Touching the Aether
A short essay on olfactory delights that keep us human, and connects us to the unseen.
In a post-factual era of science and evidence deniers, especially in light of recent (and ongoing) events in politics and humanity, I find joy in escaping into mysticism, myth and “dead things”.
My sense of nostalgia has shifted from longing to be a few decades ago, to be transported back over 5 centuries or even millennia ago. As I always say, smelling things is the best way to conjure a dreamscape or travel anywhere or in this case, any “when”.
In search of the meaning of life, our purpose as the human race, secrets and god particles alike, I often reach back to my Alchemy books, and this time I’ve found an interesting resonance between the ether or quintessence and scents.
Per fumum- through smoke, we connect to the untouchable, the unseen. It doesn’t have to be mystical or magical, if you like- think of it rationally.
Our sense of smell is directly linked to the limbic system, a part of the brain involved in emotion, memory, and behavior, through the olfactory bulb. This unique pathway allows smells to bypass the thalamus, creating an immediate and powerful connection to emotional and autobiographical memories, making it the most primordial and strong sense, able to evoke exact feelings, memories even from the time of our birth.
Unfortunately, this precious, nature given ability has been majorly overlooked and neglected, and also suppressed by capitalism, and our modern lifestyle.
The Birth of Product
With the industrial revolution and mass production, our every day lives became more supported by instant or readily available household items. A great, somewhat boring example I love mentioning are eggs. A few years ago I saw an amazing new way of trying to dodge food waste by the company ‘Too Good To Go’ producing scented stickers for eggs, indicating an off or rotten egg smell. So basically, instead of relying on an expiry date (that could be wrong) you have a scented sticker on the packaging as a reference to compare to your eggs. This initiative implied that people stopped using their sense of smell for things like that, so we use or noses less ad less as we don’t need to rely on it to survive anymore. This results in a loss of a great skill, a guiding tool we still use on a subconscious level, but really, would be so beneficial if used consciously.
A Library of Smells
When a perfumer is studying or training, they build a mental library, an archive of smells in their heads that could consist of thousands of different scents. Not perfumes, scents. When you use your nose in a mindful way, you connect to an unseen world. You are surrounded by secrets, obvious truths, beautiful or repelling things. Imagine walking through a busy street in a city… you may catch the smell of a businesswoman who smells strongly of laundry detergent, rushing to work, or the sweet, musty smell of pigeons fighting over crumbs of an abandoned croissant. This side of life is fueled by memories and references, so if you’re interested in using it consciously, you need to catalog and revisit smells all the time. No equipment needed.
Evoking an Image
The next level of smelling the world in a mindful, artful way is being able to use language to describe them, and then to use that language to find or identify scents for whatever purpose. One example is when people choose a new, specific perfume for their wedding day that they’ve never used before, nor will they use it after. The point of this is that every time they’ll want to feel or reminisce of their wedding day, they can revisit the perfume and smell it for it to take them right back to that day. This method works in reverse, smelling scents that were around at a time of trauma can be extremely triggering.
However, the gift of it all is that you don’t need a lot of money or skill to be able to use scents to relive past events or imagine yourself in fantasy worlds even. You just need to identify the smells linked to what you want to feel… a bit of research, smelling, maybe books or asking around and you’ll get there.
Using Scent in Film - The Ultimate Conjuring
There are very few people in the world who work as a perfumer, apparently there are more astronauts than perfumers. There are even less people who work with fragrances within the film industry ( I couldn’t name more than three including myself). Most might raise an eyebrow or two, but honestly, I can imagine it to be a standard in a few years’ time for shooting film.
It’s an invisible art form that has centuries of history and science backing it. Some may think being on set of a film production is glamorous and sometimes it can be, but mostly it’s a lot of physical work or standing around, unpleasant smells oozing from costumes or machinery, and patience leaving every single body by the 13th hour.
Filming period/historical pieces or fantasy/sci-fi is where using scent as a tool to convey a character, the sense of a place or event can come in, especially if it’s being filmed on a sound stage or in green suits. It’s not about not trusting the actors’ craft or imagination, nor about doubting their ability to deliver the right performance, it’s simply a new, mindful way of aiding them, an artistic gesture.
Imagine filming Game of Thrones, a set made up of a green screen, with a green hydraulic blob functioning as a dragon, with the actor having to ride it, and picture she’s flying over an imaginary city, burning it all down. And the scene takes 3 days to film. Wouldn’t it be helpful and fascinating to scent the entire studio with a scent of burning wood and hair, melting stone, flying ash and so on?
There are endless possibilities within this concept and as Perfumery as an art form is becoming more and more respected, also sometimes linked to films (for example, Nosferatu officially collaborated with the brand Heretic to create a limited edition perfume) I think there’s so much to discover and discuss.
Conclusion: ‘If in doubt, follow your nose’
I’ll leave you with this marvelous quote from Gandalf himself as it sums up the entire topic and message of what I was trying to convey. I’m determined to educate people within my close vicinity about the art of smelling and also want to work with more directors and filmmakers using this unique technique because trust me, it’ll be big one day.
A Fascinating, more scientific read about capturing and remodeling ancient scents:
‘Scents are worth preserving because they can illuminate the past in ways that pictures and documents can’t.’
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i47/science-help-us-smell-past.html
Related book recommendation:
Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nose-Dive-Field-Worlds-Smells/dp/0340963220
Link to Heretic’s webshop, offering their limited edition scent for Nosferatu
https://hereticparfum.com/products/nosferatu?srsltid=AfmBOootv3mDmasgd7R1RVCX7Y7hXRLVU_gZejp83YBFyaS_BQAyEWgA
