by Carl F. Neal
Fumigation: This is possibly the oldest use of incense. At various points in history, unpleasant smells have been associated with evil spirits, disease, and other maladies. Beyond that are the unpleasant odors in civilizations that don’t embrace or enjoy sanitation technology. Imagine a city where the time between bathing was measured in months or a society that believed bathing was unhealthy. Then imagine having a large meeting of the people in a small area. The smells of body odor combined with living more closely with animals and a lack of sewers would make for abundant foul odors.
Incense was an early form of fumigation. Large bundles of herbs could be used as extra-large smudge bundles. Undesired smells—and thus the ills associated with them—could be swept away in a cloud of incense. While you can protect the air going into your nose with a scented handkerchief, burning incense can banish undesired smells from an entire room. It is easy to imagine using incense for this purpose at religious ceremonies and other large gatherings.
Aromatics were used in a variety of ways to eliminate foul odors, which were often associated with illness. Herbs were strewn on floors, dried herb bundles were hung in homes, and aromatics were burned. The idea that bad smells are a source of illness remains popular today in parts of Europe. Fire was also a moderately effective way to destroy (or at least relocate) insects. Few insects will tolerate any kind of smoke and some herbs (such as pennyroyal) are particularly suited to that role.
Sacrifice: In some cultures today, animal sacrifice is a part of society. Such practices were even more widespread in the ancient world. For those who made burnt animal offerings, the benefits of incense were very practical. Many ancient cultures added fragrant materials to their sacrificial fires to help with an often overwhelming smell of burnt flesh. Keep in mind that burning animal sacrifices is not like grilling meat in your back yard; hot fires and whole animals make for an overwhelming stench.
Incense itself can also be a sacrifice. Procurement of aromatic materials and then simply burning them to ashes is a gift in its own right. The combination of the initial sacrifice with the addition of incense increases the level of sacrifice and the power of the offering. This eventually led to the burning of incense alone, which is arguably a more pleasant offer to make.
Cleansing or Purifying: Much as with fumigation, magickal “cleansing” is intended to drive away undesired energies. Smoke penetrates even the tiniest openings and can displace the undesired energies that reside within. Many ritual implements are purified in fragrant smoke before being used. This process can also energize tools or be used to cleanse spaces. Many traditions instruct followers to cleanse ritual spaces before a magickal invocation, and incense is a favored tool for the job.
The smoke of incense has also long been associated with speaking to the greater powers of the universe. This could be in the form of a prayer, an incantation, or even a wish. Smoke is believed to carry our words back into the universe. Much like a magick candle, incense can be magickally aligned to your intentions and lit, and then your intentions will continue to flow into the universe until the incense is exhausted. In Asia, some Buddhist temples sell massive incense coils that are hoisted with ropes, lit with a blow torch, and burn for an entire month. For every second the coil is burning, the prayer offered (for the benefactor who purchased the coil) continues to flow out into the ether.
Divination: Divination is the art of seeing the unseen and catching a glimpse of what could be. While tarot is one of the most popular forms of divination in modern Paganry, incense divination is as ancient as any other incense use. Incan priests used incense mixed with their own blood to seek divine guidance. Taking precious materials, including your own blood, and sacrificing them by burning brought forth smoke that would dance and reveal what should be done.
Pleasure: At some point, the pure pleasure of incense became a motivation to use it. Ours is not the first culture to understand the joy of incense purely for itself. Considering the quantity of frankincense consumed in ancient Rome, it is easy to imagine ancient aficionados showing off their latest incense purchase to their friends. In fact, the use of incense in some societies was also a demonstration of wealth.
Europe
In modern times, we don’t think of Europe as producing incense-loving cultures, but this was not always the case. The incense traditions of Europe are often forgotten, since Europe faced a change that did not come to Asia, which essentially removed incense from large sectors of the populous. Nonetheless, Europe’s incense-loving roots are there if you know where to look.
Rome
Perhaps the culture that consumed more incense per capita than any other, ancient Rome was a hub of Western civilization for many generations. And it was a city fueled by incense. Incense—primarily frankincense but others as well—burned night and day in many places in the Roman Empire. Rome’s massive drive to acquire more and more incense fueled a whole new sector of the economy and subsidized other empires.
The Roman economy was massive. Goods flowed into Rome from all corners of the known world and back out to every corner of the far-flung empire. In the city of Rome itself, incense was burned in prodigious amounts at temples, shops, and homes. This deep association between Rome’s polytheistic history and incense would later come back to haunt Europe and ultimately derail incense evolution in the West.
Christian Europe
When the Pagan Roman Empire converted to Christianity, the association between incense and non-Christian religion led to the steady decline of incense use in Europe. Christian tradition maintains that one way in which early Christians were persecuted in the Roman Empire was by forcing Christians to offer incense to the Roman gods. Any who refused were put to death. As a result, many branches of Christianity later turned their backs on this seeming-Pagan tool of worship.
