Chariot's Wheels Incense is a one wizard operation located in northern Rhode Island. I've been a practicing occultist for most of my life, studying various forms of neo-paganism, Chaos Magic, Hermeticism and grimoire magic with a particular fondness for the PGM and the Chaos Magic art of servitors.
Incense is not a cheat code. - Dr Alexander Cummins
I started making incense for my first neo-pagan coven, and for personal use, many moons ago. This led to years of study and practice, developing my own methods and formulas and exploring various traditions from all over the world. I was overjoyed to present, twice, for The Salem Witchfest, on the history of incense use in magic and ritual and on the crafting of incense.
I have agonized over including this bit, as I hate the idea that I'm "name dropping" my good friend: John Dwyer. But, during the pandemic, John suggested that we collaborate. I'd sent him some of my incense and he enjoyed it. So we talked about what he'd like to see in an incense and I got to work creating what would become Smoking Sentinel. After some trials, and back and forth, I crafted 14 lbs of Smoking Sentinel and John designed and produced the packaging. The two batches of Smoking Sentinel that went up on John's record label's website sold out in minutes each time. I take absolutely no credit for that, that's all about John's rabid fans.
But, some of those fans came looking for my incense afterwards and the idea that I could, maybe, make a business out of it started to take shape.
Many years ago, I met Tommie Kelly: artist, musician, writer, wizard and all around magnificient human being. He introduced me to his website: Adventures in Woo Woo and the, then, somewhat nascent: Forty Servants. I was very happy to join on with original crew of admins for The Forty Servants Facebook Group (still an admin there, helping to keep the thread going even though Tommie left Facebook). Over the years, I've shared my incense with Tommie and toyed with the idea of creating blends for users of The Forty Servants. Tommie gave me his blessing.
I knew that I had to have blends for my top three Servants: The Witch, The Messenger and The Dead. Those, along with the singular Forty Servants blend, took several years to develop (with more in the works).
I've always realized that my efforts are somewhat niche and strongly represent my personal practice. But I think there's enough overlap out there, that many people will find something they can enjoy and use. I'm hoping to bring more to the table, both from my personal practice and hopefully some things with more general appeal.