The use of Saint John’s wort by witch-hunters may be understood as cultural or magical appropriation. That Saint John’s wort was also popular amongst witches is indicated by its German folk-name, Walpurgis Herb. However, in French Saint John’s wort is called “chasse-diable” or “devil-chaser.”
Witch-hunters fed Saint John’s wort tea to accused witches in the belief that it negated the devil’s compact. Negating the compact didn’t mean that now everything was all right and the ex-witch could go home free. She was doomed anyway; “negating the compact” merely ensured that it would be safe to execute her. She would lack the power to execute vengeance on her judges and executioners.
San Pedro
(Trichocereus pachanoi)
San Pedro is a ribbed night-blooming cactus also known as achuma, huachuma, and giganton. It grows from sea level up to altitudes of 3000 meters in South America from Ecuador to Bolivia.
San Pedro is Spanish for St Peter, the saint who holds the keys to the kingdom. San Pedro contains the potent alkaloid mescaline. It possesses a psychotropic, consciousness-altering effect and has historically been used to enter or view the spirit world. It is used as a diagnostic tool for curanderos (Latin American shamanic healers) to enable the diagnosis of illness and determination of the needed cure. Under the influence of San Pedro the shaman may battle ferocious animals, communicate with spirits or travel between realms.
Based on representations on pre-Columbian pottery, San Pedro has probably been used for at least one thousand years and possibly for three thousand years or even longer. The first written descriptions appeared shortly after the arrival of the Spanish within the context of the Inquisition. Seventeenth-century priests wished to eliminate pagan practices of which San Pedro was seen as being integral. To persist in San Pedro’s use was to defy the new order and the new religion and thus to be branded as a witch. Because San Pedro is not administered without strict rituals and expert supervision, it was understood as a witch’s tool. Eliminating the plant eliminates the presiding practitioner’s role, stripping her of function and respect.
Its use was never eradicated however. Social scientists, ethnobotanists, and chemists now find San Pedro fascinating and it has been intensely studied for over 50 years. It is still used by Peruvian curanderos. It is most frequently administered as part of a psychotropic infusion, meaning that there may be a lot of other stuff in the brew, too. These are sophisticated rituals that require both spiritual knowledge and botanical expertise; San Pedro is not a toy for laypeople to play with. Both benevolent and malevolently oriented practitioners create these potions, although obviously with different motivation.
Infusions are ingested as a component of spiritual and magical ritual. In other words, consumption of the beverage isn’t believed sufficient. It’s only part of a process, broken down into steps that must be completed properly. Plants must be gathered and prepared ritually. The brew is ritually prepared, too, with spiritual ritual incorporated at every stage.
This is not a mechanical process. Rituals are required to enable the spirit of San Pedro to interact with human spirits. This is reminiscent of other indigenous American rituals featuring ayahuasca and peyote, leading one to wonder whether once upon a time there weren’t similar rituals, similar complex brews for Amanita muscaria or henbane.
San Pedro is also consumed within supervised ritual. It is traditionally believed that if the consumer is not prepared by the ritual leader (curandera, shaman, witch) who opens and closes portals as needed, then the person under the influence of San Pedro is left vulnerable to magical attack, because these are not oneway portals…
Trees
Among the most ancient forms of religion is devotion to sacred trees. In modern usage “tree worship” sounds flat and simplistic; language doesn’t do justice to the concept. Today trees are primarily understood as sources of lumber or as something to be moved out of the way so that the Earth below can be utilized for profit or practicality. In that context “tree worship” may sound primitive and silly.
In order to even begin to understand this concept, one must look at Earth with the wonder-struck eyes of magical perspective. First of all, lose the concept of “one way” directionals. If trees can be perceived as growing out of the ground, they may also be understood to penetrate the ground, as if they were moving downward, not up.
Now imagine: if Earth is a fertile female, what could those big, strong, hard trees possibly be? Genital imagery permeates ancient religion: trees often serve as huge, symbolic male generative organs.
Ritual processionals all over the world, from Japan throughout Asia and Europe, feature trees carried to represent generative energy. Sometimes they’re carved explicitly and very realistically into gigantic phalluses; sometimes tree trunks are left au naturel, no enhancement necessary. On-lookers may reach to touch the passing tree to gain a little of that energy for themselves: for reproductive fertility, for material prosperity, for sexual prowess, and for the magical prevention of erectile dysfunction. That tree serves a lot of people’s diverse magical needs. This phallic tree trunk may be pounded on doors to announce the arrival of the creative, generative spirit.
