Special altar oils – used for anointing people and tools and fixing candles – are a great addition to a Sabbat altar. You can purchase them in a lot of pagan shops or on Etsy, but like many other hearth witches, I prefer to make my own.

Most recipes for altar oils require essential oils, and that can get a bit spendy. I prefer instead to to infuse my oils with natural herbs and other ingredients appropriate to the season.

There are two methods for infusing oils: First, you can put the ingredients and oil together in an airtight container, and let it sit in a darkened place for at least a moon cycle. But when you don’t have time, you can use warmth to infuse the oil. Just heat the ingredients on a very low flame for about an hour, cool down and then decant into a special…