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Herbal Incense Information I/Iii

Category: Misc

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(3.0) by 1 users

Ingredients:

1 Info below
- General and Histori

Instructions:

"The burning of sweet gums, resins, woods, and plants has taken
hundreds of beautiful, diverse cultural forms, many of which persist
today. Ancient Egyptians burned offerings to the sun god, Ra, on his
daily trek across the heavens. Frequent references to the use of
incense in the Old Testament suggest that the Jews have used it since
very early times. Modern Hindus burn camphor and incense before the
image of Krishna. The Greeks burned sweet incenses to make sacrifice
and prayer more acceptable to the gods. Little use of incense is
evident in Islamic traditions, and incense was unknown in early
Buddhism, opposed as it was to external dogma. However, public and
private use of incense has now become widespread among Tibetan,
Japanese, and Chinese Buddhists. By the fourteenth century, it had
become part of most of the established Christian rituals, and is
still used for such ceremonies as high mass, processions, and
funerals. Modern pagan and neopagan practices also involve highly
developed ritual uses of incense. In Native American religion, sage,
sweet grass, yerba santa, uva-ursi, cedar, and tobacco are burned
ceremonially for purifying oneself and one's environment, for sending
up prayers to the Great Spirit, and for connecting with one's spirit
helpers - the unseen forces that assist humans.

"Besides its place in ceremony and religion, incense is often used
simply to evoke a mood or create an atmosphere...

"Incense makes use of many botanical products which cannot be
liquefied or distilled into a perfume. Tree barks and saps, gums,
resins, roots, flowers, fragrant leaves, and needles can be combined
in myriad ways to create a rising, mood-enhancing bouquet of fragrant
smoke. The botanical ingredients may be purchased, grown, or gathered
from the wild."

"Incense can take many forms, from simple, loose ingredients to be
thrown on glowing coals to ornately shaped cones, cylinders, sticks,
or coils. All are fun to make and enjoyable to use. All except loose
incense consists of four basic ingredients: an aromatic substance or
mixture, a burnable base, a bonding agent, and a liquid to change the
bonding agent into a glue. Coloring agents can be added as well."

Excerpted from Sandy Maine's "Herbal Incense" article in "The Herb
Companion." Dec. 1992/Jan. 1993, Vol. 5, No. 2. Pg. 37. Posted by
Cathy Harned.