Incense: Crafting & Use of Magickal Scents

About the Author

Carl F. Neal (Oregon) 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: Crafting & Use of Magickal Scents: New and Expanded © 2014 by Carl F. Neal.

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First e-book edition © 2014

E-book ISBN: 9780738743769

Book design by Michael Maupin

Book format by Bob Gaul

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Cover photo © 2003 by Leo Tushaus

Editing by Laura Graves

Interior illustrations by Wen Hsu

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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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 my mother,

who taught me that all things are possible

&

for Annette,

whose words of love and wisdom I can still hear today.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: The Importance of Form

Chapter Two: Incense Composition

Chapter Three: How to Use Incense

Chapter Four: Selecting Materials

Chapter Five: Tools and Workspace

Chapter Six: Making Incense

Chapter Seven: Recipes

Chapter Eight: Experimentation

Chapter Ten: Philosophies

Appendix One: Ingredient Chart

Appendix Two: Making Grocery Store Incense

Appendix Three: Suggested Ritual Uses

Appendix Four: Listening to incense

Glossary

Bibliography

List of Figures

An assortment of incense burners . . . 35

A wire incense burner can hold inverted cones . . . 39

A fine mesh sifter is essential for powdering ingredients . . . 55

Mortars and pestles come in every size and shape imaginable . . . 56

True mills use grinding plates or stones . . .57

Sifting directly into a bag reduces dust and waste . . . 60

Drying boards . . . 68

A simple incense extruder made from a clay gun . . . 69

Use the thumb and index finger of both hands . . . 84

Applying slightly more pressure at the top will produce a four-sided pyramid . . . 85

Rolling the pyramid will produce the traditional cone shape . . . 86

Using a toothpick to draw on a cone . . . 88

Using a simple extruder with a drying board . . . 92

A simple extruder can be inserted into a caulk gun for easier use . . . 94

Caulk gun extruder with a cake decorating tip on the end . . . 95

Making an incense coil with an extruder . . .96

A braided incense stick . . . 100

A completed latex cone mold . . . 105

Open the mold widely before attempting to remove the cone . . . 107

Make a furrow in the bed of ash . . . 165

Fill the furrow with your test blend . . . 166

Listening to incense is an important and beautiful metaphor and practice . . . 221

Acknowledgments

There are so many people who have helped me that it’s impossible to name everyone. I’d first like to say thank you to those rare college professors who taught me far more than the class material. Dr. Biles, Dr. Merritt, and Dr. Perkins gave me the writing direction, the freedom of scope, and the research skills that have made this dream a reality.

Next, my thanks to the many patient teachers of the Craft who have illuminated dark places for me over the years. Although I’ve been Solitary for most of my time on this path, the instruction and enlightenment I’ve gained from those far wiser in matters of magick have been invaluable. From personal conversations to public debates to workshops, all of you have helped me put the techniques of magick into simple words. My specific thanks to Annette and Mike Hinshaw for introducing me to the wider magickal community and for being my friends through many years of ups and downs.

Thanks as well to David Oller from Esoterics. His often blunt teaching and persistence took me off the road of artificial ingredients and convinced me that all incense should be wonderful and natural—not just ritual incense. David is also the man responsible for first making tabu no ki available in North America!

I also want to thank all the members of the Alice’s Restaurant Incense List for all their articles and discussion on making incense with natural ingredients, information on Japanese incense making and burning techniques, and information on the dangers of chemicals like DPG, saltpeter, and others commonly used in incense making. Although it is not possible to cite each person/member individually, their articles were important sources for this book.

All of that goes double for the members of my own incense group, The Incense Exchange (found in Yahoo! Groups). Your questions have been even more valuable to me than your answers. Your ideas, tips, and suggestions have been valuable, and I wish I could thank each of you individually for all of the wonderful knowledge you have shared over the decades. I hope this book pleases you all.

I would be remiss not to thank Elysia Gallo at Llewellyn for being open to the idea of a second edition of this book and being so helpful throughout the process. I hope to work with her in ten more years on a third edition! I also want to thank Wen Hsu for the outstanding illustrations. I am amazed at the way the complex ideas in this book have been so clearly illustrated! I also want to thank Laura Graves for her fantastic work as editor on this new edition.

Finally, I must thank my soulmate, Michelle Hawkins. The first edition of this book brought us together. The second edition would never have been completed (on time no less) without her work to keep me on track and on target.

I love you heart and soul, Michelle. Anda.

Introduction

Introduction to the Second Edition

It’s hard to believe that it’s been well over ten years since I last touched the text in this book. In some ways it seems that I was working on this (my first book) just a short time ago. In other ways it seems like a lifetime ago. I have learned so much since this book was originally written. Let me make one thing clear from the beginning: I am not the most knowledgeable incense maker on the planet. I have been so very fortunate to have met, worked with, and learned from many amazing and talented incense makers. The most I ever hope for is to bring the wisdom of these diverse people into a form that is easy to understand, easy to duplicate, and fun, in addition to being a solid reference work. There are a lot of original techniques in this book, but those would have never been developed without many lessons learned from those talented people.

