September 20, 2022 • 40 mins
Humans have burned incense since ancient times for reasons that range from the practical to the divine. To aid in these rites, various cultures have created exquisite censers and housings for the burning, smoke-emitting biotics. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe consider some outstanding examples from the history of incense, including the incense clocks of China and swinging thuribles of Catholic tradition.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my
heart radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and
we're about to venture into, I think, a couple of
episodes on the topic of incense and I was looking
(00:25):
around for some fun quotes related to incense and we're
gonna get to some fun quotes and some mystical quotes
related to incense, but I was really enraptured by a
particular quote from Shaquille O'Neal uh, Shack himself, uh, that
I read without any initial context. The quote is incense books.
(00:46):
Just weird, which which raises so many questions, especially since
I really don't know a whole lot about about sports
and the life of shack and so forth. I I
played shack Fou the the old video game back in
the day, the first one, but outside of just shacks
General Um ever present media power and his appearance all
(01:08):
throughout media, I don't know much about him. Uh. So
I had to research this one a little bit and
not certain, but I think this is a quote from
shack talking about his former coach Phil Jackson. I believe
the situation is that during the early two thousand's, Jackson
would have the Lakers meditate before their games, and I
think he also assigned various texts for his players to read.
(01:31):
So maybe our basketball fan listeners out there can chime
in on this topic. Oki Doki, I have absolutely nothing
to offer here. I know I have almost zero shack knowledge.
So we've discussed the human mastery of Fire Multiple Times
on the podcast. How it enabled us to externalize our
digestion and master cooking, how it enabled us to illuminate
(01:51):
the dark and somewhat free ourselves from the shackles of night,
how it enabled us to master the use of minerals
and ultimately venture into the world of Alchymy and chemistry. Now,
on the subject of smoke itself. We have discussed the
use of smoke in long distance communication, but the use
of incense, the burning of specific biotic materials to produce
(02:13):
pleasing and or masking fragrances, as well as the visual
splendor of smoke, this is an area I don't think
we've really considered before. So what? What? What got you
going on, incense man? I think interestingly enough, I was
on the front porch. It had gotten cool enough to
work outside, have my laptop out there, but I had
(02:33):
some Anti Mosquito UH incense burning. Not not the spiral
kind that will reference in a bit, but one of
these more modern situations where you have a little gas
pod that's put in the bottom of the machine and
then you have a little cab that has a certain
chemicals on it that you slide in and then that
(02:54):
Burns and it creates uh, some nice, pleasant looking whiffs
of of Grace Molk that also keep the mosquitoes at
bay at least a little bit. So one thing I
gotta Start With an addressing incense uh is that I
mistakenly used to think that incense was one unique substance,
like it was the product of one plant or something,
(03:18):
but apparently that's not true and it's also not a
consistent recipe for a combination of products that that applies
to all incense around the world. Instead, I think we
should say incense is a class of substances right. It's
like any organic material or combination of organic materials that
you burn in order to release a fragrant smoke. So
(03:40):
what goes in your incense and one culture might be
totally different than what goes in in another and and
even within a culture you might use different substances. That's right. Yeah,
various traditions will have different blends, different materials and yeah,
sometimes you're talking about, uh, some sort of dried substances,
other times it's formed into an incense stick. Certainly we
have cones. Uh, they're also oiled. I mean there's a
(04:02):
a wide spectrum of substances, though I would say generally
we're taught not talking about things that are intended to
be directly inhaled. Generally we're talking more about an ambiance
in a room, though they of course, are gonna end
up inhaling some of that, but it is contributing to
the atmosphere. It is not, uh, something that one is
(04:24):
necessarily consuming, right. So the English word incense traces back
through the French to the late Latin Word Incense Um,
just meaning that which is burned. It's a thing that
you burn, and this is related to the Latin verb incendiary,
which means to set something on fire, to light on fire.
So it's something that you burn to produce an aromatic smoke,
(04:46):
especially a sweet smoke, according to a lot of early sources.
So while incense is a class of substances. Uh. There
are some specific plant products that are especially significant in
the history of the incense trade, and a couple that
really stand out to me because of, you know, all
my received Bible stories as a child. I think will
(05:09):
be familiar to many other listeners. This would be the
references to incense in the story of the birth of
Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. So in this story
it says that when Jesus was born, uh there were
wise men, that this is a translation of the Latin
Magi or the Greek Meg Oi, wise men bringing three
gifts to honor the birth of Jesus, that they show
(05:32):
up and these gifts are gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now,
first of all I want to do one of my
little patented uh Joe McCormick Bible fact drops. Did you
know that the Bible does not actually say there were
three wise men? The story of the wise men bringing
gifts uh at the birth of Jesus appears only in
the Gospel of Matthew. And here's what it says. So
(05:54):
this is from the N RSV quote. In the time
of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Beth him
of Judea Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking
where is the child who has been born the king
of the Jews, for we observed his star in the
East and have come to pay him homage. So that's it.
It's just Maji, just a plural. Nown now there has
(06:15):
been an ocean of ink spilled over how best to
interpret the word Magi. Who did the author have in
mind when the story was written? The theory that seems
most convincing to me is that this is probably a
reference to Ptarthian or Persian Zoroastrian priests who were thought
to be very adept at reading portents in the stars,
(06:35):
which is why the word Magi is sometimes translated as astrologers.
But anyway, that's all it says. Says Magi came or
MEG OI came. Uh, not how many of them there were,
but the traditional interpretation that there were three of them
is probably derived from the fact that it does say
they brought three gifts, and those gifts again are gold,
frankinsence and murder. So we know what gold is, but
(06:58):
what are those other two things? Well, actual relief, Frankincense
and Mr are both types of incense. They are resins
or chunks of hardened gum or sap from two different
types of related trees in the Burceray C I family
uh and the Burceray C I family uh. These are
(07:18):
arid or semi arid tree like plants that I think
are typically associated with growing in the Arabian Peninsula and
on the on the Horn of Africa. And so these
two incense resins, along with gold, are probably used in
the story from the Gospel of Matthew because they're supposed
to show that the Magi or the Magi recognize Jesus
(07:41):
as a king, as a king foretold in the stars,
because Franken sits and Mur like gold, are expensive luxury
items there. They're they're associated with with power and with
religious significance, that they were used in religious rituals all
throughout the ancient Mediterranean and also to perfume the itch such,
as you know, in a burial ritual for a king.
(08:04):
Now I've seen enough imagery, Christian imagery of the three
kings uh, to you know, to to know that you know,
generally they are depicted as holding some sort of special
box that contains the Frankensense and the Murr and of
course I've I've seen images of frankensense itself. But I
still have to say, like, when I think of the
three kings bringing gold, Frankensense and Murr, I hear frankensense
(08:25):
and I still imagine Frankenstein's monster. Um, he said, at
least back there, lurking in the back of my mind,
even as I'm putting together this major scene in my
head right there with you. I I always made that
connection when I was a kid. It's like you got Frankenstein,
frank and Berry cereal and Frankensense the gift to Jesus,
and I don't know what that is because they never
(08:46):
explained when I was a kid. I think one time actually,
somebody did explain that, uh, that mirror was used for uh,
it was used in its like essence form or oil
form to anoint Berry Oles of the dead, and I
was like, well, that's a morbid gift to give a baby.
It's like here's something that we will put on you
when you die. But again, I think it's supposed to
(09:07):
be something that is expensive and royal and and holy
and shows that, you know, they recognize that the stars
have foretold. This is going to be a king yeah,
and I think these are all things to keep in
mind as we start, as we eventually discuss how how
incense factors into different cultures and different belief systems, like
what it means to burn this sacred substance that creates
(09:31):
a special pleasing odor. I actually found a fascinating article
about that that I think we're going to get into
more in part two of the series. But before we
move on from frankensince and Mura, I did want to
add a few more facts descriptive about their what they're
like and how they were used in the ancient world.
And Uh, this is coming from another interesting article I
was reading. This was an eon magazine by a University
(09:54):
College London anthropologist named Timothy Carroll, and the article was
called Franken since Murr both holy and heretical. And so
there is a background section where where Carol here is
describing what these these smells are like. It's kind of
hard to you know, we can't make you smell it
through the Internet here, so unfortunately we can't give samples.
