scent, suffumigation and spiritual hygiene
on the magical uses of incense and perfumery
It’s true, I have fully become a fragrance-girly.
As a side effect of my ongoing work with a Venusian spirit I have developed quite a nose for perfume.
I have developed quite a nose for perfume as a side effect of my ongoing work with the Stele of Aphrodite, a Greco-Egyptian amulet from PGM VII 215-218 (which I have been seriously working with for a couple of years and which I’m looking forward to sharing much more about soon.)
I’ve always had an extremely sensitive sense of smell. You’d think that having a sensitive nose would make me hesitant to subject myself to intense smells but, no, it’s quite the opposite. Despite the sensitivity of my nose, I’m also a very sensory-seeking person. I’m the kind of person who, when confronted with something that obviously smells terrible, cannot resist giving it a whiff.
I know it isn’t true for everyone, but scent is a core part of how I navigate the world.
Because I don’t avoid strong odors, it took me a long time to realize that I had a sharp nose. I guess I just assumed that everyone was perpetually experiencing this flood of synesthetic olfactory stimulus at all times too.
Once, when I worked in a health foods store, I walked in the front door and asked my coworker why it smelled so sour in the store? She didn’t smell anything but we walked around investigating what I perceived to be a powerful odor before realizing that we had rinsed some tomatoes in a diluted vinegar solution to prevent fruit flies upstairs, around a corner and behind a closed door. I realized that no one else could smell what I found so pungent from behind the closed door.
I rotated through work in various specialty foods industries. I worked in wholesale selling herbs and spices, then beer and wine. I apprenticed as a cheesemonger. I worked in the coffee industry along many axes. Over the course sharing hundreds of bites, sniffs, and sips with hundreds (thousands?) of customers and coworkers, I realized the strength of my sense of smell.
Last year I began working deeply with my Venusian altar and with the dog stars, Sirius and Procyon, and one of the most profound and surprising side effects was the deepening of my sense of smell. Not just in terms of subtlety, but also in terms of smelling the contours and edges of the things.
Claude Monet, detail of The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias) via the National Gallery of Art
This has me thinking more and more about the role of scent in esotericism. Like, for example, why do we always burn incense in rituals?
The presence of incense in the occult sciences is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook its importance. I often tell people that if you’re going to start building a collection of magical tools some simple incense is the best investment. The best incense you can get ahold of is enough for most things—I often suggest getting some resin (whether that’s frankincense from an herb shop or resin collected from a backyard tree) and some incense charcoals (without saltpeter/potassium nitrate) as a starting point.
In Western esoteric practices we often use the word “suffumigation” to the act of perfuming something with fragrant smoke for magical or spiritual purposes. What are some reasons we might use suffumigation?
Broadly, we can use sweet, pleasing smells to draw friendly supportive spirits who we want to do good things for us (and we use disgusting smells to do the opposite) (examples abound in the Greek Magical Papyri—see for example PGM IV 2622 - 2707)
If only one single correspondence is given in a text, it is most often that of an incense (see examples in Shams al-Ma’arif, Picatrix and the Orphic Hymns).
The Hygromanteia, Key of Solomon and other grimoires of the Solomonic tradition teach that we should perfume ourselves and our clothing before magical evocation for protective purposes—this likely has Greco-Egyptian origins.
Suffumigation strengthens magical objects (such as talismans) and draws spirits into them. It perfects the magical object (maybe you could think about it like closing a circuit) (Picatrix 1:2).
We can use incense smoke (and, broadly, scent as a whole) to gather and guide spirits to where we want them to go, both by attracting them with scents that are similar to their nature and driving them away with scents that are the opposite (Agrippa 1:43 and Picatrix 4:6)
By smelling scents that correspond with a given spirit, our spirits are themselves drawn into alignment with those spirits. This makes it easier for us to perceive and interact with them (Agrippa 1:43).
In the same way that smelling something has an impact on us after the smell is gone, we can suffumigate our bodies, clothes or homes to produce similarly lasting effects. This is part of what suffumigation does for astrological talismans (Agrippa 1:43).
Speaking of astrological magic, we are taught that the heavenly bodies cast their energies downward from heaven to earth while incense smoke moves upward from earth to heaven which strengthens their connection (Picatrix 3:5).
