Lignum aquilaria agallocha Anhang = Adlerholz/= Wood, resin, fragrance of the eaglewood tree

 

[Anne Schadde]

Fragrance Between Dream and Day

In the depts of the night the new day begins.

Feel invited to discover the mysterious world of a very old wood used for fumigation - the biblical wood aloe or eaglewood.

It contains the old alchemistic mythology of the process of transformation. The trees only grow in the deepest jungle, in the so-called heart of the earth, and it is threatened to die out. The secretion of the wood’s resin develops in symbiosis with fungi.

The attempts of separation, repulsion and final integration of the infestation of the fungus are possibly the processes that make the wood so precious. Only after these processes does the precious resin called wood aloe or eaglewood come into being. Separation becomes integration and then we have, as essence, the substance for fumigation.

It has an outstanding position in the art of fumigation.

Try to imagine the most complicated and refined scent: aromatic and erotic, stimulating and balsamically soothing at the same time, earthy and woody.

Eaglewood exudes an inimitable aroma, when it is fumigated.

The scent could not be reproduced synthetically. Scientists assume pheromone-like components in the scent. The ethnologist Professor Rätsch dedicates a whole chapter in his encyclopaedia of love substances to it.

It is also referenced in the encyclopaedia of psychoactive plants. Wood aloe creates an atmosphere that stimulates, eroticizes and favours concentration.

“Scent is the sense of imagination,” said Rousseau.

The sense of smell links our feeling to our pictures of remembrance and experience.

Try, for example, to remember a special scent from your childhood or suppose that you smell a very characteristic scent. Immediately your mind will recall intense images.

Perhaps the archaic experience of scent and fire creates in me the love for the fumigation ritual. Even lighting a fine, intense Japanese joss stick of eaglewood changes, through its scent, the atmosphere.

The fumigation itself is an alchemistic process. By the heating, in the glowing fire of fumigation, the resin is released into the air as fine scent, as essence. Before the substance has nearly no smell at all. The process of transformation follows a cycle:

“earth” -> “fire” -> “air = spirit” -> “ashes” -> “earth,” thus the circle is closed. While fading, the resin renders us its royal scent. Through the ashes the wood is given back to the earth. This change of condition is brought forward to the observer through the scent. By changing the atmosphere, the spirit is influenced.

Eaglewood is part of the Japanese Koh-Doh, the Zen ceremony of the “Listening to the Scent.” This “Listening to the Scent” is conceived as perception of the inner worlds. It is “Listening inside,” like a silent prayer, like meditation. The centring of the inner voice becomes the exercise. Distraction from outside disappears.

Eaglewood plays a special role in different world religions.

• In Sufism, oud is used as medium for decisive phases of development. By the “death” of the old self, the new self comes into being. Ideally, the Sufi reaches his aim, a higher degree of consciousness.

• In the Bible, wood aloe or eaglewood is described as scented wood or as balsam.

• In Buddhism only joss sticks of wood aloe are allowed for certain sacrificial ceremonies. The ceremony, as practised ritual, shall further the growing of consciousness. Again we see the alchemy of transformation, the transformative process of development and change.

The mysticism of alchemy also takes place in the mental healing process (of becoming whole): old patterns and habits can be given up (earth), because thereby its condition suddenly changes (fire) in order to reach a new and higher spiritual level of consciousness (air = spirit).

 

Quelle:

Walter Schmitt, Pharmacist

Enzian Apothek, Munich/Germany

 

This tree grows in Indonesia, India, Assam and neighbouring islands/often called aloe tree.

Homeopathic medicinal self encounter.

The tree that can grow as high as 40m and has full rim of leaves and coloured blossoms brings out a fruit in a bipartite capsule.

The wood of the tree only becomes scented wood when its heartwood has been infected by fungi for several years. By that means the so-called Agar develops and only then becomes scented wood.

The soft resinous wood infected by fungi becomes, in the course of centuries - through the process of petrifaction - so tight and heavy, that it sinks in water. That’s why the wood of aloe is also called “sinking scent.” It has a higher specific weight than water and therefore can’t float on the water’s surface. The quicker the wood sinks, the higher its quality.