Eventually only the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches kept a few incense traditions alive with the use of thuribles and the burning of frankincense and holy blends. The Roman Catholic Church in particular spurred a reintroduction of incense into various cultures as it spread around the world. Use of incense in those churches continues today. In an ironic twist, some branches of the Christian church ended up being the keepers of Pagan Roman incense use they tried to abolish. Ancient Jewish incense rituals still exist in modern times as well, although they are not widely known.
Africa
While Africa isn’t commonly associated with incense in the modern world, it continues to play an important role in the incense trade. In ancient times Africa was at the heart of the incense trade. Empires whose names have passed from the collective memories of the West once grew fat on their profits from the incense trade.
Egypt
Egypt was both a producer and consumer of incense. Egypt is the home to a great mystery of the incense world: kyphi. Kyphi is one of the most ancient incense formulas we now possess. The only problem is that we can’t read it. Well, it can be read, but there is a great deal of controversy about which plants are referred to in the recipe. You will find a number of incense merchants selling “authentic” kyphi incense, but in truth nobody is certain what ingredients belonged in the ancient version. The great thing is that all of the various “authentic” kyphi incense on the market that I have tried have a nice scent.
Egyptian incense traditions were extensive. Gum mastic, labdanum, benzoin, and many other ingredients were combined with priestly ritual. Much as it would centuries later in Japan, incense making grew to become a great, and competitive, art form in Egypt. The best incense makers were held in very high esteem.
Many incense making materials served multiple purposes in ancient Egypt. Many of the same resins used in incense were used in the mummification process. As a result, these materials were held in the highest reverence and commanded high prices. Egypt was another major source of the revenue from the incense trade. Massive quantities of aromatic materials were import
ed into and exported from ancient Egypt. You can just imagine ancient Egyptian monuments when they were new, standing in a drifting cloud of sweet myrrh.
The Spice-Trading Empires
Many empires in Africa were built on the profits from frankincense, myrrh, acacia, yohimbe, balsams, and other aromatics that traveled north toward Egypt and the Mediterranean for trade. The regions that stood between the aromatics and their ultimate destinations often charged high duties, taxes, and fees to those transporting them. This custom created some kingdoms simply because of geographic convenience.
Many readers will have heard of the Silk Road but it truly could have been called the Incense Road. Huge caravans carried aromatics from the Far East and Africa to the throngs of incense users in the Roman Empire and beyond. Although the charges were excessive to those who took that long trek along the Incense Road, the profits were still tremendous. The merchants were willing to risk taxes, bandits, blazing heat, freezing cold, and hostile governments to deliver their goods so you can imagine how alluring the profits truly had to be.
Those who lived along the road (which was actually a network of roads reaching far beyond the Mediterranean into Asia and Africa) made profit from the merchants. Not only were there fees and taxes, but the merchants needed provisions, equipment, and more on their long journeys, and the locals in the area supplied much of those needs.
Among the great cities in the incense trading empires was Ubar. Located in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, Ubar was a city built by incense in the land of Nod. This site has only recently been identified and researched. A most entertaining book entitled The Road to Ubar details the discovery of this previously legendary city. Lying along the Incense Road, Ubar was a city built on the riches of incense expeditions. This discovery has led to a renewed interest in the Incense Road and ancient incense practices. Historians have found strong connections between the incense trade and economic conditions in the region, which suggests that incense was a significant source of income.
The Incense Road is also called the Spice Road. Many aromatics were sold for perfuming and as culinary spices. Even today, many of the spices that we enjoy tasting are the same ones we enjoy smelling in the form of incense, perfume, and more. Information about the balance of botanicals carried for culinary purposes versus aromatic purposes is scant at best. Nevertheless, the West seemingly could not get enough of botanicals from distant lands. It also demonstrates that there was wealth enough in the West to afford such luxury items in a time when even salt was a precious commodity.
You will see that I use the term masala for incense sticks with a wooden stick in the center to support the incense stick. This is a very common type of incense that is popular in both the East and West. The word masala literally means “spice” in the lands of India. The word being used to refer to both incense and spice shows how deeply the two are connected.
Remnants Today
One surprising aspect of the ancient incense empires is that they are still producing incense in the twenty-first century. Modern consumers of natural incense still burn resins imported from the same regions they originated from in ancient times. The aromatics are widely used in the region, but these areas still produce great surpluses. However, the resins that were once so highly valued that entire families and kingdoms thrived on the wealth from exporting them are worth much less today. In the modern world, a pound of high-quality frankincense costs less than most Americans earn in one hour of work.
Still, incense traditions linger in the aromatic-producing areas of Africa. Not only is incense used for its scent, it is still used as a method for keeping time in some parts of Africa. These timekeepers are conceptually the same as Asian incense clocks. While certainly not as accurate as a digital watch, the fact that incense has been used continuously for thousands of years demonstrates its status as a useful tool.
