Skip to main content

Magic Books by Talia Felix

Smell Like the Ancients: Recipe for the Egyptian Kyphi or Kapet Incense

kyphi ancient egyptian incense in magic


Kyphi was the name given to a style of sacred incense, rather than to a specific blend. The name is derived from the Greek rendering of the Egyptian word kapet, which simply means “fumigation” or “incense.” Whether due to the limited number of fragrant herbs available at the time, or due to some requirement dictated by the way it would be used, kyphi recipes do have certain things in common and do not seem to be a totally random combination of herbs. Honey, cinnamon and mastic appear to always be included, and raisins or wine are very typically added. The total number of ingredients might be fewer than ten or they could number more than seventy.

A much simplified version of the recipe can be found in my book The Conjure Cookbook.

Here is a fairly easy version of kyphi from the 12th century BC.

  • palmarosa

  • cinnamon

  • sweet flag

  • mint

  • pine resin

  • mastic

  • raisin wine (preferred -- red wine from grapes is an acceptable substitute)

  • honey


The herbs can be used fresh or dried.

A proper kyphi should be made in a mortar and pestle. The preferred method was not to mix all the ingredients together at once, but to add each item individually to the mixture. This is important not just ritually, but also from a practical standpoint, as adding sticky ingredients like pine resin too soon can make the other herbs difficult to grind.

Here is our recommended procedure: Add first the lemongrass, beat it fine; then add the cinnamon, beat it fine; add the sweet flag, beat it fine; and when you have a good even-grained powder you can add your pine resin and combine well; then your mastic and combine well.

The final liquid ingredients serve as binders, and you should be careful not to add too much -- remember, it’s always easier to add more if you need to, than to remove an excess. Carefully moisten the ingredients with a little wine -- this will help dissolve the resins a little more, and soften the herbs so they cling together. Then add as much honey as it takes to create a paste about the consistency of fresh Play-Doh. Roll the kyphi into pellets, and allow them to dry before use.

Historically, a priest would recite sacred texts over the kyphi as it was being prepared; unfortunately, the exact words that were used seem to have been lost to us in modern times.

For those who object that the previous recipe for kyphi contains no measurements, here is a more elaborate version from the Greek era, which preserved for us a record of quantities. It is presumably the dried herbs being used in this version.

  • 2.75 grams each sweet flag, palmarosa, mastic, cassia, cinnamon, mint, rosewood. 


Pulverize and sift, till achieving a very fine powder. Set aside.

Beat separately:

  • 2.75 grams each juniper berries, galangal, chaerophyllum

  • 22.5 grams wine


Powder. Let soak overnight. The next morning, drain any excess liquid.

  • 18 grams unseeded raisins

  • 22.5 grams oasis wine (regular red wine is an acceptable substitute)


Grind well. Remove skins and seeds.

Place the herb and raisin mixtures together in a pot, and let rest for 5 days.

  • 12 grams frankincense 

  • 30 grams honey


Boil together till thickened and the weight reduced by about 1/5th. Mix with other ingredients and leave for 5 days.

Add this, powdered; mix well, and you have finished kyphi.

Plain resins like frankincense and myrrh were burned as incense as well, but kyphi compounds were felt to have special properties for purifying the mind, body and spirit, and for enhancing spiritual experiences.

It is recommended that kyphi be burnt as an all-purpose blend to accompany every type of magical ritual.
Labels:
Want professional spellcasting? Visit Hoodoo Online for services, or browse my books on Amazon.

