It is difficult to untangle the many streams of wortcunning and herbal lore flowing from megalithic times to the Celts and on to the peasant healers, from the classical cultures of the Mediterranean to the medieval monastic gardens and apothecaries, and from the spice gardens of Asia and native ethnobotanies of the newly discovered regions of the world. All have contributed to the basic philosophy of herbalism of the West. During the Renaissance, Faustian philosophers such as Ficino, Mattioli, Agrippa von Nettesheim, and Paracelsus sought to correlate and categorize these diverse ideas into a tidier philosophical edifice. This scholarly activity moved a basically esoteric, intuitive body of knowledge into the realm of rational analysis. These carefully formulated systems of causes and effects of planetary powers, stellar influences, signatures, and so on were actually the first step toward a conception of the universe as a mechanism. Fixing the living wisdom of peasants, wise women, and wandering folk into books of natural philosophy and herbals is similar to moving tribal weaving, shields, and artifacts into orderly museum exhibits, marking the end of a free-floating, living tradition. Nonetheless, as we look at the Renaissance conceptualizations, we have valuable clues on hand; and with the tincture of our imaginative faculty, we might bring the corpus back to life.
The deep conviction that all creation derives from a common origin, from Mother Nature, is the foundation of herbalism. Humankind and all other kingdoms of nature appeared out of this womb of being. The “Origin” contains the “All” (Universe), and each kingdom takes a bit of it into manifestation.
Under the influence of the Heavenly Father, the cosmos, or the archetypes, the primal matter (chaos) separates into living and nonliving beings. At a further stage, under the influence of the cosmic formative forces, the living beings separate into plant life and animal life; and, finally, the animal life separates into the many different animal species and the human being. Thus, from the ur-matter, four kingdoms of nature have come into ex-istence:
1. The mineral kingdom. This is the physical world, composed of the elements that our physicists and chemists write about and obeying the mechanical laws of physics and chemistry. This is the part of the universe that is visible to the external eyes and is, strictly speaking, the proper field of the scientific method of logic and empiricism.1
2. The vegetable kingdom. This is the plant world characterized by a life force (etheric energy). Although plants make use of the chemicals (chiefly carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen) during their life cycle, they do not obey the same laws as lifeless mechanisms or stones and minerals. For instance, they have levity: they grow contrary to the laws of gravity. (As John Ruskin once stated, what interests him is not how the apple fell on Newton’s head, but how it got up there in the first place!) Plants order matter in such a way that they grow continuously, forming harmonious geometric patterns, dichotomies, and polarities. The leaves and stem shoot upward toward the sun, and the roots delve toward the core of the earth. This rhythmic, harmonious growing is punctuated periodically by metamorphosis, by a different beat that leads to entirely new forms. Finally, plants are able to reproduce and multiply. That is more than we can expect from a slab of rock or from a machine.
3. The animal kingdom. The word “animal” derives from the Latin anima, animus, meaning “soul.” The ever-growing, metamorphosing, silent world of etheric forces that characterizes vegetation is given a new direction here. Part of the etheric energy has been inverted upon itself, being turned into consciousness and feeling. That is why animals run away when they are frightened or approach when curious; plants are devoid of such a range of experience.
4. The human kingdom. With human beings, another element has been added. Like the rock, humans have a physical body; like plants, they grow, reproduce, and reveal a dichotomy (male/female, left and right halves of the body, etc.); like animals, they have feelings, drives, and passions; but beyond that, they have a spirit. They have self-awareness to the point that they can make objects of their world and of themselves; they are aware of a future and a past; their energies are not primarily spent on satisfying the needs and drives of the body, but in arranging symbolic worlds—for which there are not even empirical referents. They constantly quest for meaning; their deeds are accompanied by moral choices, which they are free to make or not.
These are the four kingdoms of Nature. They are part of the “great chain of being,” as Aristotle formulated it. The medieval scholastics put it simply:
The human being is a microcosm because he manifests all four kingdoms within himself: the physical, the etheric, the soul (or astral, as it shall later be referred to), and the spiritual. (This fourfold nature of the human being is synonymous with the traditional threefold concept of body, soul, and spirit—body referring to both the physical and the etheric nature of the overall structure. The mere physical body is a corpse: when ancients talked about the body, they meant the physical/etheric entity.
Animals are not as fully incarnated as human beings. They, too, have a physical/etheric body and a soul, but their spirit remains with the All, the Origin. The “spirit” of each animal species works from the “inside” of the universe upon them, wisely guiding them. It manifests itself in what scientists, for want of an explanation, have called “instinct” or “genetically determined behavioral patterns.” Guided by their divine spirit, animals are automatically moral and, as individuals, do not have to make the moral choices people have to make. These spirits, perceived clairvoyantly, have been referred to by occultists as the “group souls” or “group spirits” of the respective species; for American Indians and other native people, they are the “mothers” or “chiefs” of the different kinds of animals. Wortcunners and native herbalists are often clairvoyantly in contact with these spirit beings and can call upon their help and guidance.
Plants remain even deeper with the spiritual realm, in the ur-origin. They incarnate not as souls but merely as physical/etheric bodies. Plant souls are still part of the original whole. They thus share in the nature of the original whole, even though their physical/etheric structure touches into manifest existence. In that plant-beings share in the whole, they are holy and wholesome, bringing hail and healing to us and to the world (Anglo-Saxon haila, hailu, going back to the Indo-European root kailu, meaning “complete, wholesome, sound, holy.”)
The human being, as a microcosm, has severed itself from the whole, from the origin, like the seeds from a tree—even though, as a microcosm, the human carries the origin within. Semitic sages have described this emancipated state of being as a state of sinfulness, God-forsakenness, which calls for atonement (at-one-ment). For the Hindus, this microcosmic ego-ness is a state of illusion. Sickness and dis-ease are the result of sin for the one, of illusion for the other. The cure is ultimately finding, out of free will, one’s proper relation to the whole, orienting oneself to one’s dharma (duty). Plants become the means, the intermediaries, and the mediums in attuning the human microcosm to the state of wholeness. Plants heal.
Different species of plants will affect different organs and parts of the body. According to all ancient traditions, including the herbalism of the West, organs are not just accidentally evolved globs of specialized tissue, but are the loci upon which different planetary forces play, centers of different forms of consciousness. Indeed, they are energy confluences where the planets build themselves dwelling places in the microcosm. According to Paracelsus, plant substances can be messengers from the greater wholeness to these centers, restoring the state of health in them.
The major organs are focal points of planetary forces in the microcosm, just as the seven roving heavenly bodies that are visible to the naked eye are focal points for planetary forces in the macrocosm. In the traditional herb books, the moon is associated with the brain, Venus with the genitals and kidneys, Saturn with the spleen, the sun with the heart, Mercury with the lungs, Jupiter with the liver, and Mars with the gall bladder. Thus stated, the ordinary modern reader is not likely to make heads or tails of this. To understand the deeper significance, we must become familiar with the picture of the cosmos as it was formulated during the Renaissance.
The earth, a flat dish floating in an ocean, is covered by seven layers—much like seven cheese bells (or Russian dolls) placed one over the other—that mark the boundaries of the seven “planets.” Beyond these seven spheres is the great canopy of fixed stars, where the immutable archetypes have their home. Beyond the fixed stars, the ultimate essence, the source, the holy trinity is located. The seven planetary spheres are like seven rungs on a heavenly ladder. Everything that comes into manifestation and takes on visible form on the earth, to be born out of the earth’s womb, takes its origin in the source and descends. It is formed by the archetypes and is processed and endowed by the planets (asters) as it passes down the ladder from Saturn to Jupiter, to Mars, to the sun, to Venus, to Mercury, and to the moon. Leaving the moon, it “incarnates”—it takes on “flesh” or matter, the passive substance of the Great Mother (Latin material = “matter” is related to mater = “mother”). And everything that passes out of existence, everything that leaves the visible sphere, passes the moon and the other planets, eventually returning to the source. Below the earth, some of the ancient philosophers placed the realms of the demons and devils, much like an inferior mirror image of the great cosmic edifice.
The human being—the microcosmic image of this great cosmic edifice—contains all these worlds, spheres, and archetypes within himself. Yea, even the very source of being itself—though the orthodox Christian or Muslim might shudder at the thought—GOD Himself is in the human. For the Hindus, this is the ultimate goal, that the individual may realize, “Tat tvam asi” (You are that!). In our normal daylight consciousness, which makes up half of our short lives, this realization is far away. Our daily consciousness is one of habitual thought patterns coupled with sensory impressions—often quite jumbled, lazy, and unclear. The philosophers of science have set for themselves the task of clearing this up, ordering it, and making it more precise. Yet they too are bound by this consciousness. Beyond it, they see “nothing” apart from mental illness and schizophrenia, with awareness ending when the motor/chemical responses of the cerebral organization cease upon death. For occultists, to whom the traditional herbalists belong, this is a consciousness of the mere surface of things, of the dead skin, so to say.
Let us now cast a brief glance at the planetary spheres and powers that are at work in the great macrocosm of nature as well as in the microcosm of each human being:
1. Moon. Beyond the surface (the earth plane), there is the lunar sphere. Out of this sphere, things step into visible existence: babies are born out of the watery moon, and seeds sprout out of the moon. The dead pass back to the moon. Lunatics are those who are not capable of developing a healthy, down-to-earth consciousness but drift among the grotesque, fantastic images of the lunar landscape. Lovers are moonstruck—living in the dream of what life might become. We all “go to the moon” every day when we fall asleep and the inner images of dreams appear before the eye of the soul. On returning, we have to wade Lethe’s stream, the stream of forgetfulness. How hard it is to recall one’s dreams! In the lunar world, as is evident in states of lunacy or in dreams, the clear delineation of time and space becomes foggy and rubbery. The dichotomies of subjective and objective, inside and outside, you and I, living and dead, and all such categories that characterize our “normal” existence become wobbly and threaten to disintegrate.