(10:14):
But if you've never smelled them before differentiated them. Frankensense
is known to have a kind of woody or what
he calls a warm spiced smell. So I'm imagining that
is in some way roughly similar to the warm spices like,
I don't know, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and that kind of thing,
whereas Carol says that mirror is typically said to smell
(10:37):
like rose or maybe like Basil, but also is sometimes
said to have a kind of bitter aroma, and if
you think about the kind of bitter back note to
the smell of a rose, that makes sense to me.
An interesting thing about the origins of the word Frankensense.
Uh so you associated with Franken Stein, but actually what
(10:57):
what frankensense means is, uh, the refix. Frank there is
just a word that archaically means like high quality or pure.
So Frank instence basically means like pure incense or really
good incense. Another distinction is that I said both of
these were forms of incense, and they are, but frank instence,
I think, is almost always used as a as a
(11:19):
type of burned incense, so you would burn pellets of
it to make a smoke, whereas mirror has a lot
of different preparations. Sometimes it is burned as incense other
times people will make like an oil infusion out of
it and use that to like anoint people, to you know,
place upon their heads for religious purpose or at a
burial or something like that. But Carol talks about how
(11:42):
these substances were not just for the religious purposes that
we're going to get into in more detail. They were
also believed to have like practical benefits. He points out that,
as we've talked about on the show before, a lot
of in the ancient world there was a lot of
association between disease and bad smells. So aromatic substances were
used throughout the ancient Mediterranean to cleanse bad air that
(12:06):
was thought to somehow be associated with disease and also
to drive away vermin like rats. Okay, so, so, functionally
at the very least, amasking odor, but within the like
the crude belief systems of of the day regarding infection
and disease, they're cleansing, they're actually helping to protect you
(12:26):
from illness and well, I'm not sure Howard to rule
the prevention of rats creeping around. I mean I think
you could say that to various extents aromatic smokes are
effective at driving away especially insects. Yeah, I don't yeah,
but I don't know about the rats. I'd need to
see more. More data is required on that. But there
were all these alleged medical uses of these fragrant substances,
(12:51):
like Frankensin Sen Mur Carol points to the writings of
an ancient Greek physician named Pedanius Dioscorides, who lived from
forty to nineties Ce and speaking about Murr specifically, diascordes, says, quote,
rubbed on with the flesh of a snail, it cures
broken ears and exposed bones, as well as pus in
(13:13):
the ears and their inflammation, with meconium castoreum and glaucium.
It is rubbed on vericose veins with Cassia and honey.
Very good, very good. Some key substances in there, some
of which will come back up again, and he mentioned
some other uses too. It is thought to have to
be able to help regulate sleep, blood flow, menstruation, all
(13:33):
kinds of things. So this is the Murror is kind
of shaping up like a cure, all like it has
some kind of religious significance. It will, it will mask
the odors of death, it will make you seem like
a king and it will also, allegedly, like, cure all
these various diseases or regulate the processes of the body.
(13:55):
But to come back to the idea of incense more
generally again, we're talking about a a class of substances
that you would burn in order to produce an aromatic smoke.
That's right, and and certainly fragrant woods, herbs, oils other
such substances. They can be added to many different heat sources,
many different flames, including flames that are primarily used for
(14:18):
illumination or cooking, Um like on. On the subject of cooking,
I don't really barbecue much anymore. When I do cook something,
I use a gas grill, but I remember growing up
when you do the charcoal grill and occasionally cooking certain
cuts of meat, it was desired to get like some
hickory branches to add to the coals underneath, uh, and
(14:41):
so you know, there are various things like that one,
of course, can do within say, a culinary tradition. Yeah,
and smoking meat has multiple effect. I mean, on one
hand it's just pleasurable. People like the taste of of smoke,
but also it has preservative effects, yes, but it's also
a rich global tradition of creating specialized sensors or other
artifacts does signed and built exclusively for burning incense of
(15:03):
some sort. Now a lot of these devices are tied
into practices that involve the burning of incense for pleasure
and or religious purposes, and we'll get into many of
those in a bit. But I wanted to touch a
little bit on the idea of of of practical incense burning,
functional instance burning kind of like we're talking about earlier
to drive the rats away at the bad air UM.
(15:25):
And coming back to my earlier example of of of
mosquito repellent, because really the first place my mind went
when I started thinking about this, in part because I
was keeping mosquitoes away with with special smoke at the time,
is the humble mosquito coil. Everyone, I think it's probably
seen this usually green. It's a coil, it's it's essentially
(15:46):
an incense you start burning the the outer edge of
the coil and it slowly burns and spirals in towards
the center. Generally this is the coil itself. Contains Pyrethrum,
which is naturally occurring, and acticide. UH, there may be
some other ingredients in there and you're generally talking about
six inches length coiled up in one of these, and
(16:08):
it will take up to about twelve hours to burn through.
I don't have a lot of direct experience with these
that I was just looking up some general stats about them.
It's apparently a Japanese invention of the eighteen hundreds uh
that that of course, really takes off once you have
mass production capabilities in place for it. It's a design
that effectively allows you to have a super long incense
(16:29):
stick that will burn for a long time but also
doesn't take up a lot of space, because imagine if
you had, instead of it being in a spiral, it
was just like just a long incense stick. It could
kind of be a pain to to lay out somewhere
that if it covered the entire length of the picnic table,
for example, that wouldn't be as as cool of an experience.
(16:50):
Now again, I don't know exactly how dependable the idea
of up to twelve hours is. I don't know what
affects that rate of consumption, but it does bring to
mind this really and this is where I really got
interested in the topic of Incense. Is that okay? You
can look at the basics here. If it takes x
amount of time to burn through an incense stick or
(17:11):
an instant spiral, then perhaps that rate of change can
be used to measure time. And Uh and yeah, this
is a whole area of combustion based timekeeping and there
are a number of things you can loop under this heading. There's,
of course, the candle clock, which makes use of the
gradual rate of change in a burning candle. We see
(17:31):
these in the traditions and traditions of the East, West
and Middle East, with a council in Chinese writing going back,
I believe, as far as the sixth century CE. And
then there are also oil lamp clocks. Now I think
these only go back a couple of centuries, in part
I'm guessing, because you need a dependable way of making
the decrease in oil Um visual, you know. So that's
(17:53):
gonna be harder with some of the oil lamp constructions
of old. And so some of the examples that were
coming up from me when I was researching this sort
of eighteenth century designs, and they're really beautiful looking, but
of course they involve a lot of elegant metal and glass.
But the incense clock, UH, yeah, this takes us into
Chinese traditions, and before I get to the invention itself,
(18:16):
I wanted to share some some some neat insight about
the role of incense in Chinese culture, as I think
it'll all be worth keeping in mind as we take
the additional step and considering incense as a timekeeping measure
and also generally, I think flows with some of these
larger and even global ideas about incense. I was reading
Stuart's Sergeant's two thousand and one article from the Journal
(18:38):
of the American Oriental Society titled Wanting Jen's incense of awareness,
and while it largely deals with specific lines from the
poetry of this Song Dynasty calligrapher, painter and poet who
lived ten forty five through eleven oh five, it also
covers the role of incense in Chinese culture in general
at this time. and Um, I'm not going to skip
(19:00):
over the translated poetry either, because it's the paper points out.
He's very much leaning into the analysis of how the
ritual use of incense affects one's state of mind. So here, here's,
here's the first bit of poetry from wanting gin. A
sense of peril like wandering ten thousand fathoms, high impatient
(19:22):
desires engender the five weapons within. I lean on the
arm rest with a single strand of incense, the numenous ESTRADE.
