I grew up in East Houston surrounded by a type of Catholicism that was part Christianity and part pagan weirdness. Nothing has ever seemed to exemplify this to me more than the endless collection of prayer candles on sale for a dollar or less each at Fiesta that illustrate the lives of the saints you hoped would intercede on your behalf. Well, I don't much go in for religion these days, but Etsy has a selection of the next best thing, celebrities! Today we look at the 10 best pop culture prayer candles, complete with the appropriate causes and prayers to offer in their lighting.
Saints are great, but sometimes only old-school, Old Testament god-ing will suffice for your prayer needs. Why not invoke the wrath of the King of Monsters, provided in this tasteful candle by Mama Minutia? Granted, it's clearly from a more lighthearted later aspect of Godzilla rather than one of his more indiscriminately destructive phases, so be aware of exactly what kind of apocalypse is appropriate for your situation.
We all deal with the grief of a beloved celebrity in our own way. In the case of the folks at the Twin Flames Boutique, they coped with the passing of the King of Pop by immortalizing him as a saint, presumably in his younger form to answer the prayers of insane stage moms. Barack Obama is thrown in the mix for...some reason. Judging by the Affordable Care Act website scandal, I assume he finds employment for out-of-work IT people.
There is no shortage of prayer candles dedicated to Walter White of Breaking Bad fame, but only this one from The NM Sugar Shack is individually hand-painted by its creators. Better yet, each one comes with a bag of Blue Meth, Blue Sky Glass/Powder Candy (Cotton Candy Flavor). That's a sort of mixed message for the people of the world, I feel, but old Walter should certainly be lit in times of great chemical deprivation.
It's possible that you might not be intimately familiar with Nina Hagen, the Godmother of punk herself who has been an indefinable artist for more than 40 years. Here we see her immortalized in the artwork of Pierre et Gilles. Light her up and pray for sin.
A little outside the conventional prayer candle motif is this powerful piece by Mariah Fox. It's part of her 27 Club collection, each a candle dedicated to the passing of a young star who died at that age such as Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. My personal favorite in the series is that of Texas's own Janis Joplin, who paid her way into the club on an overdose of heroin.
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