In the macrocosm of nature, the moon determines the tides, growth rhythms of living organisms, and breeding patterns of all lower animal life. In the human body, the moon is connected with the menstrual cycle and other body rhythms. Traditionally, it was believed that the moon creates the skin of the body, that membrane between the inside and the outside. (Skin cells live twenty-eight days, corresponding to the synodic lunation.) Lunar formative forces enter the body through the genitals—having much to do with procreation and sexual desire—radiate throughout the body, and come to rest in the brain.2 The brain reflects body processes into “exterior” consciousness, much like the moon in the night sky reflects sunlight back down upon the earth. The moon, that fecund generator of images, stirs up the imagination—that is why poets, lovers, and storytellers love the goddess Luna. Skin diseases and all manner of nervous and hysterical (Greek hysteria = “womb, uterus”) disorders are influenced by the moon. They are treated homeopathically with plants assigned to the moon or allopathically with plants contrary to the moon (Saturnian plants). Poison ivy—blistering and watering of the skin—is a typically lunar disease caused by a typically lunar plant that grows as a shady vine and has white, waxen berries as a fruit. Soporific and psychedelic plants, such as opium poppies, belong to the moon and have the power to propel the consumer quickly into the lunar sphere.
2. Mercury. Beyond the kingdom of Luna, we enter the sphere of Mercury. The Romans considered their god Mercury identical with the Greek Hermes, the divine shaman. Mercury controls rapid growth, changes, and communication, being the messenger of the gods. In Greco-Roman iconography, he is shown as a youth with wings on his heels, carrying the staff of Asklépios, with intertwining serpents. He is, thus, the androgynous god of healing, of commerce (the dollar sign, as mentioned earlier, is but the staff of Hermes), of thieves, and of sleight of hand. In the macrocosm, he is master of snakes, of medicines of all sorts, and of slinging vines; his metal is quicksilver; as a planet in the sky, he quickly passes the signs of the zodiac in eighty-eight days. In the microcosm, the energy of Mercury radiates into the lower reaches of the body, creating the lymph system in its wake and culminating in the lungs. Mercurial diseases are pulmonary, respiratory, and those of the nerves and lymph. One is only semiconscious of the lung’s incessant (mercurial) activity of breathing in and out.
3. Venus. The next realm is that of enticing Venus, the goddess of love. In the external world, the Venus sphere is marked by the bright morning and evening star, which never strays far from the sun. It manifests itself in all things lovely: in maidens and youths; in pretty flowers; in tender, gentle animals, such as doves, rabbits, kittens, and deer; in the delicate green of early spring; in the metal copper and in the green-colored corruption of copper (copper acetate). In the microcosm, Venus is the mistress of desire and romance—ranging from the venial passion of the debauched to the sublimation of platonic love. Her force enters the region of the belly: she stimulates the glands and deposits cushions of fat, creating the gentle contours of the feminine body. The formative Venus forces find their climax in the kidneys and the urinary/genital system. Her diseases are the venereal diseases and glandular disruptions. In one’s dreams, if one is “awake” enough to remember, one might meet the goddess in a region beyond the animated tangle of lunar and mercurial images: she appears as the most quiet, beautiful lady, the true queen of the soul, as Sophia to the poets and true philosophers.
4. Sun. The next realm is that of the sun. This great king of the heavens orders day and night and measures the year. He manifests himself in proud and noble beings, such as the eagle and lion; in the heat of the midsummer; in the vigor and virtue of full manhood and womanhood; and in the soul as courage, honesty, and uprightness.3 In the body, he takes his place in the middle, in the heart, just as he does in the planetary spheres, where he is the center of the planets. In the household the warmth-giving hearth represents him. Solar forces radiate into the body at the solar plexus and continue to form the eyes and the heart as their organs, giving light, order, and steady rhythm. Specific illnesses arising when one’s relation to the solar forces is out of harmony are heart and circulatory troubles and eye problems.
The sun is the midway rung of the heavenly ladder. The moon, Mercury, and Venus, below, are considered to be feminine and are referred to as the “inferior” or lower planets in older astrological manuals. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the “superior” or upper planets, being more distant from the earth, are considered masculine. To confuse the modern reader, the lower, feminine planets are sometimes referred to collectively as “Moon” while the upper, masculine planets are collectively the “Sun.” This Moon and Sun, it turns out, have very much the same characteristics of the Chinese yin and yang.