This is a spiritual platform, or Dais Dallas de Terminology
for the mind. Um, the numinous estrade is clear, empty
(19:43):
and bright. Okay, so it sounds like he's describing an
association between burning a strand of incense and having a
kind of clear or elevated state of mind. Yeah, yeah,
overcoming the fears and anxieties within by being able to
clear mind, focusing on this, on this smoke, and in
this it's interesting because this this seems to be focusing
(20:06):
as much or more on the visual of the smoke,
which I think is is easy to overlook, but I
mean not if you guess, if you're really into incense,
but like watching the smoke from incense rise and curl
through a room. I mean it's it's it's instantly captivating. Well, yeah,
a lot of the writings about incense really emphasized the
smell and that does seem to be, you know, the
(20:27):
primary sense that's engaged by it. But when you watch
the smoke, I think that also brings in a lot
of the ideas of I don't know the kind of
ideas about religion or consciousness that are associated with it.
It has to do with watching the smoke rise up
into the sky and dissipate, which, on one hand, I
think is a reason why the burning of incense or
(20:48):
the burning of things in general, was often assumed to
be a way of communicating with the Gods, you know,
if the Gods live up above and the skies. I mean,
not every belief about God's is like that, but many
people believe the gods are up in the sky and
the smoke rises up to them. So it's a way
of reaching them with something you do. But then the
other thing is like the it's it's an act that
(21:09):
that you can kind of like watch have a consequence
that then eventually disappears, like the way that the thing
burns and then the smoke dissipates in front of your
eyes is, uh, I don't know, some kind of significant
transformation or symbol of ephemerality. Yeah, I I saw the
line drawn in different sources between, uh, the the original
archaic burning of sacrifices, burnt offerings, and the use, even
(21:33):
the modern use, of incense, so as whereas one in
ancient times may have burnt them, you know, the carcass
of a bull or other sacrificial animal, uh, the the
this would be a version of that. Instead of burning
the animal, burning the remains of the animal, burning this sacred,
sweet smelling substance. Oh, that's not even a connection that
(21:54):
you have to like hypothesize, like, thinking back on it,
the connection was made by by some ancient really jens themselves. Like,
for example, if you look at the Hebrew Bible, there's
like the first chapter of the book of Leviticus. Uh,
the Lord is giving instructions to Moses on how to
perform sacrifices of livestock, and this involves, you know, they'll say,
you bring in the bull and you do this and
(22:16):
you do that, and then a few verses later, at
the beginning of chapter two, it says if somebody's making
a grain offering instead of an offering of livestock, you
need to burn incense with the grain. I'M gonna come
back to that in part two when we discuss the
idea that God or the Gods do enjoy smells. All right, well,
let's let's go back into the poetry of lunch Gen here. UH,
(22:37):
here's another one. That's that's really good. Midday Meal Birds
Peer at the dais, sitting in peace. The Sun passes
the steps. Vulgar atmosphere has no way to come near.
The smoke drifts up and forms a massed defense. Now
the vulgar atmosphere is not just like the stink here.
(22:57):
This is apparently, according to the author, this is referring
to like the vulgar world itself. Um, the in the
vulgar atmosphere of this world, again setting aside one space,
one sacred space, from the rest of reality. Now here's
another one. This one comes back to snails as well
(23:19):
as honey. Stone honey transforms snails armor. In quint's juice
is boiled aloes wood from the potion sensor. A lone
smoke rises. Facing this scene, I shiver with awe. Okay,
that may sound a little cryptic. So in the paper
sergeant explains this. That the first line here talking about
(23:41):
stone honey transforming the snails armor. Uh, it sounds cryptic,
but this is a reference to the manufacture of a
particular incense of the day. Then included the operculum of
a snail's Shell. This is like the like the LID.
Uh that I think that's sometimes described as looking like
a like a shriveled black ear, human ear. Um. It's
(24:03):
treated with wine or honey before it's used in this process.
And then the potion, he explains, is a vessel for
burning incense that was introduced in the Hon Dynasty. That
has a top shaped like the sacred mountain of Mount
Po Rising out of the sea. And these, these are
quite beautiful. Definitely look these up. Uh. They're sometimes referred
(24:24):
to in English as hill sensors and, uh yeah, they're
just absolutely beautiful, because the mountains are often depicted. The
peaks of the mountains are are kind of flame like,
kind of water like. It has this very, you know,
it mystical appearance to it. It's because this is not
just a this is not a mundane mountain, this is
a celestial mountain. This is the place where the Gods live.
(24:46):
And and also there's kind of like an egg like
quality to it, especially towards the bottom. Uh, it's it's
they're they're quite beautiful. Right. Here's another bit of poetry
twisting and turning. The business of the incense is over
thick and the it sticks to the books and paintings,
who can come into my room take off your worldly shackles.
(25:06):
Now this one I particularly love because it's basically the
shock quote from the beginning of the episode. Incense books
just weird. It brings to mind like detachment in the
learned man's study, like this is where my books are,
my paintings, and the smell of incense, like this is
my space. So this is just weird in a positive way. Yeah, yeah,
that's the way I'm I'm uh interpreting or applying the
(25:29):
shock quote like, and I guess I'm thinking back to
some of the various Chinese poets and writers that we've
discussed in the past who are known even during the
day for their weirdness, like their elongated finger nails and
and so forth, their fascination with with the strange and
the bizarre, like you know, those are the those are
the souls I really connect with. So I'm like, Yeah,
(25:51):
incense books and weirdness. For instance, Lee, who comes to mind,
a Tang poet who lived seven ninety through sixteen. Uh,
we we've covered some of his writings on the show before.
He had this wonderful line that goes owls that have
lived a hundred years turned forest demons laugh wildly as
an emerald fire leaps from their nests. This is a
(26:13):
stupid comparison. I don't know why that always makes me
think of like strawberry alarm clock. Oh, I didn't even
make the connection incense and peppermints. Than all right. Now.
The next bit of poetry that Sergeant Brings Up, that
that I thought was worth mentioning here, goes as follows.
(26:36):
Pheasant tail fans cover the sound of whips. A golden
censor brushes against the great purity. Your ranks are near,
you smell the incense sooner and by the time you
returned you had mastered it. Okay, so this quote is
referring to smelling the special incense Um all the emperor
(26:57):
in the imperial capital Um, which of course, the imperial capital.
This also has celestial associations because of course the the
emperor himself, has a has a divine connection in these traditions.
And the whips that are mentioned here, that's those are
the whips clearing the way for the emperor's procession. So
I love how this it paints a nice picture, or well,
(27:19):
maybe not a nice picture. It paints a distinct picture of, yeah,
here's the sound of whips giving way to the pheasant
tail fans, and then here's the burning of this very
special incense. And Uh and and then there's this idea that, yeah,
you can smell it and then you can potentially master it.
And Uh, and this is something that sergeant brings to
(27:40):
mind here as well. Quote Huangting Jin, close enough to
the imperial entourage or the high officials to get a
whiff of the court incense, is expert enough to be
able to go home and duplicate it on the basis
of what his nose has analyzed. Oh, he's like the
guy in that book perfume. Yeah, they're. There are other
(28:00):
like bits of poetry from this guy where he talks
about like the craving of Incense. Like this is a
guy who liked his incense. But, but, but, all these
various examples. Um, sergeant breaks down the uses of of
incense that are highlighted in his poetry and he he
singles out ten of them. Some of them are kind
of closely related, but I'm going to roll through them
(28:21):
real quick. Number One, to aid in meditation, blocking external disruptions,
to a barrier against the vulgar world and an outdoor scene.
Uh number three, the composite of its ingredients and an
awe inspiring phenomenon for a baffler against the vulgar world
and an indoor scene, a kind of connects to two. Five,
(28:42):
a token of an interpersonal relationship, interesting for the straddled
social barrier. Number six, the product of another person's skill.
