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Several years back, I attended the inaugural Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival (originally called the Salem Summer Symposium). It was a great time, and among the highlights, I got to meet one Dr. James Dotson, who was sharing his understanding about the spirituality of smells and scents in the occult. He made something click for me regarding the use of scents in magic and spiritual work generally, a kind of olfactory magic into itself:
Smell is itself a kind of possession.
We should never underestimate the power of scented oils, perfumes, or incenses. Yes, these can be offerings to spirits as much as anything can, but these specifically are as much for us as it is for them, filling ourselves with these ephemeral sensations and bringing us closer to them. Scents, unlike tastes or other senses, go directly into the brain through the ways the nerves are connected from the nose and olfactory system. A scent literally "gets into your head" in ways that other senses cannot and do not. In smelling, we fill ourselves with a spirit.
This is why working with aromatic substances—so many of which are organic, especially plants—requires a different approach than many other forms of materia. The spirit that enlivens them persists and is released more strongly in its smell, which is what brings us closer to them, and so is also why working with the spirits of such materia up-front, both before harvesting and after harvesting, is so important in the process for so many magicians and occultists who work with them as perfumers. Doing so is a means of communion as much as sacrifice.