Essence and Alchemy

by Mandy Aftel

  2 ml (80 drops) geranium

  2 ml (80 drops) bois de rose

  BATH BLEND 2

  1 ml (40 drops) labdanum

  3 ml (120 drops) benzoin

  1 ml (40 drops) patchouli

  3 ml (120 drops) clary sage

  3 ml (120 drops) bergamot

  Here are some more suggestions for scenting the bath:

  • Refreshing: pine needle, sweet orange, lemon, lime, petitgrain, rosemary, juniper berry, fir needle

  • Calming and relaxing: cedarwood, chamomile, clary sage, marjoram, neroli, rose, sandalwood, vetiver, ylang ylang

  To make bath salts: Combine ¾ cup of epsom salts (sold in drugstores to soothe aching muscles) with ¼ cup each of sea salt and baking soda (or just use epsom salts for the full amount). Add 3 ml (120 drops) of essential oils or one of the above blends. Mix well and place in an airtight container. Let the salts absorb the fragrance for one week before using. This is enough for four to six perfumed baths.

  9

  Aromatics of the Gods Perfume and the Soul

  Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.

  —Psalms 45:7–8

  127 THE OLDEST ROLE of scent, predating its use as a cosmetic, is as a vehicle to the realm of the spirit. And why not? Smell has always been recognized as the most ethereal of the senses. Perfumes are here but not here, of substance and of air, literally conjured out of spirit. Fleeting but embedded in memory, they embody both the evanescent quality of earthly existence and the possibility of eternity. As perfume seems to be the soul of the flower, so the spirit in man has seemed, in all ages, to be the elusive, immortal essence of his mortal body. All that is sacred in the human seems to be most poignantly hinted at in perfume.

  The earliest—and most universal and enduring—use of aromatics in religious rites seems to have been to burn them, for purification, communication with the spirit world, inspiration, and transport of the soul. It lies at the heart of religious practices in nearly every sect and nationality. The word perfume itself comes from the Latin per fumum, meaning “through smoke.” Sending up offerings to the gods, in the form of animal sacrifice and incense, was a way to honor the gods for the gifts they had bestowed. Evidence for the use of incense has been found in King Tut’s tomb, on ancient figurines of goddesses from the Indus Valley, and in Minoan graves on Crete. An inscription by the pharaoh Ramses II in the grand temple of Ammon at Karnak reads, “I have sacrificed thirty thousand oxen to you, with the highest quantities of herbs and the best perfumes.” Incense is burned in Buddhist ceremonies and as homage to Muslim and Catholic saints alike. Frankincense is a nearly universal ingredient, but other fragrant resins and gums have also been used.

  The spirals of odorous smoke rise up, so it is instinctive to look upon them as paths to the heavens, speeding one’s prayers of exaltation and devotion. The scented smoke that wafted through the temple was also believed to repel harmful spirits and attract good influences. Aromatics were burned in attempts to communicate with the spirit world as well—not just to send a message but to elicit a response. The priest or priestess, seer or magician, might cover head and face with a cloth to trap the fragrant fumes, inhale them, and grow intoxicated. Inspired in this way, the soul was said to leave the body and travel in a kind of dream state to other realms.

  Hindu perfumer

  Anointing with fragrant oils and unguents is an equally universal ritual practice, and nearly as old. Myrrh is set down in Exodus as one of the main ingredients of the holy anointing oil of the Jews, along with cassia and cinnamon. Oil of myrrh and other essences figured importantly in the yearlong purification of women as ordained by Jewish law, the ordeal Esther had to undergo before she was presented to King Ahasuerus and won his favor. Sacred objects—ark, candlesticks, altar—as well as people were anointed.

  Chrism128 is a consecrated oil—usually olive oil to which balsams and spices have been added—that is used in various Christian rites, including baptism and confirmation, anointing the deceased, and ordaining bishops and priests. “Medieval legend held that the chrism came directly from the scented exudations of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and therefore partook of its vivifying power,” writes cultural historian Constance Classen, noting that the origin of the belief is a statement in the apocryphal Book of Enoch that the “sweet odor” of the Tree shall enter into the bones of the chosen, and they shall live a long life. Thus chrism was thought to confer on those who were baptized with it a degree of spiritual if not physical immortality.

