An Herbal Altar: This is a sacred space that you use to honor the spirits of the plants. It can be a table or a cupboard with a flat surface (such as a hutch)—the design of the furniture you use is entirely up to you. If you are fortunate enough to have a shed or greenhouse area, your working herbal altar may be placed there. Practitioners may incorporate the altar and herbal storage together so that items for magick and ritual can be easily accessed. Often the altar is facing the east, but this is not a necessity. Working with herbs can be a messy process. There are those practitioners who opt to make most of their powders and blends in the kitchen using the portable powderboard as an altar for easy cleanup. There is no right way to honor the plants, create an altar, or make a powderboard. The universe loves creativity and beauty; enjoy the freedom!
Charcoal Tabs Designed to Burn Incense/Noncombustible Incense: Your herbal blends and powders can be burned loose on charcoal tabs nested in ash or sand in a firesafe bowl. Always double check all ingredients to ensure that the herbs you are using are non-toxic. For example, I would not add woodruff, mullein, wormwood, nightshade, or other poisonous herbs to an incense blend. You can make incense pellets out of your herbals for burning on charcoal tabs by adding a few drops of honey to the herbs or powder and rolling the mixture into small balls.
Choosing Herbal Ingredients
Although this book provides many formulas from my private collection, mastery comes with the design of your own recipes and the positive results of your work. We are fortunate to live in a time where we can draw from the knowledge of various cultures, societies, groups, and families that have published herbal books and information both in printed form and on the internet. This information includes correspondences (lists of herbs that vibrate well together, that blend well under particular astrological influences, or that have colors that positively affect the blend). As a student, you might wish to use this information or you may choose to rely on how you feel as you work with the herbs yourself. In the end, if your recipe works to assist in creating your intent, then that formula is considered successful. See the appendix for herbal resource information.
Where to Work?
Although you may think that a ritual room or area is the answer, most practitioners I know work on their dining room table or in the kitchen, or, when the weather is beautiful, outdoors on a patio, porch, by a ritual fire pit, or in the garden shed. I’ve used all those places, including my home office on occasion. Yes, powders can be made in a ceremonial environment on an altar; but, they also lend themselves extremely well to where your heart is, and your heart is usually in the center of your home, which is either the dining room or the kitchen. These are also easy places to clean up any mess as a result of the grinding, blending, and mixing process.
From interviewing several individuals all over the country, I’ve learned that all of us use some kind of mat, tray, or plate for the final magickal blend and empowerment. For example, I learned a great deal of herbal magick firsthand from author Ray Malbrough. Years ago Ray taught me to use clay plates painted with various designs depending upon the need for activating my powders and herbal blends in our Spiritism work. I have a plate for general work, one for manifestation powders/blends and magicks, one for healing, one for petitioning my patron, etc. A friend of mine in Texas learned herbal magicks in Haiti. He uses a tray. The decoration and design of this surface is highly individual. I’ve also created a planetary board by burning the sigils of the planets on the surface of an oval piece of unfinished basswood and a runic board by using the same material and technique. I stained both boards with my own plant-based dye recipe, then added a sealer on the boards to withstand moisture. This way, I can use them from preparation through to spellcasting. I took my time with all these projects; the journey was half the fun!
Where to Start?
There is only energy that is affected by portals, gates, paths, and patterns. It is not human. It does not think. It just is.
Ray Malbrough taught me that the process in enchantment can be just as important as the actual magickal act. In the process of choosing, collecting, honing, deciding, blending, and mixing, intent is added to a working. If you have difficulty visualizing in ritual or meditation, then the props you use as well as the preparation you have done help to give your work the jolt it needs to form the required pattern of manifestation. The process in any magickal working (meaning the beforehand actions) contributes to solidify the goal you have chosen, as long as you haven’t cluttered the prep time with negativity, fear, or doubt.
Sometimes the longer you take to collect the necessary ingredients for a powder or herbal blend can actually help to dispel some of those unwanted thoughts. As you gather each item, you may become more excited about your project. This emotional joy and enthusiasm seeps into your work, encouraging it to gain power and momentum toward your desired conclusion. Sometimes I spend lots of time creating the containers that will hold my powders and herbal blends; I paint, Mod Podge, stain, sand, engrave, etc., letting my creativity flow. I add embellishments such as ribbon, natural or humanmade charms, and glitter (oh, how I dearly love glitter)! Tin, wood, or glass (I don’t use plastic because I want the greatest shelf life), I will spend hours making sure the container that will hold my finished powders and herbal blends is creatively pleasing. After all, to believe in magick, you must be willing to create!
Where to start when you wish to design a magickal powder or herbal blend? With your intent. What precisely do you want to draw toward yourself or push away? What is the issue you desire to work on? Are you looking for a particular object (such as a car, a computer, or a new pet), to fine-tune an ability (such as divination or dream work), or to enhance something about yourself (such as your creative potential)? Perhaps you need to solve a problem or create an energy field around yourself or a loved one (called protection magick or warding).
