A Magickal Herball Compleat.pdf - Magicka School

…internal use of Mandrake is very dangerous, it is better to bring about the sleep if need be
using the apples and fruits of it, by just tasting them and not taking them into the body.
And, about henbane:
…ground freshly alone or mixed with malted barley and applied takes away all sorts of pains.
The juice pressed from the herb a handkerchief wetted therein and put onto the hot running and
painful eyes quenches the heat stops the flow and their pain. The juice or the seed oil put into the
ears quenches the stinging therein and the pain. But use these with great care…
So, we can see then that there is little evidence to show that Witches actually used
plants in the way that is attributed to them. Although they are written widely of in
the literature from the time of the Witch-Craze, it is usually with reference to the
preparation of drink, beauty products or medicine and there is no hard evidence
of more diabolical uses.
Plants of Oracular and Divinatory Importance
Many of the hallucinogenic plants already written of could be used in oracular and
divinatory work. Oracles are advice or prophecy from a divine source. They
require the use of a medium who transmits often ambiguous advice, which must
be interpreted by mortals. For example at Delphi, the pythia, or female medium,
would inhale the fumes of burning Henbane seeds before uttering god-given
prophecies that a male priest would arrange into hexameter verse [22]. Similarly,
shamanic trance-work in Northern Europe, aided by fly agaric, would also allow
the gods to communicate with the worldly and let them know what may be.
Divination, however, is the examination of patterns either in the heavens or on
Earth and deducing what will come to pass. So, for example, hazel nuts roasting in
a fire will either pop or burn and can be used to decide the answer to simple
questions such as, “Does he love me?” Where a popping hazel confirms he does
and a roasting one that he does not. Such fairly infantile divinatory methods
abound in folklore; another equally specious example is of maids during the
Michaelmas season carving a variety of possible suitor’s initials into crab apples,
then leaving them for sometime and coming back later to examine the state of
decay [23]. The idea being that the least rotted initials would be those of the best
suitor. A more sophisticated method of divination would be that of using complex
patterns of twigs or stalks, where certain patterns have already established
meanings, such as with regard to the I Ching, which, of course, uses yarrow stalks
[24].
Plants of Enchantment
The use of plants in matters of love falls into two distinct areas; love philtres,
where the idea is to utilise herbal preparations [25] to cause two people to come
together through the employment of occult forces, akin to a charm; and
aphrodisiacs, where the idea is to stimulate the sexual instinct through the
physiological effect of plants.
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