The fermented wood, refined by micro-organisms, gets a balsamic, amber-like, acrid and camphor-like scent. It is an expensive rarity - the most precious of all scented woods/exists only in resin-saturated diseased wood. Today, we know that the wood contains several components: p-methoxycinnamicacid, agarotetrol, agarol, agarospirol, alpha- und beta-agarofuran, dihydroagarofuran, 4-hydroxydihydroagarofuran, oxo-nor-agarofuran.

Different Names

The name eaglewood tree comes from the observation that the way its branches stick out resembles the wings of an eagle.

AQUILARIA is derived from AQUILA, which means eagle in Portuguese. The Greek AGALLOCHON became ALOEXYLON and then wood aloe. The wood aloe tree should not be confounded with the juice of the leaves

of Aloe succotrina, which stiffens into a gum-like resin.

In the Bible’s old testament, in the Canticum Cantoricum 4:14 and in the Psalm 44:9, it is the wood aloe of the eaglewood tree that is referred to.

Other names of the tree are AQUILARIA SINENSIS; AGAR in Sanskrit; AGARO; AGURU and AGHIL in Tamil.

The names for the resin-saturated diseased wood LIGNUM AQUILARIAE RESINATUM or LIGNUM ALOES, wood aloe, eaglewood or paradise wood vary still further:

• India: “inflamed eaglewood” is AGARBATI

• Nepal: AGARU or CALAMBAC

• China: “sinking perfume” CH`´ èn-hsing

• Japan: the scented wood is called JIN KOH

• The oil extracted from the wood is called OUD in Arabic. This name stems from AL OUD, the lute. In the Sufi tradition, the oil of OUD was used for various ceremonies.

The tree belongs to the family of Thymelaeales5, the Edgeworthia.

To the Edgeworthia belong:

• Daphne indica (Daph), sweet-scented Spurge Laurel; Daphne odora; Wikstroemia indica

• Daphne mezereum; Mezereum (Mez.), Spurge Olive, Thymelaea mez., Chamelae germanica; Mezereon, Dwarf-bay

Dirca palustris (Dirc), Leather wood; Moosewood, Wicopy

All three in the family of plants of the Tymelaeales.x is closely related to the Euphorbiaceae.

The Fungus

The aroma of the wood comes from the emerging resin. The different fungi (Phomopsis aquilariae and Phomopsis spp. or Aspergillus sp. and Fusarium sp.) live in symbiosis with the wood and cause the secretion of the resin. The more resin the wood has and the older the wood, the stronger is the aroma.

The quality is measured in four different categories according to the development of the resin:

• Grade 1 = Black or True Agar (the impregnation of the resin is very intense, the wood resembles black stone)

• Grade 2 = Batang (brown in colour without any black tone)

• Grade 3 = Bhuta or Phuta (brown in colour interspersed with 50% or more of yellow-coloured wood)

• Grade 4 = Dhum (mostly yellow with scattered streaks of brown or black resin)

The first three grades are used as incense, the wood of the 4th grade is distilled for the oil.

The Properties: Acrid, bitter, warm, aromatic.

In Chinese Medicine

• As stimulant and digestive

• It stimulates the channels kidney, spleen and stomach: “It is used for stagnant Qi patterns with such symptoms as distension, pain, or a feeling of pressure in the epigastric of abdominal region or if there is coldness in the organism and the blood becomes congealed. Then wood aloe helps move the Qi and alleviates the pain. It directs the Qi downward and balances.”

• Excessive or deficient type of vomiting, belching or hiccups from cold deficiency in the stomach or spleen

• Asthma and wheezing from deficient kidneys

• Anti-microbial effect: decoctions of the wood are used against Macobacterium tuberculosis and Shigella flexeri

• Dusted on clothes and skin it preserves against fleas and lice

• Cooking the wood in wine contributes to the alleviation of inner pin and heart pain

• Cancer of thyroid gland and tumours of the lung

Greek Medicine: Dioskurides: “The Agallochon is a wood that has been brought from India and Arabia, it resembles the wood of thuja, it is spotted, fragrant, a little astringent on tasting, at the same time with a certain bitterness, with a leather-like and spotted bark. Chewed and decocted it makes the odour of the mouth pleasant, it is also a scented sprinkling powder for the whole body. It is used for fumigation instead of incense.