I have made an additional effort with this second edition to allow the voices of some of these incense masters to come through more directly. I have conducted interviews with several leaders in the incense field to lend their perspectives on what is a fascinating field. I hope that allowing you to hear directly from a few of them will emphasize how diverse the approaches and opinions are. The variety of forms, scents, and philosophical views demonstrates the incredible variety within this world of scent.

I have attempted to address, whenever possible, the fantastic feedback provided to me from readers over the years. There is a much stronger effort to illustrate more complex instructions in the second edition. I have also dramatically expanded the number of recipes and incense ingredients. One very noticeable change from the first edition is the change of emphasis from gum to wood binders. I have tried to provide a more balanced approach now that I have a much better understanding of the use and sourcing of wood (and related) binders.

It is also important to recognize that the world has changed since the first edition was released in 2003. At that time, binders of any sort were difficult to locate (so much so that in the first edition I included a list of material suppliers). The need for a supplier list has faded away over the years. Today, a quick search through your favorite Internet search engine will provide you with a long list of quality suppliers of incense and incense making materials. Now we can find gum binders in virtually any grocery store, and wood binders might only be as far away as your backyard. There are incense making enthusiasts around the globe, and in the last decade I have seen many incense making workshops pop up in the US from coast to coast. The world is a much friendlier place for budding incense makers.

The amount of amazing incense available for purchase has also improved a great deal for those of us in the West. We have greater access to imported incense than ever before. Even more importantly to me, there are now more commercial domestic makers of natural incense than ever before. The number of brands of quality Western incense has grown large enough to represent a significant shift from the last decade. I hope those changes continue and we continue to see a blossoming of incense use and making in Europe and the Americas. Perhaps exports of Western incense to the East will even grow one day.

It has been my great honor to have taught thousands of people in classes and workshops all over the USA since the first edition of this book was released. I have learned at least as much from those students as they have learned from me. I was lucky to have been blessed with an overwhelming enthusiasm for incense that drives me to talk and teach about it at every practical (and sometimes impractical) opportunity. Many wise people have shared their wisdom with me so that I could share it with you. They are the true masters, and without their help and openness much of this information would remain hidden or even be lost.

Just as in the first edition, this book attempts to offer some modern (in many cases original) techniques while honoring traditions that often stretch back thousands of years. If you feel that there are any traditional approaches I have glossed over or not treated with appropriate respect, I do offer my sincere apologies. I have attempted in this edition to provide as much information as practical without overwhelming readers with minutiae or advanced techniques. This book’s intent is to introduce as wide a variety of concepts and approaches as can be realistically accomplished in a single, highly accessible volume. It is more important to me that I write in an approachable way to invite readers into the amazing world of incense than to offer precise, detailed information on every esoteric approach I have encountered. If you would like to see some of these more advanced approaches, perhaps one day there will be enough support that I could publish such a book. Maybe one day you could publish one instead!

I hope this book brings you knowledge and helps you expand your craft. The intimate connections made when rolling your own incense can’t be duplicated in any other way. It is such a wonderful privilege to be able to write these words for you. May your life be filled with magickal scents!

Overview

Incense making is as ancient as humans’ control over fire—older than written history and often shrouded in mystery. You now hold in your hands all the information you need to make your own incense from all-natural ingredients. From the simplest incense for daily use to the most elaborate incense for rituals, with a few ingredients and this book you can make any sort of incense you wish.

It’s important to note that this book is not focused on making incense on a large scale. Most commercially produced incense is dipped incense that is far from a natural product. The making of dipped incense is barely mentioned in this book and certainly not explained. There are a few booklets in print about incense dipping as well as information on the Internet, and you should consult those for information on making incense with synthetic materials. The focus of this book is making natural incense that is a blessing to its user.

How to Use This Book

To gain a full understanding of all the factors involved in incense making, you should read this entire book. I know that some people are anxious to get their hands dirty, so here’s a shortcut. Skim the rest of this chapter for a general introduction to incense. You should also skim chapter 1, paying particular attention to the different forms of incense, and chapter 5, to see the basic tools you might like to use. Then carefully read chapter 6, and by the time you reach the end you’ll have made your first batch of incense! Once you’ve used a few recipes from this book, you can go back and read the rest of the book to further expand your knowledge.

What Is Incense?

Put simply, incense is anything you burn for its scent. That’s a pretty broad definition, but it’s accurate. The two key concepts that define incense are scent and burn. All true incense must include both of those factors. Burning leaves are incense for some people, and firewood fits this definition for some others. It doesn’t take twenty-five secret herbs blended by a wizened incense master to make fantastic incense. A few simple ingredients often make the most pleasing scents.

On the other hand, a carefully blended selection of unusual herbs and rare resins can bring about energetic and even physical changes that are staggering. I make this point not only to give you a goal as an incense maker (please, make some incense that will stagger me!) but also to remind you that no matter how much your skill as an incense maker improves, there is always a good motivation to enjoy the work of incense makers who have dedicated decades to this art. There is a great deal of excellent, complex incense out there to enjoy, and much of it has grown out of ancient practices and traditions reaching back millennia. While making your own incense is fun, easy, and very rewarding, please don’t reject all of the marvelous natural incense imported from around the world. There’s time to enjoy a complex scent when the mood strikes.

