Sacred Plants • Huiracocha

Carob

Ceratonia siliqua is a leguminous tree, evergreen, with purplish flowers, whose fruit is called the carob pod. It is a legume with coffee-colored seeds; it is sweet and highly nourishing.

The Bible tells that the Prodigal Son ate only carob pods when he returned to his father’s home, and we find it mentioned likewise in similar legends from other religious systems. From our point of view, it is a lunar tree, though it receives strong and significant solar impressions. The Arabs cultivated it in sacred gardens as a remedy against epilepsy; but for this illness, only the fruits of a third generation of carob trees grown under astrological conditions are useful.

The Arabs call it Kahrub, and the French Caroubier, from which comes the measure carat (quilate), since in ancient times carob seeds were used to weigh precious stones. From this also came the name of the Arab coin.

Richard I, during the Crusades, was in danger of starving along with his forces, had they not been sustained by carob pods, which in that period were produced in abundant harvests—enough to support a besieged army.

In almost every place the carob tree is called Saint John’s Bread, since legend says that the Baptist ate no other food than the fruit of this tree. When asked why, he replied that this tree, being lunar, was evolving to become solar—of which Baptism and Redemption were symbols.

When Saint John died as a martyr, his head was lost after the dreadful public display, and when Christians found it, it had turned into a nettle. The nettle is Mercurial, but with influences of Mars, and therefore the iron it contains is doubly medicinal. When the nettle is analyzed, we see that it has the same salts as human blood. Its extract, consequently, produces magnificent results for sustaining a long and healthy life.

Aloe vera

A genus of plants belonging to the lily family (Liliaceae), herbaceous—either small plants or shrubs that can grow up to 20 meters tall. The Socotrine aloe, which we refer to here, generally reaches 1 to 1.75 meters in height.

It is said of this plant that a gnome was in grave danger, completely worn down, when he was helped by an Arab who brought him to safety. The gnome then offered a reward to his rescuer, and the man asked him to show him a plant that would guarantee long life. The gnome departed and soon returned with aloe, which is why in many countries this plant is called the Plant of a Hundred Years...

Travelers who go to the East will see, above the doors of Turkish houses, a crocodile skin and an aloe plant, since both, they say, guarantee a long life.

Aloe, given in small doses and with its extract prepared according to Rosicrucian rules, is sure to promote long life, for it is extraordinarily microbe-killing and greatly increases the activity of the liver. It is harmful to give it in the way official medicine offers it, in the form of German alcohol spirit. In that case it can destroy organs and delicate parts of the intestines...

Most of our preparations contain only a very small amount of aloe, which is why they are always beneficial. In high doses, it often produces kidney diseases, some of them incurable.

Celery

Apio There are several species of this plant; here we refer to Apium graveolens, an umbellifer, edible, with small white flowers.

In ancient Greece, the graves of the dead were covered with celery, for it was a general belief that this plant brought them new life. When they had a sick person who was already considered beyond hope, they would repeat the following saying: Apio apiget, meaning that for that patient nothing remains except celery, and only it can save them. At the Nemean games, victors were crowned with garlands of celery and roses.

Celery contains apiin, asparagine, sugar, starch, and a gelatinous substance—something like semen—in which lies the most active principle, which is what we make use of.

Celery is good for the stomach and the nerves. We prepare a celery powder that should always be mixed with salt, since salt harms the kidneys, and together they provide benefits.

With the spagyric extract of celery, all diseases of women can be cured.

Henbane

A common name given to plants of the Hyoscyamus family, of European origin, imported into Brazil and other countries of the Americas. It has a cylindrical, hairy stem, oblong leaves with wavy-toothed edges, and flowers of a dull yellow color. Henbane gives off a strongly virulent and repugnant odor, especially when fresh.

The root of this plant is poisonous and emetic, and it is used in medicine and veterinary practice: internally as a narcotic, and externally as a soothing, resolving remedy. It also has the property of dilating the pupil. Its active principle is known in chemistry by the name hyoscyamine, which in medicine already has some applications as a substitute for belladonna.

It grows around villages and farmhouses, along roadsides, by ditches, and in stony places.

Throughout Spain and the Americas there is constant talk of people who cause harm, or of witches and sorcerers inclined toward evil by a natural tendency. These black magicians make use of a number of harmful plants that we cannot mention, among them henbane—this is the one that interests us for our medicinal purposes.

Church history already knows of the witchcraft of a nun in Austria who managed to throw an entire convent into dreadful agitation, and the intervention of Empress Maria Theresa was necessary to prevent greater harm. It is one of the few cases in which the ecclesiastical authorities burned a witch after gathering proof of her evil arts.

When they examined her cell, they found extract, leaves, and stems of henbane which, applied in the manner she described, produced identical phenomena. Even today those phenomena could be repeated and drive many people to madness, or bring them “success,” if one followed the instructions of Mother Renata as described by Bishop Horst and by the physician of Pope Julius III.

It is a known fact that with the extract of this plant, though in another form, a sexual excitation can be produced—satyriasis or nymphomania.

It has always been said that this plant is the Devil; but nothing can correspond to this evildoer unless God has first made use of it for good. Thus we say that with an infinitesimal quantity of henbane the astral forces are awakened, and with it other remedies are enabled to take on power and become more effective; for what was a sacred plant in all times must yield holy effects if it is used for good...

This plant should not be used without consultation.

Coffee

This notable and beneficial plant (Coffea arabica) is a shrub with opposite leaves that are oblong to ovate, pointed, and smooth; with flowers arranged on short axillary stalks in small clusters; and with hard seeds that are oval, convex on one side and flat on the other, marked by a longitudinal groove, ash-colored, and bitter with an aromatic flavor.

A shepherd in Ethiopia observed one night that his goats and camels had not slept as usual, because they had found a plant whose leaves, fruits, and stems they ate eagerly, always wanting to eat more… The shepherd was so astonished that he decided to consult the friars of a nearby convent to tell them of such an extraordinary case. He did so. But when he finished his explanation, the religious themselves went to observe the plant, driven by the desire to study the prodigy. How great was their surprise when they saw that it was a known plant, which made them exclaim with joy: This plant is ours and bears our name… It should be noted that Cafea was the little village where the convent was located.

They then informed the shepherd that they made use of this shrub, whose infusion they drank frequently in order to stay always awake and in a certain pleasant excitement devoted to God. They had regarded this plant as a gift from the Divinity exclusively for themselves and therefore had kept its spread in reserve. But since he had discovered it, this was a sign that it should be for everyone. From that moment on, it became known…

When this plant was examined, many immediate principles were extracted from its seed. Among them, a curious alkaloid called caffeine, and a large proportion of formic acid.

Just as, for the commercial world, Columbus’s discovery of America brought a new era, so the introduction of coffee influenced the human mind in a marked way through the action it exerts on the organs of thought. Taken as an infusion, it stimulates the nervous system in a singular manner, deprives one of sleep, and gives great clarity to ideas. Delille, the French poet, after praising wine, exclaims enthusiastically: “There is a favored liquid of the Poet, which Virgil lacked and which Voltaire adored. That liquid is you, divine Coffee, who, without disturbing the brain, gently expands the heart”…

Coffee marked an era and, originating in Ethiopia, has taken hold of the entire world, becoming one of its principal commercial factors.

As a remedy, we consider it magnificent. Many years ago an Indian from the State of Veracruz, in Mexico, taught us a rare way to cure malaria. It is empiricism, if you will, without scientific basis, but out of curiosity we applied it in thousands of cases with a surprising result. We did this because of our constant aversion to quinine, which is prescribed as the sole remedy against malaria. Let doctors be honest and admit that while it is valuable as a preventive, it is not so as a cure.

The Indian’s remedy consists of taking a handful of raw coffee and boiling it until a good infusion is obtained. Then it is allowed to cool for several hours after being carefully strained. Once strained and cold, to a glass of this infusion one adds the juice of three to four lemons, with a tablespoon of Gougeot tar; this mixture, not of very good taste, is taken fasting for a week. The cure of malaria is certain. We therefore invite people to try it, since in many places, and especially in hot countries, that disease lashes the population. We carried out the corresponding analyses and have confirmed that the remedy has a scientific basis, although we never wished to exploit it, in order now to offer it openly for the benefit of all.

Generally some discomfort remains during convalescence from this illness, and for that we have a rose extract that removes everything.

In a hospital in Dresden they have prescribed, with great success, coffee made into charcoal. That is, the coffee is burned, roasted beyond what is customary, until it becomes charcoal. Pulverized, it is given against inflammation of the throat, tonsillitis, and above all, appendicitis can be cured in a day, thus avoiding an operation, which is never without danger.

Garlic

Common garlic (Allium sativum) is a thoroughly well-known plant, with a bulbous root made up of six to twelve cloves gathered at the base by means of a thin membrane, whose whole forms the head of garlic.

So many legends circulate around this plant that we will scarcely touch on a few; yet it is enough to open a sacred book to find this vegetable everywhere, surrounded by mystery and exceptional properties, already well known to the ancients.

Among the Greeks, those who ate garlic could not enter the temples consecrated to the goddess Cybele. Virgil speaks of garlic as useful to reapers, to increase or restore their weakened strength, while another poet recommends it to them to prevent being harmed by snakes. Galen calls it the farmers’ theriac. Raspail calls it the poor man’s camphor, and Pliny regards it, in any case, as beneficial to health.

Plutarch, when speaking of Isis and Osiris, mentions that the priests ate garlic with a certain repugnance, but were obliged to do so because it served them as a purifier and was therefore a sacred plant... In Egyptian rites they associated garlic with semen and said it was dedicated only to those who wished to beget children, but not to those who observed chastity as a vow. The Bible frequently cites this plant as a favorite of the Jews, who longed for it when they reached the Promised Land.

Alfonso of Castile founded in 1368 an order that obliged the affiliated knights to eat garlic once a month, and those who did not fulfill this requirement were expelled from the order. In the United States there is a sect that worships this plant with a religious character and assures that the redemption of humanity cannot come without the consumption of garlic... South America also has a number of legends that we will refrain from mentioning, to move on to more concrete facts.

Years ago in Spain, when recruits had to present themselves for the draft medical examination, many were rejected because they were found with fever or elevated temperature, for fear that a tubercular person was before them. This went on for some time, until it was discovered that the recruits produced the fevers by using garlic in a way that artificially raises body temperature.

Today science knows that fever is nothing more than a curative process provoked by the forces of the organism against the invasion of disease, and naturalists awaken such curative crises by means of Kuhne baths in order to obtain such effects. But if they knew the properties of garlic, they would obtain the same process in a simpler way.

The ancients, who knew nothing of microbes, always believed that illness was the product of evil spirits, and with certain odors they tried to drive them away. One of the odors they considered most powerful was garlic. Very modern studies have confirmed that there was a large measure of truth in all this, since many microbes die from mere contact with the smell of garlic.

While we were in the laboratory of the famous syphilologist Dr. Wassermann, author of the celebrated reaction, we observed with excellent microscopes the wretched pale spirochete of this disease; when placed in reaction with various products it showed no effect... However, in contact with garlic, the bacteria all died. It must be borne in mind that syphilis was one of the diseases that already concerned the rulers and priests of ancient peoples, whose effects they truly feared and whose cure they pursued using this plant. We have found the same in many ancient manuscripts and, above all, among Mexicans of remote ages, who cured their illnesses with garlic and sun baths.

We have already made the necessary verifications, and it would be very convenient for our readers to spread this means of cure so that tranquility might return to many unfortunates. Our cures amount to thousands of cases whose reaction, over the years, has always been negative. Later, these individuals had children whom they managed to beget perfectly healthy.

The garlic treatment consists of taking it fasting, at midday, and at night—whether with milk, with bread, crushed, cooked, and indeed in all forms, as long as one becomes thoroughly saturated. At times, in difficult cases, it would be advisable to fast for a few days and eat nothing but garlic. The cure is generally certain.

With garlic one expels the tapeworm and prevents typhus. People who each month decide to eat a large amount of garlic for one day cleanse the intestine perfectly.

We have devoted ourselves to studying for entire years the effects of this plant, and we see that, because of its importance, it deserves a book of its own that must be written one day. For now we will limit ourselves to recommending it strongly and to calling attention to the essence of incalculable value that the Rosicrucians prepare.

Thyme

This is Thymus vulgaris, known as thyme in some countries, belonging to the family of labiate plants, of very varied size, though generally it is a small bush 10 to 30 cm tall. It flowers from April to June, and within its family there are many different species, especially in Spain; but the true Farigola is the Thymus vulgaris we refer to here.

When Joseph of Arimathea placed his Holy Chalice on the Sacred Mountain (that Holy Grail which appears only to one who has attained purity and inner vision, and which heals everything by its holy influence), the angels who attended this act, full of mercy, wished to benefit whoever might visit the Chosen Mountain, and so they sowed a plant which, in the physical realm, would have the properties of the Grail. This plant was Farigola, which has been preserved since that time as a true panacea...

Even among the Greeks and Romans it was regarded as a good seasoning and an exceptional remedy. In Germany it did not begin to be cultivated until the 16th century.

It is commonly regarded as a stimulant of circulatory and cerebral functions, and as possessing certain antispasmodic properties. However, we affirm that all difficulties of menstruation, afflictions of the lungs, of the intestine, kidneys, skin, and liver, in their various manifestations, are cured by preparations of thyme. Thymol is of course known as a pharmaceutical product extracted from its essences, though it is not gathered on suitable and astrological dates...

Farigola, originally, drinks the dew and receives the Sun’s irradiations in a special way. There is a very similar plant, the mountain heather (Erica montaña), which bees seek intensely. Its honey infallibly cures whooping cough and, if given in time to children, prevents them from succumbing to this illness.

These two plants were always considered virtuous and sacred by the gypsies of the whole world. They assure that an ancient god of Egypt offered them these plants. The truth is that both shrubs resemble the gypsies. The gypsies live only in poverty, covered in rags, and maintain their constant aversion to opulence and comfort, where they would die, being outside their proper environment. For them to live happily, they must be given their small drum, their tamed beasts, and the eternal wandering of begging from door to door, living out in the open. Farigola and heather are the same. If taken into a well-tended garden, cultivated in good fertilized soil, they would die. They require stony ground, full of weeds, completely wild, calcareous but poor, with little humus and water, and then they flourish and abound... They do not content themselves with the material nourishment of the earth, but long for the dew of heaven, and it is then that they return the divine forces they store up.

Most of the elixirs of long life prepared by the alchemists of the Middle Ages contain thymus, just as the Rosicrucians did from Arnaldus de Villanova onward. Arabs and Druids sang hymns of praise to both plants, whose exceptional properties were already known to them.

In summary: Farigola is a plant that kills every harmful microbe and offers an excellent principle of long life.

The best variety grows in the sacred land of Catalonia.

Onion

The onion, Allium cepa, is a garden plant of the lily family, whose root of the same name is edible and provided with a stock or bulb.

It is a human tendency to hold in low esteem what we use every day or possess in abundance, and that is what happens with the onion; yet it is true that there is no farmer who does not use it as a remedy.

In past centuries, the onion held a preferred place on the altar of the initiated, and Pythagoras wrote a voluminous book about this food plant. It is true that when we study Pythagoras’ work, we do not know whether it refers to the onion we use daily or to one of the two hundred and fifty varieties that are known. We recall that the tastiest we have eaten were in Chile, where they are very large and sweet.

It seems that the onion grows in every region and every climate. The Indians of America and the blacks of Africa use it in their applications of witchcraft, and we have been able to verify many times that they do so with positive results...

This plant contains much phosphoric acid, iron, potash, essential oil, gum, and a rare, slimy “semen” that we use in alchemy. Pharmacy makes from it a remedy for the hair and a certain cough syrup that is also tonic. Homeopathy gives it as a medicine for the eyes, but by no procedure have they been able to extract the Arcane, the active principle, which we handle for our preparations. The very syrup we refer to is boiled for four hours, not realizing that during that time the only good and useful element evaporates. Paracelsus gives a formula for long life with the Arcane of onions, and many blind people have regained their sight through this Arcane.

Our readers will remember the article published in our Magazine about Tears, in issue no. 7 of July 1928. It said there that in tears there resides a principle or active substance, a very powerful microbe-killer, which heals all wounds. One must bear in mind that the onion provokes tears and, consequently, that same healing principle. But now it turns out that it is not only tears that possess this substance, but most of our internal glands; and eating onions is enough for a call to be made throughout the whole body, mobilizing those medicinal forces. Hence the popular saying: “Eat onions and you will not catch anything...” Combined with honey, the healing principle becomes marvelous...

Grape vine

The country of origin of the vine (Vitis vinifera), and the people who first made wine, are entirely unknown. Virgil, Pliny, and Columella spoke of wild vines found in the forests and added that their bulky trunks testified to an exceedingly remote existence. All the Greek and Roman authors who so often speak of this plant consider it native to the very country where it was cultivated, and none of them refers to the time when it was introduced there.

As for its remote existence, we can say that in a house on the Plaza del Rey in Barcelona there is a vine whose trunk measures about forty centimeters in thickness, and they say its age exceeds a hundred years. In general, the vine does not bear fruit for so long because of the artificial cultivation to which it is subjected, but that exceptional trunk shows us that it can grow indefinitely.

A legend says that Calypso, an ocean nymph, managed through her beauty to keep many heroes on the island of Ogygia. Among them was Ulysses, who for seven years was captivated by her beauty, and to whom the nymph even offered immortality—vainly—if he would agree to marry her. But Ulysses decides to leave, and at the moment of departure Calypso offers him bread and wine. This wine had been brought from Olympus, and when Ulysses drinks it, on tasting the divine beverage he loses all his power and becomes earthly, falling prisoner to the giants by whom he was killed.

After the hero died, his body was abandoned. But when it was found later, they saw that from his heart a vine had sprouted, and that this was the first vine that brought wine into the world as a drink. For this reason, this celestial nectar began to be cultivated on Earth.

Another legend says that the dead man was Icarus, the great flyer, and that his daughter took her own life when she saw him murdered, hanging herself from a tree, which later turned into a vine.

Steiner, the famous Rosicrucian, supposes that wine appeared shortly after the submergence of Atlantis, at a time when humanity needed a higher sense and when astral development imposed itself.

Fermented wine acts upon the astral body. In Spain they say that wine, in drunkenness, resembles three different animals: first the parrot, because it makes a man talkative; second the monkey, because the drunk jumps about and does tricks; and lastly the pig, because he wallows... The fact is that, since alcohol cannot be transformed in the stomach, it goes directly into the blood without change. And since our personality is in the blood—the very thing that keeps us upright—when the blood breaks down or encounters a foreign substance in its flow, a natural shock occurs and the body loses its balance.

Fresh, ripe grapes are nourishing, and today their use as a remedy for various ailments is strongly recommended. Hence there is the grape cure, which is very useful in a number of diseases of the liver, intestine, spleen, bladder, etc.

Grape juice, and the extract of the vine’s leaves and stems, have excellent healing power. Even grape juice as it is sold in the United States, free of alcohol, gives very beneficial results against albuminuria, gallstones, rheumatism, scurvy, chronic diarrhea, and stomach ailments. If the leaves are applied to certain skin diseases, they drive them out radically. Likewise hemorrhoids, so difficult to treat, are cured spontaneously if the extract of this plant’s leaves is applied in an ointment.

Mandrake

The constellation of Orion is inhabited by the god Osiris, who, in a fit of boredom that he had been suffering for millions of years without ever having had the chance to look at himself in a mirror, decides to come to Earth in order to admire, from our planet, his own home. To this end he turns himself into a knight, girding on a sword whose belt glittered with three precious stones. Helmet and breastplate completed his armor. But longing for a companion for the journey, he invites a neighboring star, the Dog, which agrees to accompany him, keeping its own canine form and wearing on its neck a half-moon of lead as an amulet. And so they launched themselves into flight...

They were not long in drawing near to the Earth, and in its vicinity the first thing to cross their path was great flocks of birds which, chirping with joy, perched on Osiris’s shoulders, hands, and head as though he were an old friend. The Dog they wanted nothing to do with, for it snapped, growled, and tried to kill whatever came near. Closer to the Earth, great clouds of mosquitoes, bees, and gadflies besieged them, respecting the knight, while they tried to torment the poor dog without compassion. Still closer to our planet, the effect of the Law of Attraction was so great that the dog, dragged by its heavy half-moon of lead, surged far ahead until it vanished from sight. Osiris, meanwhile, listened to the accounts that every animal he encountered told him about the things of Earth.

But the star of the Dog struck the surface of the Earth with such violence that it sank into the ground, shouting and crying for help... Osiris sensed the alarm and, to free it, took his sword and began to dig. First he uncovered its snout, then the ears, later the head, the paws, and finally the body. In this operation, pieces of sword and pieces of the animal’s flesh remained in the earth: a mixture of steel and dog flesh. The steel, belonging to the god, stayed there as the principle of Good, and the animal’s flesh as the basis of a malefice.

They say that that night a gallows was raised on that spot where an innocent person was sacrificed, and at the moment of dying he urinated from fear. That urine fell upon the raw material left by the steel and the flesh, and from all of this a plant sprouted that some called Osirides, while others called it Mala Canina. Later it became Mandrágora.

Since then, medicine concerns itself with this plant in order to extract from it the part of God that cures diseases, while the part of the dog remains only for doing harm... Goetic magic works a great deal with mandrake, but white magic achieves even greater results for curing all diseases of the sexual organs and the kidneys, and above all it is the remedy par excellence against ailments of the spleen, and the spleen has great astral importance.

For religious medicine as we practice it, a very small quantity is used, only for the astral effect.

This is the plant Mandragora officinarum. Others know it by the common names Berenjenilla or Uva de Moro (Atropa Mandrágora). It is a plant that generally grows in Spain, in shady forests, along running waters and in mysterious places where the sun never enters. Its root is thick, long, and whitish, sometimes divided into two parts. A cluster of oval, wavy leaves surrounds this root and spreads in a circle along the ground. Its fruit, resembling a small apple, produces an unpleasant odor, like the whole plant.

Country people know, even by tradition, the terror that the very name of this plant awakened in their ancestors. For them it was a vegetable that had something of the human being, and works of magic indicated it as something exceptional to which it was necessary to render a kind of cult.

Theophrastus Paracelsus calls it Anthropomorphosis; Columella, Simili-Homo; and Eldal, the tree with a human face. It entered into the composition of love philtres, malefices, and different recipes of sorcerers, while its extraction was considered dangerous. When it was pulled from the earth, they said that the little man enclosed in it let out mournful cries and sharp groans. It had to be taken from beneath a gallows, observing particular rites. There is a variety of mandrake called Female, distinguished by its small leaves, its purple flowers, and its long fruit. A work from the Middle Ages depicts this variety in the form of a Man and a Woman, Adam and Eve, in the Earthly Paradise.

Nevertheless, it occupies a preeminent place among sacred plants, although the true mandrake, that of the magicians, grows in abundance only in the Himalayas, especially Tibet, where the priests cultivate it.

There are legends about this plant that would fill volumes. The Bible cites it in Genesis in relation to the sexual act. Josephus, Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad mentioned it, and all of them concerned themselves with it. The Church relates that Archbishop Eberhardo died in the year 1066 due to a malefice made with this herb, and on his tomb there is a slab that even today is admired by tourists, where this fact is recounted. Councils always dealt with this matter, and most of the processes of the Inquisition have as the body of evidence the manipulations of mandrake.

But let us come to the most interesting legend, which appears in the celebration of the Mysteries.

Mistletoe

This name is given to plants of the genus Viscum. A parasitic shrub on trees, with suckers that attach to the bark, found chiefly on poplars, willows, pear trees, apple trees, birches, lindens, firs, and walnut trees. It is relatively rare on oaks, and even more so on the vine.

The legend says:

When Baldur was born, son of Odin and Freya, his mother made all things swear an oath… In this way, not even weapons themselves would ever harm the newborn child. Thus his childhood passed… But in time, when Baldur was already a man, the lesser gods tested the effectiveness of the oath and deliberately mistreated him by throwing stones and spears at him. It was useless. The spell remained, making him invulnerable to every material danger… Loki, the eternal evil one, having learned of this, made it known that the oath did not extend to all things. Mistletoe was missing—the magical shrub of admirable virtues. At once they made a spear from this very plant and hurled it at the god, killing him.

The gods then, sorrowful over their deed, wept for Baldur when there was no remedy to save him from Hel. But a goddess, aware of the case, tried to offer an infallible remedy, recommending a drink of mistletoe. The drink was administered, and Baldur was restored to life by the same plant that had killed him…

Anyone who has spent Christmas in England will remember that the English decorate the ceilings of their houses with branches of mistletoe. Something similar occurs in Germany and in some Nordic countries. All say that this plant brings luck and is a great vegetal amulet—especially Viscum album from the apple trees of Brittany.

But its fame is not recent. Pliny already relates that the Celts, and with them the secret society of the Druids, venerated it. If we look for the sources Pliny used for this information, we come to Theophrastus, disciple of Plato and Aristotle (371 years before the Christian era), who, in writing his Historia Plantarum, speaks at length about the oak, and then describes that parasitic plant, mistletoe. Theophrastus, in turn, found earlier manuscripts where it is already said that in very remote times it was brought by the gods to Earth to serve as a panacea and an amulet.

It is thrushes, in reality, that truly eat the fruit of mistletoe, and then, with their droppings, leave the seed in certain openings of trees where it sprouts. The most prized is that which grows on the oak and on the vine, because its appearance on these plants is so rare.

Precisely the name of the Druids has its etymology in the Greek word drys, which means oak. For this reason the Druids were called the MEN OF OAK, and they venerated only the oak that bore mistletoe—that is, the one on which God had placed His sign by endowing it with this mysterious plant.

For many years we have used mistletoe with marvelous success against arteriosclerosis, which is one of the most common diseases and one that carries the greatest number of sufferers to the grave. Yet most people could survive that disease if, at the last moment, the arterial walls were kept firm and given the necessary elasticity.

Arteriosclerosis is due to the saturation of calcareous secretions in the arterial walls, which in time rupture, as happens to garden rubber hoses that have grown old from use. Just as those hoses recover their elasticity by being rubbed with grease, so the arteries must recover it as well by having the lime extracted from them. For this, scholastic medicine prescribes only iodine, but we see in practice that it offers no result at all.

Do we, on the other hand, give mistletoe? What is the reason for its use?

Every plant, even after being cut into pieces, crushed, or having its juice extracted, never abandons its genuine astral conditions. Mistletoe, in this case, comes thirsty for lime. Since it had no soil from which to obtain it, the little it possesses it drew from the tree on which it lived as a parasite; and once inside our organism, it tries one last time and strives to fulfill its native desire by impregnating itself with lime which it pulls from the very walls of the arteries. With this, it restores their elasticity, facilitates circulation, and by this process prevents or cures arteriosclerosis.

The ancients were right to affirm that this plant prolongs life. So it is in fact. Any physician can measure blood pressure shortly after taking mistletoe and will thus verify that the action is immediate.

But there are also many other diseases in which it works wonders. Renault, in the Société de Thérapeutique, has said that there is nothing that can cure a hemotitis more quickly and with greater precision than mistletoe extract. This has led many doctors to recommend it against tuberculosis. In France, a solution of this plant is already being used for arteriosclerosis in intravenous injections, but all this apparatus is nothing more than a pursuit of money. To obtain a frank result that every patient can verify, it is enough for him to make his own infusion.

There is a very well-proportioned amount of tannin in mistletoe, which is very medicinal. In hundreds of analyses we have found that the mistletoe that comes from the poplar is the one that has the least lime in the trunk, enjoying greater abundance in the leaves.

By cultivating it intentionally as we do, and observing the precise astrological rules, we have produced an extract that offers surprising results. Alchemical experiments, done cold, gave us designs in gold and roses, which we then corroborated by the capillary system.

These are the properties of this sacred plant, which is providing such valued advantages to the sick.

Honey

Since we have described a number of plants in isolation—some bitter, others sweet; one for certain procedures and others for very different effects—we now come to a product that gathers the synthesis of many plants at once, whose skillful chemist has been a tiny animal: the bee.

The legends about honey are countless, and it would take a voluminous work to recount them all. We will cite only the following:

The bee was considered an emblem of purity and health. They say that Melissa, daughter of a king of Crete, brought bee honey to feed Jupiter with it. One must bear in mind that she represents the I, and that this fact is highly significant. In Crete they had as a divine emblem a golden bee, and in Freemasonry bees appear around the Column J, which symbolizes Jupiter, the Ego. In both ancient Greece and Rome, honey was brought to the altars as an offering to the gods, and it is curious that it always appeared alongside the gods and never alongside a female deity, as in the Egyptian periods. The Egyptians first embalmed corpses with honey because they claimed its principles kept them “alive” for many years. Later they carried out a definitive embalming.

Even in the Iliad it is mentioned that Thetis poured honey into the nostrils of Patroclus. Vishnu, in India, was represented by a bee upon a lotus flower; but it is curious that the Jews rejected it on their altars, the priest being the only one who could receive it...

The Germans made their first beer from honey, for the reason that bees extract, one might say, the Arcane of plants, although it contains many morbid elements that must be eliminated, and this is the operation we carefully carry out in the Rosicrucian laboratory.

Citrus

These trees, native to Asia and from there carried to Europe, Africa, and America, are very abundant in Spain—especially in Andalusia, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands—constituting one of the territorial riches of the Peninsula. There is a multitude of varieties, chiefly including the Citrum auratium, the Vulgaris, and the Limonum. In medicine, the fruit, the leaves, the seeds, and the rinds are used.

They have clearly stimulating and tonic properties, are very beneficial for the stomach, and are antispasmodic. They are frequently used for slow digestion and nervous ailments such as hysterical spasms, convulsions, oppressions, palpitations of the heart, etc. The juice is used as a cooling, moderating drink, and the distilled water of their flowers forms the well-known orange-blossom water.

Many centuries ago, these trees grew together in a secluded forest guarded by a dangerous dragon. Whatever knights were drawn to that forest by the aroma and the rich taste of its fruits became victims of the fearsome dragon, which tore them to pieces. But one day, one of those knights—the most valiant—went into the forest and had the good fortune to defeat the guardian beast... He then wished to taste the fruits and bit into a lemon; finding it so sour, he threw it into the sea. At once, a beautiful girl emerged from the fruit, begging him for help, and as the knight tried to assist her, a shark came near and swallowed her, leaving the gallant man sad and thoughtful, for he had had only an instant to admire her beauty. On the nearby shore a weeping willow sprang up...

Then he bit into an orange, whose peel he threw into the air, and it turned into another girl, even more beautiful than the first, who also begged for help; and before he could go to her aid, a lion came and devoured her. In that place there was a mulberry tree whose fruits were white; but upon seeing the girl die, they turned black from sorrow. The knight ate the mandarin, whose peels he threw into the fire; but now, taught by experience, he immediately took up his sword. A new beauty of unsurpassed loveliness rose out of the fire, and behind her a horrible serpent, ready to kill her; but the knight brandished his sword and, after a struggle, killed it. Then blood flowed, pouring out profusely, and from it the various peppers were born.

From these events onward, these fruits belong to Mercury. If we look at the symbol of this planet, we see that it contains something of the Sun and Venus, and, set in opposition, something of Mars and the Moon. For this reason it is the Great Fortune, and all plants born under its auspices are excellent for the curing of diseases.

Walnut & Hazelnut

The walnut tree is a juglandaceous tree with whitish flowers, whose fruit is the walnut, oval in shape, with two shells—one inner and one outer—and oily substances. The hazel is a corylaceous shrub that produces the hazelnut, a kind of white, oily almond that comes in a rounded husk 1 to 2 centimeters in diameter.

The walnut and the hazelnut, which we always consider homogeneous, are not so according to our rules. The hazelnut is a deserter. It has detached itself from all the other planets and is simply terrestrial. Not so the walnut tree, which is Martian, and for that reason its fruit has a very beneficial astringent action.

Perry sauce, which the English use for flavoring, and Maggi broth intended for soup, are made on the basis of these green fruits, which by their aroma act as a strong stimulant.

It is curious that the walnut has the same shape as our brain, and that the ancients used it precisely to bring madmen back to reason. The explanation lies in the great quantity of phosphorus it contains, but no plant requires as much care to achieve spagyric preparation as the walnut tree.