About the benefits of traditional medicine and the childish and selfish use that modern human beings have sadly given to it
By Pablo Ianiszewski. Astrologer
The magic herbalism is a field of work based on “the doctrine of signatures”. This ancient traditional teaching reveals us that every animal, plant and mineral found in nature, is in close correspondence with planets and stars, and that the stars in turn are under the power of the divine emanations, forming a perfectly integrated cosmos where each thing corresponds to another with which it is related by sympathy and similarity.
According to the signatures, God would have put a specific mark on each being, whose archetypal resonance would make it a participant of a universal category that keeps it bound to all other beings that share that sign. This way, in the plant kingdom, each plant, tree and bush is in consonance with a precise star, and this star is in consonance with a specific divine power, which determines its natural properties and functions. The magic herbalism stems from this principle of correspondences in order to work with the medical, poisonous and entheogenic abilities.
These three types of properties are common to many natural substances, which have been used for millennia with the triple purpose of healing, killing and contacting the invisible kingdom.
The plant signatures are recognizable to a trained eye according to the color, shape, aroma and properties of each plant. We are going to concentrate on three of them: cannabis, opium and coca.
According to the treatises of astrological medicine and traditional herbalism, cannabis belongs to Saturn, known as the great malefic, because like that planet, it produces heaviness, drowsiness, slowness and impediments.
However, its medical and analgesic properties are a wonder, being of great ability to treat rheumatic pains, arthritis, glaucoma, epilepsy, Tourette syndrome, multiple sclerosis and anorexia. It is also helpful to delay the advance of cancer, among other great qualities. Moreover, the textile fiber obtained from hemp is of very good quality.
But, as the Swiss doctor and alchemist Teofrasto Paracelso says/said, the difference between poison and medicine is a question of dose. Nowadays, we are witnessing an abuse of this magic and extraordinary plant, under a childish and irresponsible behavior. I want to make clear that I am not advocating prohibition. I don’t think it is reasonable to restrict the access to the gifts that mother nature spontaneously produces and I consider that it must not be neither chased nor judged the use of this or another. I want to make it clear right now.
However, inhaling the smoke every day only can produce one thing: people without will and motivation, dull and stunned beings, just like a Haitian zombie. The excess of cannabis consumption unites us in a bad way to the elemental spirit of the plant, becoming natural children of Phaenon, also known as Falsifer, the astral lord of impediments.
These were the ancient names by which the guiding spirit of Saturn was known; an astral genie in charge of hindrance, grief, prevention, blockage with his slow and heavy power. It is a dense, astringent and desiccant energy, that when used the right dose, it becomes beneficial in certain diseases, but if abused, it imbalances the mind and devitalizes the body, being even able to paralyze the life of some persons in extreme cases.
One of the great risks with the abuse of the use of the plant is provoking paroxysmal anxiety (panic attacks), developing paranoia, generating psychotic disorders, frequent failures of memory and undermining severely one’s will, creating apathy and social isolation. Abusing a medicine, no matter whether it is a question of fun, evasion or any other motive is a childish and irresponsible behavior. The subtle part of cannabis is that apparently it inspires us it creative ideas, but at the same time, it makes us unable to execute them. It allows us to see further, but at the same time it immobilizes our legs with a heavy strain.
Many ideas that seem brilliant under the effects of cannabis lose their glitter when we come back to reality. This makes us suspect that maybe the plant itself doesn’t produce such a creative and sublime thoughts if not that it only enhances the capacity for wonder towards our everyday thoughts. Whatever it happens, the problem doesn’t occur with occasional use. It occurs due to the frequent abuse. Paracelso knew there are not venoms, but quantities of dosage. All the excesses of something good become toxic and venomous. When it comes to the herbs of Saturn this is even more true than ever. The daily use of cannabis means a harmful abuse, particularly visible in the “amotivational syndrome”, although it is also present in the abundant cognition failures that outline that heaviness of the slow Saturn dynamism.
