The Power of Scent

As an English major, one would expect me to be used to Freud by now. Even after all these years of Freudian readings, it is still daunting to see his sex obsession here, in the pages of Diane Ackerman’s book. As she discusses scent, it is nearly impossible for her to sever it from sex. Every other page seems to forge a new link between the two. Scent helps us to identify our ideal mates. The names of strong-smelling animals are nicknames for sex workers, or, vice-versa, nicknames for sex workers are given to strong-smelling animals. A perfumer fantasizes about creating a perfume that would make a woman entirely irresistible to men, suggesting that scent, particularly towards potential sexual partners, has truly frightening levels of control over the human mind.

None of these things can be totally denied. People often wear perfume in order to heighten their sex appeal. it still has an isolating effect. As an asexual person, I can’t draw those same connections in my own mind. I can’t necessarily say why this is. I doubt that my brain works any differently from anyone else’s, or that my sense of smell is somehow weaker. Though, perhaps that could explain why I’ve never felt a distinct connection to my sense of smell. I have no strong emotions around it, and have almost never had the experience of a scent drawing a memory to the front of my mind, unless I consciously pull it forward. 

Nonetheless, I am not insensible to the power that scent can have. I have used scent in order to magnify a tarot reading or other ritual – for instance, lemongrass for clarity of thought, lavender for serenity – whether or not these truly work isn’t really the point. It’s about the kind of mindset that those scents put me in. Lemongrass is a sharp scent, piercing into my brain and extracting everything unwanted, like some sort of spiritual lobotomy. Lavender, on the other hand, is soft but constant, humming like a mother trying to get her baby to sleep. 

As a pagan, I keep an altar that I use as a centering point in much of my practice. It carries visual reminders of the various deities I regularly venerate – the bones, particularly the antler, for Cernunnos, Celtic god of the wilderness; a sketch of a symbol used to represent Hestia, Greek goddess of the home and hearth – and I use it as a spot to present offerings of food and drinks to them (Cernunnos likes Jägermeister, thus its presence in the picture above). As I understand it, the deities consume these offerings through their scent, much as Deborah Green describes the Abrahamic God doing in The Aroma of Righteousness. Sometimes, when I have no food to offer, I will offer nothing but scent. I might spray perfume over the altar or put a few drops of an essential oil on a scrap of paper, and let that be my offering for the day. If scent had no power to me, these offerings would mean nothing.