(6) The plant might also be considered worthy of veneration because from its crushed leaves, petals, stalks, or roots could be extracted healing unctions, essences, or drugs affecting the nature and intelligence of human beings--such as the poppy and the ancient herbs of prophecy. The plant might also be regarded as efficacious in the cure of many diseases because its fruit, leaves, petals, or roots bore a resemblance in shape or color to parts or organs of the human body. For example, the distilled juices of certain species of ferns, also the hairy moss growing upon oaks, and the thistledown were said to have the power of growing hair; the dentaria, which resembles a tooth in shape, was said to cure the toothache; and the palma Christi plant, because of its shape, cured all afflictions of the hands.

(26) Go into a Meadow, and look upon the Herbs and Flowers which grow all out of the Earth, and always one is fairer and more fragrant in Smell than the other, and the most contemptible [Herb] has many Times the greatest Virtue. Now then the Physician comes and seeks, and often turns his Mind to the lustiest and fairest, because they thrive so in their Growing, and smell strong; then thinks he, these are the best; whereas many Times a small regardless Herb will serve his Turn better in his Physick for his Patient, whom he has under cure.

(35) The herbs of the fields were sacred to the early pagans, who believed that the gods had made plants for the cure of human ills. When properly prepared and applied, each root and shrub could be used for the alleviation of suffering, or for the development of spiritual, mental, moral, or physical powers. In The Mistletoe and Its Philosophy, P. Davidson pays the following beautiful tribute to the plants: "Books have been written on the language of flowers and herbs, the poet from the earliest ages has held the sweetest and most loving converse with them, kings are even glad to obtain their essences at second hand to perfume themselves; but to the true physician--Nature's High-Priest--they speak in a far higher and more exalted strain. There is not a plant or mineral which has disclosed the last of its properties to the scientists. How can they feel confident that for every one of the discovered properties there may not be many powers concealed in the inner nature of the plant? Well have flowers been called the 'Stars of Earth,' and why should they not be beautiful? Have they not from the time of their birth smiled in the splendor of the sun by day, and slumbered under the brightness of the stars by night? Have they not come from another and more spiritual world to our earth, seeing that God made 'every plant of the field BEFORE it was in the earth, and every herb of the field BEFORE IT GREW'?"

(47) This herb, which I mean here, from whose fragrancy my spirit taketh its refreshing, every country ploughman does not know it, nor every doctor, the one is as ignorant of it as the other; it grows indeed in every garden, but in many it is quite spoiled and bad: for the quality of the soil or ground is in fault. And therefore men do not know it, nay the children of this Mystery do hardly know it; although this knowledge has been very rare, dear and precious, from the beginning of the world to this time.

(29) Other plants prey upon animals, and are equipped with mental faculties enabling them- to efficiently capture their prey. We have typical illustrations of the adaptation of means to end in the case of the insect-eating plants previously referred to, but there are certain forms of plant-life which trap and devour much large animals; which forms are found principally in tropical countries. Dunstan, the naturalist, reported finding on the banks of Lake Nicaragua a particularly vicious plant of this class which by the natives is called the Devil's Noose. This bush-like plant is equipped with long tendrils, or whip-like feelers, flexible, strong, black, polished, and without leaves, which secrete a viscid fluid. These tendrils are employed by the plant to entangle small animals passing under its bush, and to then drain their blood and absorb their flesh. The naturalist one day passing along the banks of this lake was aroused by the shrieks and cries. of his small dog. Pushing forward through the underbrush he found the little animal tightly enmeshed in a number of these black, slimy, bandlike tendrils which were cutting into its flesh by chafing and rubbing, the bleeding-point have been reached in a number of places. He found that these bands were the tendrils or branches of this particularly carnivorous plant, which he described as virtually "a land octopus." The natives of the tropics have weird legends of man-eating plants or trees of this kind, but so far science has not discovered an actual specimen of this kind, though it is admitted that the same is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

(44) Concerning this subject, H. P. Blavatsky, the foremost occultist of the nineteenth century, has written: 'Plants also have like mystical properties in a most wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs of dreams and enchantments are only lost to European science, and useless to say, too, are unknown to it, except in a few marked instances, such as opium and hashish. Yet, the psychical effects of even these few upon the human system are regarded as evidences of a temporary mental disorder. The women of Thessaly and Epirus, the female hierophants of the rites of Sabazius, did not carry their secrets away with the downfall of their sanctuaries. They are still preserved, and those who are aware of the nature of Soma, know the properties of other plants as well." (Isis Unveiled.)

(36) Many primitive peoples used herbal remedies, with many remarkable cures. The Chinese, Egyptians, and American Indians cured with herbs diseases for which modern science knows no remedy. Doctor Nicholas Culpeper, whose useful life ended in 1654, was probably the most famous of herbalists. Finding that the medical systems of his day were unsatisfactory in the extreme, Culpeper turned his attention to the plants of the fields, and discovered a medium of healing which gained for him national renown.

(29) It is quite possible that much of the veneration accorded the acacia is due to the peculiar attributes of the mimosa, or sensitive plant, with which it was often identified by the ancients. There is a Coptic legend to the effect that the sensitive plant was the first of all trees or shrubs to worship Christ. The rapid growth of the acacia and its beauty have also caused it to be regarded as emblematic of fecundity and generation.

