Incense Magick Read Online Free Page A

enjoy China’s amazing scent, the inner secrets of those scents remained hidden. Even after the end of the nineteenth-century Opium War, when greater contact with the West was created through a terrible set of maneuvers by various European powers, incense continued to be a novelty to the Europeans while it was treasured by the Chinese.
    While China’s exported incense industry has fallen victim to the same forces that drive the modern incense making industry in India, high quality incense is still produced and consumed there. Thanks in great part to Buddhist practices, the art of fine incense making continues throughout China. Alongside greater trade with China has also come greater availability to Chinese botanicals. Even in the twenty-first century there is only limited access to truly high-quality Chinese incense; perhaps one day an enterprising individual will begin importing high-end Chinese incense.
    Due to its vast growth throughout history, China had much the same effect on its continent as Rome did in Europe. Disparate peoples eventually became linked by Imperial roads and trade routes. This led to the exchange of many different goods from greatly distant places. One of the keys to the creation of incredible and unique incense is availability to a wide variety of materials, and China has had that type of access for more than a thousand years.
    Tibet
    The dangerous mountains of Tibet might seem like an unlikely place to find masters of incense making, but from the mountain tops to the valley floors, Tibet has long been known as one of the primary producers of natural incense. Much of the incense of Tibet is characterized by deep, heavy, earthy scents. The richness of Tibetan incense comes from incense often made in small batches by hand in small villages. Projects are underway to use incense to bring a measure of financial assistance to poverty-stricken villages in Tibet. Sadly there are also some low-quality incense mass produced in Tibet, so read labels carefully and use all of the information in this book to help guide you to the best that Tibet has to offer. Costus, galangal, juniper, and many other aromatics blend together to make the unique incense of Tibet worth the effort to locate. The finest frankincense sticks I have ever burned came from this land shrouded in the clouds.
    Japan
    In the last 750 years Japan has arguably become the center of the incense universe. There was a time when a gentleman in Japan was judged not only by his prowess in the arts of war but also by the arts of flower arranging, poetry, and incense making. Creating personal incense blends was very common in feudal Japan with the intent to create a unique fragrance as a type of olfactory signature.
    The art of incense making and incense enjoyment reached its current zenith in the incense world in Japan. The oldest incense making companies in the world are in Japan, with many of them using recipes developed within their companies hundreds of years ago. Several Japanese incense companies are older than the entire United States! The center of the incense making universe is—in my opinion—in Kyoto, Japan.
    The kodo ceremony encapsulates the most advanced classification system ever devised for an incense ingredient (aloeswood). Kodo will be discussed further in chapter 9. Incense makers apprentice for decades before being allowed to create their precious blends, attesting to the supremacy of the art of incense found in Japan. Japan is also home to the only major incense producer (that I am aware of) that actually lists ingredients of their incense: Shoyeido. From dissimilar ingredients as star anise, cloves, cinnamon, and kyara, Japanese incense masters create blends that can transport us to worlds never before imagined. It is my life’s dream to one day visit Kyoto and experience firsthand the magick created there.
    America
    When most people think of incense, the New World rarely springs to mind, yet the Americas have