Found in the Hermetikon archive

Frankincense

Boswellia sacra

Frankincense appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.

Risk: moderate
Books: 73
Contexts: 3
Mentions: 430

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: frankincense
Latin name: Boswellia sacra(ambiguous)
Identity note: Historical sources may use frankincense, olibanum, or American frankincense for different resins.

Safety

moderate

Resin species vary; medicinal extracts may have gastrointestinal, pregnancy, or interaction concerns.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

MSK About Herbs: Resin species vary; medicinal extracts may have gastrointestinal, pregnancy, or interaction concerns.

Aliases

frankincenseBoswellia sacraBoswellia serrataolibanum

Frankincense in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Frankincense (Boswellia sacra) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are preparations, ritual uses, and identity. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Preparation

high

Culpeper uses powdered frankincense in an ointment for wound inflammation, combining it with washed litharge, ceruse, wax, and oil of roses.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 61

Identity

high

King's olibanum entry treats frankincense as resin chemistry: mostly acid resin and gum, aromatic when burned, and partly soluble in alcohol or water.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 516

Ritual

high

Agrippa makes frankincense a core fumigation material, assigning the frankincense tree to Saturnine fumes and frankincense gums to the Sun.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy | Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim | 1533

Page 147

Preparations and ritual uses

Wound-inflammation ointment

high

Culpeper's ointment combines powdered frankincense with nightshade juice, litharge, ceruse, wax, and oil of roses.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 61

Planetary fumigation

high

Agrippa's ritual material uses frankincense in planetary fumes, including Mercury's compound and solar gum attributions.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy | Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim | 1533

Page 147

Frankincense Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Astrology

9 passages across 9 books; strongest source: Chips from a German Workshop (Vol 4).

Matched as frankincense; high confidence.

Preparation

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as frankincense; high confidence.

Ritual

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as frankincense; high confidence.

Frankincense Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper

1653

"... Take of juice of Nightshade, Litharge washed, of each five ounces, Ceruss washed eight ounces, white Wax seven ounces, Frankincense in powder ten drams, oil of Roses often washed in water two pounds, make it into an ointment according to art. *Culpeper.*] It was invented to take away inflammations from wounds, and to keep people from scratching of them when they are almost well. #### Or, Ointment of Tutty. *College.*] Take of Tutty prepared two ounces, Lapis Calaminaris often burnt and quenched in Plantain Water an ounce, make them, being finely powdered, into an o..."

Chapter 61Open in Reader

Preparationalias: frankincensehigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"... is dissolved by alcohol to the amount of about 65 per cent. It has a specific gravity of 1.22. Chemical Composition. — Olibanum consists chiefly of an acid resin (56 per cent), soluble in alcohol and having the formula C.,„H,.,0, (Hlasiwetz. lS67j; it yields no benzene derivatives when fused with caustic potash. When burned, it emits an agreeable odor. Water removes from it a bitter, viscid substance, little soluble in ether. Olibanum ako contains yum (30 to 36 per cent), insoluble in alcohol, and resembles ordinary gum arable. With 3 parts of water it forms a ..."

Page 516Open in Reader

Preparationalias: olibanumhigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"- For a strengthning plaister, melt two pounds of the common plaister, and add to it half a pound of frankincense, and three ounces of dragon's blood. - For a drawing plaister, melt together yellow wax and yellow resin, of each three pounds, and a pound of mutton suet. This is used instead of the old melilot plaister to dress blisters; and the blister plaister itself is made of it, only by adding half a pint of vinegar, and a pound of Spanish flies in powder, to two pounds of it, just as it begins to cool from melting. The quicksilver plaister is ..."

Page 47Open in Reader

Preparationalias: frankincensehigh confidence

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim

1533

"...ed roses and red coral, and make them up with the brain of sparrows and the blood of pigeons. For Mercury, take mastic, frankincense, cloves, and the herb cinque-foil, and the stone achate, and incorporate them all with the brain of a fox or weasel, and the blood of a magpie. Besides, to Saturn are appropriated for fumes all odoriferous roots, as pepper-wort root, etc., and the frankincense tree; to Jupiter, odoriferous fruits, as nutmegs and cloves; to Mars, all odoriferous wood, as Sanders, cypress, lignum balsam and lignum aloes; to the Sun, all gums, frankincens..."

Page 147Open in Reader

Preparationalias: frankincensehigh confidence

Encyclopaedia of Occultism

Lewis Spence

1920

"...e Saturnalia was really a holiday for this " other self." The Roman kept his birthday in honour of his genius, offering frankincense, cakes and unmixed wine on an altar garlanded with flowers and making solemn prayers for the coming year. City and village had their genii, also bodies of men from the senate to the scullions. Death was believed to be the life and soul enticed away by revengeful ghosts, hence death would never occur save by such agencies. The dead therefore must be appeased with offerings or else they wander abroad working evil among the living. This b..."

Page 397Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: frankincensehigh confidence

Books Mentioning Frankincense

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

73 books

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

frankincenseolibanum

88 mentionscited

Metamorphoses (Books VIII-XV)

Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) | 8

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Frankincense in Historical Sources

Preparation

Identity

Ritual

Preparations and ritual uses

Wound-inflammation ointment

Planetary fumigation

Frankincense Archive Contexts

Astrology

Preparation

Ritual

Frankincense Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Encyclopaedia of Occultism

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Frankincense