A closer look
In 14th‑century Paris, the city watchmen carried hollow, perforated clubs filled with burning herbs to signal hour shifts. The sweet-smelling smoke doubled as fragrance and insect deterrent, but citizens soon saw it as a mystical purifier—an early air sanitizer born of superstition. This odd tool vanished when oil street lamps arrived, yet the impulse remained: cities still perform theatrical ‘cleansings’—today it’s disinfection fogs after pandemics or neon philosophies about digital detox. Every era reinvents its ritual smoke. History shows that technology rarely erases rituals; it modernizes their appearance. Look closer at your next ‘productivity cleanse’—you may be swinging a perfumed lantern from centuries ago without realizing it.
