Customer Reviews

Herbs in Magic and Alchemy: Techniques from Ancient Herbal Lore

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I was given this book as a gift by someone who knows I collect books on herbs, magic and alchemy, so I was able to cross reference many of the points the author makes in this book. I'm sorry to say I was seriously unimpressed. The author claims to run a herbal practice but her basic botanical knowledge is appalling. For example,on p38 she identifies Aloes with Aloe Vera, which is certainly true of the plant used to soothe burns etc in modern herbalism, then goes on to talk about the uses of Lignum Aloes, which is Aloes wood, from a different plant altogether. She leaves out latin names where she apparently couldn't be bothered to check them, and mis-spells many others. Still more show a hotchpotch of half understood information badly regurgitated, for example, p72- Storax she associates with Liquidambar orientalis, which is one source of storax and the only one commonly found in mail order herbalists today, but it is not the traditional source of storax, which she fails to mention. She also associates stacte with storax even though the classical authors whom she pretends to have read clearly describe the production of stacte from myrrh. She then refers to myrrh exudations in the same breath as Liquid Storax, further confusing the issue, and a chapter or so later instructs the reader to grind Storax to a powder,even though she accepts it is a liquid resin!. In her chapter on herbal products and their recipes, she writes 'the whole aspect is a very analytical one, with very little time or place for rather vague associations to plants or herbs'. It might be nice if she took her own advice as we then get 'recipes' with no quantities whatsoever apart from a direction to add 1oz potassion nitrate (a potential explosive!)to a mix (a proportion would have been better perhaps?)and my overall favourite, a recipe (p80) which directs the reader to produce Rose Pastilles by combining 3oz Benzoin, 2oz Storax, 1 oz Roses with 3/4LB each(!!!) of Aloes (which kind?) Amber (an expensive fossil resin), sugar and civet (an overpowering anal secretion from a cat) Civet is a substance controlled in trade by law and even perfumers would only use minute, diluted, quantities, 3/4 LB is both astronomically expensive and almost certainly illegal in most countries. You would be physically incapable of remaining in a room with this much civet. If the author had really tried these recipes she would know that most of the ones she gives are fundamentally flawed. Much of the rest of the book is dry tables of herb correspondances. These are very subjective and as such I can't comment on their accuracy, if they work for her, then all fair and good. It might have been more profitable to include details of how the reader could make up their own mind as to which herb corresonded to which planet. The alchemy section itself was confused, and many basic errors exist here too. Simple mistakes that should have been corrected at editing remain (thermostat instead of thermometer etc) and the author hides behind the 'its alchemical' jargon to disguise her very obvious lack of knowledge of basic proceedures. The bibliography says a lot, some very unreliable books are cited as sources and, for a supposed herbal practitioner, none of the standard source texts are cited at all.
Buy this book if you just want a suitably occult sounding title on your shelf, if you are truly interested in the topic you may wish to read it but I would recommend cross referencing any fact or quantity with a reputable source before starting. If you follow her instructions verbatim you could end up very disappointed, if not dead or arrested.

Of course, most of the material available here is available else where, but two things stand out to me as unique and very practical for the Working Magician. The first of these is Chapter 8: Ritual, in which the Z2 formula is adapted to a working ritual which give the process to use during an alchemical working. The second important part of this book is the Appendix 4: Astral COntact with Plant Life, which is a modification of the G.D. 5=6 'skrying in the spirit vision' and making 'contact' with the Spiritual source of the various plants. Fascinating, and well worth the cost of the book...

LVX in NOX
~mojo~

This book has a great amount of useful information on collecting plants and herbs. Helps you to obtain the full effects of the herbs. A must have for the library.