Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (26 page)

Gardens of the Gods and Herbs of the Witches

Mount Olympus, the holy mountain of the sages of antiquity, rises precisely on the border between Thessaly, the ancient home of the magicians and witches, and Macedonia. The mountain is 2,917 meters high
¹⁹
and can easily be seen from the train that travels to Thessaly:

“The Greek word
wotani
stood for the meadow herb, grass. This is where the modern scientific plant science, botany, gets its name. Homer’s botany was restricted to the groves sacred to his gods, the wondrous herbs of his mythological figures, or to the allegorical plants he was drawn to.”

—H
ELLMUT
B
AUMANN
,
D
IE GRIECHISCHE
P
FANZENWELT
[T
HE
G
REEK
W
ORLD OF
P
LANTS
], 1982

It is the eternal seat of the everlasting gods, high above the storms, rain, and snow, surrounded by a brilliant blue and enveloped by a radiant light. There, in the circle of his gods, Zeus rules with Hera, Hermes, Athena, and Artemis in golden palaces, surrounded by the sounds of Apollonian music played by immortal beings, filled with the blessed joy of the divine. The muses, daughters of Zeus, dance their circle-dance and sing their songs in the wooded cliffs of the mountain (Petermann, 1990: 13).

On Olympus there grew the “garden overflowing with the fruits of mighty Zeus” (Apollonius,
Argonautica
III.160f.). This mountain is also where the
dodecatheon,
²⁰
or “twelve-god-herb,” grows. Pliny placed this strange, not yet identified “plant of the gods” immediately behind the hermetic magical plant
moly:

After moly the plant with the highest reputation they call dodecatheon, as a compliment to the grandeur of all the twelve gods. It is said that taken in water it cures all diseases. Its leaves are seven, very like those of the lettuce and sprouting from a yellow root (
Natural History
XXV.28).

It is possible that the plant was a species of
Lactuca
(for example, the psychoactive prickly lettuce
Lactuca virosa
L.). Lettuce was one of the sacred plants of the ancient Egyptians and was often named as an ingredient in the witches’ salves.

Marcellus (c. C.E. 400), the Latin author from Gall, wrote in his recipe book
De medicamentis
that the dodecatheon was also called
donax
(XXVII.7). Conceivably he meant the giant reed (
Arundo donax
L.), the sacred plant of Pan, the joyous nature god who was transformed by the Christians into an image of the devil (Borgeaud, 1988). It was recently discovered that the root-ball of the
Arundo donax
contains the highly potent psychedelic compound DMT (cf. Rätsch, 1997b). In earlier times the twelve-god herb had already been identified as primrose (
Primula elatior
[L.] Hill or
Primula veris
L.) and sometimes as butterwort (
Pinguicula vulgaris
L.).
²¹
In Germanic tradition the primrose is inhabited by nixes, elves, undines, and naiads (Dierbach, 1833: 176f). It is also one of the Germanic plants of the gods, as well as one of the magical herbs of the Celts.

Primrose was used by the druids for their
drink of enthusiasm
. It must be picked before the new moon and mixed with vervain, blueberries, moss, wheat, clover, and honey. The new young priestesses heated the drink with their breath until it began to smoke (Perger, 1864: 174).

The primrose, known in German as
Schlüsselblume
(key flower) or
Himmelsschlüssel
(heaven’s key),
²²
is said to be a “key to heaven” or a flower of Saint Peter,
²³
and seems to have been one of the most important magical plants of the declining Middle Ages. The doctor Johannes Hartlieb, one of the earliest German authors of an herbal
²⁴
(fifteenth century), wrote about the primrose:

The herb is also called
Teufelspisse
(devil’s piss), because the root has holes in it where the devil has pissed through. Those who cook the herb in lye and then dunk their head in will have their stupidity vanquished and their brain strengthened, better than any other measure. The old women perform much magic with it, but neither shall I, nor should I say, anything about it (see Hartlieb, 1980: 33).

A few magical uses of primrose have been preserved in folklore: “Superstitions attribute secret magical powers to this plant, it can reveal places where great treasures lie hidden, and open up the entrance to them” (Gessmann, n.d.: 72f.).

Throughout the world certain plants, usually psychoactive nightshades (henbane, thorn apple, belladonna, angel’s trumpet) are given similar attributes. They always have to do with the plants of the gods or goddesses: “If the primrose reveals where treasure lies, then often a feminine figure appears, at the same time she is the key virgin, who symbolizes Freya [the Germanic goddess of love], for a key also lies hidden in the crown of this goddess” (Perger, 1864: 175).

Just as the Germanic goddess of love was a key bearer, Hecate also had possession of the keys to the three realms of the world, most important to heaven or Olympus (Kraus, 1960). Her keys were the magical plants that were sacred to her: the psychoactive plants, especially those of the Nightshade family.

Primrose remains a common medicinal herb in folk medicine. A tea is made from the flowers and leaves and is taken for insomnia, dizziness, neuralgia, migraines, and headaches (Marzell, 1935: 25). A decoction of the roots (a heaping teaspoon per cup) was recommended as an expectorant (Pahlow, 1993: 282). The house doctor of Johann Joachim Becher, the elector of Bavaria, gave effusive praise to the medicinal herb:

The primrose it warms, it dries and it soothes,

for quieting pain, for a wound give it soon.

It expels the gout, for bad animals bite,

primrose is valued as precious and right.

—
P
ARNASSUS MEDICINALIS ILLUSTRATUS

[T
HE
I
LLUSTRATED
M
EDICINALS OF
P
ARNASSUS
], 1662

According to other sources the dodecatheon was a medicine prepared with twelve plants. It was effective against all illnesses—a panacea (Baumann, 1982: 115). Perhaps this preparation of twelve sacred plants contained herbs that were each, in turn, sacred to one of the twelve Olympic gods (see table above). The flowers should be gathered by the dryads, the nymphs who live in the trees, and given to humans so that they will have an effective remedy against melancholia. It is possible that this divine preparation, which was definitely psychoactive, could transport the partakers to Olympus.

It is entirely conceivable that dodecatheon was an elixir with a wine basis. Perhaps simples (such as oak bark, lily root, henbane leaves, mugwort herbage, myrtle leaves, mandrake root, blades of grass) were steeped in wine. Finally, opium was dissolved into pine resin and olive oil was mixed in, giving the elixir multidimensional activity; it could have been a primordial form of Swedish bitters. Interestingly, over the course of history nearly all of the plants of the Olympic gods have been demonized and classified as witches’ herbs. In addition to the different plants identified with moly (thorn apple, belladonna, rue) are others that were later used as additives in the witches’ salve (opium, olive oil, mandrake, wine, incense).