Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (70 page)

⁴⁶
“The broad distribution of henbane demonstrates that the plant was cultivated for the preparation of an inebriating substance—most certainly the very oldest” (Meyer, 1894, in Höfler, 1990: 91).

⁴⁷
For this purpose the Nightshade family is usually used (
Datura
spp.,
Brugmansias
pp.,
Latua pubiflora
(Griseb.) Baillon,
Solanums
pp.,
Nicotianas
pp.), as are psilocybin-containing mushrooms (
Psilocybes
pp.). All of these plants were demonized during the witch mania (see appendix).

⁴⁸
She is also called Lucina, “the guardian of the bridal chamber” (Seneca,
Medea
1f.)

⁴⁹
The
Orphic Songs of the Argonauts,
also known by the title
Orpheus the Argonaut,
were created in late antiquity (c. fifth century C.E.) and were attributed to the legendary singer/shaman Orpheus—yes, the words were placed directly in his mouth. Orpheus speaks as the narrator and participant in the history in the first person singular. The epic mainly follows the
Argonautica
of Apollonius of Rhodius (Storch, 1997: 268).

⁵⁰
“Now by the path along the plain there stands near the shrine [of Hecate] a poplar with its crown filled with countless leaves whereon often chattering crows would roost” (Apollonius,
Argonautica
III.927ff.)

⁵¹
In the
Orphic Hymns
Hecate is invoked as the “Sea Queen in saffron clothing”; presumably she was considered identical to Aphrodite.

⁵²
In later Greek sources the garden of Hecate was usually perverted into the “sacred grove of Aries” (compare Apollodorus,
Library
I.9).

⁵³
So it was said by Hyginus (second century C.E.), the Roman of late antiquity. He had undoubtedly been influenced by Roman machismo and replaced the Great Goddess Hecate with the warrior god Mars/Aries.

⁵⁴
Many mushrooms are mycorrhizal, which means that they grow symbiotically with the roots of certain trees. Thus the fly agaric
(Amanita muscaria)
can only grow with birch (
Betulas
pp.) and pines (
Pinuss
pp.). The birch is one of the most important Eurasian World Trees and shamanic trees; the fly agaric associated with it is, or was, the most important Eurasian shamanic drug (Brosse, 1990: 41ff.).

⁵⁵
Gregorius of Nazianz (fourth century C.E.), in his poem to Nemesios (
Migne
XXXVII: 1571ff.), called the mysteries of Hecate as important as the Eleusinian, Dionysian, and Attic mysteries, as well as equal to the cults of Cybele, Isis, and Mithras.

⁵⁶
The songs of Orpheus were so bewildering that when the Moirai fell into their web “the history of the world truly stood still for a moment” (Maas, 1974: 289).

⁵⁷
In antiquity the elm was considered to be a transformed Hesperides (Apollonius,
Argonautica
IV.142ff.).

⁵⁸
Petronius reported of “oracular responses in time of plague urging the sacrifice of three or more maidens. These ate nothing but verbal dumplings coated in honey, every word and every deed sprinkled with poppy-seed and sesame! Students on this fare can no more acquire good sense than cooks living in kitchens can smell of roses.”

⁵⁹
“To understand the goddess Hecate—above all in ourselves—means to understand your own inner chaos. It means to undertake journeys in your own underworld, and get to know our dark sister there—she whose existence we are all too quick to deny” (Künkel, 1988: 9).

⁶⁰
Petronius wrote that the witches would “howl like a dog chasing a hare” (
The Satyricon
63).

⁶¹
“A magician can thus not get on without a parhedros: Only through him will anyone be able to become a proper sorcerer” (Graf, 1996: 100). In this way a sorcerer or magician is equivalent to a shaman.

⁶²
In a margin note Myrsios mentions the herb
peganon,
whose “odor can chase off snakes.” Peganon is the psychoactive rue (
Peganum harmala
L.), which was used in the mysteries, according to Nicander (Burkert, 1997: 215).