The root alleviates the weakness and heat of the stomach. It helps when drunk with water, those who have dysenteric abdominal or liver pains.

Tibetan Medicine: The glowing wood is used to chase away the spirits of disease [in treatment of mental diseases and psychic disturbances (depressions)].

It is used above all to eliminate Lung, which is the cause for the sadness of the heart. The inhaling of incense of wood aloe - scattered on glowing charcoal - is said to be a psychoactive for use against mental and psychic disturbances, emotional instability, especially those caused by negative energies.

Tibetan psychiatry employs different scented woods therapeutically for mental disturbances and emotional instability, wood aloe being one of them. The patient inhales the scent of the wood that unfolds through the heating on glowing charcoal.

Japan: In 1993 the effect of the wood was examined scientifically and it was concluded that the inhalation of the scent is a strong sedative and prolongs the time of sleep.

Therefore, wood aloe should be inhaled in the evening, in order to relax the soul profoundly.

In Western Aromatherapy

• Sleeplessness

• Depressions

• Tensions

• Brain disorder

• Chronic fatigue syndrome

• Hysteria

• Forgetfulness

• Diseases of muscles and nerves

Summary of Clinical Applications

• Antibiotic

• Aphrodisiac

• Asthma

• Diarrhoea

Gastralgia

• Cancer (thyroid gland, lungs)

• Carminative

• Congestions, colics

• Kidney

• Hiccup

• Alleviating pain

• Stimulant

• Nausea

Fumigations

Joss sticks (= agarbatti) are used in nearly all traditions of the East. In mysticism, the scent served initiation and self-knowledge.

For Sufi meditations, all openings of the body are closed with rags soaked in oil of oud. According to the Islamic mysticism oud is used for advanced stages of spiritual growth.

In Japan eaglewood is used for the path of inner perfection by attentiveness. The ritual of the fumigation ceremony “to listen to the scent” called “Koh doh” describes the “path of the scent.” In this instance “to listen” means not only to smell but also to awaken all of the senses and perceptions. The rituals serve the growth of consciousness with simultaneous training of the sense of smell.

The scent of wood aloe is supposed to make the mind attentive and to lead us in the “pure hands of Buddha” and to draw the attention of the gods on us.

The scent helps to call the ancestors during magic rituals, to keep away demons from house and garden and to attract happiness and success. (Good spirits prefer well scented surroundings!) Fragrant scents chase away impurities, ignorance and bad deeds.

In the Chinese sphere also sacrificial fumigations play an important role in the worship of immortals, ghosts and ancestors. The smoke could chase away the demons that are the cause of disease and misfortune. It can purify clothes and houses and cause rain. Meditation, dietetics, respiration techniques, and sexual practices were recommended in order to reach the “path of eternal life”, the Tao.

Joss sticks were used as “clock of smell,” the time was read from the ashes.

It has a sedative and cheering effect, creates a state of trance and meditation and enables the spirit to reach higher levels of perception. Thus, it facilitates the process of accessing higher degrees of meditation. It should not be used when concentration and quick reactions are necessary.

The scent grounds and leads to the roots; it erotizises and stimulates imagination. It is important of the transitional phases of life, “the guardian of the threshold,” as shown on old frescos at the court of the dead in Egypt.

It touches the source of melancholy and cheers up by ameliorating the brain function, it balances body and soul, and strengthens the nervous system.

The Scent

Eaglewood smells balsamic, amber-like, woody and deep.

In Japan a differentiation is made between the different characters of scent of Jinkoh (= joss aticks):

1. Sweet, like the scent of honey or of boiled down sugar.

2. Sourly, like plums or other sourly food.

3. Sharp and hot, like red pepper thrown into the fire.

4. Salty, like seaweed dried above the fire.

5. Bitter, like bitter medicinal herbs, that are scalded.

Until today the scent could not be imitated artificially.

The Sense of Smell

“Scents that can’t be perceived by the nose obviously have a mysterious power over men.

It refers to the organ of Jacobson, which has been called the sixth sense by some scientists. The vertebrate perceive the pheromones by it. Since the organ of Jacobson degenerated in men in the course of the evolution other scientists did not attach any importance to it. Now it seems clear that this insignificant organ in the nasal cavity still has a bigger influence than believed. But only future psychological and chemical research will show how strongly men really are unconsciously influenced by scents.”