And herein lies the biggest hurdle in magick: clarity of purpose—knowing what we really want. Most humans, including myself, are pretty darned wishy-washy when it comes to goals: today we want this…no…wait, not that…perhaps the other thing…shoot! I have to do the laundry. I have to pick up my mother. I have to pay that electric bill. And even if you had that goal somewhat settled, well! Life takes over, and your thoughts tumble onward (but not necessarily upward), and we let go of the goal, just like that. Poof! Gone!
Sigh.
A magickal powder or herbal blend can be designed for any purpose; you need only to begin with clear intent. This is where your notebook, pad of paper, or 5x7 cards can come into play. When wording your intention, keep it clear and concise and include all the elements of your desire. I keep a pad of graph paper handy when designing my powders and blends. I might spend a few minutes or several days reworking my intent on this pad. I also write down things that come to mind during that time period: good quotes I hear, conversations from friends that I think are pertinent to what I’m working on, or thoughts I have of a spiritual nature that may help me to fine-tune my intent. Then, after I am satisfied with my goal as it is written (although I can still change it), I will work on collecting what herbs, additives, or oils that I feel will best match that intent. Once the working is done, I will write down the final formula, date, moon phase, and what sign the moon was in during the process in my powder/blend notebook. Like everyone else, sometimes I’m in a hurry and just make sure I put the right date so that I can look back later in an ephemeris to check out the moon sign or astrological energies I used.
Oh! And I doodle. Yes, I doodle while I am thinking, and many times I may use that same doodle drawing, pulverized, torn, or burnt, in my powder. Sometimes this doodle contains magickal sigils such as runes, a pentacle, or just spirals of lines and dots. These days, that’s my signature ingredient.
The Doctrine of Signatures
In discussing correspondences used in European occultism, the study of herbs can be traced from ancient Sumer (located in present-day Iran) and then
to the early Greeks. One of the first writers to address the field of plant medicine and its association of astrology and magick was Dioscorides, a Roman. His book, entitled De Materia Medica, was published around AD 77, approximately 2,000 years ago. For quite some time, future writers on the subject studied the author and his work rather than doing field experiments themselves. By the 1500s the European printing press was going full blast. Brave thinkers like Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535), Johannes Trithemius (1462–1516), and Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493–1541) were pushing the envelope of government and church guidelines. Rather than just reading and studying what had already been written, they did experiments on what they wanted to learn. Their work included alchemy, medicine, herbs, astrology, theology, and more. They reexamined the classical works such as Dioscorides and made revisions based on their own experiments. For plant lore, this meant traveling to other areas, talking to healers of different nationalities, and then bringing information back to test for themselves.
These men (Agrippa, Trithemius, and Paracelsus) and many of their contemporaries were confident that a world soul existed—that we are all linked together in some way. It is from this idea that the correspondences involving herbals, astrology, and magick were researched, developed, studied, and, most importantly, written down. It was Paracelsus who said that the body was not a separate thing but a house for the soul, and therefore the physician should treat both body and soul to turn the sick person into a well one. Today Paracelsus is considered the father of pharmaceutical chemistry, modern wound surgery, and homeopathy. He was also a magician who used folk remedies, amulets, talismans, and a variety of studies to heal his patients. He traveled all over Europe, talking to doctors, barbers (who often seconded as physicians), wise women, sorcerers, alchemists, nuns, bath attendants, magicians, knights, princes, kings, gypsies, and monks. From the low ranks to those of nobility, from the intelligent to the simple-minded, he collected as much information as he could for the purposes of healing. Paracelsus’s work, the doctrine of signatures, created correspondences that are still used today based on the plant’s family, the conditions in which it grew naturally, its shape, leaf type, root system, color, etc., and its effect on the body, both physically and spiritually.4
For example, one procedure to heal a skin disease was to mix the particular parts of four herbs together, then squeeze the juice into a bowl and add a small amount of soap. This is the medical part. The prescription goes on to instruct the healer to take a small amount of blood from the patient at sunset and pour it into running water. The healer then spits three times and says, “Take this disease and depart with it!” (Still common today in the realm of Braucherei, Hoodoo, Santería, Voudon, and more). The healer is also instructed to walk back to the house by an open road and to walk each way in silence. The timing and the procedure for transferring illness to running water, spitting, uttering words of banishment, and walking to and from the water in silence is clearly magickal5—or is it? There have been recent experiments wherein a drop of blood taken from the body and removed to another room will react to an event that the body is experiencing. How much of magick that seems so silly may be based in quantum science? We just haven’t gotten there quite yet!
Let’s look at that “walking in silence” part. In the science of the mind, we know that any conversation can change circumstances, muddle thoughts, and interject elements that we do not desire. In silence, an observer cannot change your mental activity. If you are the healer, you need to be focused on the healing—not on fear, not on failure, and not on what someone had for dinner last night who decides she must break the silence and tell you because she can’t stand not being the center of attention.