⁶³
“When someone says that the evil green stuff on the Thessalia soil and the arts of magic might be able to help, then he should try it. That is the ancient way of witchcraft” (Ovid,
The Art of Love
249ff.).

⁶⁴
Many concepts about the Thessalian witches from late antiquity can still be found in Africa. “For the Africans, magicians and witches are people who make use of unhealthy energy for their selfish goals at the costs of other members of the community. When someone has success where others have failed, that person easily falls under suspicion of having used magical means in order to secure his advantage. In its extreme, negative form ‘witchcraft’ is the general term for all that is evil and threatens to undermine and destroy normal social life. For this reason, those who believe in magic attribute the magicians with a number of negative characteristics. Such anti-societal blasphemers represent the opposite of virtuousness; as a rule sexual degeneracy, incest, and what is in our context particularly important—cannibalism—belong to the stereotypes of the sorcerer” (Lewis, 1987: 373).

⁶⁵
It is not a “flower,” as it has been falsely identified in the literature (for example, Baumann, 1982: 12).

⁶⁶
“Don’t you know (she) is a witch; she knows Thessaliaan charms, and can draw down the moon; they do say she flies o’ nights” (Lucian,
Dialogues of the Hetaerae
I).

⁶⁷
“Every witch who thought highly of herself was at least able to make the moon disappear from the sky; that means she could cause moon darkness” (Luck, 1962: 8).

⁶⁸
This practice was placed in the mouth of the witch goddess Hecate in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth
(act 2, scene 5): “Upon the corner of the moon / There hangs a vaporous drop profound: / I’ll catch it ere it come to the ground: / And that distill’d by magic sleights / Shall raise such artificial sprites / As by the strength of their illusion / Shall draw him on to his confusion.”

⁶⁹
In Serbia numerous recipes for similar love charms, which were attributed to the Thessalian witches, have been preserved into the twenty-first century. Included in the ingredient list is menstrual blood, vaginal secretions, bat blood, stork fat, dragon fat, apples, excrement, and more (Krauss, 1906).

⁷⁰
“The Androphagi (‘man-eaters’) are the most savage of men, and have no notion of either law or justice. They are herdsmen without fixed dwellings; their dress is Scythian, their language peculiar to themselves, and they are the only people in this part of the world to eat human flesh” (Herodotus,
The Histories
IV.106).

⁷¹
The accusation that witches ate humans is found throughout many cultures (Lewis, 1989). Today cannibalism is usually represented as a colonial fantasy. But there are also theories that some humans body parts, particularly the brain, are psychoactive, and that eating them played a large role in the evolution of human beings (Linzenich, 1983).

⁷²
“During the initiation of a witch in Northern Italy the candidates drink a brew made up of the excrement of the giant tortoise, hair and ashes …” (Graf, 1996: 103).

⁷³
The witches were her servants too, just as they were to Hecate, the goddess: “there are women about with superhuman powers who flit around by night and bring down the firmament from above” (Petronius
, The Satyricon
63).

⁷⁴
It is usually assumed that Asia Minor was the homeland of Hecate (cf. Kraus, 1960).

⁷⁵
Certain followers of the Kali cult, for example, the aghoris, fed their kundalini serpent by taking hemp daily. They also sprinkled cobra poisoning (cobratoxin), which contains, among other substances, neurotoxins, enzymes, and cholinesterase, on the hemp herbage to make it more potently inebriating (Rätsch, 1992: 30).

⁷⁶
In the Kathmandu Valley (Nepal) belief in witches who are able to cure illness is widespread. The witches
(bokshi)
are mostly women who have devoted themselves to black magic and the dark side of Kali. They send their souls out in order to take over their chosen sacrifice. The possessed man will become sick as the bokshi eats all of his meals and thereby steals his energy. Thus she slowly plagues him to death (Wiemann-Michaels, 1994). When a sickness is recognized as bokshi possession, a shaman or a tantric priest is called to perform an exorcism (cf. Nepali, 1988: 338f.).

