Customer Reviews

How Do Witches Fly? A practical approach to nocturnal flights.

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Any book, which starts by dissuading you from killing yourself can't be all bad. Alexander Kuklin cautions his readers, frequently, against messing around with witches' herbs. The results of consuming aconite, belladonna, thornapple and water hemlock are spelt out in grisly detail. It certainly puts you off. Anyone familiar with the happy-go-lucky style of medieval cookbooks will doubt whether peasant women thought in terms of exact doses and measures, even if death was the penalty for miscalculation. Nevertheless, there are first-hand reports, by Laguna and Gassendi, of ointments, which did produce delirium and dreams of flight. Kuklin suggests in his closing chapter that the secret lay in balancing herbal sources of aconitine and atropine, which tend to cancel each other out. An American magical group is testing the recipe, in a hush-hush sort of way. The results may appear in a peer-reviewed journal. But in the evidence so far, they are equally likely to end up in the morgue.

Excellent achievement. Dr. Kuklin gives us the ingredients on witches' brews, their chemistries, their histories and how they might have contributed to spiritual flight. Throughout are the sad stories of folks accused and convicted of witchcraft (Nathaniel and Rebecca Greensmith were convicted in Connecticut in 1662 of "intending to make merry on Christmas.") Kuklin is scientifically knowledgeable and spiritually aware: "I speculate that the witches' ointment was the biggest jewel in the crown of medieval pharmacology. This herbal concoction was a poison to the layman but a spiritual tool to the Believer of the Craft." Many alkaloids here that give impressive psychedelic effects. Nicotine, atropine, caffeine, ephedrine, animal ingredients, herbs such as belladonna, digitalis, and many others. Ointment preparation: harvesting, storage of herbs, actual recipes. "How do witches fly" sparkles with rare insights and Kuklin beautifully captures the need and the wisdom of ordinary folks who used flying preparations.

from The Book Reader Fall/Winter 2000/2001, page 41

Books which examine the folklore of Europe's traditional "witch" plants are not uncommon, and some give some coverage to describing the psychotropic and hallucinogenic effects of these plants on the human body. However this book is rather more unusual than that in that the author is first and foremost a biochemist with an extensive and intimate knowledge of the alkaloids, or poisonous constituents, for which the plants most commonly listed as being those of flying ointments are rightly famous. Although there is much folkloric material here there is a great quantity of scientific material concerning the physiological effects of the plants and their constituents which is otherwise not easily available to the average reader. Of particular interest, though they may prove distressing for some readers, are the accounts of experiments conducted on bitches to determine the ability of the alkaloids to be absorbed into the body through the vaginal membranes, as well as details of the ways in which the various constituents react against one another to produce sometimes surprising results. For example, one might have imagined that using both aconite (aconitine) and belladonna (atropine) together would have produced a doubly toxic effect on the user, but not so: the two alkaloids have antagonistic (or opposing) toxic effects upon each other, each neutralising the most toxic effects of the other while leaving the hallucinogenic effects of both largely intact. This is, in short, a fascinating book for those interested in what these plants actually do (rather than what we think they ought to do) to the user.

After reading "How Do Witches Fly? A Practical Approach to Nocturnal Flights", I have a different perspective and new understanding of witches and their practices, far from the simplistic childhood image of evil women flying about on broomsticks. Through extensive research including sources from medieval times to the present, the author makes the case that witches had a masterful knowledge of many potent herbs. Detailed biochemical analyses of the components of various witches' concoctions suggest that just the right proportion of herbs and other ingredients helped the witches "fly".

There is something in the book, which is new and interesting. There are hints that the ointment idea has been around for a while. It is, that aconite and belladona work in combination with each other to produce the flying ointment. The idea is that aconite in itself is deadly poisonous - in fact it's considered the most poisonous plant in Europe - hemlock being the most poisonous plant in the U.S. Now, how can notorious poisons be part of a flying ointment? According to the author, atropine (belladona) is an antidote for aconite poisoning. Aconite apparently kills by slowing the heart, while belladona increases the heart rate (producing, in fact, a good, strong heart beat). So, of course, you combine belladonna and aconite in your flying ointment, and there you go.