What Is Not Incense

When I wrote the first edition of this book, there was no reason to include a mention of this issue. I hope that ten years from now, when I am working on the third edition, I can remove this paragraph because it no longer has meaning. Currently there are a number of products for sale that are labeled herbal incense that are in fact attempts to manufacture synthetic cannabis. Often these substances are a combination of some natural ingredients with synthetic cannabinoids added to simulate the effects of smoking actual cannabis. These substances are generally aimed at young people as a legal way to get high. I want everyone to understand that such products have absolutely nothing to do with incense. As various governments attempt to grapple with the problems created by these products, it is important that we remind people that true incense is completely unrelated.

Why Burn Incense?

Humans are blessed with five basic senses. Of those, scent is, after touch, the most intimate. Most human senses have very complicated nerve processes that send information to the brain. Unlike the others, the sense of smell is directly wired to the brain. The left half of your brain controls your right hand, but your left nostril is connected to the left side of your brain. The sense of smell is an ancient trait and incense provides a quick connection to your brain. Memory and smell are heavily intertwined. Certain smells can transport us back in time to a memorable place or event.

Incense has many applications in life. Incense is a way to redecorate a room in seconds. Although it might take you days to paint a room in order to change how it looks, you can change how it smells by lighting a simple cone of incense. Not to mention that with incense, you can redecorate the room every thirty minutes if you so desire.

Incense is also a wonderful assistant for meditation. The gentle scent of sandalwood and cinnamon can bring greater depth to your mediation with the wonderful aftereffects of the scent lingering in the air. In fact, many types of high-quality (and sometimes quite expensive) Japanese incense are an integral part of the meditation habits of people worldwide. This incense may actually create a biochemical reaction that affects the mediation experience.

Incense has long been a way that humans have sent their words to the gods and goddesses of their people. Almost universally, smoke has been considered a way to carry our words, thoughts, and wishes to realms beyond our mortal limitations. On every inhabited continent we find cultures that use fragrant smoke to speak to the powers of their world. Prayer and smoke are deeply entwined throughout history and across many different cultures. To me, these practices alone demonstrate the significance of incense to those who use it.

Incense is also a powerful source of energy. Not only can users empower incense with their own energies, the ingredients in natural incense have their own inherent energies that are released when burned. To that end, incense is like a battery for magickal energy; when you burn it, its energy is set free for you to use. Of course, you don’t have to use that energy, but I would advise that if you choose not to use it (perhaps you just want to enjoy the scent), that you ground that energy. I prefer not to set energy loose without purpose, but that’s a personal preference.

As a result, incense can make a tremendous difference to the entire magickal process. Incense is used to cleanse and create sacred space, as an offering both on and off the altar, a way to create a magickal atmosphere and a way to help the practitioner achieve specific mental states. It also serves as a source of energy for the practitioner. Many who practice magick spend a lot of time raising energy. Don’t overlook the added energy released from your burning incense. The effects of incense can have a deep impact on both major rituals and minor magicks.

Finally, although it is quite mundane, sometimes there is a bad smell that you might want to mask. From litter boxes to cigarette smoke to stale fish, there are things in all our lives that don’t smell as good as they could. Lighting a stick of incense offers an immediate way to modify the scent of any room. It takes work and practice to make truly amazing incense, and it seems a shame to waste all of that energy on covering a bad smell, but incense exists to improve our lives. Odors detract from the joys of life, so using incense to change those smells is appropriate. Personally, this is the one circumstance where I am most likely to use synthetic incense. Often the cloying, overpowering smell of synthetic incense can be just right when you have an unpleasant scent to banish.

Why Make Incense?

Since there are so many brands of incense on the commercial market, you might ask yourself why you should bother to learn how to make incense. There are numerous reasons to learn to make incense, although any incense buyer can benefit just from understanding how incense is made. Making incense yourself allows you to avoid the problems of dipped incense, gives you complete control over the ingredients used, and allows you to greatly empower your incense. And best of all, it’s fun.

Synthetic Incense

You might have heard the terms dipped, soaked, or double dipped describing incense. This category of incense has changed in recent decades and is somewhat controversial. Dipped incense is made using incense blanks. A blank is an unscented stick or cone of incense. The idea of dipped incense is fairly new in the long history of incense and in recent years the quality of dipped incense has come into question. Originally, these blanks were made of sandalwood powder and a type of glue. They are basically an incense base and binder (we’ll talk in detail about those in chapter 2) that are rolled and dried. Instead of using plant materials to scent the incense, the sticks are soaked in oils. As the incense burns, the burning oils supply the scent.

So far, dipped incense doesn’t sound so bad. The problems come from the practices of commercial incense makers. Essential oils are not used in making dipped incense (there might be a few small producers who dip with essential oils, but I’ve never been able to locate any). Synthetic fragrance oils