The most famous surviving phallic tree is the Maypole. A tall, hard, straight tree (often an elm) is ritually prepared, then set up within a dance ground—a magic circle. Young girls dance around it, wrapping it in silk ribbons. (Makes you wonder about that other lavishly ornamented tree, the Christmas Tree, doesn’t it?)
Not all trees were masculine. Smaller, curvaceous trees like the elder or rowan are usually perceived as feminine. Fruit-bearing trees, like figs, date palms or apples, are considered female as well, although nut trees are resolutely male. The Latin classification for walnuts describes them as “Jupiter’s balls” and we’re not talking about baseballs, golf balls or any other round object used in sports.
Some of the oldest religious rites took place in sacred groves. These groves were sacred ground and places of oracular wisdom. Various deities maintained sacred groves of trees that shared their essence. Zeus presided over the oak grove at Dodona. The oracle was interpreted by listening to the wind whispering through the trees. Eventually “whispering” would become the domain of witches.
There is an ancient, ancient, primordial tradition of holy trees. One especially sacred motif was the snake in a tree. The snake curling its body around a tree trunk was sometimes under-stood as the unification of the sexes. Some have suggested that the biblical story of the snake and the tree in the Garden of Eden may be interpreted to mean that the era of that kind of religion was ending. The story is not told without regret; it is accompanied by expulsion from Paradise and foretells enmity between the sexes and between species.
Even after expulsion from Eden, however, tree worship doesn’t end in the Bible. Lady Asherah of the Sea, pre-eminent mother goddess of the Western Semitic people, presided over sacred groves where women went to dance, sing and commune with nature. Trees were carved into the sacred poles named after Asherah and set up in high places as well as within the Jerusalem Temple.
For centuries, the Kings of Judea repeatedly installed, then removed and destroyed these pillars, only to have them installed once again. Although Asherah is frequently painted as a Canaanite goddess, one of the foreign deities the prophets accused the Children of Israel of whoring after, archeological evidence suggests otherwise. Lady Asherah was also an indigenous Hebrew goddess. Her image spent more time in the Jewish temple than outside; every time she was removed, someone eventually replaced her until the destruction of the First Temple. Obviously she was a controversial figure but there’s no way for us to truly understand the controversy because the only surviving writings derive from those opposed to Asherah and devotion to trees. No explanation survives from those who loved her, or at least none has yet been unearthed.
Descriptions of tree-centered spirituality around the world could fill a thousand pages. Norse cosmology describes the World Tree upon which the entire world and all its realms are centered. In Uppsala, Sweden, the city dedicated to Freyr the Elven King, Lord of Generative Fertility, there was an ancient sacred grove where every single individual tree was held sacred. The Druids held their rituals within sacred oak groves. A grove is a sacred perimeter of trees, the space within is demarcated as holy, ritual, magical space. However, much of Earth was once covered with trees.
The forest is the realm of trees and their spirits. It is a place of wild, free, bountiful energy. Cutting down forests may be understood as acts of spiritual warfare against spirits in general (a denial of their existence), against those spirits who preside over forests in particular, and against their devotees. Destruction of rain forests worldwide (as well as other forests) is now attributed to needs of business or “civilization” rather than official religion but may still be understood in the same manner.
This isn’t conjecture: when the missionaries Boniface and Willibrord came to convert the Frisians and Germans in the early eighth century they deliberately destroyed sacred trees. Cutting down groves was understood as a religious act; clearing wilderness makes way for “civilization” and easier administration of authority.
In Europe, forests, the realm of the trees, became refuges for outlaws, witches, pagan hold-outs, and all those who found themselves persecuted by the New Order. When forests became perceived as solely dark and dangerous, witches maintained the forest’s beneficial wisdom and secrets.
The sacredness inherent in a single tree is sometimes sufficient, however.
Witches were described as dancing around a tree at their sabbats.
A walnut tree in Benevento, Italy is legendary as a witches’ meeting place.