Uh number seven, an agent to defeat the power of
sense objects in another person's life. ATE, an object in
a scene that has a mood but no apparent message. Nine,
a sign of political status as well as the other
(29:04):
person's technical skill, again, being able to duplicate that Special
Imperial Incense that you've caught a whiff of. And then
also as an attribute of enlightenment. Uh So, I like
these are all interesting to keep in mind as we
move move forward with this, with this upcoming example from
Chinese culture, but also I think some of these can
(29:25):
be applied, if not all of these can to be
applied to varying degrees, with other cultural traditions of incense
as well. I mean, it seems like a number of
these are oriented around creating a kind of separation or
spirit of difference, whether that is uh, sort of putting
yourself in a in a mind space of peace and
(29:45):
disconnection from the profane world, or in the idea of
even just like straight up class like you, you are
a rich and powerful ruler. Thus you are surrounded by
incense and that sort of marks you as special and different. Yeah, yeah,
you create a different atmosphere around you. And a lot
of this also applies to just every day uses of incense. Today,
(30:06):
like some people when they're writing, they like to burn
a little incident. Certainly if someone is exercising or or
practicing yoga or meditation, they may burn some incense as well.
And Uh, you know, that can also have practical uh
purposes as well, especially like an exercise class. Exercise, especially
group exercise, can can have a certain effect on odors
(30:28):
in the room and you can mask those odors with incense.
So I mean it's it's kind of UH double per
dual purpose there. Oh, it's the it's the environmental equivalent
of don't have time for a shower, better spray the armpits.
I don't know, that sounds more like the vulgar world
to me, but I guess it depends on the incanse.
I'm not advocating that by the way. I mean, though,
(30:51):
it does bring up an interesting point. Is something maybe
we'll have to explore in another episode. But yeah, when
you get into the whole world of incenses and perfumes,
and yeah, I mean perfumes, we could do a whole
episode on that. There's a rich global history of perfume use.
Like there are, of course, so many things to take
into account personal taste even today, but you get into
historical taste as well, like what constituted a good masking
(31:13):
body perfume in various cultures and distinct points in time,
you know, based on available materials. Yeah, totally. Now getting
back into the into questions of okay, different sensors. Already
mentioned the the Mount Po Sensor. There's another type of
sensor that this particular paper mentions, and I had to
look up examples of it. A Golden Duck was apparently
(31:35):
a popular sensor for incense during this time and you
can still see examples of this today. It is exactly
what it sounds like, a golden or golden looking duck
um where you can take the top off of the Duck,
put the incense in there, get the incense burning, put
the top half of the duck back on and smoke
will rise out of the duck's mouth. Yeah, that's interesting.
(31:57):
It almost looks like, uh, I don't know, it symbolize.
Says that the duck is making a sound or something. Yeah,
but I think the most for me anyway, the most
amazing example of of a sensor for incense is that
of the incense clock, as it's often referred to in English,
and I was reading a very good summary and article
(32:19):
about these in J store daily by Amelia Soft titled
Keeping Time With Incense clocks, citing a few different scholars work,
but I think one in particular is Andrew B Lou
and it goes the article goes into detail about these,
the splendid artifacts that date back at least to the
sixth century, when a poet by the name of of you,
(32:41):
John Wu, wrote quote. By Burning Incense we know the o'
clock of the night. With graduated candle we confirm the
tally of the watch. That's an English translation, of course,
but I like the this kind of a novel translation.
I like by you talking about knowing the o' clock
of the night. Uh Huh, but again referencing the idea
(33:01):
that you could create a contraption for burning incense in
such a way that it had a pretty dependable rate
of consumption and by that you could tell time right right.
So that Second Line mentions a candle, and this is,
I think, a reference to candle as a combustion based
timekeeping device. But then by burning incense. This is where
(33:21):
it's really interesting, because this is not it's not it's
not a case of just having, okay, a super long
incense stick it will take all night to burn, or
even a night long spiral of incense. These incense clocks,
and you'll definitely have to look up an image of these.
These were ornate metal boxes with lids and compartments that
(33:42):
contain specialized parts for their use, such as a UH,
they just the author here describes a little shovel, a
little damper and also various stencils for the laying out
of an incense labyrinth within the box. AH, so you're
making the smoldering and snake around in a maze, that's
right now winding path of incense, and you have the
(34:05):
different stencils, not just because you want different shapes but because,
of course the length of the night changes with the seasons,
and so different seasons will require a different Stencil, because
the idea here is again the incense clock burns all night,
it burns throughout the span of darkness and and you know,
marks the passage of time via the scent of incense.
(34:29):
You know. This actually reminds me of a technique I
have used in a when trying to cook something for
a long time over low heat and a charcoal grill
before uh, and the method is essentially the snake. You
create a kind of winding snake of charcoal and then
you you put a lit coal on one end, and
so the idea is that it's not all gonna like,
(34:50):
catch on fire too fast and make the grill too hot. Instead,
it will slowly burn into the next coal along the
way and keep a low temperature as it creeps around
the snake. Oh Wow, I don't think I've heard of
that technique before. What, what sorts of things would you
be cooking over a fire like that? Oh, like, you know, barbecue, basically,
if you're trying to do something, you know, for a
long time without it getting too hot. Interesting. Okay, so
(35:14):
these incense UH clocks, as as they're sometimes referred these
would these would again burn all night and there were noted.
There were noted use in Beijing's tall drum tower during
the Qing Dynasty, h four through nineteen, eleven soft sites.
Another author, a historian of scientific instruments by the name
(35:34):
of Silvio Bedini, who indicates that one could lay out
a path of of not just one type of incense
in one of these clocks, but alternating varieties of incense,
or you could have scented wood chips placed at different
points along the path and this would change the scent
(35:55):
or have punctuated moments of scent that would be part
of the olfactory experience of being in the vicinity of
one of these clocks, so that you could you could
essentially know what the hour is, know where you are
in the journey through night based on the scent of
the air. That's really interesting. So you wouldn't have to
(36:16):
go look at it and check. Instead, there would be
a an ambient difference, just like there is in the daytime.
You can roughly tell what time of day it is by,
you know, the position of the Sun, what the sky
feels like in the light and all that, but this
would allow you to do the same thing at night,
except through your sense of smell. You just kind of
have a vibe that it's as roughly, you know, four
(36:36):
to five am. It's. It's fascinating because we have, you know,
we're such visual creatures. Were certainly more visual than uh,
than than smell base, but uh, and especially today, like
if you want to know what hour of the night
it is when you wake up in the night, of
course we reach for our various timekeeping devices and find out.
But you know that there's this this, this other approach
(36:57):
of simply sort of observing the world. And granted, a
lot of that observation would be visual, but but this
is tying into a far more, far less visual route,
though of course you could, I guess, just look at
the incense clock as well and see where you are
in the journey. So if also references a dragon shaped
fire clock, they also involved the use of incense and
(37:19):
this is a different design. It would look like a dragon,
it would be kind of long and it would have
a like a trough of incense running through the center
and as this burned down again, kind of kind of
like the snaking coals that you described, you know it's
gonna Start on one end and burn towards the other,
almost like a fuse, but slow, like a slow fuse
(37:39):
of incense. But along the way they're going to be
these little threads with metal balls hanging, and so it
will regular intervals burn through those those those little bits
of thread and make a ball drop into a metal pan,
producing a sound, and that will mark the passing of
the hours. Okay, but I like all of this too
(38:02):
because it also brings to mind this idea of like
the night is. It's like it's something to keep vigil through.
You know, you need this sort of sacred time keeping
in place to get you from from dust to dawn. Yeah,
so I found all that just super interesting. I was
not familiar with with incense clocks and I don't think
I'd really given much thought to combustion based time keeping
(38:23):
as well, aside from just sort of the the obvious
environmental factors, and I guess this was probably something as well.
I mean you go back into into really ancient prehistoric practices.
You had the camp fire burning and maybe you keep
that burning all night. Maybe it's a situation where it's
kept burning Um for much longer, but there is that
reality of the campfire burning down as time passes after
(38:45):
you've stopped feeding the fire and then by morning it's
reduced to nothing, or very little at all. Speaking of which,
it looks like our incense for this episode has burnt
all the way through, so we're gonna have to call
it here. But we'll be back on Thursday with another
episode dealing with Incense, UH, some of the technology involved
(39:07):
historically withincense and also other practices of pertaining to incense.
So be sure to check out part two. I think
it'll be a fun ride. Those are our core episodes,
Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, on
Wednesday we do a short form artifact or monster fact,
and on Fridays we do weird how cinema. That's our
time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
(39:29):
about a strange film. Huge thanks, as always, to our
excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the
future or just to say hello, you can email us
at contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com.
