Herbal Mojo

Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. Sometimes the scope of herbal medicine is extended to include fungi and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Many of the herbs and spices used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds. People on all continents have used hundreds to thousands of indigenous plants for treatment of ailments since prehistoric times.

In the written record, the study of herbs dates back over 5,000 years to the Sumerians, who described well-established medicinal uses for such plants as laurel, caraway, and thyme. The Egyptians of 1000 B.C. are known to have used garlic, opium, castor oil, coriander, mint, indigo, and other herbs for medicine and the Old Testament also mentions herb use and cultivation, including mandrake, vetch, caraway, wheat, barley, and rye.



Healing Herbs

Julie Nightingale

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The first Chinese herb book (or herbal), dating from about 2700 B.C., lists 365 medicinal plants and their uses - including ma-Huang, the shrub that introduced the drug ephedrine to modern medicine.



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Many herbs are consumed for their medicinal properties. For example:

# Boldo, used in South America to calm upset stomachs.
# Catnip tea is used as a relaxant, sedative, and to calm.
# Chamomile tea is used as a sedative.
# Dill tea, often consumed to ease upset stomach.
# Echinacea tea, often consumed to prevent or alleviate the cold or flu symptoms.
# Fennel Traditional weightloss herb, good to ease blindness.
# Kava root, from the South Pacific, is popular for its effects in promoting talkativeness and relaxation.
# Mountain Tea, a very popular tea in the Balkans and other areas of the Mediterranean region. Made from a variety of the Sideritis syriaca plant which grows in warm climates above 3000 feet. The tea (or more properly tisane) has a reputation as a cure-all, but is specifically used against colds. Records of its use date back 2000 years.



Medicinal Herbs

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Herbal teas can be made with fresh or dried flowers, leaves, seeds or roots, generally by pouring boiling water over the plant parts and letting them steep for a few minutes. Seeds and roots can also be boiled on a stove. The infusion is then strained, sweetened if so desired, and served.

Herbal teas are are often consumed for their physical or medicinal effects, especially for their stimulant, relaxant or sedative properties.



Teacup Herbs II

Jo Moulton

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Echinacea, also called Purple Cone Flower, is a plant native to eastern and central North America, and commonly utilized in herbal remedies. Echinacea is popularly believed to be an immunostimulator, stimulating the body's non-specific immune system and warding off infections. The scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of its use in medicine is not conclusive, however. Part of the problem in studies, as with all herbal preparations, is variation of species, plant part, extraction method, and contamination or adulteration with other products.

A controlled double-blind study from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and documented in the New England Journal of Medicine stated that echinacea extracts had "no clinically significant effects" on rates of infection or duration or intensity of symptoms. The effects held when the herb was taken immediately following infectious exposure and when taken as a prophylaxis starting a week prior to exposure.

An earlier University of Maryland review based on 13 European studies concluded that echinacea, when taken at first sign of a cold, reduced cold symptoms or shortened their duration. The review also found that three of four published studies concluded that taking echinacea to prevent a cold was ineffective.

References

Turner, Ronald B.; Rudolf Bauer, Karin Woelkart, Thomas C. Hulsey, and J. David Gangemi (2005-07-28). "An Evaluation of Echinacea angustifolia in Experimental Rhinovirus Infections". The New England Journal of Medicine 353: 341-348.

Bergner, P. (1997). Healing Power of Echinacea and Goldenseal and Other Immune System Herbs, The Healing Power.



Echinacea

Deborah Schenck

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Indigenous healers often claim to have learned by observing that sick animals change their food preferences to nibble at bitter herbs they would normally reject.

The following plants are routinely used by American Indians, and have come to be recognized as safe by virtue of historical and continued use without deleterious effects to health.

* Black sage, (Salvia mellifera), can be used against pain. A strong sun tea of the leaves and stems of the plant can be rubbed on the painful area or used to soak one's feet.
* California bay leaves are used to treat pain.
* California poppy can be chewed to treat toothache, and to decrease milk production in nursing mothers.
* California sagebrush can bring back pleasant memories. The smell of the leaves and stems is pleasant and relaxing.
* Douglas' sagewort is used to induce dreaming, as well as an antibacterial and douche. Leaves and stems under a pillow at night can help sleep as well as induce dreams.
* Ephedra spp. is used as a diuretic, as a treatment for urinary tract infections, for asthma, and as stimulant due to the presence of ephedrine and other compounds.
* Horsetail or Scouring Rush is used as a diuretic because of it contains high concentrations of oxalic acid and calcium oxalate and therefore can also be a throat irritant if brewed improperly.
* Matilija poppy is applied topically to treat sunburn.
* White sage can be grown in a garden and used every day to purify the spirit. One leaf is placed in a water bottle, and used normally. Sucking on a leaf can soothe sore throats since the leaves contain camphor and other therapeutic compounds.



Navajo Medicine Chart

Vera Lee

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Vintage Herbs, Sage

Constance Lael

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Hoodoo is a form of predominantly African-American traditional folk magic. Also known as conjure, it is a tradition of magical practice that developed from the creolization of a number of separate cultures and magical traditions, including African and Native American traditions, European magical practices and grimoires, as well as the saints and psalms of Catholicism. Rootwork is the term used to describe a person who incorporates the use of herbs and roots in their hoodoo practice.

