The Witch of Forest Grove

New Incense Blends

The incenses I crafted with my apprentice on the best incense-making day ever are now ready for purchase in the Botanica! They took longer than I had planned to properly dry, but I can say from burning them that the blends were well worth the wait!

Egyptian Kyphi – This 2000 year old recipe recorded by Plutarch has the traditional number of sixteen ingredients. It took a month to craft by hand using honey wine, raisins, herbs, and resins. This Kyphi includes some very rare resins and herbs making it a worthwhile purchase instead of trying to hunt down the ingredients yourself. It smells lush and rich, much stronger than modern incenses. It can be burned traditionally at dusk as an offering to deities or also stored or carried like amber resin for the scent unburned.

Thoth-Hermes Kyphi – This Egyptian kyphi incense is made with eight different herbs, spices, resins, fruits, and honey wine which have an association with Thoth and Hermes. Burn to invoke the god of intellect, writing, science, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, botany, and the magical arts. This incense blend works well for those who follow a Greek or Egyptian path or those who follow a syncretic blend of both as many ancients did. Members of the Golden Dawn and practitioners of Ceremonial magic will also find this blend a useful and richly scented addition to their magical rites.

Bee Oracle Incense – aka “Fume of Melissae”, this kyphi-like pill incense is handcrafted from rare bee propolis resin mixed with bee pollen, home made mead, local honey, lemon balm, mugwort, and vervain. Perfect for use by Melissae priestesses, beekeepers, mead makers, and devotees of Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hermes, or Apollo (and sometimes Persephone). As the Melissae and bee nymphs were known for using honey and mead to receive prophecy, it can also be used by diviners and seers in their oracular work. This is an original recipe not to be found anywhere else.

Magical Herbal Smoking Blends

I also had time this week to craft more of my herbal smoking blends. These three are very useful for magic. Each blend is mildly entheogenic making them useful for ritual, trance, divination, and communication with spirits. Best smoked in a water-pipe as herbs can burn fairly hot, but seasoned smokers will have no problems with hand rolled cigarettes. Each smoking blend can also be substituted as a herbal incense or tea if you are not a smoker.

Hedgecrosser’s Smoke – This is the newest recipe and is a blend of eight herbs as eight is the magical number of the pillar or axis mundi. Each herb has been specially selected to enhance the magician, witch, or shaman’s ability to cross between the worlds and commune with spirits. The Wild Lettuce and Wormwood have mind-altering effects very useful for inducing hedgecrossing as the “high” from these herbs still leaves you able to be focused and sharp. The other herbs are either for inducing astral travel or are traditionally for protection while travelling. I’ve tested it out and it most definitely works. Expect to have some strange experiences and strange sights for the whole day after smoking just one portion. Despite this effect, Hedgecrosser’s Smoke is not hallucinogenic.

Visions of the Seer – A favourite blend in the Botanica as it’s always selling out! A blend of smokable herbs all traditional to divination, prophecy, and spirit-sight. Useful for oracular work, seidr, divination with runes or tarot, and even divination via necromancy. Non-magical side effects may include mild euphoria, light-headedness, and heightened senses.

Love Smoke – A blend of aphrodisiac and euphoric herbs which mildly mimic the infamous hemp plant. This blend is most definitely narcotic (something I can’t say on Etsy), but every herb used is completely legal. Smoke to get in the mood with your partner and to enhance your experience of pleasure. Love Smoke can also be used as a sedative and relaxant and is lovely when smoked after a long stressful day – it really helps to let go and relax. Due to these properties it also makes a good gentle sleep-aid. Although meant for pleasure smoking, this blend also has magical applications: smoke it or burn it as a herbal incense during the rite of hieros gamos, use it while performing love or sex magic, or smoke or drink Love Smoke as a tea in order to induce trance to help with spirit work and crossing between worlds. It’s a good multipurpose blend to have on hand.

Happy burnings lovely witches!