(39:53):
Stuff to blow your mind. It's production of I heart
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Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my
heart radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and
we're about to venture into, I think, a couple of
episodes on the topic of incense and I was looking
(00:25):
around for some fun quotes related to incense and we're
gonna get to some fun quotes and some mystical quotes
related to incense, but I was really enraptured by a
particular quote from Shaquille O'Neal uh, Shack himself, uh, that
I read without any initial context. The quote is incense books.
(00:46):
Just weird, which which raises so many questions, especially since
I really don't know a whole lot about about sports
and the life of shack and so forth. I I
played shack Fou the the old video game back in
the day, the first one, but outside of just shacks
General Um ever present media power and his appearance all
(01:08):
throughout media, I don't know much about him. Uh. So
I had to research this one a little bit and
not certain, but I think this is a quote from
shack talking about his former coach Phil Jackson. I believe
the situation is that during the early two thousand's, Jackson
would have the Lakers meditate before their games, and I
think he also assigned various texts for his players to read.
(01:31):
So maybe our basketball fan listeners out there can chime
in on this topic. Oki Doki, I have absolutely nothing
to offer here. I know I have almost zero shack knowledge.
So we've discussed the human mastery of Fire Multiple Times
on the podcast. How it enabled us to externalize our
digestion and master cooking, how it enabled us to illuminate
(01:51):
the dark and somewhat free ourselves from the shackles of night,
how it enabled us to master the use of minerals
and ultimately venture into the world of Alchymy and chemistry. Now,
on the subject of smoke itself. We have discussed the
use of smoke in long distance communication, but the use
of incense, the burning of specific biotic materials to produce
(02:13):
pleasing and or masking fragrances, as well as the visual
splendor of smoke, this is an area I don't think
we've really considered before. So what? What? What got you
going on, incense man? I think interestingly enough, I was
on the front porch. It had gotten cool enough to
work outside, have my laptop out there, but I had
(02:33):
some Anti Mosquito UH incense burning. Not not the spiral
kind that will reference in a bit, but one of
these more modern situations where you have a little gas
pod that's put in the bottom of the machine and
then you have a little cab that has a certain
chemicals on it that you slide in and then that
(02:54):
Burns and it creates uh, some nice, pleasant looking whiffs
of of Grace Molk that also keep the mosquitoes at
bay at least a little bit. So one thing I
gotta Start With an addressing incense uh is that I
mistakenly used to think that incense was one unique substance,
like it was the product of one plant or something,
(03:18):
but apparently that's not true and it's also not a
consistent recipe for a combination of products that that applies
to all incense around the world. Instead, I think we
should say incense is a class of substances right. It's
like any organic material or combination of organic materials that
you burn in order to release a fragrant smoke. So
(03:40):
what goes in your incense and one culture might be
totally different than what goes in in another and and
even within a culture you might use different substances. That's right. Yeah,
various traditions will have different blends, different materials and yeah,
sometimes you're talking about, uh, some sort of dried substances,
other times it's formed into an incense stick. Certainly we
have cones. Uh, they're also oiled. I mean there's a
(04:02):
a wide spectrum of substances, though I would say generally
we're taught not talking about things that are intended to
be directly inhaled. Generally we're talking more about an ambiance
in a room, though they of course, are gonna end
up inhaling some of that, but it is contributing to
the atmosphere. It is not, uh, something that one is
(04:24):
necessarily consuming, right. So the English word incense traces back
through the French to the late Latin Word Incense Um,
just meaning that which is burned. It's a thing that
you burn, and this is related to the Latin verb incendiary,
which means to set something on fire, to light on fire.
So it's something that you burn to produce an aromatic smoke,
(04:46):
especially a sweet smoke, according to a lot of early sources.
So while incense is a class of substances. Uh. There
are some specific plant products that are especially significant in
the history of the incense trade, and a couple that
really stand out to me because of, you know, all
my received Bible stories as a child. I think will
(05:09):
be familiar to many other listeners. This would be the
references to incense in the story of the birth of
Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. So in this story
it says that when Jesus was born, uh there were
wise men, that this is a translation of the Latin
Magi or the Greek Meg Oi, wise men bringing three
gifts to honor the birth of Jesus, that they show
(05:32):
up and these gifts are gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now,
first of all I want to do one of my
little patented uh Joe McCormick Bible fact drops. Did you
know that the Bible does not actually say there were
three wise men? The story of the wise men bringing
gifts uh at the birth of Jesus appears only in
the Gospel of Matthew. And here's what it says. So
(05:54):
this is from the N RSV quote. In the time
of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Beth him
of Judea Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking
where is the child who has been born the king
of the Jews, for we observed his star in the
East and have come to pay him homage. So that's it.
It's just Maji, just a plural. Nown now there has
(06:15):
been an ocean of ink spilled over how best to
interpret the word Magi. Who did the author have in
mind when the story was written? The theory that seems
most convincing to me is that this is probably a
reference to Ptarthian or Persian Zoroastrian priests who were thought
to be very adept at reading portents in the stars,
(06:35):
which is why the word Magi is sometimes translated as astrologers.
But anyway, that's all it says. Says Magi came or
MEG OI came. Uh, not how many of them there were,
but the traditional interpretation that there were three of them
is probably derived from the fact that it does say
they brought three gifts, and those gifts again are gold,
frankinsence and murder. So we know what gold is, but
(06:58):
what are those other two things? Well, actual relief, Frankincense
and Mr are both types of incense. They are resins
or chunks of hardened gum or sap from two different
types of related trees in the Burceray C I family
uh and the Burceray C I family uh. These are
(07:18):
arid or semi arid tree like plants that I think
are typically associated with growing in the Arabian Peninsula and
on the on the Horn of Africa. And so these
two incense resins, along with gold, are probably used in
the story from the Gospel of Matthew because they're supposed
to show that the Magi or the Magi recognize Jesus
(07:41):
as a king, as a king foretold in the stars,
because Franken sits and Mur like gold, are expensive luxury
items there. They're they're associated with with power and with
religious significance, that they were used in religious rituals all
throughout the ancient Mediterranean and also to perfume the itch such,
as you know, in a burial ritual for a king.
(08:04):
Now I've seen enough imagery, Christian imagery of the three
kings uh, to you know, to to know that you know,
generally they are depicted as holding some sort of special
box that contains the Frankensense and the Murr and of
course I've I've seen images of frankensense itself. But I
still have to say, like, when I think of the
three kings bringing gold, Frankensense and Murr, I hear frankensense
(08:25):
and I still imagine Frankenstein's monster. Um, he said, at
least back there, lurking in the back of my mind,
even as I'm putting together this major scene in my
head right there with you. I I always made that
connection when I was a kid. It's like you got Frankenstein,
frank and Berry cereal and Frankensense the gift to Jesus,
and I don't know what that is because they never
(08:46):
explained when I was a kid. I think one time actually,
somebody did explain that, uh, that mirror was used for uh,
it was used in its like essence form or oil
form to anoint Berry Oles of the dead, and I
was like, well, that's a morbid gift to give a baby.
It's like here's something that we will put on you
when you die. But again, I think it's supposed to
(09:07):
be something that is expensive and royal and and holy
and shows that, you know, they recognize that the stars
have foretold. This is going to be a king yeah,
and I think these are all things to keep in
mind as we start, as we eventually discuss how how
incense factors into different cultures and different belief systems, like
what it means to burn this sacred substance that creates
(09:31):
a special pleasing odor. I actually found a fascinating article
about that that I think we're going to get into
more in part two of the series. But before we
move on from frankensince and Mura, I did want to
add a few more facts descriptive about their what they're
like and how they were used in the ancient world.
And Uh, this is coming from another interesting article I
was reading. This was an eon magazine by a University
(09:54):
College London anthropologist named Timothy Carroll, and the article was
called Franken since Murr both holy and heretical. And so
there is a background section where where Carol here is
describing what these these smells are like. It's kind of
hard to you know, we can't make you smell it
through the Internet here, so unfortunately we can't give samples.
