The Sacred Use of Fragrance in Ancient Egypt

On Venus Day, March 8th, John Steele will share his vast knowledge on the spiritual use of fragrance in Pharonic Egypt, this is a very special interactive presentation.

During this era of antiquity, perfume was a magical medium of communication between humans and the gods. Nefertum, god of perfumes and the soul of plants, will be introduced along with his divine parents Ptah and Sekhmet.

Together, our consciousness will expand as we learn the use of fragrance in Pharaonic Egypt through a censorial experience of imagery & aromatic materials assembled over 35 years of research.

Nefertum's iconic flower was the Blue Water Lily symbolizing perfect beauty, rejuvenation and eternal life. For fifteen hundred years, the Blue Water Lily was an archetypal image in creation mythologies, temple art, jewelry designs and contemplative gardens.

Through this beautifully illustrated journey we will also consider the olfactory mysteries of smell in the human nose and its architectural counterpart in the temple of Luxor. For twelve years the Egyptian scholar Schaller de Lubicz analyzed the temple design and inscriptions.

Johns original presentation on The Sacred Use of Fragrance in Ancient Egypt was at the "Psychology of Perfumery Conference" in 1990 at the University of Warwick in England. It is a work-progress through the years to which he is always adding new research from Egyptologists, botanists, and perfume historians.

This is sure to be an extra-ordinary experience!

Date: March 8, 2019

Time: 11:00am to 2:00pm

Cost: $75

Details: Attendance is limited

Location: Private home in Encino, details provided upon RSVP

Register here

Students of the Art of Botanical Perfume live and online course get priority and a special discount code.

John J. Steele is an aromatic consultant, archaeologist, author and thinker. His work, whether with aromas or philosophy, engages questions about the nature of memory, time, consciousness and being. Among other notable thinkers, he has worked with Terence McKenna and Paul Devereux.

While his work is often closely related to the psychology of fragrance, in talks and writings Steele also explores Buddhism, Vedic culture, the great yugas, geomancy and geomantic amnesia, geo-biology, time out of balance, shamanism, the effects of geological formations on human consciousness, cross state retention, and the importance of sacred sites and spaces.

With Paul Devereux and David Kubrin, John Steele is co-author of EARTHMIND: Communicating with the Living World of Gaia (Destiny,1992), a book which explores ways of interfacing with the earth for planetary healing. John Steele also contributed an essay, "Perfumeros and the Sacred Use of Fragrance in Amazonian Shamanism," to the book The Smell Culture Reader, an anthology edited by Jim Drobnick and published by Berg in 2006.

Together with aromatherapy researcher Robert Tisserand, Steele has studied the effects on brain wave patterns when essential oils are inhaled or smelled. They found that calming oils have a sedative, tranquilizing effect and function by altering the brain waves into a rhythm that produces calmness, while stimulating oils work by producing a heightened energy response.[1]

Notes
1. ^ Therapies: Aromatherapy

References
Bowers Museum Press Release (08.27.06) "Sacred Use of Fragrance in Ancient Egypt" http://www.bowers.org/about_us/about_press.asp?PRID=277