History of Eagle wood:

According to the legend, a big piece of eaglewood was washed onto the Japanese coast in 630 AD. Villagers wanted to burn it and a strong scent developed thereby.

They went to the ruler, prince Shotoku (Buddhist adherent), and he presented the drift wood to the emperor, who was fascinated by its fragrance. The wood was called “Jin” = “sinking under the water” and “koh” = “scents.”

A refined art of scents of high sensitivity developed in Japan. Wood and precious resins decorated the sacrificial altars for the “path of the gods.” Importance was attached for scents also for housing spaces and clothes: the scent floated through the rooms. The Japanese nobility held competitions where the scents produced in a fumigation store had to be judged.

The arts of seduction were always supported by scents. In Hebrew history, Judith (the biblical adulteress) animates the youth Holofernes with a wave of scents: “I have sprayed my bed with myrrh, aloe and cinnamon. Come let us indulge in love.” Thereby, the Jewish people were liberated from the repression of the Assyrians.

King Salomo raved, after his amorous encounter with the Queen of Saba, about her fragrance, the scent of her spices, that contained the precious scents of wood aloe together with myrrh, saffron, cinnamon, etc.

According to Greek tradition aromatic plants always were of divine origin. The god manifested himself in their scent. This symbolism of scents was adapted by the Romans from the Greek. Wood aloe was dedicated to the god of war, Mars; It was believed that the gods were keen on scents.

All cultures of India used the abundance of natural scents of flowers, herbs, resins, and woods for sacral, social and personal situations in their lives. In the Upanishades, the literature of Sanskrit, the distinguished culture of scents is described. Fire from scented woods had to be lit for the trinity of Indian gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in the four cardinal points.

In lyrical Sanskrit poetry, scents were used to support sensual attractions: “For the feast the beautiful rub themselves with yellow sandal, pure and clear; they season their mouth with scents and perfume aloe in their hair.”

“The face of the beautiful like a lotus is impregnated with the juice of fragrant flowers, her bedchamber of lovely smoke of aloe.”

The Arabian potentates had a special attraction to wood aloe as seen in Arabian Nights.

Until today, it is part of the closing of an Arabian banquet that the guests fan themselves the scent of aloe onto clothes, hair and beard as a remembrance.

 

Proving:

The homeopathic trituration and potentization of Lignum aquilaria agallocha took place in the Enzian-Pharmacy on January 9th, 1998.

Ceremony: A cube of charcoal was burnt and put in a cone-shaped mound of rice ash. A mica plate (quartz-plate) and a tiny piece of the wood, which had been previously weighed (0,062g) was placed on the cone of ash (like a small volcano). Through the heat of the charcoal the tiny piece of wood began to slowly combust from below and was thus brought to develop the scent. This was the moment - before the wood crumbled into ash - just when the scent started to gush forth, that the process of transformation through heat took place. Then the trituration of the substance to the C1 was started and then further to the C2 and C3. Then the substance was

succussed to the C30.

The proving was held in 1998 in a course of the 1997-1998 class at the academy of homeopathy in Gauting. Twelve provers participated (17 women and one man).

 

Increased sensitivity to smells:

The basic substance itself makes clear, that it is experienced by “smelling” and this is done exactly the same way today. The scent creates a balancing atmosphere. After potentisation there was a feeling of menthol in the respiratory tract: …like sucking an eucalyptus candy…

…cold feeling in the nose, like menthol…,

….> peppermint-tea….

….odor of blueberries….

….odor like burnt leather or rubber…

…under arm perspiration, like burnt rubber…

…offensive under arm perspiration…

….cigarette smoke…

…getting more and more sensitive to odors

Increased sensitivity to sounds:

  …sensitive to sounds…

  …my nerves are bare…

Awkward:

….spill a lot of things…

….things come out of my mouth again…

Sleep:

The fumigation calms down and lets fall asleep easily.

