Fragrance as a
Protective Shield

by Valerie Ann Worwood 

Human beings are far more sense-ative than can be accounted for by sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We react in different ways to people and places, “feeling” them to be beneficial to us or not, although such differences cannot be accounted for by the way they look. 

A person might walk into the room and appear perfectly normal, in that they are dressed like everyone else and behave in much the same way, but we might feel suddenly, unaccountably distressed. Or we might walk into a room and feel uncomfortable in it, although it’s clean and well furnished. It may even be our own home that feels, at times, uncomfortable in a way we cannot explain.

Unseen energies are a part of life and, although invisible, affect us deeply and even change the course of our actions. People say “I just want to get out of here”, and although we may not have the same feeling, we understand that some unpleasant energy phenomenon has taken place, and reply, “Okay, let’s go.” You often hear people say of a person he or she “saps my energy” and although there’s no energy to see, we know exactly what they mean, and sympathize. You even hear people occasionally say “I felt a presence in the room” and although we don’t know exactly what this “presence” is, we’ve known similar experiences at some point in our lives, and accept what they say. 

Even though we may have a limited vocabulary to describe these invisible energy experiences, they are there nonetheless. If invisibility meant nonexistence, there would be no such thing as portable radios, televisions, and mobile telephones, because these are the receiving hardware that interpret bits of invisible information floating through the air. Our bodies are the receivers of other, natural, unseen energies, some of which are not welcome in our lives.

Judging by the number of age-old talismans, ceremonies, and rituals people use around the world, dealing with these unseen forces has been a very widespread human activity, with them being variously perceived as “bad luck”, “the evil eye”, “spirits”, and in more modern times, “negative thought forms”, “distressed emotional frequencies”, and other similar terms. Some Christians wear a St. Christopher’s medal as a pendant, to protect them while traveling, or the cross of the Crucifixion, while a feng shui expert might rearrange the furniture in a building to redirect the “wind and water” forces, to bring good energies and fortune.

When dealing with the invisible forces, and despite differences in belief, geographical location, and time, people have often used fragrance as a protective shield between them and the perceived negativity. This manipulation of fragrance for spiritual ends binds people very distant from each other in belief, space, and time, and often they use the same widely dispersed species of plant to facilitate more or less the same effect. Cedarwood, pine, and juniper are among those plants that have been widely adopted in this way.

Native Americans living along the Thompson River burned juniper to keep “ghosts” away, and in Tibet juniper is offered daily to good spirits. In several Native American cultures, the aroma of burning sweetgrass or sage purifies the energies and attracts the “supernaturals”. In Arabic homes today, on Thursdays, frankincense is burnt in a censer and carried through the living rooms and bed- rooms to expel evil spirits and invite the angels in. In the souk in Cairo, Egypt, and elsewhere, people make a living going from shop to shop, censing each in turn with frankincense burnt in a censer, or even on a small piece of charcoal in a rusty tin can, to dispel any negative energy customers may have left behind, making the environment more inviting to potential customers.

Such practices have been going on for millennia. The ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all used fragrance not only to attract beneficial energy, but to keep inauspicious energies “at bay”. The Greeks fumigated homes with bay leaves, while in the early days of Rome, verbena or other fragrant plants were hung above doorways to deter il malocchio, the evil eye. Censers were kept burning by front doors in classical times, even by the poorer households. 

In medieval Europe, “witches” were the feared bad spirit, and rituals were carried out at pivotal points in the year with the object of dispelling them from the vicinity. These often involved walking through the village or town waving bunches of smoldering fragrant herbs or woods, to send the aroma into every nook and cranny. Juniper and rosemary were among those widely used. In the feng shui spirit-placating rite, tun fu, incense is used.

Continued on the next page:
* Healing Agents of Today;
* Fragrant Plants;
* Aromatic Cleansing