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Incense How-To Guide: Burning Herbs and Resins for Your Witchcraft Spells
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Incense is an incredible and often overlooked tool for making some really powerful magic, either as a support tool when doing a magic spells, or as the focus of the spell itself. If you haven’t been using incense in your spells, it's time to get started!
Whether you use stick incense, cones, smudge sticks, burn herbs and resins on an incense charcoal or make your own incense by hand, you can harness the power of incense to do some powerful love magic and fragrance your environment at the same time.
Incense Is More Than Just A Pretty Smell
Historically, incense has been used and is still used, for connecting to the heavens. When we do magic, whether that is a formal magical spell or simply wanting to set a powerful intention, it can supercharge our work when we connect to this divine energy.
Incense Helps Us To Focus Intentions In A Ritualistic Way
You have to do certain steps to burn incense. Just doing those steps can take us out of our day-to-day consciousness and put us into a ritual space and that alone can empower our intention. The ritual of lighting incense brings us into the mindful present.
There Are Different Types of Incense You Can Use for Your Magic
Incense sticks, cones, loose incense, smudge sticks, and herbal incense all have different levels of you “being on board” for the mindful present. Some are very involved, with multiple conscious steps that you have to do. Making your own natural incense from scratch, for example, or lighting an incense charcoal and then choosing herbs to burn for a certain magical outcome are both very crafty and intense. Other ways, like lighting an incense cone or stick, are super simple.
There’s no judging here. It’s not like the harder one is the better one or the easy one is wimping out. This isn’t incense boot camp! If you ask any experienced magical worker (myself included) what we do, we kind of use what’s needed in the moment. Sometimes we want to put a ton of focus, personalization and work into our spells and other times, we may not want to be so fussy about the things that we are doing for the spell and simply focus on the intention.
There is no right or wrong way and no form of incense is better than another. They just are different tools for different purposes. So, listen to your inner voice. If you feel like using a simpler incense, then trust that that is what is correct. If you feel like getting fancy with it, then go for the more complex incense. Trust your gut that you will know what is right for each spell or intention.
So, What Are the Different Ways That You Can Use Incense in a Spell?
First, you can use incense to imbue a space with the energy of your intention. Choose an herb or herbs that support your intention and then when you burn incense in a room, or even in an outdoor area, you can not only fill that space with some beautifully fragrant scents, you can also empower your intention.
For example, you might want to burn a love incense in your workplace. Say a prayer, spell or intention for the kind of success that you want to bring into your job or business and then let the incense infuse the space with that intention. When you burn this scented smoke and let it permeate the rugs, curtains, furniture and walls of your space, you are literally infusing your business with your intention for success. When you, or anyone else, smell the scent or touch something that the smoke has touched, you are coming in direct contact with your intention.
Use Incense to Clear Out Old, Stuck Energy and Make Way for a Fresh Start
You can not only use incense for bringing in something that is wanted, but you can also use it for clearing out and cleansing a space of unwanted energies. If there was an argument in a room, for example, or you are simply ready for a fresh start, you can burn a cleansing incense like camphor, lemon verbena, sage or rue on charcoal to clear the space and create room for new energy.
Use It to Set a New Intention for Prosperity
Another way to use incense spiritually is during prayer or when setting intentions for prosperity. Create a small ritual where you light a special prosperity incense spell kit and speak your prayers or intentions and watch as the smoke carries those words skyward. This kind of spell work is one of the oldest rituals for connecting with sky deity energies and we still see it used today in many religions.
Smudge Yourself to Clear Off Your Funk and Bring in the Magnetism
Another way to work with incense is to cense yourself using a smudge stick or incense stick. Censing is perfect if you feel stuck in some way and want to give yourself an incense “bath." Alternatively, if you would like to create a glamorous magic attraction aura around yourself for success, love, or attraction for example, then censing with an herb bundle can also do the trick.
Either have yourself, or someone else, hold the incense stick or smudge stick a few inches away from your body and move it around the space around your body (your auric field). Use a free hand to wave the smoke toward your body. I recommend pushing the smoke upward if you’re bringing in something good or pushing it downward if you’re clearing out something negative.
Bless Your Witchcraft Tools or a Magic Charm With Incense
By the same token, you can also use incense to bless, cleanse or feed magical objects, particularly ones that you can’t wash or bless with liquids. Maybe you are sending a letter to someone and you'd like to charge it with a spell that will enchant them as soon as they touch it. Wave the letter through the smoke of an incense with your particular intention before you send it. Simply, say your spell words or your wishes as you move the paper through the fragrant smoke. Or, if you have a special piece of jewelry that you would like to turn into a charm to make yourself more enchanting, wave it through the smoke of an incense that will bring in more attraction.
Burn Incense While Doing Other Kinds of Spellwork
You can also light incense to give some spiritual juice to your other spellwork and give some oomph to your magic. Imagine coming up with your own blend of incense and then lighting and burning it on charcoal before you begin doing a candle spell. That extra enhancing vibration going on in the background while you’re doing your spell work will give huge energetic support to your intention. It's such an easy thing to do, and will totally amp up and focus your spells.
Use Incense as a Divination Tool
Another amazing thing that you can do with incense is to use it as a divination tool itself. Capnomancy is the art of divination through reading smoke and incense smoke is perfect for this. You can ask a question, then light some special incense and observe what symbolic shapes you see in the smoke as it rises. It’s such a slow, beautiful and trance-inducing way to do a reading.
Another version of smoke reading is to get a white china plate and move it around over the incense smoke and then, after about a minute or so, turn the plate over and look for the symbolic shapes left in the smoke patterns on the plate. Both of these are a lot like tea leaf reading, so if you want to know what certain symbolic shapes mean, you can take my Learn Tea Leaf Reading - On Demand Workshop to learn how to do this type of reading.
Enter Into Altered States of Reality With Incense
The last way to magically use incense that I want to share with you, is to use incense smoke to enter altered states of reality. The smoke from whole herbs such as wormwood, mugwort, frankincense, calamus, damiana, and myrrh can be burned on an incense charcoal to enter into altered states of consciousness for spiritual work.
Incense is such an easy and incredibly powerful method to make magic in your life and there is so much to discover. Check out this video to learn a whole lot more about how to burn herbs on charcoal and create your own magical incense.
Listen to this episode of my podcast Magic and the Law of Attraction - How Do I Use Incense Magically and learn all the ways you can use it in your spellwork including a method for making a smokeless incense.
Whatever magic you do, bring incense into the mix and amp up the power and the beautiful scents in your life.
Are you ready to amp up your incense magic? Check out these complete incense spell kits.