Botany of the Good Lord

Botany of
the Good Lord
Swiss trademarks
Sun plants
The festival of St John is another notable example of the appropriation of a pagan
celebration by the church. The solar cult of the summer solstice (21 June), marked
by fire and the harvest of plants ripened through the rays of the divine star, goes
back to the beginning of time. The longest day (and it follows, the shortest night)
are celebrated in many societies. The orientation of megaliths and the architecture
of sun temples in Egypt and the Andes, take account of the sun’s rays on this
paradoxical day. Their design strengthens the myth of the light of the founder god
which nurtures man and plants at this pivotal moment of the solar year. In our
countries, don’t we start to return to the cold and dark once this day has passed,
even though we have not yet tasted the pleasures of summer? A paradox indeed!
St John s wort
God’s pharmacy, at its height on the day of the sun’s triumph when the sap of the
earth’s produce rises, gives its remedies to whoever can recognise them. At the
frontier between paganism and Christianity, St John’s wort (Hypericum
perforatum, Clusiaceae) is nature’s best advocate. According to ancient herbalists,
its healing action is reinforced by exposure to the sun. The yellow flowers of this
“solar” species light up the borders of paths on the plains and in the mountains at
the summer solstice.
The preparations of the priest-herbalist Künzle, a Swiss trademark, are a good
example. These herbal treatments are made according to the recipes of Johann
Künzle (1857-1945), the Swiss pioneer of herbal medicine, who must surely have
enjoyed the blessing of the Good Lord. They are natural remedies based on plants
and are part of the comprehensive therapeutic approach adopted by alternative
medicine, trusted because of the reassuring image of the priest-herbalist. They are
made in Switzerland where they remain valued and popular, and are marketed by
various manufacturers of natural medicine.
The flowering tops of the plants are gathered and macerated in oil to make one of
the most effective remedies in our “holy pharmacy”. The bottle containing the
flowers of St John’s wort is put on a windowsill in full sun. The macerating liquid
takes on the red colouring of the herb’s essential oil. After three weeks it is ready
to use, and it works …. (particularly against sunburn)!
It should be noted that sorcerers were also afield on St John’s morning collecting
undesirable plants, poisons and hallucinogens, whose evil powers are also at their
height on this night and dawn of all possibilities. We will return to them
Maria Treben is another Alpine personality, part of the middle-European popular
enthusiasm for herbal treatments recommended more or less directly by the
Christian god. She was an Austrian herbalist from the Sudetenland born in 1907
and died in 1991. She became famous after publication of her book “Health
Through God’s Pharmacy” (in German: Heilkräuter aus dem Garten Gottes) which
sold several million copies. It is a very clear statement of the divine hand behind
her practice as an accomplished herbalist of the people.
Many monasteries now survive through sales of their health products (tisanes,
elixirs, unguents, preserves, honey, etc.) which have a following, religious or not,
who are won over by their quality and exclusivity.
Cultivation of medicinal plants undoubtedly revived the market. Their intangible
divine added value benefits the seller who is often also the person who cultivates
them. This looks very much like a return to the values of the priest’s ancestral
garden.
1. Priest-herbalist Künzle
2. Alpine medicinal plants, our mountain
panaceas
3. Künzle phytotherapeutic products in a
pharmacy
4. Various remedies featuring the image of the
famous priest-healer
5. Reference work “Chrut & Uhrut” by
“Kräuterpfrarrer” Johann Künzle
6. Dancing around the St John’s fire
(J. Breton, 1875)
7. La Rosée (dew - of St Jean) showering pearls
on the flowers (J.C. Ziegler, 1804-1856)
8. Fairy and her St John’s poudre de badinage
(love powder) (Sophie Anderson, 1823-1903)
9. St John’s wort, the sun herb
10. Field of St John’s wort in ….. Australia,
cultivated for herbal medicine
11. Absinthe (Artemisia absinthium, Asteraceae)
in Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen (1897)
12. Saint Hildegard of Bingen and her extensive
knowledge of Mediaeval herbal remedies
(mediaeval manuscript)
13. « Les simples du Jardin de Dieu » de Maria
Treben (1907 – 1991), Austrian herbalist
The importance of this “portal”, especially to country people, did not escape the
church which, after condemning the satanist practices of the solstice fire, adopted
them to enliven the feast of St John (the Baptist) three days later on 24 June. Janus,
the two-faced Roman god of the past and future, the pagan figure of the solstice,
became a very Catholic saint. St John’s fire, its marriages and lightening wands,
blessed by the Church, its “poudres de badinage” (love powders) and magic plants,
a host of customs which formalise a spectacular take-over!
