Common Toxic Herbs And Their Effects

Of Poppy Flowers

Black Poppy, Flower of Ease, Opium Poppy, Papaver somniferum

This flower of the night-ways only blooms for a short while before turning into a bulbous ovary upon a stem full of bitter, white blood, characterizing its Lunar properties. This blood can be cultivated for its vision inducing properties. She is the Maiden in the Field, the Severed Head of St John, the Queen of Nightly Visions. 

Black poppy (the picture shown is a variety of black poppy from my own garden) was in pagan Greece and Rome associated with more Chthonic deities, such as Hekate, Hypnos, Nix, Thanatos, and Somnus (from which we get the word somniferum). The drug which is extracted from Poppy, Opium (as well as other narcotics, such as morphine and codeine) has a narcotic, stupefying effect akin to a dreaming sleep. Opium became a very popular drug prior to the first World War. A tea made from the dried flowers was used to suppress coughs, and the pods were sometimes made into a tea as a mild alternative to smoking the opium tears. 

We know that humans have been using Opium for its medicinal effects for a very long time, evinced of the fact that the Greeks would make it into a potent wine, Vinum opii, as well as as a suppository and fumigant, but there is evidence that it was cultivated as far back as the Neolithic era. The Ebers Papyrus (1550 BCE) lists its use as “Remedy to prevent the excessive crying of children”. It was also used to ease the pangs of childbirth, a very early anesthetic. It was also used, naturally, for its more recreational uses. Opium is a powerful (and highly addictive) psychoactive, and has been used as a visionary plant for both ritual and mundane use for ages. There is evidence that the juice of the plant was used in recipes for flying ointment along with hemlock, belladonna, and the feared mandrake. 

A Tuscan Divination

Place poppy leaves on hot coals and read the flames. 

Scatter poppy seeds on burning coals, and listen for the voice of prophecy. 

As a Lunar plant, the plant is sacred to Our Lady of the Night Ways, such as Hekate, Lilith, Black Anna, and Diana. Cakes sprinkled with the toasted seeds of Poppy may be offered unto Her and Her host of night flying beings. The seeds can also be ground up into an incense and combined with other herbs such as myrrh, mullein, red sandalwood as an offering to the Witchmother. The plant can also be used in dream work. Harold Roth gives an excellent use of the dried pods to make into little “charm bags”. The pods dry naturally on the Poppy’s long stalks, and can then be plucked therefrom (the seeds may be saved, and toasted for cooking, or scattered about for the next crop, or saved for magical work; Schulke lists that the seeds can be scattered upon the enemy’s property to cause confusion) and anointed with various oils and filled with fragrant herbs according to the spell made. If one were making a dreaming bag, one may use Chamomile, Clary Sage, Mugwort, and Hops. The flowers might also be steeped in wine, along with Cinnamon and Cloves, and taken as a tincture (a few drops only).

A Poppy Spell

This Italian spell can be adapted to any type of prophetic dream, not merely one concerned with matters of love. 

Make a hole in a poppy pod and empty out the seeds. Now fold up a small piece of paper with the question you want answered written on it, insert it in the pod, and place it under your pillow last thing at night, saying these words:

‘In nome del cielo, delle stelle, della luna! Fate mi face il sogno secondo…’

‘In the name of heaven, the stars, and the moon May I dream, and that full soon,  If this I see [name your wish].’

If you dream of your wish, it’s sure to come true.  ~(Mastering Witchcraft, Huson)

As Poppy has these chthonic connections with gods of the dead, such as Thanatos, and Hekate, the flowers can also be used to honor the dead. We see this today in Canada where a Red Poppy Flower is the symbol of Memorial Day. We get this tradition from the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.

The flowers and seeds may be burned, or offered in some other way to the spirits of the dead. Harold Roth in his book  The Witching Herbs gives a recipe for Chthonic Cakes for the dead which are not to be consumed by the living, but rather burned on coals like an incense. 

Papaver Chthonios Cakes for the Dead

4 oz ground myrrh A few tablespoons of dark red wine ¼ cup dark honey 1 oz black poppy seeds

Dampen the myrrh with some red wine and let sit in a closed jar overnight. Boil the honey to remove the water. The honey will foam, so don’t let it overboil, it’s terrible to clean up. Add the poppy seeds. Cook the honey and seeds for a bit, then pour over the myrrh and mix well. Before the mixture cools too much, form the mix into little crescent moons. Dry on a low heat, but not in the sun. Burn them on a charcoal tab as an offering to the dead. 