(37) In Doctor Culpeper's correlation of astrology and herbalism, each plant was under the jurisdiction of one of the planets or luminaries. He believed that disease was also controlled by celestial configurations. He summed up his system of treatment as follows: "You may oppose diseases by Herbs of the planet opposite to the planet that causes them: as diseases of Jupiter by Herbs of Mercury, and the contrary; diseases of the Luminaries by the Herbs of Saturn, and the contrary; diseases of Mars by Herbs of Venus and the contrary. * * * There is a way to cure diseases sometimes by Sympathy, and so every planet cures his own disease; as the Sun and Moon by their Herbs cure the Eyes, Saturn the Spleen, Jupiter the Liver, Mars the Gall and diseases of choler, and Venus diseases in the Instruments of Generation." (The Complete Herbal.)

(108) Thou canst kindle wood that it give light, for the water is chief upper regent, or predominant therein; so likewise in all sorts of herbs on earth, wherein the sweet water is predominant.

(35) Certain plants, minerals, and animals have been sacred among all the nations of the earth because of their peculiar sensitiveness to the astral fire--a mysterious agency in Nature which the scientific world has contacted through its manifestations as electricity and magnetism. Lodestone and radium in the mineral world and various parasitic growths in the plant kingdom are strangely susceptible to this cosmic electric fire, or universal life force. The magicians of the Middle Ages surrounded themselves with such creatures as bats, spiders, cats, snakes, and monkeys, because they were able to appropriate the life forces of these species and use them to the attainment of their own ends. Some ancient schools of wisdom taught that all poisonous insects and reptiles are germinated out of the evil nature of man, and that when intelligent human beings no longer breed hate in their own souls there will be no more ferocious animals, loathsome diseases, or poisonous plants and insects.

(114) Behold! man becometh weak, faint and sick, and if no remedy be used, then he soon falls into death. The sickness is caused either by some bitter and astringent herb which grows out of the earth, or else is caused by an evil, mortiferous deadly water, or by several mixtures of earthly herbs, or by some evil stinking and rank flesh or meat, and surfeit from thence to loathing.

(31) The good Smell in the Herb, which you should now look for in the many Opinions, is only the new Regeneration out of the old corrupted Adamical mixt Man in the Body of Jesus Christ, in the Power of the Holy Ghost, viz. a new Mind towards God in Love and Meekness; which is not set upon Pride, Covetousness, and seeking his own Honour, Credit, and Esteem, nor upon War, or any Manner of Stir, or Insurrection of Inferiors against their Superiors, but grows in Patience and Meekness, as a Grain of Wheat among Thorns, and brings forth Fruit in its Season. And consider, that where there is such Fruit [in thy Mind,] that is born of God; and it is the noble Virtue in that [Man.] Go out from the other Fruit, which teaches Uproars and Dissension between Inferiors and Superiors, for such [Fruits] are Thistles, and will prick and sting [like Nettles.] God will fan his Wheat himself.

(30) Grass Greens , have a resting and invigorating effect upon the same.

The FUMIGATION from AROMATICS. MUCH-nam'd, and best of dæmons, hear my pray'r, The desart-loving, deck'd with tender hair; Joy to diffuse, by all desir'd is thine, Much form'd, Eubulus; aliment divine Female and Male, all charming to the sight, Adonis ever flourishing and bright; At stated periods doom'd to set and rise, With splendid lamp, the glory of the skies. 8 Two-horn'd and lovely, reverenc'd with tears, Of beauteous form, adorn'd with copious hairs. Rejoicing in the chace, all-graceful pow'r, Sweet plant of Venus, Love's delightful flow'r: Descended from the secret bed divine, Of lovely-hair'd, infernal Proserpine. 'Tis thine to fink in Tartarus profound, And shine again thro' heav'ns illustrious round, With beauteous temp'ral orb restor'd to sight; Come, with earth's fruits, and in these flames delight.

(6) As soon as we were come to where the dew Fights with the sun, and, being in a part Where shadow falls, little evaporates, Both of his hands upon the grass outspread In gentle manner did my Master place; Whence I, who of his action was aware, Extended unto him my tearful cheeks; There did he make in me uncovered wholly That hue which Hell had covered up in me. Then came we down upon the desert shore Which never yet saw navigate its waters Any that afterward had known return. There he begirt me as the other pleased; O marvellous! for even as he culled The humble plant, such it sprang up again Suddenly there where he uprooted it.

(2) "Creator of grain and plants," "who caused [the green herb to spring up]!"

(107) Now observe: In wood, stone or herbs there are three things contained, nor can anything be generated or grow if but one of the three should be left out.

(30) The symbolism of the acacia is susceptible of four distinct interpretations: (1) it is the emblem of the vernal equinox--the annual resurrection of the solar deity; (2) under the form of the sensitive plant which shrinks from human touch, the acacia signifies purity and innocence, as one of the Greek meanings of its name implies; (3) it fittingly typifies human immortality and regeneration, and under the form of the evergreen represents that immortal part of man which survives the destruction of his visible nature; (4) it is the ancient and revered emblem of the Mysteries, and candidates entering the tortuous passageways in which the ceremonials were given carried in their hands branches of these sacred plants or small clusters of sanctified flowers.

(16) The Plane of Plant Mind, in its seven sub-divisions, comprises the states or conditions of the entities comprising the kingdoms of the Plant World, the vital and mental phenomena of which is fairly well understood by the average intelligent person, many new and interesting scientific works regarding "Mind and Life in Plants" having been published during the last decade. Plants have life, mind and "souls," as well as have the animals, man, and super-man.