5. Mars. As we take another step, we meet the fierce, hot-tempered Mars. The realm of this warrior in the macrocosm is bounded by the visible red planet, which takes two years to pass the twelve regions of the zodiac. On earth, he manifests himself in the color red, in heat, in aggression, in wild and fierce animals, in thorns and thistles, and in iron and rust. In the soul, he has all the qualities that one attributes to a warrior. In the body, he drives the blood into circulation, forging the veins and arteries as channels. The Martian forces enter the body where the Adam’s apple is—he is responsible for speech, just as Venus is responsible for hearing. In the gall bladder, deep in the unconscious of the body (not semiconscious like the heart, genitals, lungs, or brain), he forms his specific organ. Martian diseases are stinging pains, fevers, infections, and gall trouble.
6. Jupiter. Even deeper (or farther out) is the realm of Jupiter, who enters the body between the eyebrows, at the place where the third eye is said to be. He radiates throughout the body, clothing the skeleton with muscle tissue and finally coming to rest in the liver. In the soul, the Jupiter force manifests itself as joviality (from the Latin Jove, or Jupiter), contentment, and the fullness of wisdom and riches. He is the wise old king whose battles have been won and who now shares his bounty with all. He is the god of autumn, of harvest, of beer and wine. In the night sky, his marking planet shines brightly and majestically, striding with dignified steps through the zodiac in a twelve-year time span—a span that has been incorporated into the East Asian animal zodiac. His color is yellow-orange, like the robes of Buddhist monks. His animals are characteristically the bear and elephant. His are all of the ripening fruits. His tree is the majestic oak where tribal Europeans held their thing stead, their wise councils, where the liver of a sacrifice was read as an oracle. “Jovial” diseases are the infirmities due to excess of meat and drink, such as gout and liver ailments.
7. Saturn. Before passing to the trans-Saturnian spheres, we come to the oldest of the gods, Saturn, the father of time (Chronos), the reaper with the scythe as well as the sower with a sack full of seed. His festival is celebrated in the dead of each winter when he appears as Santa Claus, Old Saint Nick, or Father Frost. In the macrocosm, his sphere is indicated by the farthest visible planet, which hobbles past the houses of the zodiac, taking a long thirty years. Saturn is the threshold to the beyond. He carries with him the seeds of new incarnations. His signatures on earth are cold, dead winter and dry, leafless branches, but also pine trees and the warmth and shelter they may afford. His color is deep blue, the color of the sky, of the “wild blue yonder.” His mood is melancholy, or the “blues.” His plants are bitter and have blue flowers, such as chicory and forget-me-not, or they are dark like pine forests or gray like beeches or the sage brush of the dry steppes of the far west. His metal is lead. Saturnian force enters the body at the hair-whorl at the back of the head; it radiates through the body creating the bones—the heaviest, most durable, and innermost body parts—and comes to rest in the spleen. Saturnian illnesses are the decrepitude of old age, sclerosis, senility, constipation, bone disease, melancholia, and “having a spleen” (being eccentric). Saturnian blue flowering plants like comfrey are the best healers of broken bones.
For the most part we live on the surface of the phenomena, accepting what has been socioculturally defined as the “real” world, as the reality. But if we want to understand the true nature of the grand mystery of our being, we have to grow more profound. We have to grow up and down, like a tree sending its roots into the depths and it branches toward the heavens. The seven planetary spheres represent, in colorful imagery, the steps that “initiates” take to descend (or ascend—whichever term one might prefer) into the depth of the universe and of the soul. The problem for us modern individuals is that as soon as we leave the causal, rational, empirical plane of consciousness, we lose consciousness altogether to the point that some say there is nothing more “beyond.” Initiates, however, can stay “awake” while sleeping. They can go up and down that ladder in deep meditation. In doing this, certain thresholds are passed.
First is the Gateway of the Moon, which is the gateway to normal sleep. If one passes consciously through that door, one perceives the “elemental world,” the magic world of etheric forces, revealing themselves as dwarfs, gnomes, leprechauns, water people, fairies, angels, demons, and devils—beings without a physical body but with an etheric body and, perhaps, also an astral body. These creatures make up the inside dimension of what appears to us as the world of facts and external phenomena. In this realm, Indians of the New World beheld the spirits of animals, the “animal bosses,” who revealed to them secret knowledge, such as where to find game or how to discover the healing virtues of plants. This is the world of the witches’ Sabbath, where rites of fertility and growing vegetation were celebrated in the presence of the ancient horned god. Psychotropic plants, those with a lunar, mercurial, or venereal signature, can propel the user into this realm—a realm not without danger for the uninitiated. The old Rosicrucians called this level of consciousness, beyond the “normal” consciousness, the plane of imagination. The worlds experienced here do not fit into the Procrustean bed4 of logic and reason. They have to be presented as picture images; they have to be related to with songs, chants, and spells; they have to be remembered with symbols, colors, and amulets; they have to be told about with legend, fairy tales, or poetry! Few people ever penetrate consciously into this wondrous world—and many of those who do are touched by some form of genius, madness, or lunacy.
