Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants (71 page)

⁸⁷
“For all those in the race of Helios were plain to discern, since by the far flashing of their eyes they shot in front of them a gleam as of gold” (Apollonius,
Argonautica
IV.725ff.).

⁸⁸
As moon and sun, Hecate and Helios are the parents of the race of witches (Kraus, 1960).

⁸⁹
In the
Odyssey
of Homer, Circe also called the magical drink kykeon (
The Odyssey
X.316).

⁹⁰
In the magic of late antiquity, as has been passed down in the magical papyri, small temples of juniper were built for magical rituals (Graf, 1996: 101).

⁹¹
This species of juniper is said to have also been sacred to Apollo (Dierbach, 1833: 203); thus it was another witches’ plant of the sun god!

⁹²
People today still dream of a magical remedy that will make them youthful again; at the moment many Americans think they have found it in Botox.

⁹³
There “Circe certainly is worshipped religiously by our colonists at Circei” (Cicero,
The Nature of the Gods
III.48, translation by Horace C. P. McGregor, New York: Penguin, 1984).

⁹⁴
Alder was unknown to Dioscorides, or, more precisely, it no longer belonged in the first-century medicine chests (cf. Lenz, 1966: 392f.).

⁹⁵
Propertius considers the “herb of Circe” to be a powerful aphrodisiac (
Elegy
II.1, 56ff.).

⁹⁶
On the island of Circe “beasts, not resembling the beasts of the wild, nor yet like men in body, but with a medley of limbs went in a throng … such creatures, compacted of various limbs, did earth herself produce from the primeval slime … in such wise these monsters shapeless of form followed Circe” (Apollonius,
Argonautica
IV.670ff.)

⁹⁷
Hermes was a shamanic deity, a soul guide, and the founder of the alchemical arts and erotic magic (Fowden, 1993; Kerényi, 1996). Perhaps Homer was describing a shamanic battle or a witches’ war, a widespread ethnographic phenomenon (see Knab, 1995; Multhaupt, 1990; Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1996).

⁹⁸
The word
peganon
or
peganum
is said to be derived from Pegasus. Pegasus was the winged horse of ancient mythology who was born of the sea god Poseidon/Neptune and the snake-haired Medusa.

⁹⁹
Lucian (c. 120–180 C.E.) described in his dialogue
Menippos
that during the invocation of the dead
(necromantia)
for oracle purposes the Persian-clothed priests or
magus
(magoi) used squill as a magical plant.

¹⁰⁰
Moly had already been symbolically interpreted during the Middle Ages: “The strange plant of the earth is man himself—with a powerful piece of his being he roots around in the dark of the chthonic realms, and only from the spiraling energy of this black root can the white flower of his bright consciousness spread out against the heavens. This is why there are rhizotomoki of the soul-life who show us how a black root can transform into a white flower, but who also teach us that even in the flower kissed by Helios the primordial energy is still preserved, which rises from the root according to secret laws of the spirits. … The human is the reborn rhizotomoki of the soul, an eternal and unwavering illuminate. Always there he must dig his own root out of the dark and hold it up to the light. For only in this way do the roots become medicinal” (Rahner, 1957: 230).

¹⁰¹
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mushrooms were interpreted as weeds of the devil, as the penand-ink drawing “the devil sows weeds” by Jacob de Gheyn II (1565–1629) clearly shows.

¹⁰²
The plant, which is native to Crete, is often confused with
Dictamnus albus
L. (burning bush), which was also called witches’ horn or devil’s plant.

¹⁰³
“In the Middle Ages dittany was used to make the famous Benedictine liqueur, and even in recent times mugwort wine was seasoned with the strong aromatic herb” (Baumann, 1982: 121).

¹⁰⁴
Usually goldenrod (
Solidago virgaurea
L., Compositae) is called heathen woundwort.

¹⁰⁵
Perhaps this name is an indication of the identity of the legendary Prometheus plant, which was also created by the blood of the Titan Prometheus.

¹⁰⁶
The buck is used as a symbol of intoxication and sex—on Attic vases, for example.

¹⁰⁷
The “trip” is one of the arts of the Greek
goetians,
or witches (Burkert, 1962): “An ancient shamanic motif is namely the ‘trip’ in an imaginary wagon. The ‘trip’ begins with a song. The goetians also took such a trip. This has been preserved as a motif over the centuries and was found everywhere the ancient Orphic traditions were still perceptible or some relic of the Orphic was yet tangible. The most defined … is found when Permenides is encountered. He took a trip beyond the thresholds, where the paths of day and night intersect, into the realm of the ‘goddess,’ the lady. … This trip or journey of the shaman, or more precisely of the Mycenian
goetia,
is so identified with the song that the [Greek] expression for ‘trip’ is also a common word for ‘song’” (Böhme, 1970: 303). The goetians had the ability to transform themselves into wolves (Burkert, 1997). “It appears that these people practice magic, for there is a story current among the Scythians and the Greeks that in Scythia once a year every Neurian turns into a wolf for a few days, and then turns back into a man again. I do not believe this tale; but all the same they tell it, and even swear the truth of it” (Herodotus,
The Histories
IV.105).

¹⁰⁸
Today in Nepal the sacred stones and the unshaped ones are placed in shrines for worship
(puja)
and smeared with pigment offering
(tika)
and clarified butter
(ghee).

¹⁰⁹
“It is generally assumed that Hera’s name is the Greek word for ‘lady,’ but it could also be the elided form of
He Era,
‘the earth.’ She was the pre-Hellenic ‘great goddess’” (Ranke-Graves, 1984: 42).

¹¹⁰
Ovid also described the ability of Hera/Juno to fly through the “air of the beautiful sky” (
The Metamorphoses
IV.475ff.).