  Quite early in history, anointing became a prerequisite for holiness. Priests and kings were ceremoniously anointed on the occasion of their elevation to positions of divine authority. British royalty are still crowned with full Christian rites, including being anointed with the same amber-colored blend of rose, orange blossom, jasmine, cinnamon, benzoin, civet, musk, ambergris, and sesame oil that has been used since the ascension of Charles I.

  Anointing the body was an obligatory part of the initiation ceremonies and magic festivals of most primitive peoples. Most of them believed that sacred oil was a divine substance that imparted its supernatural qualities to the wearer when it was rubbed on the body. A headhunter, for example, might anoint his head with fragrant oils after he had captured his first trophy, to reinforce his bodily strength.

  To speak of any of these practices as religious rites is in a sense a mischaracterization. All of them derive from a time when body, mind, and spirit were seen as indivisible and were ministered to as such by priests, sorcerers, and shamans—among whom it was also impossible to differentiate absolutely. Aromatic spices and herbs were seen as magical preparations that addressed a person’s psychological and spiritual as well as physical ailments in what we would call a “holistic” fashion. A prime example of such a panacea is kyphi, the famous ancient Egyptian perfume composed of as many as sixteen ingredients, including cardamom, spikenard, cinnamon, saffron, frankincense, myrrh, raisins, wine, and honey. Kyphi could be dissolved in water and swallowed as a remedy, or burned as incense in an offering to the gods. It was reputed to cleanse the body, soothe the spirit, sweeten the breath, restore powers of imagination, induce sleep, and make one receptive to dreams.

  There was a sacred dimension to the healing arts, and early medicine in turn was bound up in magic, spells, and prayers. Disease was looked upon as a disharmony between the spirit world and the human world. Scented oils were employed for the expulsion of demons and became an adjunct of preventive medicine. Priests functioned as perfumers, formulating and blending aromatics and ointments for the rich, who alone could afford them.

  It took a long while for these allied traditions to sort themselves into separate strands, and occultists, perfumers, physicians, and religious practitioners continued for some time to draw upon their common origins. “Throughout the sixteenth129 and seventeenth centuries very many occultists continued to use aromatics as their pagan forbears had done before them,” writes Eric Maple, an expert on magic and perfume. “There were, however, certain areas of activity where the professions of magician and perfumer tended to overlap. A perfumer’s shop in seventeenth-century Paris was apparently almost indistinguishable from the chamber of a sorcerer. It was often decorated with dried mummies and stuffed ibises, perhaps as a reminder to the fashionable clientele that aromatics had once been a highly developed subtlety of Egyptian magic. Most perfumers must have been well aware of the close connection between sexual allure and the occult, for they illuminated their establishments with special lamps which cast an eerie glow over the scene.”

  Medieval English perfumer’s shop, with stills

  According to Plutarch, the river Lethe emitted “a delicate and suave exhalation of strangely voluptuous odors, causing an intoxication like that achieved by becoming drunk on wine.” Paradi
se is described in tradition after tradition as a place filled with exquisite odors. In other words, beautiful scent has long been considered not only a pathway to but an emanation of the sacred. As we have noted, this belief has led people to scent their places of worship, often in ingenious ways, like the Arabs who mixed musk with mortar so that their mosque might exhale a divine and everlasting scent.

  The gods and goddesses of many religions are represented as spreading perfume, an effluence of their divine grace and loveliness. Krishna is said to exude the odor of celestial flowers. Hippolites, in one of the tragedies of Euripides, exclaims, “O Diana, I know that thou art near me, for I have recognized thy balmy odor.” In fact, some authorities on ancient religions say that the object of using incense in worship was to impart the odor of the god.