(10:14):
But if you've never smelled them before differentiated them. Frankensense
is known to have a kind of woody or what
he calls a warm spiced smell. So I'm imagining that
is in some way roughly similar to the warm spices like,
I don't know, cloves, allspice, cinnamon and that kind of thing,
whereas Carol says that mirror is typically said to smell
(10:37):
like rose or maybe like Basil, but also is sometimes
said to have a kind of bitter aroma, and if
you think about the kind of bitter back note to
the smell of a rose, that makes sense to me.
An interesting thing about the origins of the word Frankensense.
Uh so you associated with Franken Stein, but actually what
(10:57):
what frankensense means is, uh, the refix. Frank there is
just a word that archaically means like high quality or pure.
So Frank instence basically means like pure incense or really
good incense. Another distinction is that I said both of
these were forms of incense, and they are, but frank instence,
I think, is almost always used as a as a
(11:19):
type of burned incense, so you would burn pellets of
it to make a smoke, whereas mirror has a lot
of different preparations. Sometimes it is burned as incense other
times people will make like an oil infusion out of
it and use that to like anoint people, to you know,
place upon their heads for religious purpose or at a
burial or something like that. But Carol talks about how
(11:42):
these substances were not just for the religious purposes that
we're going to get into in more detail. They were
also believed to have like practical benefits. He points out that,
as we've talked about on the show before, a lot
of in the ancient world there was a lot of
association between disease and bad smells. So aromatic substances were
used throughout the ancient Mediterranean to cleanse bad air that
(12:06):
was thought to somehow be associated with disease and also
to drive away vermin like rats. Okay, so, so, functionally
at the very least, amasking odor, but within the like
the crude belief systems of of the day regarding infection
and disease, they're cleansing, they're actually helping to protect you
(12:26):
from illness and well, I'm not sure Howard to rule
the prevention of rats creeping around. I mean I think
you could say that to various extents aromatic smokes are
effective at driving away especially insects. Yeah, I don't yeah,
but I don't know about the rats. I'd need to
see more. More data is required on that. But there
were all these alleged medical uses of these fragrant substances,
(12:51):
like Frankensin Sen Mur Carol points to the writings of
an ancient Greek physician named Pedanius Dioscorides, who lived from
forty to nineties Ce and speaking about Murr specifically, diascordes, says, quote,
rubbed on with the flesh of a snail, it cures
broken ears and exposed bones, as well as pus in
(13:13):
the ears and their inflammation, with meconium castoreum and glaucium.
It is rubbed on vericose veins with Cassia and honey.
Very good, very good. Some key substances in there, some
of which will come back up again, and he mentioned
some other uses too. It is thought to have to
be able to help regulate sleep, blood flow, menstruation, all
(13:33):
kinds of things. So this is the Murror is kind
of shaping up like a cure, all like it has
some kind of religious significance. It will, it will mask
the odors of death, it will make you seem like
a king and it will also, allegedly, like, cure all
these various diseases or regulate the processes of the body.
(13:55):
But to come back to the idea of incense more
generally again, we're talking about a a class of substances
that you would burn in order to produce an aromatic smoke.
That's right, and and certainly fragrant woods, herbs, oils other
such substances. They can be added to many different heat sources,
many different flames, including flames that are primarily used for
(14:18):
illumination or cooking, Um like on. On the subject of cooking,
I don't really barbecue much anymore. When I do cook something,
I use a gas grill, but I remember growing up
when you do the charcoal grill and occasionally cooking certain
cuts of meat, it was desired to get like some
hickory branches to add to the coals underneath, uh, and
(14:41):
so you know, there are various things like that one,
of course, can do within say, a culinary tradition. Yeah,
and smoking meat has multiple effect. I mean, on one
hand it's just pleasurable. People like the taste of of smoke,
but also it has preservative effects, yes, but it's also
a rich global tradition of creating specialized sensors or other
artifacts does signed and built exclusively for burning incense of
(15:03):
some sort. Now a lot of these devices are tied
into practices that involve the burning of incense for pleasure
and or religious purposes, and we'll get into many of
those in a bit. But I wanted to touch a
little bit on the idea of of of practical incense burning,
functional instance burning kind of like we're talking about earlier
to drive the rats away at the bad air UM.
(15:25):
And coming back to my earlier example of of of
mosquito repellent, because really the first place my mind went
when I started thinking about this, in part because I
was keeping mosquitoes away with with special smoke at the time,
is the humble mosquito coil. Everyone, I think it's probably
seen this usually green. It's a coil, it's it's essentially
(15:46):
an incense you start burning the the outer edge of
the coil and it slowly burns and spirals in towards
the center. Generally this is the coil itself. Contains Pyrethrum,
which is naturally occurring, and acticide. UH, there may be
some other ingredients in there and you're generally talking about
six inches length coiled up in one of these, and
(16:08):
it will take up to about twelve hours to burn through.
I don't have a lot of direct experience with these
that I was just looking up some general stats about them.
It's apparently a Japanese invention of the eighteen hundreds uh
that that of course, really takes off once you have
mass production capabilities in place for it. It's a design
that effectively allows you to have a super long incense
(16:29):
stick that will burn for a long time but also
doesn't take up a lot of space, because imagine if
you had, instead of it being in a spiral, it
was just like just a long incense stick. It could
kind of be a pain to to lay out somewhere
that if it covered the entire length of the picnic table,
for example, that wouldn't be as as cool of an experience.
(16:50):
Now again, I don't know exactly how dependable the idea
of up to twelve hours is. I don't know what
affects that rate of consumption, but it does bring to
mind this really and this is where I really got
interested in the topic of Incense. Is that okay? You
can look at the basics here. If it takes x
amount of time to burn through an incense stick or
(17:11):
an instant spiral, then perhaps that rate of change can
be used to measure time. And Uh and yeah, this
is a whole area of combustion based timekeeping and there
are a number of things you can loop under this heading. There's,
of course, the candle clock, which makes use of the
gradual rate of change in a burning candle. We see
(17:31):
these in the traditions and traditions of the East, West
and Middle East, with a council in Chinese writing going back,
I believe, as far as the sixth century CE. And
then there are also oil lamp clocks. Now I think
these only go back a couple of centuries, in part
I'm guessing, because you need a dependable way of making
the decrease in oil Um visual, you know. So that's
(17:53):
gonna be harder with some of the oil lamp constructions
of old. And so some of the examples that were
coming up from me when I was researching this sort
of eighteenth century designs, and they're really beautiful looking, but
of course they involve a lot of elegant metal and glass.
But the incense clock, UH, yeah, this takes us into
Chinese traditions, and before I get to the invention itself,
(18:16):
I wanted to share some some some neat insight about
the role of incense in Chinese culture, as I think
it'll all be worth keeping in mind as we take
the additional step and considering incense as a timekeeping measure
and also generally, I think flows with some of these
larger and even global ideas about incense. I was reading
Stuart's Sergeant's two thousand and one article from the Journal
(18:38):
of the American Oriental Society titled Wanting Jen's incense of awareness,
and while it largely deals with specific lines from the
poetry of this Song Dynasty calligrapher, painter and poet who
lived ten forty five through eleven oh five, it also
covers the role of incense in Chinese culture in general
at this time. and Um, I'm not going to skip
(19:00):
over the translated poetry either, because it's the paper points out.
He's very much leaning into the analysis of how the
ritual use of incense affects one's state of mind. So here, here's,
here's the first bit of poetry from wanting gin. A
sense of peril like wandering ten thousand fathoms, high impatient
(19:22):
desires engender the five weapons within. I lean on the
arm rest with a single strand of incense, the numenous ESTRADE.
This is a spiritual platform, or Dais Dallas de Terminology
for the mind. Um, the numinous estrade is clear, empty
(19:43):
and bright. Okay, so it sounds like he's describing an
association between burning a strand of incense and having a
kind of clear or elevated state of mind. Yeah, yeah,
overcoming the fears and anxieties within by being able to
clear mind, focusing on this, on this smoke, and in
this it's interesting because this this seems to be focusing
(20:06):
as much or more on the visual of the smoke,
which I think is is easy to overlook, but I
mean not if you guess, if you're really into incense,
but like watching the smoke from incense rise and curl
through a room. I mean it's it's it's instantly captivating. Well, yeah,
a lot of the writings about incense really emphasized the
smell and that does seem to be, you know, the
(20:27):
primary sense that's engaged by it. But when you watch
the smoke, I think that also brings in a lot
of the ideas of I don't know the kind of
ideas about religion or consciousness that are associated with it.