There is a level deeper than this, entered by the Gateway of the Sun. Just as the sun is located farther out in space than the moon, so is this level more profound than the lunar level. Normally, this is the level of dreamless sleep, but for those unusual human beings who can retain consciousness of spirit, it is the world of the gods that stands behind the elemental phenomena. It is the realm of the great harmony, of the music of the spheres (Kepler), where one hears Lord Krishna’s flute in blissful clarity. Here is where the “Sun sounds in tumultuous thunder” (Goethe’s Faust). On this level of being—deep, deep inside—the initiate, after the preparation of many lifetimes and many austerities, can talk to the pure, luminous spirits (devas) of the plants—much as one would converse with a good, wise, respected elder. Only the purest of souls can do this: for the soul is like a watery mirror in which the plant devas reflect themselves and communicate their harmonious essence to the seeker. From this fountain the greatest of the wortcunners—Caraka, Weleda, Shennong, and perhaps Hildegard von Bingen and Paracelsus—drew their knowledge of healing herbs. The old Rosicrucians called this the plane of inspiration. Great composers such as Bach and Beethoven listened into the beyond and brought back their harmonious inspiration from this sphere, sharing it with us common folk; indeed, all great culture-generative ideas derive from this “higher ground.”
Another threshold is reached when one passes the sphere of the grim reaper Saturn: the Door of Death. On this plane, the initiate can talk with the very spirit of the stone. Here is the gateway to the archetypes, to the pleroma, the void, the Arupa Devachan, or Nirvana: space, time, form, concept, self, other—all vanish. Of those whose spirit reaches this stage, Jesus says, “They will not taste death.” This is the treasured philosopher’s stone of the alchemists. Ideally, the Hindu sannyasin, dressed in the red/orange of the flames of the funeral pyre and dead to Death, have passed this threshold: their very presence is a blessing to all creatures. One silently sits near such a one for a darshan, “a glimpse of Truth.”
The best herbalists are those to whom the Gateway of the Sun stands open, whose wings have not been scorched like those of ancient Icarus. Psychedelic drugs will not lead there, but rather long preparation and cleansing of the soul, fasting, mindfulness, and compassion, as Sakyamuni and Jesus have taught us. Ordinary shamans and herbalists, on the other hand, are at home in the elemental world, where elemental and animal spirits help them to know the secret sympathies and magical connections of the things of this earth. Normal, “deadhead” intellectual scientists might be honest, knowledgeable botanists or biologists; they might know the number of stamens of the Amaryllidaceae, the chemical formula of methyl salicylate or cyanogenetic glycosides, or the steps of mitosis and meiosis, but wortcunners they are not.
From the viewpoint of the Renaissance scholars, everything in our visible, phenomenal world is the result of the dynamic interaction and interpenetration of the seven planetary forces. To understand this in a buttercup, for example, one must be able to single out each planetary influence. The fleshy, herbaceous buttercup, growing in a swampy meadow, is definitely lunar, but the plasticity of its leaf forms as it shoots up in early spring reveals the hand of Mercury; in the buttery yellow color of the flower is a tinge of Jupiter, and its acridity reveals the hidden hand of Mars. Of course, all of the other planets are there, too. But the question the herbalists ask themselves is which planet is predominant. To which planet did Nicholas Culpeper assign the buttercup?5
This little example should suffice to show that it is not a simple, logical task to assign planets to the plants. It is, rather, the faculty of active imagination (not fantasy) that is called upon. It is not a matter of simply looking up the correlations on a printed chart.
Here we allow ourselves to present a rather general tentative scheme for identifying the planets in the plants:
• Moon. The moon has to do with germination and sprouting as well as with fermenting and decaying processes in vegetation. Creepers with watery, bloated fruits such as cucumbers and melons bear a lunar signature, as do juicy plants with milky sap, such as poppies and lettuce. Lunar plants are often poisonous or have a psychotropic effect. Lunar flowers, some of which bloom at night, have petals ranging from pale pastels to violet.
• Mercury. This planet is responsible for fast growth, the shooting up of shoots, and the metamorphosis during growth. One cannot talk of a mercurial color, as such, but rather a sheen, as found when glancing over a young wheat field. Mercurial plants frequently contain slimy substances, such as aloe vera, jewelweed, or dog’s mercury. They are generally herbaceous or exist as creepers and vines. Mercury, the physician of the gods, is lord of the medical plants in general.
• Venus. This goddess gives vegetation its green coat. Venus plants flower in delicate colors (white, greenish, and pink) and have a pleasant fragrance. The effect of Venus plants is a pleasantly cooling one. Aphrodisiacs belong to this group.
• Sun. The sun gives plants their vertical, upright tendency, literally pulling the young vegetation out of the earth in the spring. Plants that grow rhythmically and harmoniously and whose taste is robust but pleasant, like the sweet sourness of apples, belong to the sun. The flowers are white to golden yellow, and some, like sunflower and chicory, turn their head with the sun.