The goal of hoodoo is to allow people access to supernatural forces to improve their daily lives by gaining power in many areas of life, including luck, money, love, divination, revenge, health, employment, and necromancy. As in many other folk religious, magical, and medical practices, extensive use is made of herbs, minerals, parts of animals' bodies, an individual's possessions, and bodily fluids, especially menstrual blood, urine and semen. Contact with ancestors or other spirits of the dead is an important practice within the conjure tradition, and the recitation of Psalms from the Bible is also considered magically effective in hoodoo. Due to hoodoo's great emphasis on an individual's magical power, its basic principles of working are generally felt to be easily adapted for use based on one's desires, inclination and habits.

Some of the herbs employed in hoodoo are as follows:

Divination
Poppy
Star anise
Calendula
tea

Make Wishes
Dandelion
Elder
Mojo bean
Sandelwood

Blessings
Passion flower
Angelica

Attract Luck
Lucky hand Root
peony
4 leaf clover

Protection
Anise
Chamomile
Mint
Parsely

Love
Adam and Eve root
Bay
Catnip
Sage
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Here are a couple of excellent books on hoodoo rootwork that I highly recommend:


Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic: A Materia Magica of African-American Conjure

This is the first book of its kind, presenting accurate botanical information about roots and herbs employed in conjure, with sample spells that will show you how to make and use your own mojo bags, spiritual baths, and incenses. Includes 500 herbs, roots, minerals, and rare zoological curios, 750 traditional spells, tricks, and magical recipes.
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Sticks, Stones, Roots, and Bones: Hoodoo Mojo and Conjuring with Herbs

Hoodoo is an eclectic blend of African traditions, Native American herbalism, Judeo-Christian ritual, and magical healing. Tracing Hoodoo's magical roots back to West Africa, Stephanie Rose Bird provides a fascinating history of this nature-based healing tradition and gives practical advice for applying Hoodoo magic to everyday life. Learn how sticks, stones, roots, and bones - the basic ingredients in a Hoodoo mojo bag - can be used to bless the home, find a mate, invoke wealth, offer protection, and improve your health and happiness.

Mandrake has long been used in magic, spells, witchcraft, and hoodoo. According to the legend, when the root is dug up it screams and kills all who hear it. Literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety. For example Josephus (c. 37 AD Jerusalem - c. 100) gives the following directions for pulling it up:

"A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this the root can be handled without fear."

There is a long history of the use of herbs in countless religious and spiritual practices, often involving the use of psychoactive plants and herbs. Psychoactive herbs contain properties that are closely related to endogenous neurochemicals; in other words, the "feel good" chemicals that in our brain. They occur in a wide variety of psychedelics of various religious rites and have been shown to directly provoke what users perceive as spiritual/mystical experiences. Psychoactive herbs are used in many religions and spiritual practices, such as the sacramental use of peyote in the Native American Church, the spiritual use of cannabis in the Rastafari movement, and the use of cannabis as a sacrament in the Church of the Universe. Psychoactive plants have been safely utilized in a ritualized context for thousands of years.

Other examples of the use of psychoactive herbs in a shamanistic context include the Bwitist culture of Africa, who used a preparation of the root bark of Iboga (Tabernanthe iboga). A famous psychoactive plant of ancient Egypt is the blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea). Traditionally, Mexican cultures have used a variety of psychoactive plants in a religious context, including peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, and the seeds of several types of morning glories.

In ancient Germanic culture cannabis was associated with the Germanic love goddess Freya. The harvesting of the plant was connected with an erotic high festival. It was believed that Freya lived as a fertile force in the plant's feminine flowers and by ingesting them one became influenced by this divine force. Similarly, fly agaric was consecrated to Odin, the god of ecstasy, while henbane stood under the dominion of the thunder god - Thor in Germanic mythology - and Jupiter among the Romans (Rätsch 2003).

European witches used various psychoactive herbs, including thorn-apple, deadly nightshade, mandrake, and henbane. These plants were used, among other things, for the manufacture of "flying ointments".

Some believe that Christian hermits and mystics could possibly have used psychoactive plants in conjunction with fasting, meditation and prayer.

According to 'The Living Torah', cannabis was an ingredient of holy anointing oil mentioned in various sacred Hebrew texts. This is mentioned several times in the Old Testament as a bartering material, incense, and an ingredient in holy anointing oil used by the high priest of the temple (Kaplan,1981).

Reference

Kaplan, Aryeh. (1981). The Living Torah New York. p. 442.

Rätsch,C. (2003-2004). The Sacred Plants of our Ancestors. TYR: Myth-Culture-Tradition Vol. 2.

The blue lotus (Nymphaea caerulea), also known as Egyptian blue lily or sacred blue lily, is a blue water-lily in the genus Nymphaea that grows along the Nile, in Thailand, and other locations. It has historically been known as the blue lotus and sacred lotus, particularly in discussing its revered status among the Ancient Egyptians, Nubians, Abyssinians, and any number of historic African civilizations of the ancient world.

Nymphaea caerulea can be confused with Blue Lotus, Nelumbo nucifera, as they can both be known by this name.

The blue lotus was considered extremely significant in Egyptian mythology, since it was said to rise and fall with the sun. Because of its color, it was believed by some as having been the original container of the solar deities Atum and Ra. In addition it was the symbol of the Egyptian deity Nefertem.

It is used in perfumes and aromatherapy. When used in aromatherapy, it is said to have a "divine" essence, bringing feelings of euphoria, heightened awareness, and tranquility.

The blue lotus was used as a sacrament in ancient Egypt and certain ancient South American cultures. Dosages of 5 to 10 grams of the flowers induces slight stimulation, a shift in thought processes, enhanced visual perception, and mild closed-eye hallucinations.

Hanging Dried Herbs

T. Chiu

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Basket Full of Herbs

Nicole Duplaix

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