After the incense is mixed, it will need to sit in a sealed glass jar in a dark place for 13 days before incense is used for the first time. Often a few drops of an essential oil with a compatible scent is added to any incense to help it "season" in the jar. [The orginial recipe suggested "Bouquet X116" as a scent, but it is no longer made. I'm guessing patchouli and sandalwood essential oils would mix well. The recipe likewise suggested adding 4 ounces of wood base which should be tinted purple and 1 ounce of saltpeter. The saltpeter is not necessary if the mixture is burned on charcoal.]
To use this incense, the practitioner takes one white taper candle firmly set in a candleholder, matches, incense charcoal, sand, incense charcoal burner, and a ceramic tile. He washes his hands. He lights the white taper. He pours the sand into the bottom of the incense burner. He sets the incense burner on the ceramic tile. Holding one side of the charcoal, he holds it in the candle flame. He places the crackling and glowing charcoal on the sand in the incence burner.
Facing east toward the direction of the rising sun, he should then grasp some "commanding" incense in his right hand, and firmly recite the words,"Allah Aye Allah Shimah," casting the incense onto the lit charcoal.
This chant must be repeated nine times, each time casting more incense upon the lit coal. Each time he must firmly fix his mind on that which he desires to command.
When it is done he must douse the lit charcoal in clean water and again wash his hands.
For those who are wondering about the chant, not all the African slaves transported to America were from tribes that practiced tradtional African religions. Some were Muslims and some bits from Islam were absorbed into the melting pot of African-Amercan spiritual practice.
"Allah" is the God of Islam and "Shima" was the foster sister of the Prophet Muhammad. I have no idea what this chant is supposed to mean. I read it back in the 1970's in Anna Riva's Voodoo Handbook of Cult Secrets, 1974. She apparently acquired the chant from Lewis de Claremont, Legends of Incense, Herb and Oil Magic, 1936. It is possible that the chant is Arabic, garbled to the point of complete nonsense.
Commercially-made "commanding" incense can be found in numerous spiritual supply stores and it is used by practitioners of hoodoo. This recipe for "commanding" incense is from Lewis de Claremont, The Ancient Book of Forumulas, 1940, and, no, I have never tried to make it. "Winter's bark" is also known as "Winter's cinnamon" and "true Winter's bark" and it alledgedly does have sort of a cinnamony smell, but is not cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum). I have included this spell largely for informational purposes. More than one source stated that "weak willed" individuals ought not use "commanding" incense. As I said, the recipe is from Lewis de Claremont's The Ancient Book of Forumulas and the chant is from Anna Riva's Voodoo Handbook of Cult Secrets, but different forms of the "commanding" ritual is found all over the web on sundry hoodoo sites and in numerous books.
Lewis de Claremont, The Ancient Book of Forumulas, 1940
Lewis de Claremont, Legends of Incense, Herb and Oil Magic, 1936.
Anna Riva, Voodoo Handbook of Cult Secrets, 1974.