¹¹¹
For example: “The magic … [flying] mushroom is used throughout the world for magical purposes, and the witches were no exception. They brewed tea and drank it then just before the witch gatherings, or also, in order to become prophetic” (York, 1997: 137).

¹¹²
“In the sixteenth century scholars such as Cardano or Della Porta formulated a different opinion: animal transformation, flight, manifestations of the devil, were the effects of malnutrition or the use of hallucinogenic substances that were found in decoctions of plant material or in salves. But these explanations have not yet clarified their fascinating effects. No kind of deprivation, no substance, no technique of ecstasy can, taken alone, induce the reoccurrence of such complex experiences. Contrary to all biological determination it is vital to stress that the key to this codified repetition can only be a cultural one. Of course, the deliberate ingestion of psychotropic or hallucinogenic substances does not entirely explain the ecstasy of the adherents of the night goddess, the werewolf, and so on, for their visions are not merely established in an exclusively mythical dimension. Can the existence of the framework of such rituals be established?” (Ginzburg, 1990: 296f.)

¹¹³
“That wonderful things appear in dreams. Take the blood of the wiedehopfen bird, smear the veins with it, the temples and the forehead, and lie down to sleep and you will see wondrous things while you sleep. The nightshades also have this same effect [
Atropa belladonna, Solanum
spp.] or mandrake herb
[Mandragora officinarum]
eaten at night, or the herb
apollinaris
[= henbane,
Hyoscyamus niger
] makes it possible to see beautiful, lovely things at night while you sleep. (Kräutermann 1725: 97). In a witch trial from 1758 the following ingredients of the salve were recorded: “Mandrake root, henbane seeds, nightshade berries, stomach seed juice [= opium]” (Grünther 1992: 24). In other words, a witch had admitted to having used the recipe from Kräutermann.

¹¹⁴
For this awareness I thank pharmacist Patricia Ochsner (personal communication).

¹¹⁵
The ancient dream interpreters were called
Drusus
and were regarded as part of the class of
magi,
or magicians (Graf, 1996: 53).

¹¹⁶
This entry is not included in the current edition.

¹¹⁷
Although the yew is regarded almost everywhere as highly poisonous, it is nevertheless used in ethnomedicine. In India a few pieces of bark are cooked with some salt and ghee to make a drink called
jya,
which bestows spiritual strength and vitality (Shah and Joshi, 1971: 4199). The Hindus also use the powdered bark for their
tilaka
(forehead mark).

¹¹⁸
It has sometimes been written that water hemlock is in and of itself psychoactive. As both
Conium maculatum
and
Ciruta virosa
are two of the most thoroughly researched medicinal and poisonous plants, we can assume that the supposed pharmacological psychoactivity has not remained hidden for the past three thousand years. Both hemlocks contain highly toxic alkaloids, furanocumarine, and the bioactive polyacetylene (Teuscher, 1992).

¹¹⁹
According to Wyer the
faba inversa
is the plant “which the Italians call belladonna” (cf. Peuckert, 1960: 172).

¹²⁰
This plant was also used in the preparation of love potions (Gessmann, no year: 62).

¹²¹
Pastinaca
was the name for a poisonous freshwater stingray that has been associated with the poison mixing of the magicians (Graf, 1996: 68).

¹²²
In his book
The Oyntment That Witches Use
the English politician, philosopher, and writer Francis Bacon (1561–1626) discussed the recipe of the Italian Cardano, but underestimated the nature of the “rust,” for he replaced it with wheat flour. But the rust almost certainly was the wheat parasite, or even the ergot of rye (
Claviceps purpurea
[Fr.] Tul.)
.
Bacon also conjectured that the New World plants tobacco (
Nicotiana tabacum
L.
, Nicotiana rustica
L.) and thorn apple (
Datura stramonium
L.) were serviceable ingredients.

¹²³
The wine had different psychoactive plants or substances added to it (Ruck, 1982). There are a number of indications that the wine was “improved” with psilocybin-containing mushrooms. Orpheus, patron of the ecstatic cults, was often depicted wearing a Phrygian cap, which today is often considered a symbol for the potent psychedelic mushroom with the conical cap known as liberty cap
(Psilocybe semilanceata).
In the cathedral vault of the Historic Museum of Pfalz in Speyer there is a Thracian or Phrygian amphora from the fifth century B.C.E. It is made of bronze, the interior is gilded, and it is cast in the form of a mushroom cap (cf. Grewenig, 1996: 55).

¹²⁴
“A priestess from the Campania allowed men entrance to her mystery rituals, which had previously been exclusively for women. She performed five nighttime initiations per month. The men, according to Livius, fell into ecstatic physical movements and discharged prophecies. The women stormed to the Tiber river with their hair flying, dipped flaming torches into it and pulled them out burning again, for they had been previously dipped in sulfur and undissolved lime. Among them reigned the foundation of absolute freedom of the individual from the moral laws of society, ‘nothing was forbidden’ was their primary rule” (Giebel, 1990: 77). But the initiates were accused of cultivating “unharnessed promiscuity” and committing ritual murder.

¹²⁵
“The importance of the cauldron is demonstrated [by the fact] that among the followers of Sabazius, the Phrygian Dionysus, the cauldron-bearer was a position of honor” (Golowin, 1973: 107).

¹²⁶
The mystics of Dionysus carried white poplar garlands “because this tree grows in Hades” (Burkert, 1990: 85). Thus they are decorated with a sacred plant of Hecate.

¹²⁷
In Austria there is actually a Saint Anthony’s wine that is stored in consecrated vats, but it was stolen during a march of the troops of Wilhelms von Châtillon. This wine was used for the treatment of Saint Anthony’s fire. Unfortunately, it has never reappeared (Behling, 1957: 145).