Online Reference For Body, Mind & Spirit

Term: Herbal Codes

DEFINITION:

A system used by magicians, alchemists, Pagans, and others to disguise the actual herbs and minerals used in their rituals with other, sometimes far-fetched names. Thus, "strawberry juice" would be disguised by calling it "baby's blood" (in retrospect a questionable choice), thus throwing uninitiated and untrained people attempting to perform a magickal technique off the track by giving them misinformation.

Related Encyclopedia Articles
Herbal Codes — Or, You Don't Need to Kill a Black Cat
by Harold A. Roth, Owner, Alchemy Works
Many grimoires and books of magic use animals and their parts as codes for herbs and other materials. Here are a number of them, some from the Greek Magical Papyri (see PGM XII:401-44), a work composed between 200BC and 500AD. Others come from Galen and Dioscorides, who are other ancient sources. ...
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