The book of Dr. Alexander Kuklin is undoubtedly an intelligently refined collection of serious historical research and modern biochemical analysis of witches experiences mediated by the "flying ointment". The "psychedelic" hypothesis of the nocturnal flights launched by the author has a serious scientific ground and casts a Terrence McKennian light upon the witches Sabbath. The book is written in a clear and a very inobtrusive language, which does not require a special training in science from the reader. At the same time it awakes the curiousity and gives some very important pointers on sources where one can find more about witchcraft and its development, impact and meaning. The artwork of Barbara Broughel and the graphic layout of the book make the reading a very pleasant and rewarding experience.

How Do Witches Fly? is an interesting, well-researched, and thorough. It's also dry and could be dangerous in the wrong hands. This is a scholarly discussion of the mechanisms used in witches' "flights." It is absolutely not for the squeamish or kids.

Author Alexander Kuklin has a PhD. in plant physiology and genetics, and is interested in how science and the occult relate. This makes him quite qualified to cover his chosen topic. Many of the ingredients are discussed in detail, from what part of the plant it comes from, what the toxin is, and exactly how it works and what it does to you. (Not for the queasy!) Some also have a historical background, with references from ancient Greece or the Middle Ages.

It doesn't belong in the hands of anyone under the age of 20. (Fortunately, many of these things are very difficult to obtain.) There are no warnings on the covers, but there are inside. I personally think that the publisher should have a surgeon general's-type warning on the cover. "Warning: Experimentation with the items discussed in this book could be extremely hazardous to your health." The only reason I don't give it a 5-star rating is because I feel there are too few warnings in the book.

My primary reason for reviewing this book is as a means to educate parents who might see this book in their kids' possession. There is nothing on the cover to indicate what's inside and that it's potentially dangerous information. The subject line on the back cover reads "Herbs/Biochemistry/Witchcraft/New Age." That sounds pretty harmless, right?

Secondarily, I think there are a few folks out there who have never heard of this book, and might find it as interesting as I did.

This book is poorly written and executed. I have a keen interest in entheogenic plants and their cultural use, particularly the Solanaceae. The book promised to elucidate how, chemically, witches herbs work separately and in conjunction with each other. This, and the answer to the title of the book itself, was never done! In fact the language and syntax of the entire text was so poor, it had me turning to the notes to determine what language it must have been badly translated from. Unfortunately, it IS in it's original English, and the author is a professor here in the States. Another edition could use a run-through from a copy editor, or at the very least a spell-checker. Further, last names and fragments of sources were liberally peppered throughout the text, without footnotes - many of which never appear in the bibliography - giving them limited validity. This is NOT a scholarly work, and is probably only helpful to the completely uninitiated reader who is just beginning their inquiry into witches' herbs.

This book probably made a decent brief article or journal note but was obviously inflated to book length by including a lot of information that is not especially pertinent and that can be found all over the web. The gist of the book (contained in about 3 pages) is that flying ointments were based on the antidotal action of paired herbs, such as tropane-containing plants like belladonna and opiates, or tropanes and aconite. This kind of antagonism has historical uses in botanical medicine--an example is the "twilight sleep" of painless childbirth. That flying ointments were based on this antagonism is a good idea, but Kuklin doesn't develop it, and he undermines much of what was in the book by including everything but the kitchen sink about psychoactive and magickal herbs, some of which, like blue water lily, could in no way have been used in West European flying ointments. Occasional howlers likewise make the reader wonder about the validity of the book's information. For instance, Kuklin writes, "The author Jong gives a 'Traditional English' recipe in his book _Witches_" and then cites a recipe from that work. Kuklin is here referring to the fiction writer Erica Jong's ruminations on witchcraft as if it were a historical study written by a man. Generally, this book is a disappointment. It gives the impression of being thrown together by someone who saw a way to make a quick buck. Too bad Kuklin didn't take the time to actually develop this idea.

Please don't try this. Belladonna (one of many herbs) is very poisonous and dangerous. Leave the brewing to the real witches. I wish this book was in a private library due to its deadly content.