Herbs in magic and alchemy techniques from ancient herbal lore c l zalewski

INTRODUCTION I have held with considerable respect a very old teaching called 'Herbal Lore' used in the kitchen, in medicine and in magic. Many discard its importance, and many recognise its importance but do not make the effort to utilize it correctly.

My first introduction to herbal magic in any systemised form was through an Order called the Smaragdum Thallases, which is better known from its earlier name, the Golden Dawn. I received papers on astrological; Kabbalistical, and herbal associations which later I discovered were part of a manuscript called the Book of Correspondences that had been compiled by Mathers and other members of the Order. This manuscript, by the way, after the break up of the Order in England in the 1900s, had been published by Aleister Crowley under the title of 777 with some additions of his own.

Although I had always held an interest in Wiccan Craft, the Order radically changed my views on herbal use, synthesising the knowledge of Nature Craft with Hermeticism until now, for me, the two are inseparable. I originally wrote this book as a reference manual for personal workings, as I found no current literature in this part of the world at the time to provide such information in a condensed form. Since then the manual has remained part of my library, until such time as I was encouraged by my husband and Israel Regardie to publish. Just recently, while preparing this introduction, Scott Cunningham's works on magical herbalism were brought to my attention. I found his work very informative, but decided to go ahead with publication as my work appeared not to repeat Cunningham's work but to add to it, and in some areas, such as alchemy, go more in depth but from a different perspective-a Hermetic approach. What I did not do,