Hoodoo and Conjure Incense

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and Rootworkers
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Censing or smoking; the incense is being burned in a hanging censer or thurible
A custom-blended mixture of natural Frankincense and Myrrh resin incenses
Sage bundles are burned to cleanse or purify spaces, objects or people
Blending powdered roots and herbs into a base of self-lighting incense powder

Hoodoo and Conjure Incense, like the spiritual suffumigations of other religious traditions and magical practices, has a long tradition of use in hoodoo. Incense can be burned during altar work and prayer as well as while spell casting. As spiritual supplies, they can be burned on their own to cleanse or clear a room of negative energy or bad spirits.

The most common types of incense that root doctors prescribe for their clients are natural tree resin and dried herb incenses to be burned on charcoal and compounded self-lighting incense powders that contain spiritually powerful herbs, roots, roots, and essential oils in a wood-powder base. Additionally, hoodoo practitioners may also work with and prescribe Indian agarbatti stick incense, Asian coil incense, Japanese briquet incense, or Native American herbal smudge incense, according to their own inclinations. These may be used off the shelf, as purchased, or they may be fixed with a few drops of a previously prepared hoodoo condition oil, as indicated by the spiritual condition for which the conjure work is undertaken.

Contents

Natural Resin Incense

Among the best-known of the natural incenses are the tree resins Frankincense and Myrrh, both mentioned in the Bible, and pine resin or rosin, which entered into hoodoo and conjure work due to its use by Native American healers, especially the Cherokees of Georgia. Tree-gum resins of this type, including copal oro and copal negro from Central America, must be set on a bed of glowing charcoal for proper combustion. Commercially manufactured charcoal disks or tablets, set into heat-proof metal bowls, braziers, censers, or thuribles, are generally employed for this purpose.

Natural Herbal Incense

Depending on how they are formulated, traditional herb mixtures, such as the well-known 7-Herb Mix for luck, or a custom-blended mixture of money-drawing or court case herbs, may do triple-duty when prescribed as teas to drink, baths and floor washes for cleaning, and powdered dressings for oiled or wax-rolled candles. If the herb mixture is to be ingested as a potion or tea, it is used in its natural form, but if it is to be employed for bathing, as an incense, or on candles, the mixture may be enhanced with a drop or two of a selected or blended conjure oils.

Smudge Bundles

Also popular with contemporary root doctors is the lighting of smudge bundles of garden sage or artemisia desert sage, which derive from the practices of the Plains tribes, and the burning of sweet grass braids to honour the departed, a custom that originally among the Native tribes of the North. Individual herbs may also be a chosen for use as loose incense to burn on charcoal. Regardless of whether they are conventionally fragrant or sweetly scented, they may be selected depending on the symbolic and spiritual associations they have in medical and magical herbalism. However, when non-fragrant or ill-scented herbs are employed in a hoodoo incense, they are generally blended with those that provide a pleasing scent, to mask their neutral or acrid aromas.

Incense Sticks, Cones, and Coils

Stick incense, known as agarbhatti, and cone incense, known as dhoop. originated in India and gained great popularity in America during the 1920s and again in the1960s, and both are quite well regarded to this day by even the most traditional psychic readers and root doctors, due to the high quality and wide variety of scents available. Less well known, but equally useful in the practice of magic, are Chinese coil incense and Japanese briquet incense, which are also made to high standards of quality and are delightfully scented. The fragrances found in such Asian incenes, including vanilla, rose, patchouli, sandalwood, and moghra or jasmine, have distinct connotations in hoodoo practice, and it is easy to make the transition between the Indian names for the floral and herbal scents and the various uses of the same flowers and herbs in conjure practice.

Loose Powder Incense

Loose powder incense, also known as condition incense because each formula is named for the condition which it is intended to address, is composed of five elements. These are the base, which is finely ground wood powder; a colouring agent or dye; the scent, which comes from essential oils; a specific mixture of magical herbs, roots, and minerals; and a chemical agent such as saltpeter that helps the wood powder to smoulder without bursting into flame. In a well-made powder incense, every one of the five elements -- and most especially the colour, scent, and natural herbal component -- is chosen with knowledge of hoodoo herb and root magic.

Compounded self-lighting powder incenses may be custom-blended by a conjure doctor for a client, but they are usually purchased from a reputable spiritual supply manufacturer and prescribed to the client. In some cases the root worker will keep the spiritual supplies on hand and mail them to the client; in other cases the spiritual reader may tell the client where to purchase the incense online or locally, and give a short session of magical coaching instructions on how it is to be employed.

To burn self-lighting incense powders, you may use a small candle snuffer as a cone-shaper. Scoop out and pack the powder tightly into the snuffer, then invert it over a heatproof surface and light it. Another old-type method is to form a cone-shaper by cutting a small piece of paper into a half-circle shape, then rolling the paper into a cone, packing it with incense, and turning it upside down on a heatproof surface; the paper will unroll as you let it go, and you can easily pull it off the freshly-made cone of incense powder.

Capnomacy or Smoke Reading

Main Article: Capnomancy or Smoke Divination

Reading signs by means of fire, smoke, and wax are ways of working found in many cultures. Fire divination is called pyromancy, smoke divination is capnomancy, and wax divination is ceromancy. All three may be combined with reading candles, but only capnomancy is used when reading incense. If you have ever read clouds before, you will find the process similar. If you come from a family with inherited divination talents, you may already know how to read smoke without knowing that you know how. To start, just set aside a few minutes to look at your incense as it burns. Having it at eye-level helps you see more dramatic images. Think of what those images -- a lion, a crocodile, a tree, a man, and so forth -- mean to you and your situation, and especially to the outcome you are working for.

If you hire a hoodoo practitioner to perform magic spells on your behalf, you may ask that he or she take note of the and symbols seen in the incense smoke while casting your spell.

Using Incense in Hoodoo and Conjure

In addition to being burned to suffumigate, cense, or “smoke” a room, a person, a petition paper, or a mojo bag, loose powder incense is a traditional part of the stuffing that goes into many a doll baby. It can also be scattered and swept up as a quick-fix floor sprinkle to cleanse a room, and it may be dusted onto oiled candles to fix them for use.

No matter what form of incense your conjure practitioner puts together or prescribes for you, the ingredients will be selected with reference to your personal needs, whether for blessing, love-drawing, reconciliation, money-drawing, spiritual protection, court case and legal matters, or aggressive work against an enemy. Be sure to ask your root doctor to note and tell you any signs or omens seen via capnomancy while performing conjure work on your behalf.

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