Plants of the Good Lord
Beneficial plants are often associated with the Good Lord at least in the
Judeo-Christian world. The priest’s medicine garden, monks plants, the pharmacy
of the Good Lord are still familiar and very popular. They provide very successful
marketing messages, particularly in the context of ecological movements and ideas
of the return to nature. They appeal to enthusiasts of locally produced produce
and resonate with the search for a naturist spirituality in a hyper-technical world.
They allude to the divine and uncontested knowledge of God, to His pharmacy
and His servants, often priests. These products can do no harm so trust in them!
In view of their medicinal properties or their morphology, several plants
have been named with reference to the devil. Datura (Datura stramonium,
Solanaceae) also called devil's food, devil's trumpet, and other names is a
good example. Its hallucinogenic properties have enlivened many a witches’
sabbath.
There is another non-medicinal “devil’s claw” (Mucuna bennetti, Fabaceae)
from the island of Reunion, also called the Red Jade Vine, which can grow to
a length of 20-30m. Its coral-pink flowers in many short spikes are
spectacular. The flowers curve towards the top like the “claws of the devil” or
sharp teeth dripping with blood.
The Black bat flower (Tacca chantrieri, Dioscoreaceae) originally from
Thailand and southern China, has a unique morphology and is another
known example of “devil’s” plants from South East Asia.
The devil, an inescapable personage everywhere, takes different forms
according to culture, but he often has plant attributes.
More than one hundred “witches” were burned in public in Geneva between the 16th and
17th centuries. At that time, they were persecuted in all European countries both
Catholic and Protestant. Over 30,000 women died because of their alleged occult
practices linked to plants. During this troubled and inglorious period, 75% of trials for
witchcraft concerned women. In Geneva, about a quarter were condemned but the
proportion was much higher in some other parts of Europe. Many innocent women were
suspect, victims of false accusations or simple jealousy, often widowed or unmarried,
country people without education or knowledge about “simples” and their virtues. They
were tortured and intimately examined in the search for traces of the devil. They often
ended by being burned alive on a pyre.
Geneva and its region did not escape. Catholic inquisitor then Calvinist puritan hunted
witches in the Geneva basin and beyond. Michée Chauderon was the last woman to be
burned for witchcraft, fifty years after the glorious Escalade in 1652! Her status as a
widow, about 50 years old, a washing woman and illiterate, previously sentenced to
banishment because of a reputation for licentiousness, was a victim made to order! She
was accused of theft then of diabolical practices. She let demons into her body, which she
facilitated by preparing an evil herb soup. Racked and tortured many times following
allegations made by her employer and neighbours, she finally admitted her guilt under
torture: returning from the fields where she had been collecting herbs, about two years
before, the Devil appeared in the form of a shadow which raped her. She was hanged then
burned after she was dead, a very small action of mercy. A street in Geneva has borne her
name since ……….. 1997!
While this practice ended in Geneva at the beginning of the Enlightenment, it continued
until much later in eastern Switzerland. Anna Göldin, a young servant from Glaris, was
one of the last women in Europe to pay the price of the European church’s unremitting
pursuit of so-called witches. She was executed for witchcraft in 1782.
Amongst the plants available to witches in our regions, particularly for their
Sabbath, those of the Solanaceae family played a key role. Several species of this
family contain hallucinogenic substances, powerful alkaloids used during
shamanic or divinatory practices.
Belladonna or deadly nightshade (Atropa bella-donna), henbane (Hyoscyamus
niger), mandrake (Mandragora officinalis) and the daturas (Datura sp.) include a
range of molecules which stimulate hallucinatory trances. They are termed “toxical
Solanaceae” and are involved in the flight of witches.
The witch flying on her broomstick is a persistent image which features in
Middle-Age images and texts. It may raise a smile but it does contain a
scientific truth. Why are they flying and why this particular means of
transport? What fuel do witches use to fly? The ingestion by witches of
alkaloid substances from Solanaceae vireuses (solanine, atropine, scopolamine,
etc.) is quite a convincing explanation. When the alkaloids are in the blood
they provoke a hallucinatory trance which characteristically gives the sensation
of levitation in one of its phases. And the broomstick? It is the transporter
because it recalls the method by which the witch applies the substances (in the
form of grease or unguent full of the active ingredients) to her sleeve and to her
vaginal mucus. As she comes out of her trance she tells of her “soaring”
levitation, the stick between her legs. Images of the time illustrate this
description very clearly.
Knowledge of plants which heal (or those which kill
according to dosage and the context in which they are
applied) is often passed down through oral family tradition,
often matriarchal. The quality and toxicity of the plants used
sometimes make them dangerous and reinforces the power,
considered supernatural, of the owners of the knowledge.
Magician-healers were fascinating and frightening. It was
obviously an activity carried out in complicity with the
antichrist and evil.