In the proving:

…restless sleep as well as ….diving into deep sleep…

Red – Burning – Burnt – Inflammation – Hot:

….burning boils…

…hot scalp…

…hot head…

…burning eyes…

…red eyes…

…hot feeling at ears…

…red nose…

…hot, red face…

…swelling of gums, tongue…

…sore throat, hot…

…heartburn…

…as if a glowing fire burned in the stomach…

…like burnt leather or rubber…

…under arm perspiration, like burnt rubber…

…ovulation like a hot stone…

…thighs bright red like burning hot…

…burning hot knee…

…burning, redness of hand, around thumb…

…pulsation of blood…

…colourful, red pictures like in a jungle, plants look like tongues…

Icecold:

icecold extremities…

…chill, with following heat…

…sweating and freezing…

…very cold…

Hot:

…hot, curry, pepper…

Bursting:

…vertex bursting, like overfilled…

…pressure from inside…

…as if stuffed…

Flowing:

coryza with fluent discharge…

Pulsation:

…as if several pulses were beating at the same time…

…wave of pulse…

Sore – Dryness:

            …lips…

…healing of dryness…

….of mouth…

….soreness, sore throat…

….dryness of skin

…………..of vagina…

Stiffness:

…neck…

….tension in shoulders….

Crumbled:

…dental enamel crumbles away…

…blood seems crumbled…

…loosened joints…

Floating:

…vertigo, can´t estimate distance to ground…

…vertigo, like floating…

…the ground is shaking…

Hole – Lumps:

…hole in stomach…

…lump in abdomen…

…something angular falls  around loosely in knee…

Like pregnant:

…oedema, heaviness, bloated abdomen, sickness…

…dream: pregnancy and birth…

…as in pregnancy…

…as if pregnant…

Oedema:

…in the face…

…of extremities…

Heart.

…as if I could sense my coronary vessels…

…pain of the heart…

Chest:

…cough, tight feeling…

…not enough air…

…lump in the chest…

…armour on chest…

Thrombosis:

…beginning thrombophlebitis

Herpes:

…herpes blisters…

Themes of the dreams

Order …remove disorder… …do the dishes, wash up…

Flying and falling: …flying… …and landing… ...and falling… …in the airplane to the shooting ground… …falling… …on a jumping platform… …uterus has fallen out…

…falls from the sky… …flying in a balloon… …precipice… …crater…

Illness, death dying: …cancer… …fading life… …death of the mother… …the own death… …amyotroph lateral sklerosis… …coat-beings… …pest…

Threat – pursuit: …bombs… …during war… …mafia…

Burning: …two figures out of gold melt into a black bubbling liquid… …my house is burning… …burnt down church… …to set something on fire…

Blindness: …father is blind… …eyes weld together…

Nudity

Countries: …Thailand… …Japan… …Himalaya…

General thoughts of provers:

• think a lot about life, death, religion.

• Impression that the remedy intensifies existing capacities and brings them into flow

• feeling, I have to do it alone, nobody can help me

poem, prover no 20

My hardest way

The invitation

It hit me hard no worry, don´t worry

What should I give

How should I go no worry, don´t worry

What impression would I make

How will it be no worry, don´t worry

When I am spoken to

If I must commit myself no worry, don´t worry

The day is getting nearer

No more running away

It has to be so no worry, don´t worry

Am I strong enough

Where could I get help no worry, don´t worry

The way to one´s own funeral is the hardest journey

 

Repertory:

Mind:

ANXIETY; future, about (133)

COMPANY; aversion to, agg. (221)

CONCENTRATION; difficult (332)

CONFIDENCE; want of self (120)

CONFUSION of mind (428)

CONFUSION of mind; driving, while (2)

CONFUSION of mind; talking, while (11)

CONFUSION of mind; writing, while (13)

DELUSIONS, imaginations; pregnant, is (16)

DELUSIONS, imaginations; unreal; everything is (29)

DISTANCE; inaccurate judge of (21)

DREAM: “As if in a dream” (91)/of death/disease (60)/of escape (9)/fire/flying/being pursued/religious/war

EUPHORIA (30)

FEAR; general; happen; something will (113)

INDIFFERENCE, apathy (355)

INDIFFERENCE, apathy; sadness, in (7)

INDIFFERENCE, apathy; work, with aversion to (12)

INDUSTRIOUS, mania for work(131)

INTUITIVE; general (4)

IRRITABILITY; general (549)

IRRITABILITY; general; husband, towards (3)

