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'?"

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...

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...

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...

Now look upon an Herb or Plant, and consider it, what is its Life which makes it grow? And you shall find in the Original, Harshness, Bitterness, Fire...

Behold now, when the Mercurius or tone in this nature-heaven riseth up, there the divine and angelical joyfulness riseth up, for therein rise up...

There spring up also in these powers and virtues all manner of blossoms and flowers, with fair heavenly colours and smells.

Here now stand the great Secrets (which we cannot see with our earthly Eyes) wholly naked and plain, and there is no Vail before it, only we are...

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

There is the Rose in which the Word Divine Became incarnate; there the lilies are By whose perfume the good way was discovered." Thus Beatrice; and...

You shall find no Book wherein the divine Wisdom may be more searched into, and found, than when you walk in a flowery fresh springing Meadow, there y...

The FUMIGATION from every kind of SEED, except BEANS and AROMATICS. O Goddess, Earth, of Gods and men the source, Endu'd with fertile, all destroying...

On the nature of plants it says in revelation, that, before the coming of the destroyer, vegetation had no thorn and bark about it; and, afterwards,...

The Tincture is the pleasant Sweetness and Softness in a fragrant Herb and Flower, and the Spirit thereof is bitter and harsh, and if the Tincture...

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,...

So, also, the growth of plants is connected, in this manner, strongly with the root; so, likewise, the blessings (âfrîn) which the righteous utter, co...

In like manner even as the animals, with grain of fifty and five species and twelve species of medicinal plants, have arisen from the primeval ox,...

For in the divine pomp go forth likewise all manner of sprouting and vegetation of trees, plants and all manner of fruit; and every one bears its own ...

For the spirit draweth from the head or bud into the blossoms, and the head or bud is formed according to the kind of all the qualities; the astringen...

From the horns arose peas (mîgûk), from the nose the leek, from the blood the grapevine from which they make wine—on this account wine abounds with...

Whence, "Seek, and ye shall find," holding on by the truly royal road, and not deviating. As we might expect, then, the generative power of the seeds...