Occult Botany: Sédir's Concise Guide to Magical Plants

Occult Botany: Sédir's Concise Guide to Magical Plants

by Paul Sédir Author and R. Bailey Translator

A classic text on esoteric tradition with magical plants and descriptions of each plant’s scientific name, common names, elemental qualities, ruling planets and zodiacal signatures, and commentary on medico-magical properties and uses. Merging the scientific discipline of botany with ancient, medieval, and Renaissance traditions of occult herbalism, this seminal guide was first published in French in 1902 as a textbook for students of Papus’s École hermétique and sparked a revival in the study of magical herbalism in early twentieth-century France. This translated text explores methods of phytotherapy and plant magic, including the Paracelsian “transplantation of diseases,” ritual pacts with trees, the secret ingredients of witches’ ointments, composition of magical philters, occult secrets of phytogenesis, plant physiology, and plant physiognomy.