Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (27 page)

Other plants have also been associated with Olympus. Dierbach classified rosemary (
Rosmarinus officinalis
L.) as a “flower of the Olympians” because the aromatic herb was burned as incense
(libanotis)
for the Olympian gods (1833: 163 f.).
²⁵
At the same time Saint John’s wort, more precisely Olympian Saint John’s wort (
Hypericum olympicum
L.), was also associated with the holy mountain.
²⁶
It has often been identified with
Panakos Cheironion,
the “panacea of the centaur Chiron” (Baumann, 1982: 118), which is an effective antidote for snakebites (Dioscorides,
Materia medica
III.50).

The classical name of
dodecatheon
was later adapted by Linnaeus as a genus name in his system of botanical classification. The genus
Dodecatheon
is in the Primulaceae family and encompasses many species native to North America. In German they are called
Götterblumen
(flowers of the gods), while in English they are known as shooting stars. Native North Americans made a tea out of the leaves of the pretty shooting star
Dodecatheon pulchellum
(Raf.) Merr. (syn.
D. radicatum
Greene), and the
Dodecatheon alpinum
for colds (Tillford, 1997: 136).

The Garden of the Great Goddess

The garden is originally the domain of the woman. There she plants herbs, shrubs, and trees; there she tends to her medicinal plants; there she nurtures her contact with the Earth, the primordial Goddess, the mother of the plants.
²⁷
The Elysian fields are also gardens. In paradise—the enclosed garden,
²⁸
the heavenly garden—grows the tree of knowledge. In Hecate’s garden hangs the Golden Fleece; in Freya’s garden are the golden apples. The Goddess’s fruits bestow divine knowledge, grant a long life, and ensure good health. The tree of knowledge is the original World Tree, the sacred tree of the shamans through which we can travel to the beyond. What the ancient shamans and archaic mystics understood became demonized by the monotheists. The true tree of knowledge was planted by the gods and goddesses in the garden of the first humans so that the people, through the enjoyment of its fruits, could become intelligent and could be initiated into the secrets of life and death. Those who eat from the tree of knowledge in the correct way will be graced with visions of the divine splendor, the blessed paradise, and the Great Goddess herself will be revealed. Shamans enjoy these fruits in order to open the gates to the other world. The tree of knowledge is the original tool of shamanic medicine, as well as the most important medicinal plant in witchcraft medicine. For this reason the most famous witches’ herbs are the visionary plants—those that make it possible for healers to walk into the magical world and take up contact with the Great Goddess.
²⁹

“Sacred Earth Goddess, bearer of all natural beings, you who nurture everything and propagate daily, you alone offer the folk protection, you who rules over heaven and ocean and over all things … For good reason you are named the Great Mother of the Gods, because you conquer the divine beings with tender love … The plants, which your majesty grows, are given to all people for the sake of their salvation—leave to me your medicine. Let it come to me with all of your healing power. All that I make with it shall it be effective. When I give this medicine to those who receive it from me, let them all become healthy.”

—
M
EDICINA ANTIQUA
,
FOLIO 9V
(Z
OTTER
, 1980)

Eve is not only the first woman, but also the first witch. She was originally the creation or the daughter of the Great Goddess and was simultaneously her first priestess. Thus she knew the effects of the sacred tree and offered its knowledge-giving fruit to Adam, the first man and the first mystic. Through the enjoyment of the fruit
³⁰
he was initiated into the mysteries of the Great Goddess and was filled with the understanding of the feminine role in creation.

The Great Goddess has many forms and many names, depending on the times and the influences of culture. During antiquity she was revealed in the Elysian cults as Demeter, in the Zypriotic orgies as Aphrodite, in the Dionysian festivals of Orpheus as Hecate
³¹
(Maass, 1974: 176f.). In the
Metamorphoses
of Apuleius, Isis, the Egyptian goddess and sister/wife of Osiris, reveals herself in all her splendor to Lucius, the hero of the picaresque novel of late antiquity, and during the initiation spoke:

Behold, Lucius, moved by your prayers I have come, I, the mother of the universe, mistress of all the elements, and the first offspring of the ages; mightiest of deities, queen of the dead, and foremost of heavenly beings; my one person manifests the aspect of all gods and goddesses. With my nod I rule the starry heights of heaven, the health-giving breezes of the sea, and the plaintive silences of the underworld. My divinity is one, worshipped by all the world under different forms, with various rites, and by manifold names. In one place the Phrygians, first-born of men, call me Pessinuntine Mother of the Gods, in another the autochthonous people of Attica call me Cecropian Minerva, in another the sea-washed Cyprians call me Paphian Venus; to the arrow-bearing Cretans I am Dictynna Diana, to the trilingual Sicilians Ortygian Prosperina, to the ancient people of Eleusis Attic Ceres; some call me Juno, some Bellona, others Hecate, and still others Rhamnusia; the people of the two Ethiopias, who are lighted by the first rays of the Sun-God as he rises every day, and the Egyptians, who are strong in ancient lore, worship me with rites that are truly mine and call me by my real name which is Queen Isis (Apuleius,
Metamorphoses
XI.5).

Unfortunately Apuleius, who knew about witchcraft medicine and who was accused of sorcery because of this,
³²
has provided us with no information about the fruit of knowledge that his hero had eaten before experiencing the divine revelation. It has been speculated that the mystery cults
³³
used psychoactive substances in order to induce psychedelic visions (Wasson et al., 1984; Needham, 1986; Smith, 1970).
³⁴
At the same time it is quite likely that the preparations were made from plants that are sacred to the gods and goddesses (see box on page 89). Very probably they were used in the rites of Deo, the Minoan Great Goddess, who became Demeter in Greece (Kerényi, 1976 and 1991). During intoxicated temple orgies psychoactive mandrake beer was enjoyed in honor of the love goddess (Fühner, 1925; Rätsch, 1994 and 1996b).

“Oh Vervain! Let your work be in our favor,

And let your blessings rest on the witch or the elf who gave you to me!”

—C
HARLES
L
ELAND
,
A
RADIA
—

D
IE
L
EHRE DER
H
EXEN
[A
RADIA
—T
HE
T
EACHINGS OF THE
W
ITCHES
], 1979

In the Orphic mysteries and other Dionysian rituals it is possible that psychedelic mushrooms were ingested (Ruck, 1982; Wohlberg, 1990).

The Sacred Herbs of Isis

The original Egyptian goddess Isis is called the “the one with magical power,” “the magical being,” and the “great sorceress.” She was the goddess “with the thousand names.” She was “great with magical powers,” and had the reputation of intelligence, cunning, wisdom, and perseverance. Her soul was identified with Sirius, just as the astral soul of her brother, Osiris, was identified with Orion. There was a plant, which unfortunately has not yet been botanically identified, that was known as the “protection of Isis.” In late antiquity the Great Goddess was depicted as a snake (cobra),
³⁸
and thus symbolizes the mystical power of the serpent. Therein she is equal to Hecate and the Asian Kali (cf. Mühlmann, 1984). Isis lives on in the image of the Mother Mary with the baby Jesus.

Isis was all-knowing. Even the secret name of the sun god Ra, the most inner secret of the energy of life, was discovered by her—thanks to her magical powers and cleverness. This is why she was
the
Goddess of the Mysteries (Giebel, 1990). Many prayers to the Great Goddess and magical healers have been preserved. For example: