Yarrow stalks and the I Ching: fifty sticks and a question
Fifty dried stalks, a bowl of incense and a three-thousand-year-old book. How yarrow became the plant of the I Ching, and how the old count works.
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Benzoin and storax: the sweet resins and their tangled names
Two sweet resins, three kinds of tree and a knot of borrowed names, from the Orphic hymns and Sumatran gardens to the plastic cup in your hand.
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Mapacho: tobacco as a sacred plant
Green-flowered Nicotiana rustica was smoked for the gods, blown over the sick and fed to spirits. Here is its long history, and why it stays out of our shop.
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Wormwood: the green fairy and the absinthe panic
A bitter herb from Pliny’s chariot races to the Paris green hour, a Swiss murder that banned a drink, and the chemistry that later cleared its name.
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Rose: the flower of the alchemists and the Rosicrucians
Rose oil on Hector’s body, rose water from Baghdad’s stills, a rose garden of alchemy and a brotherhood that may never have met. The rose’s long esoteric life.
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Cacao: Maya cups, Aztec money and the modern ceremony
A painted Maya cup that names its own contents, beans that bought a turkey, and a circle ceremony that took shape on Lake Atitlán in the 2000s. Cacao’s long story.
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Agrippa’s planetary herbs: seven gardens in one book
In 1533 Cornelius Agrippa gave every plant a planet. Here are his seven lists, the logic behind them, and his rule for which part of a plant goes to which star.
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Belladonna and the witches’ ointment in the records
Deadly nightshade carries the flying-ointment story, but the old books say less than you might expect. Here is what the records actually name.
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Planetary hours, and what happens to them down south
The old magicians split each day into twelve unequal hours, each ruled by a planet. How the scheme works, and why European tables go wrong in Australia.
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Copal: the Maya incense that fooled the underworld
A heart of red sap in the Popol Vuh, blue lumps in a sacred well, and a name that covers a dozen different trees. How to read copal.
Photo credits on each article.