(Erythroxylon coca)
The coca plant is indigenous to Bolivia and Peru and has a long history of ritual and magical use there. Cocaine, the illegal stimulant, is a derivative of the coca plant; indigenous ritual incorporated the whole plant, not refined, concentrated derivatives. There is tremendous resentment among traditional ritualists for the way their sacred plant has been manipulated, corrupted, and politicized. However, controversies centering on coca began shortly after the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors.
Caution! Potentially poisonous and, depending upon where you are, most likely to be illegal!
Coca use was discouraged by the Spanish, not because of its addictive qualities but because chewing coca leaves was associated with heathen devotion to the “huacas,” the indigenous sacred shrines. The danger associated with coca was perceived as spiritual, not physical. Coca was a reminder of Peru’s pagan past that the Inquisition preferred to erase. For the Spanish Inquisition, coca was the plant most identified with Peruvian witches and organized opposition to the new religion and regime. However, wealthy mine-owners wished to encourage coca’s use so as to stimulate worker productivity. On October 18, 1569, a compromise was reached when King Phillip II urged priests to beware of the use of coca in witchcraft and superstition but to allow its use as medicine, especially as a stimulant to encourage the heavy forced labor imposed upon the Indians.
Coca leaves were used in Peruvian love magic, as offerings to the spirits, and as an ingredient of psychotropic brews. Coca’s international associations with magic and stimulation, rather than with addiction, still existed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when power potions first became popular in the United States, including the one that bears its name, Coca Cola®.
In 1630, an edict against stargazers (astrologers) and witches was posted on all church doors in Peru. Among their crimes, witches were accused of using “certain drinks, herbs, and roots” including coca, San Pedro, and datura.
Datura
(Datura spp.)
Datura names a widely distributed family of herbaceous shrubs with fragrant, trumpetshaped flowers and usually spiny seedpods. There are approximately 20 species of datura growing around the world. Common folk names include angel’s trumpet, devil’s trumpet, devil’s herb, horn of plenty, Jimsonweed and thorn apple. Many datura species have beautiful white flowers that bloom only at night, closing during the day—thus the plant possesses a profound lunar affiliation. Datura is cultivated for these beautiful flowers and various species remain staples of California’s botanical nurseries.
Most species of datura are indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, however several originated in Eurasia, most probably in the region around the Caspian Sea. It is abundant in Russia from the Black Sea regions through Siberia, but thrives everywhere with the exception of very cold regions. Datura is used ritually wherever it is found, including widespread regions of Africa, China, India, Mexico, and the North American southwest. Remains of seeds and seedpods found within a ritual context in South Texas, together with remains of other psychotropic plants, have been dated back to 2000 BCE.
Datura is used to hex and to break hexes, to induce sleep and visionary dreams. It has historically been used to communicate with other species, especially birds, and to enter other realms, especially that of the after-life. Unfortunately, it may be a one-way trip. Datura is deadly poisonous. Its active ingredient is hyoscyamine, which is similar to atropine but has a more powerful effect on the peripheral nervous system, causing powerful hallucinations.
Thorn apple is the form of datura most familiar in Western magic. Thorn apple (Datura stramonium) has been known in Europe since the sixteenth century, apparently introduced by the Romany who are believed to have been instrumental in datura’s spread through Europe.
The most notorious datura may be Jimsonweed, which is a corruption of Jamestown Weed. There are two versions of how this species of datura acquired that name:
In 1676, soldiers were sent to Jamestown in the Virginia colony to quell a local rebellion and somehow accidentally ate the plant. This was followed by an 11-day period of delirium. The news spread throughout the colonies and Britain and the name stuck.
The plant was named in honor of the first place in the American colonies where datura was deliberately cultivated for medical use.
Once upon a time datura was an important medicinal incorporated into treatment for madness, melancholia, and seizure disorders. Its no longer used as such; the toxicity rate was too high and safer replacements have been developed. In 1968, the United States banned the sale of over-the-counter preparations containing datura.
Elder
(Sambucus nigra)
The elder, known as the “witch tree,” is powerfully identified with witchcraft, the magical arts and goddess-oriented Pagan tradition.
The elder is a threshold tree: it serves as a portal that allows souls to pass between realms. Ghosts, spirits, and elves can pass into the mortal realm via elder trees and bushes but, remember, one-way signs don’t exist in the magical, shamanic world. Elders are also portals where you can access other realms.
In order to establish contact with other realms, try burning elder bark, blossoms, roots, and wood as incense. (If gathering botanical material yourself, remember to ask for permission from the plant first and always to leave a gift in return.)
The elder is sacred to the Germanic deity, Hulda, known affectionately as Mother Holle. Hulda was once an extremely prominent, important deity, so entrenched in people’s hearts that, unlike some other spirits, she was never entirely banished. Unable to completely eradicate her, local Christian authority dubbed her a Queen of Witches, with the immediate implication that all who were devoted to this queen were witches themselves. In Denmark, the elder tree itself is called Frau Hylle or Hyllemoer, Danish for Mother Holle or Frau Holle. In Anglo-Saxon it was known as Hylder or Hylantree. As part of Hulda’s ritual, circle dances were performed around the tree.