Silence is golden. Really. Golden light, empty of negativity. Let your mind wander on this one. Gold, the Braucherei preferred color. Gold, the rising of the sun (new energy). Gold, the setting of the sun (banishing, putting to rest). Gold, the height of noon-day power. Gold: winning, courage, loyalty. What scientific associations, as well as personal ones, can you find as a result of your own contemplation in that odd, old spell? What comes to mind when you think of the word gold? Gold also stands, astrologically, for the solar noon, a time of great power for magickal workings. The solar noon is when the sun is at its highest elevation in the sky. The clock time of the solar noon depends on your longitude and the current date. Some magickal practitioners feel that this time is best for success workings. There are apps you can put on your phone or other device that will tell you when solar noon occurs at your location.
Many practitioners work with the original doctrine of signatures, Culpepper’s Herbal, Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, Paul Beyerl’s A Compendium of Herbal Magick, and Catherine Yronwood’s Hoodoo Herbs and Root Magick: A Materia Magica of African-American Culture. You will also find herbal information from my own research in many of my books, including A Witch’s Notebook, Solitary Witch, HedgeWitch, and HexCraft. When you begin working with plants by creating your own formulas and blends based on size, color, shape, medicinal properties, growing experience, root examination, and experimentation, you are compiling your own doctrine of signatures. Have confidence!
One of these days, science, medicine, and magick will finally get together and rather than spitting at each other from opposite sides of the triangle, they will find enlightenment in the common ground that already exists but is just being ignored. Today, the doctrine of signatures is going to a whole new level in the interests of health, healing, and spirituality. We see more interest in Amazonian and Native American shamans and, in the process, spirituality and science. An example is the work of Julia Graves in her The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures, which you may find extremely useful in your spiritual practices.
Magickal Correspondences
All things everywhere consist of energy. This energy pulsates (fast or slow) in unique mathematical/geometric patterns. A correspondence is a relationship between two patterns either by size, shape, color, element, or historical lore. There are angelic, animal, herbal, gem, astrological, color, symbol, element, and deity patterns in modern magic, to name just a few. Patterns that are much like each other work well together and, when linked, build a network of energy you can use in your magickal operations. This system of light energy is usually referred to as patterns working in sympathy. Correspondences often fall into subcategories that relate to the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. Other categories used are those of gender; some planets, for example, are seen as feminine, and others as masculine. It is the same with herbs, gems, and stones. Gender doesn’t mean the item is just for boys or just for girls—here it can mean active energy (male) or passive energy (female).
The creation of the associations between items began in ancient Sumer. In their view, the arts and crafts had been revealed to them by the gods above and were unchanging. Everything must have its name to assure its place in the universe, and when you knew the “true” name of something, then you had power over it. In essence, they believed the name held the item energetically in place.
Among the earliest Sumerian documents are lists of stones, animals, and plants, classified on their outward characteristics. This belief was also paralleled by the ancient Egyptians. The advent of Christianity didn’t change the idea of linking names and energy patterns together. As I mentioned earlier, Paracelsus worked out his own doctrine of signatures in the 1500s by studying classical Greek and Roman writings and conducting his own research. In Braucherei healing magicks it is essential that the given name of the sick person be used, as to speak their name identifies the person to the universe and provides a clear pathway for the healing to take place along the name’s energy path. The individual’s name is to be spoken three times, thereby assuring the universe of the correct address to which the energy is to be sent. The doctrine of signatures took on a whole new face as Europeans and others immigrated to the United States. They brought plants with them to retain the
ir traditional beliefs; “in some cases, those imports had a significant impact on the country’s agricultural development.”6 They learned about plants here that they had never seen before and added Native American knowledge of indigenous plants, enhancing and improving the growing storehouse of information. Individuals of African and island descent brought their beliefs and their inventive style of turning everyday items into great objects of power. This cauldron of information, much of it by word of mouth, bubbled into many of the magickal correspondences we have today.
You will find several correspondence lists in this book, including astrological symbolism, herbal information, colors, and more. Each section has a few tips I’ve learned along the way that may help you in the construction and use of your own formulas. I have provided these lists so that you can design or enhance your own powders, herbal blends, spells, meditations, rituals, and magickal operations. It is my hope that you will find this information helpful not only for the gathering of your formulas, but for magickal timing as well.
I have learned that plants will literally reach out and touch you if they are trying to tell you something or share energy. They may brush against your leg or your arm. They may be sick (if you are taking care of a garden, for instance) and wish to attract your focus to their needs. Pay attention to your emotions and what rises within yourself as you feel the gentle (or sometimes smack) of the plant. I know you might laugh and call me a copycat, but I do have a whisper technique for healing and taking care of sick plants. I talk to them about what I am doing (watering, fertilizing, etc.) and how beautiful I know they are going to be. I tell them I am so sorry that they met with difficulty, and that now I am directing my energy to help them grow and become amazing. Now, you may say, how silly or how stupid or how strangely saintly of you. How did you start doing this?
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