But when it comes to the magic aspects of the subject the most important concern is the fact that, resorting to the lexicon of Paracelso medicine, the Leffas or elemental spirit of the plant ends up producing displacements on the etheric double of the addict and, in the long term, it opens true wounds and holes through which the astral larvae and other undesirable entities can get in. Many of the most disturbing psychic effects from the excessive consumption of cannabis come from this source. It happens the same with the Clissus, or vital strength that is present in all the plants, but with especial power in the marijuana. The abuse ends up undermining the person’s vitality for an exogenous replacement. The good news is that the damage can be corrected, because the etheric double that ancient Egyptians called Ka and the Jewish Kabbalists named Nefesh, works in a similar way that physical body, being able to repair the lesions if a rest is provided for enough time.
In another aspect of the problem, is important to remember that there are billionaire economic interests behind cannabis promotion, because several corporations have shown interest in its production as it is a phenomenon that moves both interest and consumption by millions of people all over the world. The business opportunity seems succulent for certain herds of vultures, used to manipulate masses in order to satisfy their unlimited greed.
Of course, the business already exists. It only would pass from particular hands to be operated by great corporations that would act under the cover of a new legal code. I don’t wish to enter the discussion about the benefits of legalization. No doubt it would be positive erasing the problem of mafia and drug trafficking, but in this discussion we are focusing on the spiritual side of the question.
Similar effects on the subtle body of the human being occur because of the excessive consumption of the substances obtained from capsules and poppy seeds; a plant signed by the Moon, with extraordinary sedative, hypnotic and analgesic properties. It is just another example of abused natural medicine. The witches of antiquity used it for their fertility spells and to propitiate the prophetic reverie. The Moon is a star satellite whose influence rules, among many other things, fertility, prophecy, clairvoyance, dreams, imagination, intuition and inspiration. It is not surprising that a plant with sleeping and relaxing effects is under the lunar regency. However, its active ingredients hide a great toxicity, becoming dangerous in high concentrations.
From the poppies, morphine and codeine were extracted before being synthesized by the pharmacological industry. From that splendid plant, whose flowers are especially beautiful, heroin is also extracted, an opioid that was used to ease pain, cure cough and stop diarrhea. We all know it ended being hardly abused and became one of the most destructive hard drugs. Its production became illegal in almost the whole world. But among the several substances extracted from this lunar plant, opium is the one that tells the longest and probably the saddest history.
Opium was one of the main causes in the ruin of the Qing dynasty, in 19th century China. British introduced illegally the narcotic to generate dependence among people, in order to impose their commercial terms in the country. The emperor tried to forbid the smuggling of the drug without any success, worried by the social disaster that stretched as a result of the addiction. The country was “zombie-like” but the business was very profitable. The British started two wars in order to continue introducing opium in exchange for goods, such as silk, china, tea and species. Likewise they did not have to pay with silver coins that they valued much more. They did not mind destroying a whole nation. If a merchant mafia could get a whole empire of China on its knees, what are the chances of cannabis consumption being manipulated with financial interests two centuries later? We have to seriously ask this question.
Coca plant is another interesting matter, another plant with splendid properties. Its regency is attributed to Mars, for its stimulant effects on the nervous system. Coca plant has been part of the South American herbalism since thousands of years. It thrives naturally in the north area of the mountains of the Andes. Among its medical properties it highlights its ability to give great physical strength, resistance to altitude sickness, vigor and lucidity, it eases the muscular, joint and rheumatic pains pain, it eases hunger and thirst, asthma attacks and it is a good digestive tonic. It is useful in cases of anguish and several gastrointestinal disorders. When it comes to its magic question, coca is a ritual plant for the cultures of the Andes, including Quechuas, Aymaras and Chibchas, among others. The coca leaf is present in all religious activities. Its use is surrounded by ceremonies, formalities and sacred rituals, and the Andean communities themselves have created a control over its use, keeping a relationship of deep respect for the plant, which is considered an essential component of their culture. In such a context almost no abuses have been observed. Giving away coca in the Andean world is a sign of brotherhood and magnanimity, being present in every important occasion, from blessing of new married to responses and funerals.
