The discipline of Occult Herbalism encompasses the knowledge and use of the magical, spiritual, and folkloric dimensions of plants. This perennial wisdom animates many global spiritual traditions, especially those which have maintained their integrity of transmission even in the face of industrial development and cultural destruction. Often concealed within the deepest strata of the Western Esoteric Traditions, this green strand of wisdom, though obscured, is a potent legacy of all magic, sorcery, and occult science. In addition to the hard sciences of botany, ethnology, agriculture and ethnopharmacology, a number of pathways can assist the magical herbalist in furthering the depth of understanding and integrity of personal approach. Thirteen Pathways of Occult Herbalism circumscribes the metaparadigm of herbal magical practice, providing useful examples of its manifestation, as well as demonstrating its time-honored routes of inquiry.

Thirteen Pathways of Occult Herbalism

Religion & Spirituality

Schulke, Daniel A.

New Age & Spirituality

Three Hands Press

The Green Mysteries is the product of twenty-five years of experiential research on the spiritual and occult properties of plants. Presenting a vast array of trees and herbs from many spiritual traditions, this exhaustive compendium examines their folklore, magical uses and spiritual essences. While presenting the material through both magical and mythopoetic narrative, the stance of the book is also grounded firmly in supportive disciplines such as botany, chemistry, and anthropology and also includes up to date phylogenetic and pharmacological findings. Interspersed with the encyclopedic plant entries are short narratives addressing such concepts as the Witches’ Flying Oinment, intoxicating incense, the herbal dimsension of Alchemy, and the ‘Green Saints’ such as Al-Khidir, the medieval Wildman, and the forest-dwelling Nymphs who nourished the Greek gods. More than a mere collation of previously existing works on plants, much of the material is drawn directly from the author's private field notes, diaries, and manuals of magical operation, presented in an angaging narrative style. Illustrated with with over 270 original illustrations by Benjamin Vierling, commissioned for the project.

The Green Mysteries: An Occult Herbarium

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

In many esoteric traditions, there exists an iconic or linguistic corollary between the concepts of ‘poisoner’ and ‘sorcerer’, suggesting a sinistral magical kinship. Indeed, the use of plant, animal and mineral toxins is a strand of magic originating in remotest antiquity and reaching the present day. Beyond its mundane function as an agent of corporeal harm, poisons have also served as gateways of religious ecstasy, occult knowledge, and sensorial aberration, as well as the basis of cures. Allied with Samael, the fallen serpent-angel of first transgression whose Hebrew name in some translations is ‘Venom of God’, this facet of magic wends through the rites of ancient Sumer and Egypt, penetrating European Necromancy, Alchemy, the arcane the rites of the Witches’ Sabbath, and modern-day folk magic. VENEFICIUM concerns the intersection of magic and poison. Of particular note to this study are the herbs of the so-called ‘Devil’s Garden’, which bear relation to the allied witchcraft concepts of the Graal of Midnight, the Witches’ Supper, and the flying ointment of the witches which has exerted fascination over scholars, historians, and practitioners alike. Beyond consideration of the toxicological dimensions of magical power, the related threads of astral and philosophical poisons are also examined, and their resonance and dissonance with magical practice explored. VENEFICIUM will be of interest to students of magic, witchcraft, alchemy, botanical folklore, medicine, and occult pharmacology.

Veneficium: Magic, Witchcraft and the Poison Path

Although the term 'witch' encompasses diverse meanings across many cultures ―most often referring to a practitioner of harmful or antinomian sorcery― the witch of medieval Europe was in part defined in the context of the Sabbat: the nocturnal ritual gathering of the living and dead. Sometimes conflated with the Christian heresy of the Black Mass (or derided by occult writers as a degenerate form of ancient high magic) the Sabbat is in fact a fully-realized wellspring of ecstasy and ritual power with its roots in prehistory. This sequel to Schulke's 'Veneficium' examines the Witches' Sabbat, its magic and symbolism, from the night flight, to the frenzied round-dance, to sexual intercourse with the devil and the notorious 'Witches' Supper'. The Sabbat's essentially syncretic nature is emphasized, as well as its relation to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the polytheistic and animist religions which preceded them. As well as its capacity as a vehicle for individual power and ecstatic experience, the book examines the persistent embodiments of the Sabbat from its ancient origins to its present recensions as a vivified corpus of rites and magical philosophy. -- Publisher

Sabbatic Witchcraft: The Way of Midnight's Eden

The translation of magical power to a created image is a matter well understood in so-called 'archaic' sorcery, in which a mutual embodiment of re-presentation and represented occurs. The carved fetish, for example, participates in a reciprocal process between object and creator that often begins long before chisels and adzes are set to wood, drawn from the atavistic spirit-reservoir of the carver. From the view of magic, the spirit that the idol represents thus participates in its own reification. Many of these forms of image-making were concerned with accessing power, and it was only later, in the context of religious devotion, that their forms densified into 'mere' idols. Witchcraft and the Occult, because of their syncretic nature, partake in multiple infusions of traditional image-making lore, including not only sorcery and religious iconography, but also science, craftsmanship, and the fine arts. However, because much of its images are used privately, and indeed created for consumption by a limited set of observers, they participate in a concentrated alembic of exposure wherein all who experience them do so in the context of magical practice and devotion. This intensity of private magical interaction provides a locus which enables the image to transcend its medium --and indeed that fetish known as 'icon'. First published in book form in 2013 and long out of print, this second edition of Idolatry Restor'd contains additional textual expansion and is newly typeset.

Idolatry Restor'd: Witchcraft and the Imaging of Power

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Onomasticon of Occult Herbs: Names, Identities and Epithets of Sacred Plants

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