Magical Herbal Information Sources

[helwen]

Thoughts on this site?:

http://www.witchipedia.com/

[EDIT]: Just found this -- http://www.amazon.com/Cunninghams-Encyclopedia-Magical-Herbs-Series/dp/0875421229

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Any book recommendations?

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Just starting to look into this in more depth...

I'll also be ordering a book on herbal medicines: The Medicinal Herb Grower by Richo Cech

Possibly also these: Planetary Herbology or The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra and Healing Wise by Susan Weed

[SECOND EDIT] Whoot! I really should just look at my own shelves sometimes... I went on a book-buying spree a few years ago and then didn't have time/energy to really read a lot of what I'd gotten.

Now on my reading list: Encyclopedia of Natural Magic, by John Michael Greer

Comments

[oakmouse]

Will look at Witchipedia later, am short on time right now.

IMO Scott Cunningham can't be trusted for either magical or medicinal uses unless his claims cross-reference to a more reliable source. According to the medicinal herbalists I know who knew him, he was a digester; he read and regurgitated other people's work, and didn't understand it or internalize it. (I should tell you some time the story of my friend Jim taking him on an herb walk. It's... epic.)

I can tell you from direct experience that his magical herbal materials are exactly what those folks report his medicinal herbal material to be: a lot of stuff he'd read and not understood, muddled together and barfed onto the page. It's a mess.

For magical herbal lore, other than JMG *g*, I recommend Chris Zalewski's work on magical herbs, and, given your knowledge of things medieval and Renaissance, Culpeper and Gerard. (DO NOT use Culpeper for medicinal purposes unless you check everything very carefully in a modern source. Some of his recipes can kill you. Not even joking, here.)

For medicinal herbs, Cech's book is superb, as is James Green's Herbal Medicine Makers Handbook. Weed is a competent herbalist but has a huge agenda that colors everything she does, and she reports as matters of fact many false claims. Anything she says must be taken with a grain of salt --- if not a pound of salt. Tierra is very good, especially if you want to mix Eastern and Western herbs.

In addition to those, I highly recommend Stephen Harrod Buhner, Mrs. Grieve, Rosemary Gladstar, and Matthew Wood; I also recommend Brigitte Mars, Gregory Tilford, Matthew Moore, and Suzanne Fischer Rizzi.

That's the ten cent version; gotta run. *hugs*

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Cunningham was nothing if not methodical, though he wasn't thinking about documenting such things; looking at his Encyclopedia you can usually divine what sources he got his material from.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

P.S. there is theory in Susun Weed that I enjoy, but she's a crankcase about certain things and just repeats and expands the usual line about people being burned to death for herbalism, etc.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Sorry to keep sending add'tl comments... Patricia Telesco's older works include lots of information about herbal folk magic that she picked up various places; she tends to be better than Cunningham about identifying her sources.

I agree that Zalewski is probably the best if you are into druidry... he's very old school.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks! I do have Green's book, and somewhere I have Culpeper but I think I accidentally packed it...

Looking forward to hearing that story sometime :)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the posts :)

[oakmouse]

I'll email it to you.

I looked at Witchipedia, and it's a very mixed bag. I would say don't trust anything you can't confirm from a proven reliable source. They made some really egregious howlers.

For example, this claim: "The world laurel comes from the Celtic lawr, meaning "verdant" and nobilis from the latin meaning "noble" or of high rank.” is not even remotely true. The word "lawr" does not exist in Irish, Welsh, Cornish, or Scots (we looked it up), and the word laurus in fact derives from Latin, not from a Celtic language.

(Also? The site is full of typos. The "world", up there, is their error, not mine.)

They claim that blackberry root can be harvested in summer (nope, it should be harvested in spring and fall, which they don't even mention as possible) and that young blackberry shoots can be used in salads. (Don't recommend it unless you want a pierced tongue; even the seed leaves of blackberry are thorned along the underside of the central vein, and have prickles on the undersides of the leaves. You can remove the spines and steam the shoots if you want to eat them, but they don't say that.)

They claim that oreads are water spirits (no, they're mountain spirits), and that sylphs are water spirits (no, they're air spirits) and that undines and naiads (which they misspell as nyad) are air spirits (nope, they're water spirits). They also claim that water is ruled by the moon and Venus; no, it's ruled by Mars, and Venus is associated either with earth (in astrology) or fire (in the Qabala).

Oh, and I probably should have mentioned that Chris Zalewski is a witch, druid, ceremonial magician, and practicing herbalist who really really knows her onions when it comes to magic, medicine, and herbs.

[caitlin-sd.livejournal.com]

We have a fair number of books from the days when Moose was actively exploring herbalism. I've got at least one of Susan Weed's books; if you're interested, I'll see what condition they're in. I'd also reccomend The Master Book of Herbalism by Paul Beyerl; it covers both medicinal & ritual uses, and has a decent set of correspondences. I can take a look for that as well.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Sure, thanks -- good to see what's out there.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

On Witchipedia - yikes! I'd only glanced at a few entries -- the name of the site was amusing but apparently shares more similarities to Wikipedia than just the name... although there are some good entries there too, for the more scientific things, but still... yikes!

Looking forward to ordering C Zalewski's book.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Honestly, after reading halfway through my copy of Beyerl's _Compendium of Herbal Magick_ I would be chary of spending money on him. The holes in his work-- where he clearly hadn't been paying attention to basic history and herbalism-- are pretty clear (I seem to remember that he didn't differentiate clearly between melissa, Citrus bergamia, mentha citrata, and Monarda). However, if the Master Book of Herbalism is more of a theory than a how-to it might be better.

[oakmouse]

Some of their info is good --- like Wikipedia --- but lordy do they need good, knowledgeable editors.

If you're on a budget or in a hurry to get hold of some good sources, I'd recommend Grieve and Buhner as the most immediately useful of the best, medicinal-herb-wise. Buhner's book on herbal antibiotics ia incredible, and Grieve covers everything about most of the plants she lists --- where it grows, how it grows, what it looks like, how to cultivate it, how to harvest and process it, recipes for standard remedies using it, some folklore, etc.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

It's also my understanding from another person that he decided to create his own system for attributes, even though the traditional ones work just fine.