Care need be taken with the Poppy plant. She is the Maiden in the Field. You will sleep under Her; sleep too long and you will surely die. Many men have fallen under Her influence, never to wake from their glorious dreams. She caresses our throats, and whispers into our ears; we do not even notice that She is slowly choking us, so entranced are we by the stories She tells us. Be wary of this Lunar flower. She is as deadly and gentle as the goddess who rules Her. 

How to Do Witchcraft Research for Newbies

Basic search:

Get off Tumblr. (I know, it’s hard.)

Direct your browser to Google.com.

Choose the main keywords of your question. For example, “what is calendula good for in witchcraft?” might be parsed as “calendula witchcraft magickal correspondences”.

Hit enter.

For more in depth research, try these sites:

JSTOR.org, if you have access to it.

Online public library catalogs to find books. (Search your county and “public library.”)

Amazon Kindle. It can be put on your computer for free, there is a Cloud Reader online and a free smartphone app. Filter by price and you can find witchcraft and occult ebooks for free through a few simple searches.

Google Books for the same purpose. (There is a shit ton here, btw, I use it all the time.)

Scribd.com for the same purpose.

Cornell University online witchcraft collection.

Hermetic.com for public domain magick texts.

Sacred-texts.com for all sorts of neat shit.

Alchemy-works.com for magickal lore on plants.

Search your county’s website for weed/plant information to get a list of things growing in your area.

Some tips to aid in research:

Use your browser’s bookmarks.

Use the Amazon wishlist to keep track of titles, or to keep an eye on titles that are occasionally offered for free on Kindle.

Look around on publishers, like LuLu, Immanion Press, etc, for self-published material.

Cross reference with lots of sources to keep on top of the BS.

Take good notes.

Dirty experience/field work is better than reading/book work.

Mkay? After you’ve done all that, come back and ask about what you still can’t find. (Trust me, you’ll find most of it, if not all and more.) You have no fucking excuse to be on Tumblr asking about the basics of paganism or what such and such plant does for witchcraft, or how to summon demons. Harassing people for basic knowledge gets you nowhere. There is so much out there even just online. You do not need the newest, shiniest books by the most popular authors. You do not need to attack people when they tell you to go research on your own. The information is right fucking there. Now go get it.

Why Yule Needs to Stay Creepy

“…There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago…”

So I have been thinking about our Contemporary conceptualization of the Christmas season a lot lately and it’s kind of interesting. So many things we associate with Christmas – Christmas trees, greeting cards, Santa Claus, his reindeer and elves, gift-giving in general – all of these things came into vogue in the 19th Century and are very sticky-sweet, in my opinion. They’re lovely, but not filling. If we just scratch the surface of the Christmas we know and love and peek back into its history, we find something much meatier.

Before the cheerful Christmas tree, a number of other plants were associated with Christmas. The holly, associated with sacrifice and the blood of Christ, and the parasitic mistletoe, associated with the death of Baldur in Norse mythology – these were the plants associated with Christmas before the Christmas tree became the standard.

Also, the Yule log. The Yule log, meant to provide light on the darkest night of the year, was a magic charm in and of itself. If it did not burn through the night, it would be a terrible omen. By watching the fire and coals of the Yule log, one could also predict who would give birth and who would die in the coming year.  

When our simple Santa Claus is reduced to his predecessors, one is left with Odin, ancient Norse God of battle, Saint Nicholas, the canonized former bishop of Turkey, and Father Christmas, the hard-drinking gluttonous representation of holiday merriment. And all of them brought ghastly friends – Odin, the spirits of the Wild Hunt and Saint Nicholas, his helpers (including Knecht Rupert, Krampus, etc.). Father Christmas, more of a personification of the season than a night visitor, undoubtedly brought many hangovers.

Before stories about reindeer, snowmen, or things of that ilk, there were ghost stories. Charles Dickens did not invent the Christmas ghost story in “A Christmas Carol,” but popularized an already-existing folkloric trend. If we look to the old tales of Christmas, we find stories about witches that rode the night air, cursing the birth of the Savior. There are stories about fairies, ghosts, and Devils that wreak havoc, frightening livestock and damaging property. In an era before television or radio, homemade storytelling was one of the primary forms of entertainment. And winter was the storytelling season.

You also have mumming, wassailing, and caroling – dressing up in colorful costumes and (sometimes drunkenly) begging for money door-to-door. As John Grossman notes in his book “Christmas Curiosities,” Christmas before the Contemporary Period resembles our Halloween more than it resembles the Christmas we know now.