According to a Northern legend, when missionaries chopped down a huge holy oak, a small pine arose from its roots. This became the first Christmas tree.
Judaism was never able to suppress devotion to trees: Lady Asherah’s sacred tree survives in the Kabalah’s Tree of Life. Likewise the Christian Church was never able to suppress devotion to trees. Tree traditions survived in the Yule log, Maypoles, Easter egg trees and, most especially, in beautifully garlanded and bedecked Christmas Trees.
Witches became guardians and preservers of tree magic. Trees supply the materials for various magical tools, not least magic wands. The magic wand places the power of the tree directly into the practitioner’s hands, enabling her to focus it as desired. Different types of wood are believed most beneficial for different purposes and styles of magic.
See PLACES: Forest; TOOLS: Brooms, Wands.
Vervain
(Verbena spp.)
Vervain is associated with the positive power of magic, witchcraft, and women’s wisdom. Unlike other witchcraft plants whose temperaments are volatile and dangerous, vervain is friendly. No other plant is believed to have as much affection for people as does vervain. Vervain’s magical uses include providing love, luck, health, and protection, changing bad luck into the best luck and transforming enemies into friends. All one has to do is touch vervain—no elaborate brews are required—to begin to receive its gifts. Vervain, however, is not a “goody-two-shoes” plant; it is a powerful and vigilant protector that may be used to smash hexes and reverse malevolent charms.
Vervain is sacred to Isis; it is believed to have sprung from her tears. Isis was once dependent upon human mercy and learned to love people deeply. Vervain shares her essence and so reflects her feelings.
In Northern Europe, vervain was associated with smithcraft and ironworkers. (Many of the spirits presiding over metal-working are female.) Allegedly vervain was incorporated into the ancient formula for hardening steel. Because of these associations with iron, vervain is also believed to magically encourage the male member to remain as hard and firm as that metal. The Druids harvested vervain with an iron sickle.
Some believe that vervain’s name derives from two Celtic words: fer “to take away” and faen “stone” or “weight.” According to Druid tradition, vervain was gathered at night, during the Dark Moon. The Druids of Cornwall and Devon incorporated vervain into divinatory rituals, inhaling its fumes.
European colonists brought vervain seeds to the Western Hemisphere, where naturalized it now grows wild. At its peak, at Midsummer’s Eve, vervain can reach heights of about five feet. It is used in love potions and aphrodisiacs.
Willow
(Salix spp.)
Why does that willow weep? Why, indeed? Willows are identified with some of the most powerful goddesses of all including Artemis, Circe, Hecate, Hera, and Persephone. Although they are extremely beautiful trees, many planted purely for ornamental value, willows tend to possess somewhat of a doleful, ominous reputation. They have long been considered witch’s trees and witch’s tools.
Weeping willows are a specific type of willow (Salix babylonica). They were indigenous to China but spread westward and are now widely distributed. There are many species of willow; as a whole they are also extremely well distributed—miniature willows, only inches tall, survive in the Arctic Circle, while other species may be found in deserts and tropical areas.
Willows are graceful trees with lithe boughs and an affinity for water. Like alder, willows are often found near rivers, streams, swamps, and marshes. The willow is believed to love and crave moisture (hence the weeping willow’s affinity for tears) and so is under the dominion of the moon, the planetary body that rules water, women, and fertility.
Snakes are the creatures believed to most closely share the essence of the willow tree. The willow’s branches and leaves are believed to resemble the motion of a snake. In ancient Greece, willow branches placed under the beds of infertile women were believed to transmit fertility-generating snake power. (No doubt a more peaceful night’s sleep was to be had with willow branches beneath the bed rather than living, slithering snakes!)
Willows are also used to magically ward off snakes and prevent snakebite. Among willow’s other magical uses are for wish fulfillment and healing and love spells.
Perhaps because willows were associated with such powerful lunar goddesses, the trees came to be associated with witches in ancient Greece. “Willow” has long been a popular magical or craft name among witches—as exemplified by “Dark Witch Willow,” the character on the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Willows are associated with fertility and birth, but also with death. In Celtic areas, willows were planted in graveyards because it was believed that they encouraged the dead to rest peacefully and to refrain from roaming.
Thin, flexible young willow branches are a traditional binding to hold handmade witches’ brooms together.