• Mars. This planet is the lord of red-flowering plants, of those with thorns and pricks, of taproots, and of flower pollen. The taste of Martian plants is hot, spicy, and sharp.
• Jupiter. Jupiter is responsible for the ripening of fruits. To him belong aromatic plants and those that have a good, sweet taste. Oil-containing plants, like the olive, walnut, and rape, belong to this planet. The color of Jovial flowers is yellow/orange to royal purple. Slow-growing, stately trees belong to this king.
• Saturn. Saturn desiccates the plants and lets them die off but also lets them form seeds. Slow-growing plants, those of somber gray hues and blue flowers, those with bitter tastes, and those having pitch and resin belong to this planet.6
The forces of the planets, as they affect the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, can be called astral (Greek Aster = “star”) influences (Latin in-fluence = “to flow into”).7 Within the single plant, the moon forces have the most affinity with the roots; Mercury forces with the sprouts and budding leaves; and Venus forces with leaves and flower petals. The sun gives the vertical tendency to the stems; Mars develops the stamen and pollen; Jupiter encourages the fruit to grow; and Saturn creates the seeds.
The inferior planets work on the plant through the moist atmosphere, the humus, and calcium in the soil. The superior planets ray into the mineral substrata of the earth, using silicon “like a reflector” to ray upward into the plant, exhausting themselves in the flowering, fruiting, and seeding processes at the upper periphery of the plant.8
In human beings and animals, as we have seen, the superior planets radiate into the head region, whereas the inferior planets ray into the lower part of the body. In so doing, they exhaust themselves in whatever particular organ is assigned to them (i.e., moon = brain, Mercury = lungs, Venus = kidneys, etc.). Using this line of association, it becomes possible to assign a particular plant or part of the plant to its corresponding part of the human body.
The picture we have so far is that of a layer cake of interpenetrating influences leading from Saturn down to the moon. But the Renaissance philosophers did not stop here. They computed other relations. Sets of polar opposition exist among the planets. There is, for example, a polarity of the upper and lower ranges of the astral regions—the relationship of the moon and Saturn. They appear in folk custom as the toddling infant New Year and the doddering, geriatric old year. The special relationship of lovers exists between Mars and Venus: one is fierce, the other mild; one is active, the other receptive. Jupiter and Mercury form another binary pair. In traditional European puppet theater, they appear as the king and his jester. One is characterized by justice and stability; the other by roguery and flexibility. The sun forms the middle axis, the harmonizing pole of these polarities. Herbalists use these oppositions, as we shall see, to cure a disease with the opposite planet allopathically just as they cure homeopathically using the same planet.
The seven planetary forces, being invisible as such, take hold of the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire) and become visible by imprinting and arranging the physiognomy of matter. Already the pre-Socratic philosophers thought of the four elements more as formative forces (like etheric forces) than crude substances. Earth refers to a solidified state, characterized by being “dry” and “cold.” Water is a “cold” but “moist” fluid state of matter. Air is an even lighter and more mobile state, which is “moist” and “hot”; and Fire is “hot” and “dry” and highly mutable.
Generally, the superior planets have a relation to the imponderable elemental forces of air and fire, while the inferior planets relate to the ponderable (heavy, cold) elements of earth and water. On the plane of living imagination, the four elements appear to the eyes of the soul as elemental beings: gnomes (earth), nymphs (water), sylphs (air), and salamanders, or vulcani (fire).
The table reveals some of the cross-correspondences possible:
The path of the planets through the night sky follows within 15 degrees the path traversed by the sun (ecliptic). This path has a continuous field of fixed stars as a background. These fixed stars serve as markers to the observer of the relative position of the sun or the other wandering planets at any certain time. The sun travels this ribbon, from its highest to its lowest point and back, in 365 days. The moon will have traveled the same route twelve times (twelve full moons) during this time.9 The Babylonians, avid observers of the script of the heavens, thus divided the route into twelve stations, which became the twelve signs of the zodiac (animal circle). It was noted that depending on the region of the zodiac in which the sun was to be found, the quality of the heat would be different. (It is, for example, hotter in Leo than in Capricorn.) Thus it was surmised that each region of the zodiac contained energies that could affect and modify the sun, moon, and other planets. These twelve power-throbbing stations were seen imaginatively as the gigantic body of the archetypal, primordial being—the Macroanthropos, the Urbild of every human being on earth. Each region corresponds to a part of the body, as illustrated in the figure.