It has to do with watching the smoke rise up
into the sky and dissipate, which, on one hand, I
think is a reason why the burning of incense or
(20:48):
the burning of things in general, was often assumed to
be a way of communicating with the Gods, you know,
if the Gods live up above and the skies. I mean,
not every belief about God's is like that, but many
people believe the gods are up in the sky and
the smoke rises up to them. So it's a way
of reaching them with something you do. But then the
other thing is like the it's it's an act that
(21:09):
that you can kind of like watch have a consequence
that then eventually disappears, like the way that the thing
burns and then the smoke dissipates in front of your
eyes is, uh, I don't know, some kind of significant
transformation or symbol of ephemerality. Yeah, I I saw the
line drawn in different sources between, uh, the the original
archaic burning of sacrifices, burnt offerings, and the use, even
(21:33):
the modern use, of incense, so as whereas one in
ancient times may have burnt them, you know, the carcass
of a bull or other sacrificial animal, uh, the the
this would be a version of that. Instead of burning
the animal, burning the remains of the animal, burning this sacred,
sweet smelling substance. Oh, that's not even a connection that
(21:54):
you have to like hypothesize, like, thinking back on it,
the connection was made by by some ancient really jens themselves. Like,
for example, if you look at the Hebrew Bible, there's
like the first chapter of the book of Leviticus. Uh,
the Lord is giving instructions to Moses on how to
perform sacrifices of livestock, and this involves, you know, they'll say,
you bring in the bull and you do this and
(22:16):
you do that, and then a few verses later, at
the beginning of chapter two, it says if somebody's making
a grain offering instead of an offering of livestock, you
need to burn incense with the grain. I'M gonna come
back to that in part two when we discuss the
idea that God or the Gods do enjoy smells. All right, well,
let's let's go back into the poetry of lunch Gen here. UH,
(22:37):
here's another one. That's that's really good. Midday Meal Birds
Peer at the dais, sitting in peace. The Sun passes
the steps. Vulgar atmosphere has no way to come near.
The smoke drifts up and forms a massed defense. Now
the vulgar atmosphere is not just like the stink here.
(22:57):
This is apparently, according to the author, this is referring
to like the vulgar world itself. Um, the in the
vulgar atmosphere of this world, again setting aside one space,
one sacred space, from the rest of reality. Now here's
another one. This one comes back to snails as well
(23:19):
as honey. Stone honey transforms snails armor. In quint's juice
is boiled aloes wood from the potion sensor. A lone
smoke rises. Facing this scene, I shiver with awe. Okay,
that may sound a little cryptic. So in the paper
sergeant explains this. That the first line here talking about
(23:41):
stone honey transforming the snails armor. Uh, it sounds cryptic,
but this is a reference to the manufacture of a
particular incense of the day. Then included the operculum of
a snail's Shell. This is like the like the LID.
Uh that I think that's sometimes described as looking like
a like a shriveled black ear, human ear. Um. It's
(24:03):
treated with wine or honey before it's used in this process.
And then the potion, he explains, is a vessel for
burning incense that was introduced in the Hon Dynasty. That
has a top shaped like the sacred mountain of Mount
Po Rising out of the sea. And these, these are
quite beautiful. Definitely look these up. Uh. They're sometimes referred
(24:24):
to in English as hill sensors and, uh yeah, they're
just absolutely beautiful, because the mountains are often depicted. The
peaks of the mountains are are kind of flame like,
kind of water like. It has this very, you know,
it mystical appearance to it. It's because this is not
just a this is not a mundane mountain, this is
a celestial mountain. This is the place where the Gods live.
(24:46):
And and also there's kind of like an egg like
quality to it, especially towards the bottom. Uh, it's it's
they're they're quite beautiful. Right. Here's another bit of poetry
twisting and turning. The business of the incense is over
thick and the it sticks to the books and paintings,
who can come into my room take off your worldly shackles.
(25:06):
Now this one I particularly love because it's basically the
shock quote from the beginning of the episode. Incense books
just weird. It brings to mind like detachment in the
learned man's study, like this is where my books are,
my paintings, and the smell of incense, like this is
my space. So this is just weird in a positive way. Yeah, yeah,
that's the way I'm I'm uh interpreting or applying the
(25:29):
shock quote like, and I guess I'm thinking back to
some of the various Chinese poets and writers that we've
discussed in the past who are known even during the
day for their weirdness, like their elongated finger nails and
and so forth, their fascination with with the strange and
the bizarre, like you know, those are the those are
the souls I really connect with. So I'm like, Yeah,
(25:51):
incense books and weirdness. For instance, Lee, who comes to mind,
a Tang poet who lived seven ninety through sixteen. Uh,
we we've covered some of his writings on the show before.
He had this wonderful line that goes owls that have
lived a hundred years turned forest demons laugh wildly as
an emerald fire leaps from their nests. This is a
(26:13):
stupid comparison. I don't know why that always makes me
think of like strawberry alarm clock. Oh, I didn't even
make the connection incense and peppermints. Than all right. Now.
The next bit of poetry that Sergeant Brings Up, that
that I thought was worth mentioning here, goes as follows.
(26:36):
Pheasant tail fans cover the sound of whips. A golden
censor brushes against the great purity. Your ranks are near,
you smell the incense sooner and by the time you
returned you had mastered it. Okay, so this quote is
referring to smelling the special incense Um all the emperor
(26:57):
in the imperial capital Um, which of course, the imperial capital.
This also has celestial associations because of course the the
emperor himself, has a has a divine connection in these traditions.
And the whips that are mentioned here, that's those are
the whips clearing the way for the emperor's procession. So
I love how this it paints a nice picture, or well,
(27:19):
maybe not a nice picture. It paints a distinct picture of, yeah,
here's the sound of whips giving way to the pheasant
tail fans, and then here's the burning of this very
special incense. And Uh and and then there's this idea that, yeah,
you can smell it and then you can potentially master it.
And Uh, and this is something that sergeant brings to
(27:40):
mind here as well. Quote Huangting Jin, close enough to
the imperial entourage or the high officials to get a
whiff of the court incense, is expert enough to be
able to go home and duplicate it on the basis
of what his nose has analyzed. Oh, he's like the
guy in that book perfume. Yeah, they're. There are other
(28:00):
like bits of poetry from this guy where he talks
about like the craving of Incense. Like this is a
guy who liked his incense. But, but, but, all these
various examples. Um, sergeant breaks down the uses of of
incense that are highlighted in his poetry and he he
singles out ten of them. Some of them are kind
of closely related, but I'm going to roll through them
(28:21):
real quick. Number One, to aid in meditation, blocking external disruptions,
to a barrier against the vulgar world and an outdoor scene.
Uh number three, the composite of its ingredients and an
awe inspiring phenomenon for a baffler against the vulgar world
and an indoor scene, a kind of connects to two. Five,
(28:42):
a token of an interpersonal relationship, interesting for the straddled
social barrier. Number six, the product of another person's skill.
Uh number seven, an agent to defeat the power of
sense objects in another person's life. ATE, an object in
a scene that has a mood but no apparent message. Nine,
a sign of political status as well as the other
(29:04):
person's technical skill, again, being able to duplicate that Special
Imperial Incense that you've caught a whiff of. And then
also as an attribute of enlightenment. Uh So, I like
these are all interesting to keep in mind as we
move move forward with this, with this upcoming example from
Chinese culture, but also I think some of these can
(29:25):
be applied, if not all of these can to be
applied to varying degrees, with other cultural traditions of incense
as well. I mean, it seems like a number of
these are oriented around creating a kind of separation or
spirit of difference, whether that is uh, sort of putting
yourself in a in a mind space of peace and
(29:45):
disconnection from the profane world, or in the idea of
even just like straight up class like you, you are
a rich and powerful ruler. Thus you are surrounded by
incense and that sort of marks you as special and different. Yeah, yeah,
you create a different atmosphere around you. And a lot
of this also applies to just every day uses of incense. Today,
(30:06):
like some people when they're writing, they like to burn
a little incident. Certainly if someone is exercising or or
practicing yoga or meditation, they may burn some incense as well.