India
One of the most widely used aromatics in the world, sandalwood, was once abundant in India and was one of its most famous exports. Many other important aromatics that are still widely used in incense also emerged from this fragrant land. Benzoin and dammar resins are potent aromatics with scents that are deep and mysterious. Vetiver, patchouli, and dragon’s blood all hail from India as well. Even today the marketplaces in India are filled with exotic botanicals that are the stuff of incense makers’ dreams. In the modern world we have access to even more aromatics than were available to previous generations, but one could easily spend a lifetime in India learning of new botanicals and new incense making methods.
India is currently a major producer of incense, but sadly the bulk of its market is built on low-quality incense filled with synthetic ingredients. There are still those in India who produce incense in the wonderful traditional fashion, but in an effort to capture uneducated consumers with lower prices, the present incense industry on the whole does not represent the glory of the Indian incense tradition.
Asia
Throughout Asia and the other lands they so strongly influenced, aromatic materials were sought and used in incense. While I can only brush upon a few highlights here, the incense traditions of Asia could be the study of your entire life and you’d never learn it all. Innovation and experimentation with respect for tradition characterizes the various incense cultures of Asia past and present.
Incense Pellet
This ungracious term describes a type of incense rarely seen in America. The incense pellet is in a category that I call “moist incense” and is believed to be an outgrowth of Asian medical practices. We all know that some medications are quite foul tasting, and this was just as true in an Asian medical culture that was steeped in herbal medications. As a result, Asian healers began mixing the distasteful ingredients with honey, jam, fruit, and other foods and spices to disguise the bad taste at some time in the distant past. A mixture was made in the proper proportions and then rolled into pea-sized balls small enough to swallow. Somewhere along the way, this approach was adopted into incense making traditions. Small balls of incense are made using honey or similar materials to help the balls hold their shape. Once cured and added to a hot coal, the incense pellet gives off an intense, mysterious scent that is difficult to achieve with any other form of incense.
Incense Clocks
Numerous cultures have experimented with using incense as timekeeping devices, but nowhere did this process become more sophisticated than in Asia. In the centuries before reliable mechanical clocks, many devices were used to tell time, including candles, water clocks, and incense. This has ranged from the simple process of waiting for an incense stick to completely burn, to incense trails where the scent changed as a form of alarm, to sophisticated clocks that even used bells to mark time audibly. A bell would be tied to the incense stick with a thin thread; when the incense burned through the thread, the bell would drop with a loud clang. This is useful knowledge for those of us who use incense as part of formal spells or rituals, as these setups can allow us to use incense to time particular parts of our rituals—how long to chant, when to move to the next phase, etc. As late as the twentieth century, incense was used to time a visit with a Japanese Geisha. As mentioned earlier, incense is still used as a timekeeping device in parts of Africa.
China
With the creation of the Han Empire around 200 bce, the modern region we call China was founded (although it took its name from the later Chin dynasty). What grew to be the massive nation of modern China took centuries to unite. It was already a true empire when contact was first made with the West and arguably remains so until this very day. Still, much of the knowledge of Chinese incense making remains a guarded secret. There was a time in Chinese history, during the age of empires, when contact with Westerners was limited to conducting trade and nothing more. While Westerners could enjoy China’s amazing scent, the inner secrets of those scents remained hidden. Even after the end of the nineteenth-century Opiu
m War, when greater contact with the West was created through a terrible set of maneuvers by various European powers, incense continued to be a novelty to the Europeans while it was treasured by the Chinese.
While China’s exported incense industry has fallen victim to the same forces that drive the modern incense making industry in India, high quality incense is still produced and consumed there. Thanks in great part to Buddhist practices, the art of fine incense making continues throughout China. Alongside greater trade with China has also come greater availability to Chinese botanicals. Even in the twenty-first century there is only limited access to truly high-quality Chinese incense; perhaps one day an enterprising individual will begin importing high-end Chinese incense.
Due to its vast growth throughout history, China had much the same effect on its continent as Rome did in Europe. Disparate peoples eventually became linked by Imperial roads and trade routes. This led to the exchange of many different goods from greatly distant places. One of the keys to the creation of incredible and unique incense is availability to a wide variety of materials, and China has had that type of access for more than a thousand years.
Tibet
The dangerous mountains of Tibet might seem like an unlikely place to find masters of incense making, but from the mountain tops to the valley floors, Tibet has long been known as one of the primary producers of natural incense. Much of the incense of Tibet is characterized by deep, heavy, earthy scents. The richness of Tibetan incense comes from incense often made in small batches by hand in small villages. Projects are underway to use incense to bring a measure of financial assistance to poverty-stricken villages in Tibet. Sadly there are also some low-quality incense mass produced in Tibet, so read labels carefully and use all of the information in this book to help guide you to the best that Tibet has to offer. Costus, galangal, juniper, and many other aromatics blend together to make the unique incense of Tibet worth the effort to locate. The finest frankincense sticks I have ever burned came from this land shrouded in the clouds.
