Smudging Has Medical and Spiritual Benefits

Anyone that starts on a spiritual practice learns about smudging with sage, juniper, lavender, palo santo wood, or with frankincense, myrrh, or any other number of products. Many incenses are also pure enough to be good smudging agents. Smudging is a way of clearing the energy or aura around one's self or around others to get rid of negative energy. Anecdotal evidence provides many reasons to keep smudging:

• The feeling of being lighter or clearer
• Feeling one can breath better
• Feeling that the space that was cleared is less dense then areas that are not cleared

However, there is now scientific evidence showing the benefits of smudging.  Because a remarkable 2007 study titled, "Medicinal smoke reduces airborne bacteria," published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, we now know that smudging may be one of the most powerful antiseptic technologies ever discovered.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

We have observed that 1 hour treatment of medicinal smoke emanated by burning wood and a mixture of odoriferous and medicinal herbs (havan sámagri=material used in oblation to fire all over India), on aerial bacterial population caused over 94% reduction of bacterial counts by 60 min and the ability of the smoke to purify or disinfect the air and to make the environment cleaner was maintained up to 24 hour in the closed room. Absence of pathogenic bacteria Corynebacterium urealyticum, Curtobacterium flaccumfaciens, Enterobacter aerogenes (Klebsiella mobilis), Kocuria rosea, Pseudomonas syringae pv. persicae, Staphylococcus lentus, and Xanthomonas campestris pv. tardicrescens in the open room even after 30 days is indicative of the bactericidal potential of the medicinal smoke treatment. We have demonstrated that using medicinal smoke it is possible to completely eliminate diverse plant and human pathogenic bacteria of the air within confined space."

Not only did the burning of medicinal herbs clear aerial bacterial populations by 94% within one hour, but a full day later, the closed room was still effectively decontaminated. Even more amazing, a full month later, seven other pathogenic bacteria in the open room were still non-detectable.  There is evidence that smudging is more effective than Lysol type air purifiers. 

Action Plan

Go out and buy some sage, sweet grass, lavender, or any combination, and give your home a good cleansing.  Post a comment telling the rest of us how it worked for you.

Many blessings.