Popular posts from this blog

Magical Hoodoo Baths - The Original Hoodoo and Voodoo Bath for Luck, Love and Success

One beginning in the tradition of hoodoo should know about the importance of baths. They are vital tools in hoodoo work and cannot be dispensed with.  Many people nowadays don't have bathtubs, and some adaptation can be achieved by way of showers. Other people use a large bowl or bucket of water to pour on themselves in place of a spiritual bath. In olden times, and also in some places today where water on tap isn't common, people will perform their spiritual baths in a river or pond outdoors.  A spiritual bath is similar to a regular bath, but with certain key differences. Spiritual baths are not meant primarily for physical cleansing and so washing items like soap might be taboo depending on the exact bath type. However there are some types of magical bath that do use the multitasking property of soap or other cleansers, and in those cases the cleaning aspect is appropriate to the work. There is some controversy around washing the hair in a spiritual bath. Many people don...
Read more

The Ultimate Hoodoo Herbal Incense Guide

 Myrrh The other day I made a bath recipe for myself using some artificial myrrh oil (real myrrh essential oil being quite expensive -- about $160 a half ounce as of this writing.) Sniffing it, it called to mind so many other spells that I've done that I realized -- this is THE smell of hoodoo. American hoodoo magic, with its blend of African, Indigenous, and European traditions, has a long history of utilizing various herbs, roots, and materials to create potent spells and rituals. One such ingredient that holds a significant place is myrrh. It is not a native plant to the Americas: commiphora myrrha is native to the Arabian penninsula and Africa. It appears often in the Bible, and because of this was adopted into European high magical traditions. As I mention in my book Conjuration , incense wasn't much used in American hoodoo till the early 20th century, when the "catalogue culture" of De Laurence and others brought to it more high magical tradition and incorpor...
Read more

Occult Mysteries of Candle Omens: The Surprising Truth About Spellcasting Success and Misleading Signs

One of my most consistently popular posts on this blog is the Candle Omens post, indicating many many people want to know about how to read omens for their spells through the augeries of wax or flames. When I perform spellcasts for clients , if the work I have done involved a candle spell, I will usually report on the condition of the flames, smoke or interesting activity with the wax.  And yet, how valid is this for determining spell outcome? In my own experience, I have had candles that burned badly result in brilliant successes, and candles that burned well lead to dud results.  The first thing to keep in mind about reading omens in candles it that it really shouldn't be done if you are inexperienced in candle burning, OR if you are using an unfamiliar brand of candles . In both cases, it can lead to falsely assuming a normal event is something abnormal or significant. For example, there is a particular type of pullout candle which I have to go out of my way to ...
Read more

Perfume, Cologne, and Its Use In Hoodoo

The original recipe for cologne was reputedly given to St. Elizabeth of Hungary by an angel -- the concoction was known as "Hungary Water" and was used primarily as a medicine, rather than just a mere fragrance. Charles Godfrey Leland remarked that it therefore was appropriate hoodoo practitioners would use such a substance for feeding their conjure bags and other talismans. The term cologne actually comes from a later preparation, Cologne Water (named for the German city.) The original Cologne Water is a spirit-citrus perfume launched in 1709 by Giovanni Maria Farina (1685–1766), an Italian perfume maker from Santa Maria Maggiore Valle Vigezzo, Italy. In 1708, Farina wrote to his brother Jean Baptiste: "I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms after the rain". He named his fragrance Cologne Water, in honour of his new hometown. The Original Cologne Water composed by Farina was used on...
Read more

Sugar and Sweetener - Vital Ingredients for Traditional Hoodoo and Witchcraft Magic

Sugar spells are everywhere these days. People know you can “sweeten someone up,” and if you poke around online for five minutes, you’ll find love spells that ask you to write a name on a paper and put it in a jar with sugar, honey, syrup, or a piece of candy. It’s not just popular — it’s practically its own genre. But the real history of sugar in hoodoo is a little deeper, and as always, a little weirder. Traditionally, sugar was used to sweeten someone toward you — whether for love, kindness, better treatment, or even to grease a boss’s attitude at work. You’ll find older spells that use sugar to make a judge lenient or to keep someone from being angry. What’s rarely mentioned outside the tradition is that the type of sugar used could be significant. Yes, really. In older hoodoo practice, sweeteners were sometimes matched to the race or skin tone of the person being targeted. Molasses - thick and dark, was typically used if the person was Black. White sugar - for a white person. Hon...
Read more