by Carl F. Neal
Non-combustible incense is the most ancient form of incense. It is easy to make, although more cumbersome to use than self-combusting incense. It does seem well suited to magickal or ritual uses because it offers the practitioner more involvement with the incense and it adds a touch of pageantry. Non-combustible forms are a good place for novice incense makers to start. These will teach how to combine various ingredients before learning the skills of adding binders and making sticks or cones.
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8
Magickal Applications
of Non-Combustible Incense
As I have mentioned earlier, incense is often seen as “magickal wallpaper” or an afterthought when it can, in fact, figure prominently in many magickal situations. The energy that incense brings to your work alone is worth the extra consideration and preparation. When you couple that with the incredible scents and visual aspects of incense, it’s a huge return for a small investment of time and effort.
Standard for Most Ceremonial Magick
If incense wasn’t already an important aspect of ritual and ceremonial magick before Aleister Crowley began publishing rituals, then it certainly became so after him. Even going back to those roots, incense was truly seen as a secondary (if not tertiary) consideration. Perhaps in those early writings the incense was being used solely to create a magickal atmosphere, but further explorations into magick have shown us that incense can contribute so much more.
While there are many in our community who create their own rituals “from scratch,” even more people use rituals created by others or modified versions of such rituals. The impact is that when the instructions for a ritual state “light some incense,” it certainly gives the reader or student no clue as to how incense form and scent selection can impact the success of your work. In the mundane world, I encourage people to use incense that is pleasing or relaxing to them. However, we in the magickal community know that there are times when the most powerful incense for the situation may not be the most pleasant to smell.
Given that the role of incense is almost always mentioned but rarely elaborated upon, coupled with the natural human desire to be surrounded by pleasing scents, many in our community have been left to make poor choices when it comes to selecting the form and the scent of their ritual incense. Non-combustible incense is commonly used in rituals. This shouldn’t be surprising since a great deal of ritual magick is about symbology and pageantry. Adding incense a pinch at a time to charcoal and enjoying the intense but brief puff of smoke seems much more interactive than lighting a stick or a cone. This is not strictly accurate, but it does seem to be the perception among some incense users. We certainly see the “flair” of loose incense, but incense chains, seals, and trails (see chapters 11 and 12) are all interactive incense applications as well.
Adding Incense During Rituals
With regards to drama and ritual, the use of charcoal and non-combustible incense is difficult to equal (although I believe that incense trails equal and surpass this grandeur). The sorcerer’s face, lit from below by candlelight, glows orange when he leans over his censer. His eyes grow wide as he adds another pinch of a mysterious plant and releases its scent and its power into his magick circle … At least that’s an easy image to relate to magick and one that is understandably appealing.
Of course if you are burning your incense at a low enough temperature, even a pinch of resin will last for many minutes, so a properly prepared censer might not give you quite the burst of smoke that this fictional scene offers. Since your charcoal-burning censer is a tool that can easily handle a wide variety of aromatics and incense blends, it can take on the role of the glowing incense burner sending forth fragrant clouds on command.
There are several things to keep in mind if you choose to use non-combustible incense on your altar. The first is the amount of incense to add. This will depend on the work you are doing, the kind of charcoal and incense you use, and the desired duration of burn. For indoor rituals, it is important not to overwhelm your space. You don’t want a fog of incense smoke obscuring your vision, nor do you want to set off any smoke detectors! With that in mind, less is often more. Adding smaller amounts of incense more frequently allows you to change scents more effectively than you can with combustible incense, and it gives you the maximum control over all aspects of your incense. If you are doing magickal work that is short in duration, or you are doing multiple spells/work during a single ritual, then small amounts will also work to your advantage because it gives you the freedom to quickly change incense without the longer process of using combustible incense.
If you use “self-lighting” charcoal, you will have to add incense to your censer fairly frequently. The higher burning temperature of this type of charcoal means that it will burn your incense far more quickly (and with a less pleasant scent in most cases) than “low scent” charcoal. The type of incense you use will also have an impact. Herbs tend to burn off very quickly and have to be replenished often. Resins burn slower and need fewer applications. Woods, especially large pieces, tend to burn the slowest and require the least amount of attention.
Finally, you need to decide how long you want the incense to burn. If you have a lot of magickal work to do while the incense burns, then you will want a longer duration between the additions of incense. In that case, you want to keep the heat in your censer as low as practically possible. The use of “low scent” charcoal will help, as will a plate (mica) or a tile (ceramic) placed over the charcoal. Censers prepared in the style of kodo incense (with the charcoal buried beneath the ash) will allow for the longest burn times from a single addition of incense.
