The Ancient Art of Smoke Cleansing & an Interview with a Scottish Smudge Maker

There is much more to smudging than just burning sage and it’s a good practice no matter who you are or what you believe.

Smoke cleansing is the ancient practice of clearing a space with herbal smoke. Though often misattributed to a similar practice performed by the Indigenous people of North America, smoke cleansing has been around for thousands of years and was not just used for spiritual purposes. It turns out that one of the biggest benefits of smudging is often the most commonly overlooked: It’s good for your health.

Using herbal smoke and incense for the purpose of clearing the air of unwanted impurities, and negative energies, or to conjure up spirits, has been practiced across the globe by almost every race, creed, and religion since the very beginning, and many still use herbal smoke today, not just for spiritual practice, but for health. Modern studies have shown that burning herbal smoke (it does not always, and should not always, be white sage) can drastically reduce the number of pathogens and bacteria in the air, by up to 94%. In Medieval Europe, in addition to the religious and ritual use of smoke, such as Pagan smoke offerings or the Catholic church’s heavy use of incense, herbal smoke was commonly used in fumigation, and to help stop the spread of disease. Furthermore…