Let us not forget, those of us who acknowledge the Wheel of the Year, that the season of darkness extends from Halloween to Christmas. This darkness only begins to fade when we gain back the Sun at the Winter Solstice. From Halloween to Christmas, the dead may roam the Earth and weird things may happen. In his classic “Mastering Witchcraft,” Paul Huson notes that Yule is not a time for pleasant spell work, but cursing! It is a time of dark magic and mystery. And we need this time. To understand the light, we must understand the darkness – the witches, ghosts, and Devils of the old Yuletide. Like the trees that go dormant, we must embrace the darkness of winter to grow and thrive.

How I Celebrate Samhain

🧡Colors: orange, purple, mustard yellow, red, black

Orange- excitement, courage, motivation, confidence, stimulation

Purple- dreams, psychic abilities, fear, memories, divination, harmony, wisdom

Mustard yellow- knowledge, generosity, cultivation, success, abundance

Red- death, passion, lust, anger, action, impulsiveness

Black- chaos, renewal, release, transformation, instinct, self-indulgence, beginnings, endings

🍂Herbs and spices: black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg

Black pepper- chaos, and cursing.

Cinnamon- passion, excitement, and lust.

Cloves- comfort, maturity, and domesticity

Cardamom- action, and forcefulness

Nutmeg- patience and strong familial  bonds

🍬Food and beverages: pumpkin pastries and beverages, pumpkin seeds, maple syrup, pomegranates, apples, candy, squash, apple cider, candy, rosehips

🔮Crystals: fancy jasper, Mookaite Jasper, honey calcite, amethyst, onyx

Fancy Jasper- death, chaos, and cursing.

Mookaite Jasper- confidence, courage, wisdom, cultivation, action

Honey Calcite- knowledge and success

Amethyst- dreams, psychic abilities, and divination

Onyx- chaos, instinct, and transformation

🎃 Plants: gourds, dead leaves, pumpkins, chrysanthemum

Gourds- pride, protection, cultivation, and restrictions

Dead leaves- death, and destruction

Pumpkins- excitement, courage, expression, and abundance

Chrysanthemum:

Purple- Fear

Red- Impulsiveness

Orange- Frustration

Yellow- Victory

💨 Weather associations: Wind

The cool wind on Samhain reminds us of the coming darkness as it shifts the fallen leaves. Wind magic is amazing to do during this time of year. Do a ceremony asking the shifting winds to not only take away the negative thoughts and feeling from the past year but ask them to also bring you new positive things. Make an offering to the air element using fallen leaves. Or simply just take time to appreciate the wind.

🦇Animal associations: bats, black cats, owls, spiders( and other creepy bugs), crows, rats

💀Happy Samhain!💀

Unless you've been poisoned or your liver and kidneys aren't working, your body doesn't need a "cleanse" of anything. It cleanses itself of waste and toxins regularly just fine.

This is doubly true for "cleanses" based on junk science with coffee enemas or other gross nonsense.

dark green is a nice color. underrated

You can worship a deity without being devoted to that deity. You can make offerings without making oaths. It is okay. Please do not stress yourselves out because you want to make a thank-you offering but don’t want to make a lifelong commitment. Why would you need to swear oaths to say thank you? It is totally okay to just make conversation without involving vows and stuff.

Venus rx in Scorpio - ♡🖤 October 5 - November 16, 2018

the venus rx cycle opens the door for resolving the residue of past issues that cause conflict and misunderstandings in the present. in scorpio, it means a curse and a curative on persephone’s heart, freezing her in the autumn where she can still see the flowers of life but cannot touch them.  the heart becomes encased when venus retrogrades. we may become less responsive and seemingly distanced to the behaviours and actions of our partners, which may seem alarming or like we have ‘switched off’  but this process provides the insight of a clear and delicate view of the person and the entire relationship - free from the distortion of our emotional reactions, projections, immediate judgements, and confusion. we become more aware of the responsibility we singularly have in our relationships and in the lives of the people around us, these are people who respect and regard us so highly that they have chosen us to share their lives with. from this perspective, we can certainly approach our relationships with a refined honour and the dignity they deserve. 

in simple terms the retrograding planet is just returning to the path already crossed and doing it again. from this backward step we can see the beauty of people from a light and reflection we have never seen before, or simply forgotten existed in them. sometimes in the heat and chaos of the moment we move on without resolving or receiving any validation, and the poison starts to weep from places unknown within us and manifesting in the presence of this person sometimes we need to return over the past pain to recover it and let it spill out from us completely so we can really move forward, truthfully and authentically. because venus is in scorpio, we have no real need to worry about the false promises of our ideals and fantasies. whatever path is taken - leaving relationships, remaining in a strengthened one or developing greater relationship with the inner self and the sight for beauty unseen, or returning to a past relationship  you can rest assured that each should be met with peace, and no decision made could be wrong 

C