Unfortunately, coca has been aberrantly used and abused from the development of chemical processes to isolate its alkaloids and produce the ill-fated cocaine chloridrate, stimulant drug that produces alert states, high aggressiveness, impulsiveness, persecutory delirium, euphoria and psychomotor agitation. These are the result of having separated and concentrated the igneous power of Mars, a fast energy, accelerated and bellicose. . It is not surprising that the cocaine abuser is an impatient, violent and inflated person that dies from myocardial infarction or stroke. Cocaine is the best example of the absolute perversion of a sacred plant. Even the most famous black magician of the last century, Aleister Crowley, was a contumacious addict to cocaine, to whom was wrongly attributed the signature of Jupiter, the great benefic, when in fact traditionally belongs to Mars, the minor malefic. He, perhaps, sought to justify the imagined benefits of a chemical processed drug that kept him chained and submitted until the end of his days. Heroin, which we have already talked about, was among his predilections too. For those who follow the British magician, I clarify that I am not detracting all his work; I am highlighting one of his sordid sides of which there are several more.
The astral larvae also act over the addict to cocaine, but instead of taking advantage of displacements and gasps of the Nefesh, they act by affinity towards the aggression aroused by the artificial concentration of the Clissus, or plant vitality. The addict is driven by the influences of certain malicious geniuses, which according to the Kabala tradition, are known as Golahab, “the flaming ones”. Either they are considered as external entities or psychic emanations of the addicts the truth is that they exacerbate violence and petulance in a destructive circle. Another important spiritual aspect to mention is “the Karmic trace” of hard drugs. Every single gram produced carries with it the footprint of slavery of the indigenous communities, death of children and young people in the streets, organ trading, white slave traffic, and so on. These substances are the result of a violence that without any doubt leaves a terrible mark on them. The herbs from where they come from are not to blame. The problem is us.
Our attitude toward the magic plants is, at least, childish. From the psychedelic tourism of ayahuasca to the sale of salvia divinorum on the internet, it all seems to indicate that we are assuming that the entheogenous products are here to satisfy our curiosity our guarantee the entertainment. Consuming a powerful traditional medicine for fun is a silly and disrespectful posture. Only the modern western countries have such an attitude towards the sacred plants. We tend to see them as candies displayed on the shelves of the supermarkets. It is a culturally conditioned culture, typical of mercantile societies where consumerism works as a formative matrix from which all other types of relationships with the environment are established.. The native peoples maintain a diametrically opposite relationship. For them, the medical plants are a divine gift with which they remain linked in a frame of tremendous respect, even veneration for the elemental spirit that lives inside it.
The hermetic paradigm that ruled the western countries until the arrival of the Cartesian mechanism submerges us in an interrelated cosmos, qualitatively rich and symbolically fulfilled. In it, even the most humble herb reflects in its being the essential qualities of the stars, the angelic hierarchies and the divine emanations. The “spiritus mundi” comes down across the sun light and the stars, bathing everything, blessing them once and again until they are filled with its presence. It is a sacred vision of nature, where man participates out of respect, feeling integrated in a universe that he, due to the correspondence between the top and the bottom, shines like a cosmos, equally harmonious and beautiful. He is far away from that other man who wants to wipe out all his environment and take advantages of the natural powers to get drugged, in the middle of the violent vortex of his life of consumerism and hedonism.
There are many plants with medical or entheogenic properties. From the relaxing lemon balm, signed by Mercury, to the poisonous jimsonweed / devil’s snare, signed by Saturn. All the herbs have their own vital strength and elemental spirit. Knowing the dose, the ways to be used and harvesting time is the key to avoid making mistakes that can be pernicious. Abusing them in a natural way, or artificially twisting them in a laboratory, means an instrumental and utilitarian attitude that has been possible only with the loss of the magic vision of nature. I know I am exposing myself to a long and bitter criticism for writing this about this question. I would not want to upset anyone but I do understand that some people will feel angered. I remind them that they enjoy full freedom to make up their minds. They don’t need to listen to me. This is the hermetic point of view, which they cannot agree with totally. Others will receive this message with more temperance, remembering what we have said before: the difference between venom and medicine is in the dose. We should learn from ancient man, from the aboriginal, and his respectful relationship with Mother Nature. It is worth it.