Picatrix teaches that suffumigation (as well as faith, fasting, prayer, location and the election) are the foundations of magical workings—that’s right, the suffumigation is at least as important as the election for astrological magic! It even seems to suggest that focused prayer and lots of incense is the most important of all of these (Picatrix 4:4 aphorisms 8 and 27).
The major theme of this research is that suffumigation is a tool that allows us to bridge our spirits with those of the spirits we work with. There’s a bit of translation required to allow us to interface directly; we have to shift the state of our mind to one more aligned with those of the spirits to communicate with them. Additionally, we can use to draw certain types of spirits to us and to direct their actions. Suffumigation is a physical tool which unites physical world with the subtle energies that flow through it. More specialized forms of magic may require more advanced magical techniques, but our ancestors were clearly able to get quite far with nothing but their prayers and a carefully chosen incense.
And, of course, perfume is a type of suffumigation.
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On perfume
Perfumery has always concerned itself with the spirit. The word spirit comes from the Latin word spīritus which also means air and breath. The coordinate terms for spirit in Arabic and Hebrew, روح rūḥ and רוח ruach, have the same overlapping meaning. The part of the human soul that contains our minds is of the nature of the air and carried on the wind, as are the disembodied spirits that we work with for magical purposes.
This is more than etymology—the sense of smell represents the connection between the mind and the body. Where the sense of touch is primarily connected to the animal soul of the body and sight to the spirit, smell coordinates the focus of both parts of the soul.
People wring their hands over the use of synthetic substances in perfume and there often seems to be a desire for perfumery ingredients that are as “natural” as possible.
This makes me think of a comment I heard from a skilled pianist I know—people debate whether it’s appropriate to use the sustain pedal when playing Mozart. The sustain pedal was invented long after Mozart died but considering his passion for creativity and innovation, had he had access to it, he certainly would have used it! I see synthetic substances in modern perfumery and incense similarly. Our ancestors constantly innovated their techniques for perfumery; had they had access to Iso E Super or the ability to isolate irones they absolutely would have been using them for their spiritual practices.
The physical mechanism of olfaction is not entirely understood yet. That is, while we can understand the way taste (and the other senses) work, there are certain edges of the sense of smell that are still debated. The transmission of the signal to the brain is clear but the way that the odor is detected isn’t (my favorite theory is that it involves quantum tunneling).
Smell is ephemeral. It’s also highly personal. What smells good to one person might smell terrible to another—and a third person might be unable to smell it altogether.
I encourage you to explore your landscape and your spirit through the sense of smell.
Try smelling as many things as you can and really focusing on them. Can you conjure the smell of nutmeg in your brain? Or frankincense? How would you describe the smell of your favorite flower or herb?
Beyond that, when you experience a scent, how does your energy change? What does it make you think about, how does it shift your thoughts? How does your body feel? I think one of the easiest exercises for this kind of thing is to experiment with herbal teas and simple resin incenses (as well as perfumes, if that’s your kind of thing). What does Mercury smell like to you?
This is the kind of work that turns a series of correspondences from a reference table into something living that you can take part it. It helps develop your judgement as a magical practitioner and will make you a more skilled magician.
Some references on smell and magic to consider
Ager, Brita K. 2022. The Scent of Ancient Magic. University of Michigan Press.
Agrippa Three Books of Occult Philosophy*
Book 1, Chapter 43: Of fumigations, their reasoning, and power
Book 1, Chapter 44: The composition of certain fumigations appropriate to the planets
Mastros, Sara. 2021. The Big Book of Magical Incense. Weiser Books.
Marathakis, Ioannis (translator of the Hygromanteia). Incense: From Papyri to Grimoires. Servants of the Light.
Picatrix*
Book 1, Chapter 2: What magic is and what its properties are
Book 3, Chapter 5: In which is demonstrated the virtue proper to animals and noteworthy things necessary in this science, and how the spirits of the planets are attracted by figures and suffumigations
Book 4, Chapter 6: How the suffumigations of the stars ought to be made, and certain compositions necessary to this science
* See notes on Picatrix and Agrippa in my annotated bibliography on the lunar stations