At a lavender festival, many years ago, I was browsing through a small shop of essential oils and came across an aromatherapy pamphlet. It wasn’t thick, so I picked it up, and started to peruse through it. It started with a high-level physiological explanation. Then it made a declaration that stuck with me ever since: the sense of smell is the only sense where the brain touches the environment directly. From that context, aromatherapy was then explained. The aromatherapy pamphlet discovered at that festival, talked about the primitive brain and how this simple system of chemo-receptors common in the most primitive creatures from amoeba to insects are a direct link to the mysterious systems of the subconscious. The art that is aromatherapy is the art of using this pathway to directly influence these primal systems for our own well-being. The whole thing was all kind of loosely proven and lacked scientific references, but yet intuitively, it seemed to go in an agreeable direction. Touching the world with our brain It would indeed seem that the brain is reaching …