Archetypal, creative forces radiate from each region of the zodiac. In human beings and animals, Aries works as a formative force on the head, Taurus works into neck and shoulders, Gemini into the arms, and so forth. In the same way, in the animal kingdom, Aries forces bring about fowl and feathered creatures, and cows and other bovines receive their impulses from the region of Virgo. Predating felines appear from the region of Leo, and invertebrates are connected with Scorpio.10 Even to this day, anthroposophic farmers, guided by Maria Thun, believe that different families of plants receive their original impulses from various regions of the zodiac and will plant or sow when the moon is in a certain sign or burn and scatter the ashes of weeds in their appropriate sign.11
The planets are involved in this scheme. Each of the twelve regions is a house, mansion, or refuge of the traveling planetary gods. When a planet is in its own house, Renaissance scholars taught, its influence is stronger. When opposite its own house, its influence will diminish.
The system of planetary houses is based on old Babylonian starcraft, reflecting the state of the heavens as seen four to five thousand years ago. At this time, Leo and Cancer were at the peak of the zodiac (today it is Taurus and Gemini), while Capricorn and Aquarius, weighted down by the house of lead-heavy Saturn, were the lowest constellations in the zodiac. A middle line drawn from the highest down to the lowest point of the zodiac made up the “cosmic axis,” the trunk of the cosmic tree, upon whose branches, so to speak, the stars were hung like ornaments on the Christmas tree. The movable planets were like birds fluttering from limb to limb, each, however, having a nest (house) on one or two of the branches. In the course of millennia, the great cosmic tree tilted ever more sideways. This was due to the progression of the vernal equinox, the location point of the springtime sun in the zodiac, when day and night are of equal length. This spring point gradually moves forward, changing to a new sign every two thousand years. By the time of the Renaissance, the Twins (Gemini) marked the zenith, and the Archer (Sagittarius) was at the bottom (nadir): Pisces had become the spring point and Virgo the fall equinox.
Even to this day the houses play an important part in the therapeutic efforts of some herbalists. If a patient complains of bad kidneys, the herbalist will know that kidneys are in the zone of Libra, where Venus has one of her houses. Birch trees are assigned to Venus; thus a tea of birch leaves will be just right to flush the kidneys. Another patient might come with a chest cold. The chest is the zone of the Crab (Cancer), which is the house of the moon. A lunar plant should be used. An onion-pack might be the right choice, as the onion belongs to the moon.
Such thinking and associating, typical in herb craft, can be complicated and permutated many times. For example, the relation of the four elements to the zodiac also enters consideration. The Renaissance assigned the elements to the zodiac signs in the following way:
These trigonal positions (as shown in the illustration) play an important part in biodynamic agriculture and, consequently, in anthroposophic herbal medicine.12 The sowing, planting, and harvesting of medicinal herbs is largely determined by whether the moon is in an earth, air, water, or fire sign (or trigon). A medicinal root, such as burdock or comfrey, might be planted and harvested when the moon is in Virgo, Capricorn, or Taurus, and the resultant medical preparation might even be given when the moon is again in an earth sign. Herbal blossoms, such as chamomile, hops, or mullein flowers, should be collected on days when the moon is in the air signs. We see how many possibilities open up to the herbalist in this way.
The theory of Copernicus, which ripped the earth out of the center of the universe; the mathematics of Kepler, Newton, and others; and, later on, the discoveries of “planets” beyond Saturn, not visible to the naked eye, tore down the edifice of the Renaissance worldview. But not only that: the astrological system was difficult and full of contradictions, to say the least, for those trained in the logic of the scientific method. This prepositivistic worldview, where everything and anything is interconnected and secret or overt sympathies and correspondences bind all things together in obscure, magical ways, was an annoyance to practical minded men. It had to give way to the new reality of an objective universe of things that are not magically connected but connected by concrete, logically deducible laws of cause and effect. The cumbersome system had to go if functional machines and efficient commerce were to take the lead.
Yet there are some—obscure herbalists among them—who, to some degree or another, have hung on to the vision that once reigned supreme. Causality, formal logic, and quantitative sense data are all right for mundane reality. But is not reality much more grandiose than this? How well does our modern worldview do when it comes to the twilight zone of our being—to the realms of infirmity, death, love, emotions, dreams, and healing? Who are the men who turned astrology into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, soul-wisdom into psychology, and herb lore into botany? Brave, rational men, to be sure—but they are simplifiers! They have reduced the rainbow colors of nature, the gods, the spirits, and the imagination into the black and white of the rigid Puritanism of the printed page. They have taken away extra dimensions and are now satisfied at having tamed the universe. They are the apprentices who found the odd, bumbling masters too timid and set about to create a “brave new world.”
Many herbalists just brew up the right kind of herb for the corresponding ill and do not bother much with the planets. But most herbalists make at least some reference to the planets. Some, like the Dutch wise woman Mellie Uyldert, have effectively and imaginatively included the newly discovered planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.13 Others, like Arthur Hermes, have kept the traditional seven planets and consider the trans-Saturnian bodies to be cosmic reflections of the demonic regions into which humanity is venturing: Uranus reflects the realm of brute machinery; Neptune, the realm of that deadly force called electricity; and Pluto—god of the underworld—is the realm of life-annihilating nuclear energy (plutonium!). He points out that these “planets” were discovered in the heavens about the time that the steam engine, electricity, and atomic energy were discovered, each in their turn. Is it not the ancient law of the universe, as formulated by Hermes Trismegistus (“As above, so below”), that for every new form of consciousness, a new “star” appears in the sky? (What, dear reader, is the meaning of the “black holes”?)