And Uh, you know, that can also have practical uh
purposes as well, especially like an exercise class. Exercise, especially
group exercise, can can have a certain effect on odors
(30:28):
in the room and you can mask those odors with incense.
So I mean it's it's kind of UH double per
dual purpose there. Oh, it's the it's the environmental equivalent
of don't have time for a shower, better spray the armpits.
I don't know, that sounds more like the vulgar world
to me, but I guess it depends on the incanse.
I'm not advocating that by the way. I mean, though,
(30:51):
it does bring up an interesting point. Is something maybe
we'll have to explore in another episode. But yeah, when
you get into the whole world of incenses and perfumes,
and yeah, I mean perfumes, we could do a whole
episode on that. There's a rich global history of perfume use.
Like there are, of course, so many things to take
into account personal taste even today, but you get into
historical taste as well, like what constituted a good masking
(31:13):
body perfume in various cultures and distinct points in time,
you know, based on available materials. Yeah, totally. Now getting
back into the into questions of okay, different sensors. Already
mentioned the the Mount Po Sensor. There's another type of
sensor that this particular paper mentions, and I had to
look up examples of it. A Golden Duck was apparently
(31:35):
a popular sensor for incense during this time and you
can still see examples of this today. It is exactly
what it sounds like, a golden or golden looking duck
um where you can take the top off of the Duck,
put the incense in there, get the incense burning, put
the top half of the duck back on and smoke
will rise out of the duck's mouth. Yeah, that's interesting.
(31:57):
It almost looks like, uh, I don't know, it symbolize.
Says that the duck is making a sound or something. Yeah,
but I think the most for me anyway, the most
amazing example of of a sensor for incense is that
of the incense clock, as it's often referred to in English,
and I was reading a very good summary and article
(32:19):
about these in J store daily by Amelia Soft titled
Keeping Time With Incense clocks, citing a few different scholars work,
but I think one in particular is Andrew B Lou
and it goes the article goes into detail about these,
the splendid artifacts that date back at least to the
sixth century, when a poet by the name of of you,
(32:41):
John Wu, wrote quote. By Burning Incense we know the o'
clock of the night. With graduated candle we confirm the
tally of the watch. That's an English translation, of course,
but I like the this kind of a novel translation.
I like by you talking about knowing the o' clock
of the night. Uh Huh, but again referencing the idea
(33:01):
that you could create a contraption for burning incense in
such a way that it had a pretty dependable rate
of consumption and by that you could tell time right right.
So that Second Line mentions a candle, and this is,
I think, a reference to candle as a combustion based
timekeeping device. But then by burning incense. This is where
(33:21):
it's really interesting, because this is not it's not it's
not a case of just having, okay, a super long
incense stick it will take all night to burn, or
even a night long spiral of incense. These incense clocks,
and you'll definitely have to look up an image of these.
These were ornate metal boxes with lids and compartments that
(33:42):
contain specialized parts for their use, such as a UH,
they just the author here describes a little shovel, a
little damper and also various stencils for the laying out
of an incense labyrinth within the box. AH, so you're
making the smoldering and snake around in a maze, that's
right now winding path of incense, and you have the
(34:05):
different stencils, not just because you want different shapes but because,
of course the length of the night changes with the seasons,
and so different seasons will require a different Stencil, because
the idea here is again the incense clock burns all night,
it burns throughout the span of darkness and and you know,
marks the passage of time via the scent of incense.
(34:29):
You know. This actually reminds me of a technique I
have used in a when trying to cook something for
a long time over low heat and a charcoal grill
before uh, and the method is essentially the snake. You
create a kind of winding snake of charcoal and then
you you put a lit coal on one end, and
so the idea is that it's not all gonna like,
(34:50):
catch on fire too fast and make the grill too hot. Instead,
it will slowly burn into the next coal along the
way and keep a low temperature as it creeps around
the snake. Oh Wow, I don't think I've heard of
that technique before. What, what sorts of things would you
be cooking over a fire like that? Oh, like, you know, barbecue, basically,
if you're trying to do something, you know, for a
long time without it getting too hot. Interesting. Okay, so
(35:14):
these incense UH clocks, as as they're sometimes referred these
would these would again burn all night and there were noted.
There were noted use in Beijing's tall drum tower during
the Qing Dynasty, h four through nineteen, eleven soft sites.
Another author, a historian of scientific instruments by the name
(35:34):
of Silvio Bedini, who indicates that one could lay out
a path of of not just one type of incense
in one of these clocks, but alternating varieties of incense,
or you could have scented wood chips placed at different
points along the path and this would change the scent
(35:55):
or have punctuated moments of scent that would be part
of the olfactory experience of being in the vicinity of
one of these clocks, so that you could you could
essentially know what the hour is, know where you are
in the journey through night based on the scent of
the air. That's really interesting. So you wouldn't have to
(36:16):
go look at it and check. Instead, there would be
a an ambient difference, just like there is in the daytime.
You can roughly tell what time of day it is by,
you know, the position of the Sun, what the sky
feels like in the light and all that, but this
would allow you to do the same thing at night,
except through your sense of smell. You just kind of
have a vibe that it's as roughly, you know, four
(36:36):
to five am. It's. It's fascinating because we have, you know,
we're such visual creatures. Were certainly more visual than uh,
than than smell base, but uh, and especially today, like
if you want to know what hour of the night
it is when you wake up in the night, of
course we reach for our various timekeeping devices and find out.
But you know that there's this this, this other approach
(36:57):
of simply sort of observing the world. And granted, a
lot of that observation would be visual, but but this
is tying into a far more, far less visual route,
though of course you could, I guess, just look at
the incense clock as well and see where you are
in the journey. So if also references a dragon shaped
fire clock, they also involved the use of incense and
(37:19):
this is a different design. It would look like a dragon,
it would be kind of long and it would have
a like a trough of incense running through the center
and as this burned down again, kind of kind of
like the snaking coals that you described, you know it's
gonna Start on one end and burn towards the other,
almost like a fuse, but slow, like a slow fuse
(37:39):
of incense. But along the way they're going to be
these little threads with metal balls hanging, and so it
will regular intervals burn through those those those little bits
of thread and make a ball drop into a metal pan,
producing a sound, and that will mark the passing of
the hours. Okay, but I like all of this too
(38:02):
because it also brings to mind this idea of like
the night is. It's like it's something to keep vigil through.
You know, you need this sort of sacred time keeping
in place to get you from from dust to dawn. Yeah,
so I found all that just super interesting. I was
not familiar with with incense clocks and I don't think
I'd really given much thought to combustion based time keeping
(38:23):
as well, aside from just sort of the the obvious
environmental factors, and I guess this was probably something as well.
I mean you go back into into really ancient prehistoric practices.
You had the camp fire burning and maybe you keep
that burning all night. Maybe it's a situation where it's
kept burning Um for much longer, but there is that
reality of the campfire burning down as time passes after
(38:45):
you've stopped feeding the fire and then by morning it's
reduced to nothing, or very little at all. Speaking of which,
it looks like our incense for this episode has burnt
all the way through, so we're gonna have to call
it here. But we'll be back on Thursday with another
episode dealing with Incense, UH, some of the technology involved
(39:07):
historically withincense and also other practices of pertaining to incense.
So be sure to check out part two. I think
it'll be a fun ride. Those are our core episodes,
Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, on
Wednesday we do a short form artifact or monster fact,
and on Fridays we do weird how cinema. That's our
time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk
(39:29):
about a strange film. Huge thanks, as always, to our
excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the
future or just to say hello, you can email us
at contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com.
(39:53):
Stuff to blow your mind. It's production of I heart
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