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The Witch's Herb Garden


Witchcraft beliefs have always flourished amoung superstitious, ignorant peoples and among our very learned men and women of our species. One might think that with the great advances in education and science in the United States, witchcraft in this country, as well as the rest of the planet, would be at least critically ill if not completely dead. Far from it. No one knows how many covens of witches exist in the U.S. today.


In medieval times churchmen used flowers to spread the gospel, there were others who employed them to less holy means. Throughout the Middle Ages, and certainly to date in many parts of the world, a few discrete questions to the right people in the right places could lead one to a witch. Witches have been known to be good as well as evil; and the reputation of a "good witch" often stemed from the ability to come up with herbal brews that satisfied people's wants and needs. "White witches", those who profess to do only good with their witchcraft are often healers. Now only in yore do "white witches" tip to herbal patches hidden deep in the woods, to gather forbidden plants.


Many of the witches' herbs herbs were poisonous plants now recognised as containing potent drugs and toxins. The familiar henbane and mandrake were witches' standbys. Too, by special treatment, witches tried to endow these old herbal servants with new powers.


Thus, the witches preffered to harvest mandrake from beneath a gallows tree. The hanged man had to have a "pure youth." That meant a kindrid spirit that had devoted his whole life from conception to death, to a life of crime. Even so, the newly harvested root had to have special treatment. It had to be bathed in wine, clothed in silk and velvet, and given sustenance, preferably with sacramental water or a wafer stolen during communion.


Circe, mistress of the ocult wiled the heart of Odyseus by giving him the "juice of magical herbs," most likely mandrake or henbane. Jupiter's Bean, or henbane was another favorite herb of the witch. Harvested at night when the moon was in the proper phase, this deadly member of the nightshade family served the witch as an ingredient of her flying ointment. After blending the herb with such ingredients as a bat's blood, vipers, toads, and the fat of a dead children, the witch would rub the mixture into her skin. Soon the witch would start to hallucinate, imagining that she was soaring through the air or dancing with demons. Later her recollections gave rise to tales of magical flights and black Sabbats.


A related species of the (belladona) henbane was thorn apple, used in a concoction for love; "love will", wich was supposed to make the object of one's desires lose all powers of resistance and become, against his or her will, passionately aroused.


A Less repulsive mimetic is a "Love Oil" used with a "Braided Love Spell." The love oil, wich will help to draw companionship and a partner who is intrested in a long-term relationship is the mix that follows: