What is the point of incense other than making your room smell

it makes one feel more comfortable/trippy/spiritual
that's it

Research on neurosciencenews dot com this week says frankincense has mild psychoactive effects.

>>17150210
makes ur room smell like the fugging hot topic :D

Also, incense tends to bind 'negative' energy from the air in a room and is sometimes used to clear the space. Usually sage for westerners/new agers.

>>17150210
Sometimes I make promises to burn incense if certain things happen, like I'll verbalize "I'll burn incense if x happens" or "I get x". Pretty fun routine, but if I don't keep my promise I get a streak of bad luck afterward :/

really interested in this topic, providing bump

>>17150210
It is literally burned for the smell, if you don't like the smell, why would you ask this question? Just spray some air freshener do you prefer that chemical smell?

>>17150269
Love it when people post all derpy like, obviously not having read the previous posts.

>>17150210
Scientifically, our sense of smell is the sense most deeply tied to memories and emotions.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-babble/201501/smells-ring-bells-how-smell-triggers-memories-and-emotions

>The answer is likely due to brain anatomy. Incoming smells are first processed by the olfactory bulb, which starts inside the nose and runs along the bottom of the brain. The olfactory bulb has direct connections to two brain areas that are strongly implicated in emotion and memory: the amygdala and hippocampus. Interestingly, visual, auditory (sound), and tactile (touch) information do not pass through these brain areas. This may be why olfaction, more than any other sense, is so successful at triggering emotions and memories.

From a Vedic perspective, it's an elemental offering. In deity worship, you offer various elements such as air (sound, bell ringing), fire (sight, literal - in my tradition a butter-oil wick), water (taste, again literal), and earth (smell, incense).

From a pragmatic point of view, if you pack a temple full of people, it's going to get smelly in there - let's get some nice-smelling odors in the air too.

>>17150248
I like you!

It's another piece of paraphernalia/tool for creating a spiritual sense. There are many different ways to bring yourself to an altered state of consciousness (not including drugs) that people use in ritual. Fasting, dancing, sitting perfectly still, controlling your breath, listening to music, playing an instrument, mood lighting, etc etc. Incense is another way to do that.

Depending on the tradition, the ritual or the sense you're trying to create, the incense varies. Most commonly people will say it's to "cleanse" a space, but that's not always the case. In general it's to create an atmosphere, but what kind of atmosphere is completely variable.

>>17150210
Well it does cleanse a bathroom after taco Tuesday

certain religions i know of burn incense because the devil has some birds made of fire that doesn't emit smoke and the smoke is supposed to keep them away.
all religions i know of burn it because of the smell. it's said that anything evil is attracted by a messy room and a smell of rotting.

Your prayers rise to heaven with the incense smoke so I've been told, but I like the answer about cleansing the room after Taco Tuesday better.

what incense should i buy for meditation, and where? preferably over the internet.

>>17150248
God damn do I ever sniffle that place up when I go in there... Sometimes get a whiff of stank pussy though...

>>17150873
10/10 incense is only for covering the smells of human waste. Lest the gods be offended by our chained carbon emissions...
>*farts*

You can use the smell to get into deeper states of trance while meditating.

But before that you have to program your body into having awareness into the smell and associating it with meditation (for example, lighting the incense before meditating everytime so you're conscious of it)

>>17150223

the charcoal and other chemicals released into the air are breathed in and cover the skin. there is a real biochemical reaction to certain types of incense.