Yes, I am of the opinion that one cannot “just use battery operated candles” whenever one wants to use a candle in a spell. Which tends to be the advice for people who live in dorms or people who live in apartments or housing that doesn’t allow it. Or for people who cannot light a candle because of other restrictions.
For me, I’m looking at the spell techniques that can be used in candles that cannot be used in battery operated candles. Dressing may be okay, like for example, some people only dress their candles with oils. So that might be okay to have a more permanent thing. But some people dress their candles with oils so that they can burn the oil. So if you have those heatless battery candles, then there’s no point. Using a regular lamp bulb that gets hot would be better as a mechanism to “burn off the oil.”
Likewise burning things, sometimes burning is a requirement for candle magic. No flame? No way to burn? No way to replace it then.
Carving, some people carve directly into the candles so that the carvings will eventually be touched by flame. In the same way that burning off the oil. The whole point is that eventually the flame comes into contact with the carved areas as part of the paradigm or the technique. No flame? No work done.
Though you might be able to “etch” into a battery candle. As I mentioned in the other post, putting a more permanent sigil/talisman/special sign into a battery candle is actually something that a burning candle cannot do if you intend on burning it or lighting it, to activate the spell. If you don’t intend to burn the candle then it’s the same right? I like the idea of having a permanent anchor which you can activate by lighting it. Of course this may draw down the battery, if you are using the light from the battery to activate it. But you’ll have to play around with it.
Also be careful with etching, I suggest sharpies or some other kind of marker instead. Don’t want to hurt yourself okay?
Wax. Sometimes wax pooling is important. There’s a lot of spells which require wax sealing. Like for instances, bottle spells. Putting a charged candle on top and burning it down so that it creates the seal on the bottle. No wax dripping? No seal.
But if you’re just looking for illumination - which a lot of spells do actually do this. Where they call a random candle to be in the spell, but don’t actually use it for anything besides illumination, then yes, they are equivalent. Actually I would prefer to suggest battery operated candles for that kind of spells, because you could make them more permanent anchors and make them more powerful each time you use them as illumination in the spell. Ie conceptually making a talisman that becomes so layered in spellwork that it literally provides more than just light in the spell.
Also it may be important to “blow out the candle” at the end of the spell. This doesn’t mean “turning it off” this literally means using your breath to end the candle. Because blowing it out of life. Turning it off may not use the same function or execute the same means. So your mileage may vary, you’ll have to look at it.
I feel like this is all rather obvious because they are different. But I don’t see this conversation at length at the different ways that candles are used in spellwork. And I feel like the answers are often not thought out when it comes to whether or not battery candles can replace regular candles.
Honestly, if you can’t use candles in spells, it might be time to look into completely other techniques. Like knot magic, energy manipulation, water magic, etc etc. You don’t need to use candles for spellwork. It’s just one technique that one can use. But yeah. I just. depending on technique that you’re going for, it may not be useful to use battery operated candles.