was somewhat weak. I would like to know what areas could be improved. Below is the recipe from the previous ritual:

▪Lemon Verbena (Aloysia citrodora) – to remove obstacles*
▪Vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides) – for grounding and rooting, bringing wealth, turning my ideas into practical actions, increasing security and reducing anxiety
▪Cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) – to gain abundant energy, bring wealth
▪Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis) – for self‑protection, and for clearer “vision”** to see others’ harmful intentions
▪Rose (Rosa spp. / Rosa damascena) – to enhance personal charm, so that others will not be hostile toward me
▪Mint (Mentha spp.) – for wisdom and wealth, bringing abundance while maintaining a clear mind to keep it***
▪Peilan / Fragrant Eupatorium (Eupatorium fortunei) – something like “protecting the path from being broken”****

I made a slight modification to the prayer from PGM IV.2967–3006 to consecrate the herbs. I anointed the candle as usual. When the candle burned out, I used the remaining flame to burn the herbs to ashes*****. The next morning around 9:45–10:00 (when both the hour and minute hands were moving upward), I buried the ashes under a bush on the east side of my house and offered a small amount of sugar to the bush as a thank‑you offering.

*I mistakenly bought Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) instead of Lemon Verbena. In Scott Cunningham’s Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, the properties of Lemongrass are described as repelling snakes, lust, psychic powers. Perhaps this was one reason the ritual failed. Afterwards, I checked Temu and Alibaba: Lemon Verbena is available in my area but a bit expensive. I wonder if I could substitute Common Verbena (Verbena officinalis) instead.
**Bay Laurel is a plant sacred to Apollo, the Greek god of light, prophecy, archery, etc., so I used it to protect myself from harm and to illuminate the path ahead.
***This idea came from the Prayer of Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus: “Beloved [God], and all ye other Gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy, and may I have such a quantity of gold as a temperate man and he only can bear and carry.” Mint happens to symbolise both aspects, so I chose it.
****A local substitute for Abre Camino. @tiger's eye reminded me that using “PohuaiCao/ZijingZelan” (Ageratina adenophora) might be more suitable for this purpose – thanks to him.
*****I feel this step might also be problematic; maybe I shouldn’t have burned it (?) I’m not sure.

P.S. I would like to know whether the following PGM prayers and the barbarous names that appear in them can be used for this Road Opener ritual:
PGM VII 1017–1026, PGM XXXVI 211–30, PGM VII 390–393, PGM VII.528–539, PGM VII 919–924, PGM LXX.1–4，PGM XVIII 1-7，PGM VII 300.
p.p.s. Since I am not a native English speaker, all the herb names above are accompanied by their Latin binomials by using AI. Additionally, after consulting some sources, I have found that sandalwood, five-finger grass (Potentilla spp./cinquefoil), palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii), and vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) might be added to the recipe. However, I am not sure which of these would be more suitable, and because I am a beginner, I worry that I cannot handle an overly complex recipe. Therefore, I would also like to know which herbs in the above recipe are irrelevant options that can be removed.

Post automatically merged: Today at 12:32 PM

I checked the recipe again and found that maybe I need something to bring new opportunities or be more fortunate，Perhaps bay leaves and cinnamon have such an effect, but I worry whether it is professional.

 

[tiger's eye]

In terms of ingredients, lemongrass and lemon verbena have similar effects on “open road.” The reason both have this “open road” effect is that they possess a strong lemon scent, and lemon has a powerful cleansing effect. At the same time, they each have their own unique characteristics. Lemongrass, because it repels insects, should be more effective in powerful “open road” applications (especially “block buster” or “break block”). Lemon verbena, on the other hand, has a sweet scent in addition to the lemon aroma—a quality lemongrass lacks—which makes it suitable for both “open road” and ‘drawing’ applications, serving as a “double-action” ingredient.
My personal advice is to streamline your recipe, as too many multi-purpose ingredients can create confusion and lack a clear focus. Open road should be just open road, drawing should be just drawing, and so on. Keep the primary ingredients and use the others only as supplements or in small amounts to add specific effects (such as the protection provided by bay leaves).
Additionally, if you follow traditional Hoodoo (or “rootwork”) practices, it’s better to bury the “open road” in the west. You see, this is the problem: your recipe contains ingredients that require the “open road” to clear away unwanted elements, as well as ingredients meant to attract specific things you need. If you bury them all in the east, will they be attracting or taking away?
I won’t go into detail about the other additional ingredients, since those are all meant to bring something in. Once you’ve separated them clearly, theoretically you could add them to another work designed to bring in what you need. However, I still recommend that the more clearly defined the direction, the less confusion there will be, and the better the results will be!

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:22 PM

Additionally, it’s perfectly fine to substitute regular verbena for lemon verbena. As I mentioned earlier, the fundamental reason these herbs have an “open road” effect is their lemon scent.
Therefore, when using an herb or ingredient, it’s important to first consider why it has that particular effect. You wouldn’t want to use it for unrelated purposes. As mentioned in the book by the author you referenced, lemon verbena is said to have the effects of repelling snakes, lust, and psychic powers. Why does lemon verbena have these effects? If you think about the herb itself, the answer should become clear. First, its strong fragrance can repel insects. Second, lemongrass has a very refreshing scent; its invigorating quality clears the mind, thereby enhancing self-control and helping to curb desires. At the same time, a clear mind means fewer distractions and heightened sensory perception—which is why it’s said to bring “psychic powers.” Even if others say this, I believe it still requires your own reflection and verification. After all, what if they’re simply passing on misinformation or misunderstandings they’ve picked up elsewhere?

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:54 PM

Additionally, there’s no problem with burning the herbs left over after the ritual, especially if you’re unable or unwilling to handle them directly. But you see, this is precisely why I strongly recommend separating the “Open Road” work from the “Drawing” work: burning the herbs left over from the “Open Road” work can be seen as “burning away obstacles,” but if you burn the herbs from the “Drawing” work, how can those herbs still retain their original power and continue to be effective? Perhaps for drawing work, direct burial would be much better, because you don’t want to burn materials that could still be effective! If you believe that burned herbs can still be effective—and that using intact herbs serves no purpose—then why not just burn the herbs from the start? In my opinion, I feel this is inappropriate, and I believe you would agree that this approach is not quite right.

 

[Keldan]

You shouldn’t add six more ingredients you’ve been wanting to (sandalwood, five finger grass, etc.). This is already more than what’s normally used for road opening work, and adding extra items doesn’t automatically make it stronger.

We already discussed the ingredient list in another thread. As I mentioned there, Peilan is the wrong ingredient for this purpose. You should replace Peilan with Pohuai Cao.

You can substitute Lemon Verbena for Common Verbena, but don’t use Lemongrass. Keep the rest of the ingredients exactly as they are, don’t add anything else. So there are only two changes to your entire list, which are Pohuai Cao and Common Verbena.

I’m not going to share any road opening rituals, but I will point out two reasons your current one doesn’t work as you intended.

The first thing is that you should leave the ingredients facing south. South is used metaphorically to represent burning away obstacles, which is one of the keys in road opening work. As I said in the other thread, road opening practices fall under intention based work.

The second thing is that your current ritual says to bury the ashes. But road opening work is about keeping the road open and drawing opportunities toward you. If you bury what’s left, what else is there to attract?

These two points are meant to address what’s wrong in the ritual you’re using and why it doesn’t produce results. You’re better off building your own ritual rather than copying many pieces from different sources without fully understanding the why behind them.

 

[tiger's eye]

Sorry,i should check the translation about my answer.i mean lemongrass(not lemon verbena)can repelling snakes, lust, and psychic powers