Consider the homecoming of a traveler, navigating the way through field and wood, headed toward the comfort of familiar sur-roundings andthe welcoming embrace of loved ones. As the road draws to an end, our traveler may arrive on the edge of a meadow that lies just outside the familiar family home. The soft scent of heather fills the nostrils and elates the heart with the certain knowledge that home is near. As the field fades in the distance by a steady gait, the aroma of spaghetti and Grandpa’s old world sauce fills the air. As the scent surrounds our traveler, the senses of comfort and well-being as well as the feelings of warmth and love swell up in the heart. This is the essence of the magick of scent.
While we readily understand the use of fragrance as an extension of herbal healing, the mental and spiritual effect of scents upon the human condition may seem a bit more elusive. But this elusive faculty is imperative to deriving the maximum benefit from aromatherapy. We have all seen, heard, or read about the patient who stops responding to treatment simply because he or she has lost the will to live. When dealing in the healing arts, we cannot divorce the act of healing the body from that of nurturing the mind and spirit. We cannot divorce the science or the art from the magick. They are all interrelated and interdependent. So while we may address the different applications of fragrance separately, we cannot view them as separate practices. They not only overlap but, in the hands of a competent scent mixologist, will enhance each other.
The actual functioning of a scent may vary in the way it works from one essential to another. Some scents create effects in their own right, while others function by association. Orange, for example, may create a mood of elation to relieve melancholy. This effect is inherent in the fragrance itself. Sandalwood, on the other hand, may be employed as something of an aphrodisiac. This effect is created, not by the fragrance in its own right, but by association. Its scent is not unlike that of a human sexual scent, or pheromone, being like that of alpha androsterole and, as such, has effects that parallel nature’s own scent of arousal.
Like these specific examples, there are associated values that are inherent within each fragrance. These are the virtues that have been pursued for centuries by the perfumer, the healer, the magician, and in our own age, the practicing aromatherapist.