Astrologically oriented herbalists cast the horoscope of the patient, noting which planets are strong, which are weak, which are ascending or descending, and how the houses are occupied. Then they prescribe the proper plants accordingly:
1. When a part of the body or a specific organ is weak, a plant that bears the signature of the same planet is used to support it (e.g., horsetail, a Saturnian plant, for weak bones; dandelion, a Jupiter plant, for the liver, etc.).
2. When an organ is overactive, excited, “speedy,” or has been poisoned, an opposite planet is to be used as an antidote (e.g., a hot, Martian plant for a Venus disease; Jupiter is countered by Mercury; Saturn is countered by the moon; the upper planets [“Sun”] are countered by the lower planets [“Moon”]). Ailments of the “Sun” are dry, hot, and sclerotic, while those of the “Moon” are moist and festering. Doctors in the Middle Ages liked to set the two “evil” planets—hot, excited Mars and cold, rigid Saturn—against each other. We see that herbs are used sympathetically (homeopathically—the illness is cured by the same planet that caused it) or antipathetically (allopathically—it is healed by an opposite planet).
The early Rosicrucian philosophers, intent on studying the multifold biological and cosmic rhythms, taught that for any medicine to be effective, it must be picked and prepared at the optimal time. They were not the first to think so; the ancient Babylonians had picked healing herbs at the right planetary hour. Christian herbalists quoted the wisest of the wise, King Solomon, to support their practice: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The right time is the right season of the year, the right lunation (phase, sign, or node), the right day of the week, and the right planetary hour.
The lunar rhythm is very important since it plays into the biochemistry of the plant, as well as the biorhythmic curves and cycles that mark a sickness. On gathering plants, Maurice Mességué’s father told him, “My boy, remember: never when there is a full moon; moonlight saps their strength. For plants to be the very best, they need plenty of sunshine and very little moonlight.”14
Swiss peasants dig medicinal roots and tubers when the moon is descending—going from the highest point in the zodiac (Gemini) down to the lowest (Sagittarius). Leaves, stems, and flowers are gathered, on the other hand, as the moon ascends from the lowest (southern tropic) to the highest (northern tropic) sign in the sky. Very common in the Eurasian herbalist’s tradition is the practice of following the moon’s phases: parts growing above the ground are picked in the first quarter, while underground stems, roots, and storage tubers are picked in the last quarter of the waning moon, or the new moon. As we have seen, the sign the moon is in when gathering or preparing botanical matter is important.
Some wortcunners put emphasis on the time when the ruling planet is in its own house. The medicine is weakened otherwise and nearly ineffective if the planet is in an antagonistic house. The houses of the moon and the houses of Saturn are antagonistic, as are the houses of Mercury and Jupiter and also those of Mars and Venus. Following this line of thought, the optimal time for picking Saturnian and Jovial plants arrives at intervals of several years because Saturn and Jupiter are slow, visiting their houses relatively seldom.
Paracelsus picked the leaves of one of his very favorites, the Christmas rose (black hellebore; Helleborus niger), a Saturnian plant that rouses the “black bile,” on Saturdays at sunset when Saturn was in a good house and preferably high in the sky. Like this great doctor, Arthur Hermes picked all of his herbs on the day of the week ruled by that planet. Thus, yellow flag (iris), a plant belonging to the moon, would be picked Monday. Nettles, having the signature of Mars, would be gathered on Tuesday. Mercurial hazelnut is picked on Wednesday, venereal lady’s mantle on Friday, Saturnian hound’s-tongue on Saturday, and so on.
The planetary hour as calculated by early Rosicrucians was a bit different. The first daylight hour of Sunday was said to belong to the sun, the second hour of that day to Venus, the third to Mercury, the fourth to the moon, the fifth to Saturn, the sixth to Jupiter, the seventh to Mars, the eighth again to the Sun, and so on in a continuous rhythm up and down the planetary scale of seven planets. If one has the patience to count it out, then the first daylight hour of Monday will fall under the rule of the moon, the first daylight hour of Tuesday under the rule of Mars, and so on until it is Sunday again. These hours, it must be stated, are not of equal length like the hours ground out by our mechanical watches. They are divided into twelve night hours (sunset to sunrise) and twelve daylight hours (sunrise to sunset). In this system, which was devised by the medieval monks whose duty it was to keep the prayer times and toll the church bells, the daylight hours are long in the summer and short in the winter. The nighttime hours become ever longer toward the winter solstice and ever shorter toward the summer solstice. Only twice a year, at the spring or fall equinox, were the hours all exactly equal in length.