  In Christian tradition, the sweet smell of sanctity was extended to the saints, who were supposed to wear their lovely scent as a badge of their holiness and purity. Teresa of Avila was believed to emit such a powerful fragrance that it perfumed everything she touched. Saint Polycarp was said to be so steeped in the odor of Christ that it seemed he had been anointed with perfumed unguents. “That the human body130 may by nature not have an overtly unpleasant odor is possible, but that it should actually have a pleasing smell—that is beyond nature,” wrote Pope Benedict XIV. “If such an agreeable odor exists, whether there does or does not exist a natural cause capable of producing it, it must be owing to some higher cause and thus deemed miraculous.”

  The sweet fragrance of the saint was evidence of a special relationship to God. As Annick Le Guérer observes:

  It also serves131 as both a means and an end. Spiritual awareness and asceticism tend to separate a human being from man’s baser, animal nature and therefore from the odors linked with corruption and decay. At the same time, the sublimation of organic needs and the elevation of a soul focused totally on the other world enable the saint to partake of the perfume of the Divinity. Both an offering to God and a gift from Him, the odor of sanctity is, for ordinary mortals, a sign of the singular nature of the creature emitting it. Because an odor of sanctity is the special attribute of a person who has renounced the flesh and its desires, however, it is an offering as well. By immolating the body the saint draws nearer to God, but rather than making a blood offering, he or she substitutes the odor of a body sanctified through penitence.

  In some traditions, even mere mortals are believed capable of attaining the aroma of righteousness—posthumously, that is, and if they are sufficiently pure of soul. In his History of Prince Arthur, Sir Thomas Mallory tells how Sir Lancelot’s companions, having found him dead, noticed “the sweetest savor about him.” The Persians thought that perfumed breezes imbued the dead with fragrance as they approached paradise. Others held that the soul required a beautiful scent in order to break clear of the body and begin its ascent. The Aztecs offered perfumed flowers for four years after death, which was said to be the amount of time it took for a soul to reach heaven.

  The deceased who were not naturally sweet-smelling might be made so. In ancient India, corpses were washed and anointed with sandalwood oil and turmeric. The Romans poured aromatic oils over the ashes of their dead, a custom to which the Catholic rite of extreme unction at the point of death is distantly related. The ancient Egyptians used copious amounts of fragrance in funerals and other religious rituals, and packed more along with or sometimes inside of the dead, in the form of long-lasting unguents whose recipes were closely guarded by the priests. (When the jars of unguents found in King Tut’s tomb were opened after three thousand years, they were still fragrant.) When men and women of rank died, their faces were perfumed and painted as for a festival. The organs were removed and replaced with precious spices, gums, and oils, and the body, too, was painted. Then the corpse was wrapped in nearly a mile of linen bandages saturated with ointments and interred with amulets and charms made of glass or gold to protect it on its last journey.

  Behind all of these practices is the idea that the pure in spirit aspire to become pure spirit—literally, to become scent. But as synthetic ingredients constricted the palette of essential oils in common use and aromatics faded from religious practice, leaving Catholic priests swinging the same tired incense in their censers, the idea lost its potency. Scent has become no more than a metaphor for spirit, and not a particularly vivid one at that.

  The popularity of aromatherapy, which has made a number of natural essences readily accessible again, has made it possible to resurrect the connection between spirituality and scent. Whatever your beliefs, you can use scent to bring depth and immediacy to meditation and other spiritual practices.

  Meditatio is the alchemical term for an inner dialogue with an unseen being—perhaps God, one’s good angel, or oneself. According to Jung, “When the alchemists132 speak of meditari they do not mean mere cogitation, but explicitly an inner dialogue and hence a living relationship to the answering voice of the ‘Other’ in ourselves, i.e., of the unconscious. The use of the term meditation in the Hermetic dictum ‘And as all things proceed from the One through the meditation of the One’ must therefore be understood in this alchemical sense as a creative dialogue, by means of which things pass from the unconscious potential state to a manifest one.” Such an inner dialogue is an essential part of creative and explicitly spiritual processes alike, allowing one to come to terms with unseen and unconscious forces before taking action.

  Certain oils have a long history of association with meditation and spiritual practices. Frankincense, sandalwood, and myrrh have long been recognized by many religious traditions for their ability to tranquilize and clarify, and in general to bring us back to ourselves. Benzoin’s sweet, resinous odor steadies and focuses the mind for meditation and contemplation. Cedarwood is a grounding oil that mobilizes the transformative powers of the will. Clary sage is an aid to inspiration and insight. Lavender absolute calms the spirit, while bergamot helps one to let go.

  Aromatics can be used to purify the place where you meditate, and to create an atmosphere conducive to peaceful reflection. The consistent use of a blend that you have set aside expressly for the purpose of meditation will give it the power to transport you into the desired state of consciousness. You can use it to anoint parts of your body or an object to hold, or you can make it into a solid perfume that you carry with you to help you recapture the serenity of your meditation time.

  Harvesting frankincense and myrrb

  You can meditate on scent itself, an excellent way of setting aside the concerns of the day, calming the mind, and deepening and slowing the breath. For this practice you can simply use blotter strips, but you may want to make a single-note solid perfume to rub on your hands or wrists so that you can inhale it during your meditation. Use a rich, multilayered, full-bodied essence such as orange flower absolute, labdanum, lavender concrete, or (my particular favorite) pure rose absolute. As always, you need not be limited by my suggestions, and you should be guided by your own affinities. (See chapter 7 for instructions on making solid perfumes.)

  Here is a guided meditation that focuses on scent:

  Sit in a comfortable position. Hold the blotter strip or the fragrant part of your hands or wrists up to your nose and inhale deeply three times. Keeping your eyes open, imagine your consciousness dissolving outward into the scent, as if you are touching it, merging with it, flowing into it. When you reach the point of saturation, close your eyes in order to detach yourself from all senses but smell.

  Descend deeply inside, bearing the essence of the scent you have chosen, and touch it with your vision of the scent. Build an inner picture of the essence—the essence of the essence. Imagine it as a phantasm, an animal, a memory, anything that seems to you to be entirely conjured by the deep impression of the scent. You will find that each scent you meditate upon creates a different internal image and meditative experience.

  Turn outward again. Repeat the outer phase and inner phase in alternation until your soul feels full. This ex
ercise will help you to carry in your consciousness a living connection with a particular essence, and through it, with the spiritual dimension of scent in general.

  Here is a formula for a blend to use specifically in meditation. Try placing it on the skin between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, then place your hands together, bring them to your face, and inhale deeply. (This blend also makes an excellent solid; see here)

  MEDITATION BLEND

  15 ml jojoba oil

  30 drops frankincense

  18 drops sandalwood

  12 drops myrrh

  18 drops rose absolute

  18 drops clary sage

  18 drops Virginia cedarwood

  30 drops pink grapefruit

  24 drops bois de rose

  40 drops bergamot

  Scented objects such as rosaries have been used in many religions. On feast days, early Christian priests wore garlands of rosebuds or beads made from rose petals, ground and blended with fixatives into an aromatic paste, then rolled into balls and pierced with a needle. The circular form of the rosary suggested eternity and eternal devotion. And perhaps because the rose is associated with the blood of Christ and the purity of the Virgin Mary, the custom caught on. Or maybe it was simply that, warmed in the hands during prayer, the beads released a mesmerizing scent. As Baudelaire recognized, “The rosary is a medium, a vehicle; it is prayer put at everybody’s disposal.”

  Here is a nineteenth-century recipe133:

  Gather the roses on a dry day and chop the petals very finely. Put them in a sauce pan and barely cover with water. Heat for an hour but do not let it boil. Repeat this for three days and if necessary add more water. The deep black beads made from rose petals are made this rich color by warming in a rusty pan. It is important never to let the mixture boil but each day to warm it over a moderate heat. Make the beads by working the pulp with the fingers into balls. When thoroughly well worked and fairly dry press on to a bodkin to make holes in the centers of the beads. Until they are perfectly dry the beads have to be moved frequently on the bodkin or they will be difficult to remove without breaking them.