A number of women were “real” sorceresses practising the
art of “simples” for good …. but especially for evil. They
were the poisoners of the courts of Europe and Navarre but
they also turned their attention to springs and hay in order
to starve villages. They have done their evil deeds at all
times and in all cultures. They have always caused fear and
defiance, in particular on the part of men probably because
of their independent status as widows or spinsters in
patriarchal societies. Sorcery often echoed chauvinist
prejudice: while the power of boys arose from knowledge
(magician, healer, alchemist) that of girls arose from a
supernatural and diabolical gift.
St John’s herbs have been central to this Pagan-Christian festival since the
Middle Ages. Many medicinal flowers ripen in this period of the year in
our temperate climate. Over Europe they form a floral parade of nearly 70
species. Seven major plants emerge from the throng: St John’s wort
(Hypericum perforatum, Hypericaceae); sage (Salvia officinalis, Lamiaceae),
"Why should man die when he has sage?" from an Anglo-Saxon manuscript; Jupiter’s beard (Sempervivum jovibarba, Crassulaceae), dedicated to
Jupiter protector of houses from lightening; verbena (Verbena officinalis,
Verbenaceae) which calms the mind and the stomach; mugwort or
common wormwood (Artemisia vulgaris, Asteraceae), a plant for women
(known in French as “ crown of St-John”); ground ivy (Glechoma
hederacea, Lamiaceae), (known in French as “ belt of St-John”), nectar
producer and aromatic, a source of white magic and, finally, the yarrow
(Achillea millefolium, Asteraceae) for cicatrising wounds.
There has been a link between plants and spirituality throughout history
and in all civilisations. Plants act as messengers, symbols, channels for
good or evil, they make manifest our relation to the spiritual and to the
divine. They are at the origin of beliefs, they feature in prayers and worship
and both poly- and monotheist pagan ceremonies. Their medicinal or
deadly powers reinforce the symbolic beliefs which underlie our use of
them. These powers and the technical and aesthetic complexity of plants,
coupled with their longevity, resistance and adaptation, are often difficult to
explain scientifically simply by evolution. This may be why they offer
unparalleled spiritual enlightenment. Their roles in the landscape and the
perfect functional beauty of wild nature have often reinforced and
transcended the sense of a founding divine presence behind the creative
forces of nature.
Gathering is ritualised. The day after the wild night of St John, with bare
feet and an empty stomach, one has to “respect the plants given by the
Lord”: “in the dew, you must walk backwards so that your hands do not
take more than is covered by a nearby glance”. In this way, all the good
that nature offers is given the best chance. It is advisable to open your
heart to love at St Jean so plants which are part of the Provençale “poudre
de badinage” (love powder) are collected: marjoram, thyme, verbena and
myrtle. After drying, they are reduced to a fine powder in a mortar. On
the evening of a dance, you invite your loved one to inhale a little of the
powder which has been carefully wrapped in tissue paper … marriage will
follow soon!
We have set out to tell you about the place of plants in our world in relation
to the divine, sacred and spiritual in whatever form or of whatever
importance. We do this with respect even if certain beliefs and rites offend
our social, scientific and ethnobotanical sensitivities. Our account is not
exhaustive and undoubtedly contains assumptions and choices based on
our own encounters and voyages.
The line between science and parascience fluctuates through the history
and geography of our civilisations and societies. This is clear with regard to
the spiritual component of our lives. Fear of life, or of death, introduces
distortions, obsessions and neuroses which often obscure a scientific
explanation of ritual and its primarily utilitarian function.
The priest s garden
The priest’s garden was originally walled, sited near the church or
rectory. It was, above all, practical, educational and therapeutic. It
could belong to the priest, a bishop or a religious congregation and its
objective was to contribute to the community’s subsistence and health
by providing vegetables and fruit. It was basically a vegetable garden
with some flowers for the altar and a vine to supply wine for mass.
The medicinal and aromatic plants often grown there are the origin of
the priest-herbalist tradition.
The priest’s garden eventually became a design that mixed flowers and
vegetables as well as a wide variety of useful plants, or “simples” (basic
botanical pharmacy), for traditional uses and food. The more or less
severe rectangles of the design were softened by annual and perennial
varieties. There was little grass except sometimes along paths
bordered by vegetables or clipped box. The simples garden is at the
beginning of the trend which led to the total separation of the
vegetable from the decorative garden, consigning the former to a
remote corner often hidden behind a hedge. Its mix of plants,
however, makes for an agreeable place to rest, study and meditate. It is
usually composed of four squares with a well or pond in the centre
which attracts, and waters, birds. There is a strong Roman influence,
themselves heirs to Greek and Persian influences, on many Christian
gardens (of abbeys, cloisters, etc.). In the Middle Ages the church was
attracted to Roman writers such as Dioscorides or Pliny the Elder who
described gardens constructed in Antiquity.
Many species have common names which reflect their place in the
priests’ garden: Carthusian pink, William’s pear, St Mary’s thistle,
Madonna lily, etc.