Marbas’ preferred incense is listed as storax. Does anyone know exactly what kind of incense this refers to?
I’ve seen storax used as another name for styrax resin (from Styrax calamitus), and also black storax resin (from Liquidambar orientalis). Which of these is the right one to buy?
Here are some photos of the two kinds I’ve seen for sale. Anybody have an idea of which is the right one?
What you’re looking for is Styrax Officinalis. The bad thing about it, is that the real deal of antiquity doesn’t exist anymore and if you find it somewhere its mostly a fraud since the specific tree doesn’t produce resin anymore. There are other styrax you can use, Liquidambar is one of those as its the modern version of the ancient styrax. But also you can use benzoin, its what I’m using and its being accepted by the entities that require styrax. Benzoin is Styrax.
The first storax is to purify. All about it… Popular in South America culture. Now benzoin is a good incense in italia to atract spirts, morelike greeks, roman etc. Since teyuse roses, lavanda and sweet smelling herbs back there. But its a must have. Benzoin. Never see in black magick. Only to atract spirts.
Do they exists in sticks?
Same incense for Hod. Supposedly a real heavy, hard to breathe fume like incense. Use a very well ventilated area.
So does benzion come in sticks, charcoal incense cones, or more like copal resin?
Liquidambar storax. Benzoin styrax is not the one you’re looking for.
The Turkish variety was what was used most likely. There is an American continent version of a related tree, commonly known as Sweetgum, where you can harvest the resin. You may prefer the Sweetgum-- Liquidambar Stricaflua, as Liquidambar Officinalis has harvestability concerns and a higher price point because of that if I recall correctly.
Because storax is a resin, you’ll have to use it by making your own incense or applying it to some already prepared incense, such as Frankincense.
I bought Storax from amazon, apparently it comes from Turkey if I remember correctly.
It looks like this (Fine black powdery, not the large black chips)
I use something like this to burn it, al tough it can also be burned by using a coal disk.
I just got these styrax from a seller I found online. It’s coming from France so I’m not sure of the quality yet. Not expecting much as it was quite cheap but am still hoping. It’s the only ones I’ve managed to find on sticks
The storax from Etsy works fine. I have a tin of it and found that I actually like the smell of it more than most air fresheners. Spirits aren’t that uptight over specifics; if it smells good, it smells good. If something else comes close, it’s good enough. No need to overthink it.
No, you can only get true storax (Liquidambar orientalis) as resin, which you can burn on charcoal disks or on tinfoil mounted above a candle.
