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