What Is Frankincense Used For? Ancient Smoke for Cleansing, Protection & Prayer

The ancients weren’t guessing. They burned frankincense because it worked.

Walk into a room heavy with tension, light a piece of this resin, and watch the atmosphere change. The air clears. The heaviness lifts. Your mind sharpens, and the space returns ceremonial.

That’s what frankincense has been used for—for over 5,000 years. Not as decoration. Not as perfume. But as a spiritual technology: a smoke that purifies, protects, and opens the channel to prayer.

So the question isn’t just what is frankincense used for? The real question is: are you using it?

What Is Frankincense Used For?

Frankincense is the hardened resin of the Boswellia tree. When burned on charcoal, it produces a smoke long recognized as medicinal.

Across traditions, frankincense has been used to:

• Cleanse and Purify – Clears stagnant energy from people, places, and objects
• Protect – Establishes spiritual boundaries against interference or negativity
• Deepen Prayer and Meditation – Calms the mind, focuses attention, and opens the heart
• Support Healing – Traditionally used to ease breathing, strengthen immunity, and restore balance

Frankincense is not perfume. It is presence. It transforms ordinary air into sacred ground.

Origins of Frankincense

Frankincense has traveled the world with humanity’s prayers.

• Middle East & North Africa: Caravans once carried Boswellia resin across deserts to temples and shrines. It was burned as an offering to Gods and ancestors.
• Christianity & Judaism: Frankincense was offered in temples, used in burial rites, and gifted to Christ at birth as a symbol of divinity.
• Egypt: Egyptians burned frankincense in ceremonies and used it in embalming as a way to preserve the body for the soul’s journey.
• Amazon: In Brazil, Indigenous tribes honor a jungle variety called Breu Branco, burned to cleanse the body and call in protection before plant medicine ceremonies.

Wherever the resin appears, its purpose is the same: purification, protection, prayer.

The Amazonian Answer: Breu Branco

At Four Visions, we work with Breu Branco, an Amazonian frankincense sourced in partnership with Indigenous communities. For generations, wisdom keepers in Brazil have used Breu Branco for:

• Clearing dense energy from the body before ceremony
• Strengthening spiritual protection during prayer and sleep
• Anchoring the altar with clarity and potency

Breu Branco smells softer than the sharper varieties from Africa and the Middle East. It carries a grounding, citrus-earthy aroma that settles the nervous system and brings the jungle into your space.

When you burn Breu Branco, you’re not just lighting resin—you’re aligning with a tradition carried in prayer through centuries.

How to Use Frankincense in Ceremony

Burning frankincense is a simple, but powerful practice:

1. Place a charcoal disk in a fireproof bowl.
2. Light it until it glows red.
3. Place a small piece of frankincense resin on the coal.
4. Allow the smoke to rise.

Use the smoke to cleanse yourself from head to toe. Walk it through your home, into corners and across thresholds. Sit with it in prayer or meditation.

The smoke is the offering. Your prayer is the invitation.

Why You Need Frankincense Today

The modern world is flooded with noise. Heavy energy seeps into your home, your mind, your body. You feel it every time you try to pray and can’t focus, every time you walk into a room that feels off, every time your thoughts feel clouded. When you ask yourself, what is frankincense used for? Remember this:

Frankincense cuts through this frequency.

This is why it has survived for millennia. Because it works. It clears what does not belong. It resets your space and your energy. It restores clarity necessary to move forward strong and protected.

Bring Home Your Brazilian Healing Resin

At Four Visions, we don’t sell cheap incense sticks or diluted oils.

Our Breu Branco Frankincense is harvested with prayer by Indigenous communities in Brazil who approach the resin with reverence and reciprocity. Each piece you burn is part of an unbroken lineage of medicine keepers.

When you burn Breu Branco, you aren’t just lighting resin—you’re reclaiming a practice that has purified and protected for thousands of years.

Explore Breu Branco Frankincense at Four Visions Today

Because your altar deserves more than decoration. It deserves presence. Protection. Power.

*None of this information has been approved by the FDA. This content is for educational and spiritual purposes only.