For the ancient Germans and Slavs, old elder trees, especially those that nestled close to a house, were the home of family ghosts. Because they are threshold trees, elders are often incorporated into funeral rites.
Heathen Frisians buried their dead underneath elders.
In England, grave-diggers traditionally carried elder wood so as to protect them from any malevolent ghosts lingering in the graveyard.
In other areas, it was customary for the driver of the hearse to carry a whip made of elder wood.
Perhaps because of associations with Hulda, elder became identified with witchcraft. Elder bushes personified witches. It was believed that witches could transform into elders as surely as they could assume the form of a cat. One single solitary elderberry bush popping up in an unexpected spot might actually be a witch in disguise—another reason to treat the elder with respect. Perhaps in the spirit of that old saying “it takes one to know one” elders are also powerful agents used to ward off malevolent spells.
Elders have a powerful reputation as protective trees, especially for fending off malevolent witchcraft. Traditionally fingernail parings, hair or teeth are buried beneath elders so as to prevent their use in malevolent spells. Afterbirths of calves and foals are buried beneath elders so that neither the new-born animals nor their mothers can be bewitched. (These practices may also be simultaneously understood as offerings to Mother Holle, the elves or the ancestors, depending upon whose spirit resides within the particular elder.)
Elder wood is carved into amulets to prevent unwanted enchantment. Green elder branches were also buried in a grave to protect the dead from witches and evil spirits.
Elder is incorporated into many spells, especially those for love and protection. A nickname for elder sap is “blood.” Sap was understood as literally the blood of the tree, in the same way that bark is its skin and leaves the tree’s hair. Because the elder was believed to house important spirits, to embody Hulda’s essence or to even be a witch in disguise, elder “blood” was potentially incredibly powerful, more powerful than most sap. Northern European spells that cite “blood” as an ingredient may, in fact, be requesting elder sap instead.
Elder is a short, bent, crooked tree that never grows very tall, hence the constant confusion between whether it’s a bush or a tree. It is not a tall, forbidding, imposing tree. Unlike other witchcraft plants, elderberries are not toxic but tasty and nutritious—as anyone who’s had elderberry preserves or wine can attest.
Unlike so many other witchcraft plants, elders are friendly plants; they’re understood as a tree that likes people and is by nature helpful and affectionate. (Spirits residing within may or may not be as friendly and benevolent: Frau Holle and the elves both possess reputations for volatility, although this may be in response to defamation and loss of respect and offerings.)
Elder’s roots among spiritual traditions of Northern Europe and its associations with spiritual entities and ancestral spirits were so powerfully entrenched that it created a dilemma for ascendant Christian authority. Attempts were made to either taint the tree as evil and diabolical, thus to be shunned by all righteous people, or to incorporate elder into Christian tradition, so that its use could continue under proper auspices. Both methods were historically tried.
In the days before the easy availability of wax and hence cheap candles, elder was a source of light.
Elder Candles
1 Slice the pith of elder branches into round shapes.
2 Dip these slices into oil.
3 Set the slices alight and carefully float them in water to create floating “candles.”
In areas where attachment to Hulda was particularly strong, attempts were made to brand the elder as an evil tree, something to be feared. The only people who would use elder with impunity were witches. (There may be some truth to this: because it was believed spiritually hazardous to harvest any part of the elder without requesting permission from the resident spirits, only those who knew how to do this, who remembered these practices and didn’t fear them, would be willing to gather twigs or berries.)
Elder retained its associations with paganism but now paganism was identified with the devil rather than with helpful deities. (One tradition from this era suggests that if you wanted to invite the devil over for a visit, burning an elder log in your fireplace officially extends an invitation.)
In an attempt to break chains of transmission, to seal up the portals and make people fear venturing near thresholds, Christian missionaries painted the elder as an evil tree. Various legends emerged:
An elder whip was used to scourge Jesus and that’s why elder’s branches bear cracks on the skin.
Judas committed suicide by hanging himself from an elder.
It was widely believed that Christ had been crucified on an elder wood cross, which is why the tree is now so stunted and bent.
On the other hand, in attempts to ingratiate the elder into Christianity and substitute associations for the pagan goddess with the Virgin Mary, another legend suggests that Mary hung Jesus’ swaddling clothes on elder branches under which she had sought protection from a storm. (There is a northern legend that lightning never strikes elders, although whether Mary would have known this in first-century Egypt or Judea, where the date palm or tamarisk is the primary sacred tree is impossible to verify.)
Regardless of these efforts, elder’s identity as a powerful spiritually charged plant was impossible to shake. Historically, date palms weren’t easy to obtain in Northern climates and so the elder, that ancient local sacred plant, was a frequent substitute. In Allgau, Germany, for instance, the cross for Palm Sunday “palms” was formed from elder branches instead.
See also CALENDAR: Midsummer’s.
Elm
(Ulmus campestris)
Elm trees are widely distributed, from as far south as Mexico, to as far north as the Himalayas. One species, the Scotch Elm (Ulmus montana) is also known as the Wych Elm. In German, however, the entire species of elms may be classed as “Hexenulme” or Witch’s Elm.