Cleaning your charcoal is another consideration. How quickly the material burns on the charcoal and how frequently your work calls for you to use different aromatics will determine how much you need to clean the charcoal while it is in use. Incense scattered on charcoal will generally leave ash on the charcoal. This ash insulates your charcoal (which can be good or bad), but heated ashes of this type often give off an unpleasant and unintended odor. To avoid this situation, you may need to periodically clean your charcoal. This is a simple matter of pushing or scraping the ash from the top of your charcoal to provide clean charcoal for your next addition of incense. Using a tile or a plate over your charcoal will make this an easier job. Plan ahead for this need and have a tool available in your circle for scraping the charcoal. This is not something you want to do with a bare hand! If you are using plates or tiles, have tongs or something similar to remove the plate from the charcoal. Plates and tiles will be hot while on the charcoal.
One other factor to consider is how you have structured your incense into your ritual. Some practitioners prefer to use single-aromatic incense rather than a blend, even if this would require five different aromatics for a single ritual. In some ways this is akin to “air mixing” (see chapter 6), and it allows you to add the different aromatics to the charcoal one by one as called for in your ritual. For example, if you wanted to call upon all four elements in your spell, you could call each individually and add the appropriate aromatic for that element.
Storing Incense Materials on Your Altar
If you plan to use non-combustible incense during a ritual, it is important that you have everything you need before you begin. Personally, I always run through a checklist of every item I will or could need during a ritual while preparing my altar. If you happen to forget to bring in charcoal, a tool to scrape the charcoal, plates, tiles, or a complete selection of required incense and aromatics, you will need to interrupt the ritual and open your circle to fetch them. That breaks your concentration and is really irritating, so I suggest that you have a complete review of materials before you ever begin work.
Many practitioners have a permanent altar or a portable altar (altar stand) that is used for every ritual. Those people will often store an assortment of incense and other ritual supplies in or under that
altar. If this was the case and you forgot to bring in charcoal, it would be as easy as reaching under the altar and grabbing a brick. This is a great advantage to keep in mind. But those of us who do not currently have such a permanent setup can still enjoy this approach—we just have to prepare it for each ritual. My altars are almost always raised and covered with an altar cloth. That creates a perfect storage area below the altar for any supplies.
Another factor to consider is how your incense or aromatics are stored on top of your altar. I always keep a small amount of every type of incense and aromatic I will use during my ritual on the altar itself. You don’t have to do this, but I like to see that everything is ready and easily available. I don’t want to reach under my altar for supplies unless I absolutely have to. I store all such materials kept on my altar for any ritual in somewhat “formal” containers. You can certainly have plastic bags or other such containers on your altar if you wish, but I like everything on my altar to be as attractive as possible. After all, these are intended to be sources of power and offerings to greater powers. I wouldn’t give anyone a gift in a cheap plastic bag, so I certainly would not do that for my patron god or goddess.
I have an assortment of wood, glass, stone, and metal containers that keep my incense neat and tidy while still looking very presentable. I try to match the container with the material it will store. This may mean a small wooden box for wood powder, for example. Most of these containers are dedicated to one type of incense or aromatic, although I keep a few more “generic” containers to store blends that may only be used one time. To further customize the containers to their contents, I will often paint or carve something onto the container to indicate the contents. My container for prosperity incense, for example, is a round soapstone dish with a lid. Since soapstone is so soft, I carved a prosperity symbol (in this case, a dollar sign) into the surface of the container. I will never use this container for anything else. If you are just starting to look for incense containers like these, you can find quite inexpensive small glass bowls at many discount stores. They work well, look nice, and make it easy for you to locate the exact incense you need at any given moment.
Rituals
I have gathered here rituals for the three types of non-combustible incense: loose, powder, and moist incense. As with all of my rituals, it is my most sincere hope that you will modify these rituals for use in your own practice. I always write my rituals or spells in such a way as to be somewhat “generic” so that they will fit with any path or tradition. Customizing the rituals for your own path will give you greater ownership of the ritual and should increase your personal comfort level as well.
You can also modify the vast majority of rituals throughout this book for use with forms of incense other than the ones called for as written. A ritual designed for use with stick incense could be modified for use with moist incense. A few of the rituals are pretty specific about the form of incense and how it is incorporated into the ritual, but most would be easy to modify.
Rituals for Loose Incense
As the oldest form of incense, many rituals incorporate loose incense without even mentioning the type. There are many traditions that use no other form, so why even mention the form in the ritual? I truly love loose incense in spite of its drawbacks, and I like rituals that are specifically tailored for it.
Cleansing
This is perhaps one of the most fundamental rituals that any of us perform. Although in the past I did all of my magickal work from inside a cast circle, this was one of the first ones that I started doing without a circle—at least a lot of the time. It is certainly a process that lends itself well to loose incense.
You can use any cleansing aromatics you would like for this ritual. I like a medium-coarse blend of bay leaf (laurel), frankincense, and rosemary (3 parts bay leaf, 1 part frankincense, 1 part rosemary). Prepare your censer before casting your circle. I prefer to light my charcoal several minutes before casting my circle and then finalize the censer preparation after the circle is cast and deities have been called. I opt for such final preparation for this ritual especially because the preparation (including building the “volcano,” explained in chapter 9) is a time for me to quiet my mind and focus on the work at hand.