⁷⁷
In archaic times a vigorous cultural exchange took place between India and Greece. Many Asian concepts infiltrated the early European world. These connections are addressed with great insight by Danielou (1982).

⁷⁸
In the Orphic worldview of late antiquity the universe was born from an egg wrapped with a snake. Tantric images are reminiscent of “the world egg of the Orphic mysteries which was split open by the Demiurge to make the universe. … For the creation of the world, according to the Orphics, resulted from the sexual act performed between the Great Goddess and the World-snake Ophion. The Great Goddess herself took the form of a snake and coupled with Ophion. … The Goddess then laid the world egg which contained infinite potentiality, but which was nothing in itself until it was split open by the Demiurge. The Demiurge was Helios, the Sun, with whom the Orphics identified their god Apollo—which was natural, because the sun does hatch snakes’ eggs—and the hatching-out of the world was celebrated each year at the Spring festival of the Sun.” Robert Graves,
The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth
(New York: Octagon, 1972), p. 248.

⁷⁹
There is also a belladonna lily (
Amaryllis belladonna
L.), which is very poisonous (Gawlik, 1994: 149).

⁸⁰
Mandrake also grew in the garden of the Egyptian goddess of love: “Love, passion, and intoxication are united in the domain of Hathor” (Hugonot, 1992: 19).

⁸¹
She took on the form of a priestess of Artemis for her sorcery (Hyginus,
Myths
).

⁸²
According to Apollodorus (
Library,
I.5), Demeter also had a wagon pulled by winged dragons with which she could fly through the air.

⁸³
Narthex
, or giant fennel (
Ferula communis
L.)
,
the “umbel of Dionysius,” is similar in appearance and aroma to true fennel but grows up to four meters high. The woody, hollow stems were used to make the Dionysian thyro-staffs. On one hand, they were the emblem of the Dionysian cult; on the other, they were subsequent forms of archaic shamanic and magical staffs. According to the sagas the Titan Prometheus brought the gift of fire to the humans with the help of narthex. The jealous Zeus wanted to prevent Prometheus from giving everything that the gods possessed to the humans. But Prometheus stole some embers from Hephaistos’ divine smithy, which he carried to Earth in the marrow of a narthex stem. The dried stem is easy to ignite but the mark burns very slowly, so that the stems are actually suitable for transporting fire. The use of fennel stems as symbols and bestowers of fertility continued into the early modern era during the witch trials. In northern Italy the heathen Benandanti, who was persecuted as a “witch,” preserved the machinations of the thyro-hurling Maenads (Ginzburg, 1980).

⁸⁴
Mühlmann considers her to be a “Scythian shaman” (1984: 74).

⁸⁵
”For you I bare my breast according to Maenadian custom, slice into my arms with sacrificial knife,” speaks Medea in a prayer to Hecate (Seneca,
Medea
805ff.).

⁸⁶
The Medea saga was used by, among others, Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872) as a trilogy (
Das Goldene Vließ,
1818–1820), Hans Henny Jahnn (1894–1959) as a tragedy (
Medea,
1931), Dagmar Nick (born 1926) as a story (
Medea, ein Monolog,
1988), Christa Wolf in a novel (
Medea—Stimmen,
1996), and Ljudmila Ulitzkaja as a novel (
Medea and Her Children,
1996). The Medea material was often used for operas (for example, Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s
Médée,
Luigi Cherubini’s
Medea
, and Giovanni Simone Mayr’s
Medea in Corinto
) and has inspired many songs, including Louis-Nicolas Clerambault’s “Médée,” Antonio Caldara’s “Medea: Kantaten für Kontratenor solo,” Jirí Antonin Benda’s “Medea Melodrama,” and Edison Denison’s “Choeurs pour Médée.” The story of Medea was also written as orchestral music in such pieces as Vincent d’Indy’s
Médée suite d’orchestre
and Samuel Barber’s
Medea Suite
.