Carl F. Neal - Incense Magick: Create Inspiring Aromatic Experiences for Your Craft

About the Author

Carl Neal has been a student of incense since 1977. In 1995 he became a professional incense maker and has avidly researched incense ever since. He eventually set aside his retail incense business and focused on bringing an expanded awareness of incense to everyone who would read or listen. Networking with incense makers and users from around the world has given him a very different view of incense. Carl is a self-professed incense fanatic who has been lucky enough to learn from a variety of incense makers from North and South America, Asia, and Europe. He has traveled across America to lead incense making workshops and discussions and has been a frequent guest at Pagan festivals and gatherings, where he spreads his enthusiasm for incense with vigor. Carl holds bachelor degrees in History and Sociology.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Incense Magick: Create Inspiring Aromatic Experiences for Your Craft 2012 by Carl F. Neal

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First e-book edition 2012

E-book ISBN: 9780738730134

Book design by Bob Gaul

Cover art Pinci/Shutterstock Images

Cover design by Adrienne Zimiga

Editing by Nicole Edman

Interior illustrations by Wen Hsu

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Michelle Lee

This book would not exist without you.

Nor would I.

Contents

Part One: All About Incense

: Background

: Scent

: Incense Ingredients

: Selecting Incense

: Censers and Holders

: Other Techniques

Part Two: Non-Combustible Incense

: Using Non-Combustible Incense

: Magickal Applications of Non-Combustible Incense

: Asian-Style Incense Burning

Part Three: Combustible Incense

: Overview of Combustible Incense

: Using Combustible Incense

: Chaining Combustible Incense

Acknowledgments

T here are a lot of people who deserve great thanks for the completion of this book. First and foremost is my best friend, Michelle Hawkins. If it werent for her constant reminders, verification that Id been writing, and her basic drive and energy, this book would never have been finished. I also want to thank Paul Orion Crews, Phillip Crews, Charles Rackley, Cara White, and Kevin Stucker for tolerating the ups and downs of living with a writer at some point during a four-year project.

I also want to extend my thanks to Annette Hinshaw for helping me find my feet on my Pagan path many years ago. She may be on the other side of the Veil, but she is never far from my mind. I likewise want to thank her son, Mike Hinshaw, for walking along that path with me for these past decades as well as sharing his wisdom about ambergris. My deep thanks to Michelle Mays for her beautiful songs and her support as my friend. Her music has soothed me and opened my mind to inspiration throughout the writing process. Thanks as well to the thousands of people who have attended my incense workshops at Pagan gatherings and meetings around the country. I have learned something new in every workshop!

I want to acknowledge the help of many people in the incense world. People who have challenged me over the years have helped me a great deal by forcing me to re-examine my views and double-check my research. First on that list would be David Oller. I appreciate the year he spent sharing his wisdom and insight about Japanese incense. This truly helped to point me toward natural incense and opened my eyes to a whole new world of aromatics and ingredients, as well as the potential hazards of synthetics. I want to thank Ande Spenser, Mark Ambrose, Chrissie Wildwood, and Katlyn Breene for your knowledge, feedback, ideas, innovations, and unflagging interest. I also want to thank all the members of my online group, The Incense Exchange (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/incense_exchange/), for the ideas and knowledge that you so freely share, the great incense swaps, and the support when things werent going so well.

Likewise I want to extend my deepest thanks to everyone at Shoyeido Corporation in general and Randi Smith in particular. You have helped me to learn and grow even further in my knowledge of Japanese incense and I honestly dont know that I would have been able to write this book without my massive supply of White Cloud incense and scentless charcoal.

Finally I want to thank all of the readers of my first two books who have provided me with feedback and ideas for what they would like to see in a future incense book. Ive tried to keep all of your ideas in mind although time and space limitations have kept me from including everything I would have liked. My thanks to you, too, dear reader. Thank you for taking the time to pick up this book. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Introduction

I ncense is an amazing experience. Seems like a strange way to think of incense, doesnt it? We most often think of incense as an object that can be held in our hands, but incense cant really be enjoyed in your hands. In order for incense to release its gift of scent, it requires not only the physical incense but also the ephemeral power of fire. The pleasure of incense requires both of those elements plus someone to experience the resulting scent. So perhaps incense isnt merely an object or an item; its actually a processan experience. Incense is as ancient as the use of fire. It has long been a part of human culture and should never be seen as insignificant or secondary. It ties us to our ancestors and to the Earth herself.

The Joy of Incense

Properly used, incense truly is a joy. There are many reasons for this, but one of the primary reasons is purely biological. Most of the human senses go through a series of relays that connect the sensor (such as your eye) to your brain. Unlike the other four senses, your nose is connected directly to your brain without the delay or interference of these biological relays. It is believed by many scientists that the sense of smell is the most ancient of all our senses.

As a result, scent is possibly the most powerful sense. Although scent is an often-neglected sense, its impact on humans and most other animals is dramatic. Have you ever walked into a bakery, encountered the overwhelming scent of cinnamon and butter, and been instantly transported back in time to your mothers or grandmothers kitchen? Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory (although not everyone agrees on this point), likely because of this direct connection to the brain. Different incense can transport you to the ocean, the deep forest, Asia, America, Ancient Egypt, or back to your own childhood.