ancient incense
Humanity has used incense, in its earliest forms, since the dawn of human history. With the discovery of fire, our ancestors would have realized that most materials emit a unique and sometimes powerful aroma when burned. The difference between the smell of a handful of parsley and that of a pine branch is greatly accentuated when each is burned. Then as now, the air is quickly filled with heady aromas simply by throwing a few dry leaves, spices or twigs on the fire.
There is historical evidence in most cultures that our ancestors used incense for sacred and healing purposes. Since ancient times it was recognized that the aromas produced by burning materials could sharpen the senses, both sight and smell. When primitive man gathered around his fire, the smell of fragrant woods, herbs, and leaves carried on wisps of smoke skyward was a rare sensory delight; since this discovery, no doubt, it was a small step to dedicate fragrant products to the Gods, by adding them to a fire, which would also carry up the good wishes and prayers of men in the heat of the flames. Other benefits attributed to burning incense included purifying an area, changing the mood (to facilitate meditation or religious practices), and cleaning and disinfecting living spaces, especially after contamination caused by, for example, pollution. death or disease.
The rise of incense and the “Path of Incense”
Several thousand years before the advent of Christianity, the plants, herbs, and spices that made the best incense were traded as highly desirable commodities. For many years, frankincense from the Arabian peninsula was actually a more valuable currency than gold or silver. In almost all religions, aromatic oils, leaves and powders were considered a gift from the gods, a symbol of divine grace. Frankincense was used in large quantities by the ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Assyrians, and through them, by the Romans, who would have learned of its use upon contact with Eastern nations.
The significance of the belief that the three wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to baby Jesus was both the princely nature of the gifts and their symbolic meaning: frankincense was an expensive gift literally “fit for a king,” while bitter myrrh referred to the bittersweet fate that awaits the messiah.
The incense trade flourished for centuries, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula area of Oman, and its use dates back to the reign of the Queen of Sheba, who ruled over the Kingdom of Hadramut, which included Oman. The incense trade flourished for fifteen hundred years, reaching its peak at the height of the Roman Empire. Trade only declined due to reduced demand after the fall of the Roman Empire and also due to exorbitant taxes levied along tightly controlled trade routes.
The parallel story of the spots
The idea of purification through smoke is certainly not unique to the world east of the Atlantic: Native Americans have also burned herbal smoke mixtures in ceremonial cleansing and healing rituals for thousands of years. The smearing (the common name given to the sacred smoke bowl blessing) has been a part of Native American lore since ancient times.
As with its Eastern counterparts, “smearing” or burning herbs and resins was and still is a practice that many traditional cultures consider literally sacred. The spots take many forms; the grasses are tied into bundles called “smudge sticks”, or the longer, tendril-like grasses may be braided into “strings”. Smudge calls upon the spirits of sacred plants to drive away negative energies and restore balance. The most popular herbs and plants for smudging include cedar, sage, sweet grass, and tobacco. Each of these plants is imbued with a unique quality and specific energy and as such are known as “Sacred Plant Helpers”. Its smoke is ceremonially fanned through the energy field (aura) to clear negative energies, heal, bless, and attract positive forces.
Smearing continues to this day as an integral part of Native American purification rituals: all spaces and tools used for healing must be stained, and smearing is an integral part of other important ceremonies, such as gatherings. of the medicine wheel, the vision quest and the sweat lodge.
Incense and Modern Religion
The use of incense in organized religion continues as a relevant and important aspect of several confirmed religions, being used to prepare the congregation for prayer and ritual. In the Roman and Eastern Catholic churches, incense is a sacramental, that is, “an action or object of ecclesiastical origin that serves to express or increase devotion” (Merriam Webster online dictionary).
The Roman Catholic Church has always recognized the value of ceremonial rites and observances, not only to increase the solemnity of its services, but also to awaken a spirit of devotion in those who minister and attend them. For a period the use of incense was discontinued in the Western Church due to its close association with pagan worship, but it has always been used in the Eastern Church. The incense used today is powder or grains of resin or vegetable gums or other similar substances that, when burned, give off a sweet smoky odor. Perhaps ironically, the Roman Catholic Church now shares a devotion to incense at the heart of its rituals with the growing number of Pagan and Wiccan practitioners, the very groups from which it sought to disassociate itself.
The mystical meanings that the church attributes to incense hardly differ from those of our ancestors. When burned, the incense symbolizes the zeal of the faithful, its sweet fragrance echoing the “smell of holiness” believed to exude from saints and martyrs, and its rising smoke symbolizing the ascension of prayers to heaven. Also, the incense creates a cloud, which is another symbol of mercy.
The founder of modern “aromatherapy”
Frankincense has rightly been called the ancestor of modern aromatherapy, and its use as the first form of scent-based healing is indisputable. Today, there has been a resurgence in the use of essential oils and the burning of incense as tools to harness the power of aromatherapy, which is now recognized to be capable, through stimulation of the olfactory nerves, of producing physical, emotional and psychological. independent of the thought process.
As we smell scents, whether it’s incense, fresh paint, or sausage and mash(!), our mind is busy working on a subconscious level, deciding if we like it and determining if we recognize it. These responses are created in the limbic system, or more accurately, the information is sent through the nerves to the olfactory epithelium, which is part of the limbic system in the brain. The data is then transmitted to the conscious parts of the brain. The limbic system is the oldest and most primitive section of the brain: it stores information about every smell that has been smelled and provides responses and reactions to various stimuli. It is considered the seat of memory and as such is a powerful mood effect.
All odor is molecular, that is, when we smell an odor, we are registering a physical molecule that is disconnected from its carrier and travels through the air, reaching the mucosa through the nose, which has millions of odor receptor cells and cilia to trap and identify odor molecules in the air. Unlike our other four senses, the olfactory nervous system is directly exposed to its source of stimulation; this explains the immediate and thoughtless effect of odors on the nervous system. Smell can cause an instant and overwhelming reaction, whether pleasant or unpleasant, in a way that no other sensation can.
In addition, our learning capacity and our capacity for sympathy are also located in the limbic system, hence the often close link that feelings of sympathy and antipathy tend to have with smells. The limbic system is also responsible for creativity, inspiration, and all non-thinking automatic life processes, such as heartbeat, hormone regulation, and breathing. Smell can affect all of these powerful bodily processes.
The use of frankincense and essential oils in modern aromatherapy has validated the belief of our ancient ancestors. Many of the reactions and decisions we make are intrinsically linked to our sense of smell, and many areas of our health and relaxation can be positively affected by smell, and by definition, through aromatherapy. Frankincense can help:
clean the environment
helps calm and reduce anxiety, stress and fear
revitalize, stimulate and renew energy
relieve insomnia
prepare the mind and body for prayer, meditation and contemplation
speed healing
Follow the example of the ancients and allow the fragrant smoke of the incense to cleanse your living space, relax your body, calm your mind, create a spiritual atmosphere and elevate your consciousness.