IRRITABILITY; general; noise, from (34)

MISTAKES, makes - talking (120)/writing (106)

MOCKING; general; sarcasm (27)

PROSTRATION of mind, mental exhaustion, brain fag (292)

SADNESS, despondency, depression, melancholy (605)

SENSITIVE, oversensitive; /general; odors, to (72)

TIME; passes too slowly, appearing longer (43)

TRANCE(21)

Vertigo:

FLOATING, as if (83)

FLOOR, as from motion of (1)

Head:

HEAT (with cold extremities/in vertex)

PAIN

DULL (271)

Generals:

forehead (536)

> lying

pains in other parts with nape of neck (68)

< riding in a carriage

Eyes:

redness (328)

SWELLING; general - lids (182)/lachrymal sac (5)

PAIN; burning, smarting, biting (332)

Ears:

HEAT in general (r.) (15)

Nose:

COLDNESS (88)

CORYZA in general (445)

DISCHARGE watery (189)

DRYNESS inside; allgemein/general (230)

EPISTAXIS; general (304) (paroxysmal) (35)

Face:

HEAT in general (317)

ERUPTIONS; herpes (145) (lips) (71)

DRYNESS in general (208)

Teeth:

ENAMEL deficient (3)

Mouth:

BITING; cheek, talking or chewing; beim/when (11)

Throat:

LUMP, plug sensation (193)

PAIN; burning (287) (> cold drinks) (5)

ROUGHNESS (177)

Stomach:

APPETITE; increased, hunger in general (363)

APPETITE; wanting (422)

CONSTRICTION; allgemein/general (137)

EMPTINESS, weak feeling, faintness, goneness, hungry feeling (290)

NAUSEA (550) (> after eating) (52)

PAIN; pressing (276)

STONE sensation (97)

THIRST; extreme (239)

Abdomen:

DISTENSION; general (427)

LUMP sensation; in (64)

PAIN; stitching, sticking, etc. (328)

PAIN; general; right (3)

Rectum:

DIARRHEA; general (493)

FORMICATION, crawling; anus (77)

MUCUS, discharge of (22)

Stool:

WATERY (282)

Kidneys:

PAIN; general (333)

Female Organs:

HEAT (66)

LEUCORRHEA; profuse (152)

MENSES - dark (123)/profuse/(324)/thick (33)

PAIN - drawing (37)

SEXUAL desire; increased (155)

SPEECH & VOICE

SPEECH; schwierig/difficult (148)

Cough:

IRRITABLE (24)

Chest:

HEAVINESS (77)

OPPRESSION (388)

PAIN – heart [pressing (89)/stitching (185)]/wund, sore, bruised from coughing (98)

PALPITATION heart (398)

Respiration:

DIFFICULT (472)

Back:

PAIN; general; Lumbalregion, lumbar region, lumbago (459)

TENSION; cervical region (110)

Limbs:

COLDNESS; general; lower limbs (339) (feet (287)/hands (247)

Redness (185) (upper limbs; fingers; first, thumb; spot (3)/hands; palms (10)

HEAT; general (302)/lower limbs - knees (23)/thighs (24)

LIGHTNESS, sensation of (27)

LOOSENESS; sensation of; joints (11)

PULSATION; upper limbs; hands (25)

THROMBOSIS, lower limbs (70)

WEAKNESS; joints sprained easily (4)

PAIN – in general lower limbs [feet/back of feet/; ankles (273)/knees (l. 75/r. 66)/upper limbs; shoulders (395)

Sleep:

BAD (42)

WAKING; difficult (71)

Perspiration:

ODOR; burnt (5)

Skin:

DRY (233)

ERUPTIONS; desquamating; general (110)

ITCHING (448)

ROUGH (48)

Generalities:

Food and Drink: Aversion to bananas; Desires: licorice/mustard/sauerkraut/sour, acids/spices, condiments, piquant, highly seasoned food (56)/sweets (123);

THROMBOSIS (21)

TOBACCO - aversion (sensitive to smell (15))/desires smoking (16)

WEAKNESS, enervation, exhaustion, prostration, infirmity (809)

WEARINESS in general (269)

 

 

Vorwort/Suchen.   Zeichen/Abkürzungen.                                   Impressum.