Cleansing is the process of removing unwanted energies from an object. Typically, cleansing is used to remove all intrusive energy from an object, good or bad, and it takes a skilled and practiced mage to remove only selected energies. If you are familiar with cleansing selected energies, you can use this same ritual for that purpose, but I will assume that most readers will use cleansing to create a “blank slate” and purge all non-inherent energies. This is particularly beneficial for newly acquired magickal tools. I cleanse the majority of all of the tools I acquire. (There are times when an object has strong, desirable energies that I don’t want to risk losing; in those cases, I will either do selective cleansing or leave the item exactly as I received it.)
I prefer to do cleansings as one of the first things I do in circle. Since I have brought the items I intend to cleanse into my circle, I want to banish any unwanted or unanticipated energies before I do other work—those energies could potentially interfere with the other work I have planned for that circle.
When you are ready to begin, hold the object to be cleansed in your hands. Feel its weight and the texture of its surface. This is to help you connect yourself to the object. If possible, move the item to one hand and with the other add a pinch of your cleansing incense to the charcoal or plate in your censer. Hold the object over the censer, in the smoke from the incense. Focus your concentration on the item. You may use an incantation if you would like:
Sacred smoke, cleanse this [name the item]
that it may be free of the energies of others that
it has acquired over time. Purify it as I accept
it into my life as a sacred object to be used
for my magickal workings.
If you are doing this work in a group setting, or if the tool is to be used by multiple people, you should reword the incantation to reflect that. I urge everyone to customize the words to fit with their own practices and circumstances. The best magick comes from your own heart rather than words written by a stranger. Of course, I also hope you think of me as more than just another stranger by now.
If you have multiple objects to cleanse, it is easiest to do them all in one sitting. I add a new pinch of incense for each object. As you hold the object in the smoke, visualize the smoke scrubbing the object clean. Where it once had a dull or dirty surface, the smoke turns it clean and shiny. Once clean, you will be able to touch and clearly visualize the inherent energy from the object. More powerful objects may even appear to glow during this process.
Once cleansed, the object is ready to receive your own energy impression. Designate the tool’s purpose(s) in your work and concentrate on aligning its energies to your own. At this point you can physically mark the object as well as “branding” it energetically. This will mark the tool as yours (or your coven’s, etc.) and leave it ready for its first use. Cleansed objects can be immediately employed in other work you plan to do.
Incense Divination
The working title of my first book was Goddess in the Smoke and incense divination was the meaning behind that title. Although it wasn’t really a descriptive enough title for readers to know the subject matter of the book at a glance, it is a valuable working that I encourage everyone to try.
Divination is the art of seeing the unseen. It can refer to glimpsing the future, but it can also refer to the past or the present. The term “divination” is appropriate any time you attempt to gain knowledge or understanding purely through the use of magick. Incense is an excellent tool for divination. Although you can certainly use any type or scent of incense for divination, I like a blend of mugwort, white willow, and wild lettuce for this type of work. Divination works best for me when I have
a very specific question in mind. You can do a “general” divination with no question selected, but interpreting the images can be far more difficult without a direction in which to go.
This work can be done inside your circle or out as you prefer. After adding a pinch of incense to your charcoal, sit comfortably where you can see the smoke easily. A single candle adjacent to your censer is a great way to highlight the smoke, but I suggest keeping the censer between you and that candle. That will provide backlighting to the smoke, which makes it easier to see. Some forms of divination require a lot of skill or experience: Tarot cards have to be understood and interpreted in a specific way, and scrying with water or a mirror can take years of practice. Incense divination can be used by anyone with minimal experience or expertise.
The process is very simple. Sit comfortably, watch the smoke, and add more incense as needed. That’s it. It is somewhat akin to watching clouds in the sky. Watch the drifting smoke and look for images within it. The human mind seeks out patterns in everything we see, so your mind will search for patterns in the smoke. Much like dream interpretation, the results are quite personal to the practitioner. Two people watching the same smoke stream may see very different things or interpret things in very different ways. That’s normal and natural. Just look for patterns that will answer your question.
Observing the divination is the simple part. Understanding the images and how they impact the question you have asked may require a lot of thought and reflection. When I do incense divination, I will often spend ten minutes observing and several days interpreting what I saw. If you ask about the future of your job and see an eagle in the smoke, that could have a very different meaning for you than it would for me. It might mean you are about to get a check from the government, or it could mean that you are about to soar away from your old job to something new. I often see images of deities during divination, and I try to understand what that deity has to do with the question I have asked. If you ask about a relationship and see Kali in the smoke, that might well mean that a big change is coming between you and that other person. If you see Loki, then perhaps one of the two of you are playing tricks on the other. Trust your instincts and practice this skill. It gets easier the more frequently you do it. I’ve found incense divination to be the easiest form for someone new to the art.