Belongs To Tradition

Incense, the resins, woods and herbs burned in ritual, is attached in the correspondence literature to planets, elements and deities: frankincense to the Sun, myrrh to the Moon and to mourning, copal in Mesoamerican practice, sandalwood and agarwood in the incense cultures of Asia. The smoke of incense carries prayer, purifies a space, honours a deity and sets a mood, and its uses are among the most widespread of all ritual acts.

Incense recipes appear in Egyptian temple texts, in the Hebrew Bible's instructions for the sacred incense, in the grimoires' recipes for planetary suffumigations, and in the ritual manuals of many traditions.

In ceremonial magic the right incense is burned to attract or align with a planet or spirit, a planetary suffumigation timed to the hour, while in temple and church worship incense is offering and purification, and in domestic practice it marks and cleanses a space. The atlas records the correspondences and the ritual uses across these settings.

The atlas gives each incense its correspondences, its traditional uses, and its associations. The planets, elements and deities the incenses are keyed to, and the plants they are made from, are treated in their own categories.