Towards a New Herbalism

prolegomenon to new preparations

“We find our own goals in Nature, which must thus be correctly read. But since our spiral path has taken us away from the immediate unity with nature, we can no longer read it easily. What Romantic art, Poetry, strives to do is recover an adequate reading, and this would of necessity mean the creation of a mode of symbolic access.”¹ - Charles Taylor

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There are many recycled remedies in herbalism — so much so that some herbalists sometimes accuse one another of “plagiarism.” Why? Because we’re mostly drawing on the same well-established sources and real pioneering research, in many ways, has stalled out.

Am I an herbalist? Yes. No. Not really — but maybe. Or maybe someday. I study herbs, make special alchemical potions, and practice making biodynamic preparations. Moreover, I have studied Rudolf Steiner’s medical lectures extensively, seeking for illumination from the timeframe during which the original biodynamic remedies were gestating in the man. I like to draw from Steiner’s headspace from 1920 forward. Some of his most remarkable lectures — to me — can be found in this narrow window before his death.

But we have to take a step back and ask: what is a plant? From a holistic perspective, a plant is a living thing that grows out of the earth; its roots are always growing downward, and its stem is striving upward. It is as if the plant embodies a sort of “compass” — if you tip a plant over, it readjusts, growing toward its celestial “north” once again. A plant is an embodied impulse that arrived from the cosmos and is striving to return to its source.

Look out into nature for the same conditions causing problems in your garden for a plant thriving without diseases…

The alchemist Paracelsus writes that each plant has its own star — and if we were clever enough, we’d be able to identify each plant’s star. For example, “Each plant is in a sympathetic relation with the Macrocosm and consequently also with the Microcosm, or, in other words, with Constellation and Organism (for actions of the interior constellation of stars² existing in his interior world), and each plant may be considered a terrestrial star. Each star in the great firmament of man has its specific influence, and each plant likewise, and the two correspond together. If we knew exactly the relations between plants and stars, we might say: this star is ‘Stella Rorismarini,’ that plant is ‘Stella Absynthii,’ and so forth.”³ For those familiar with the Agriculture Course, you will likely recognize this sentiment in Steiner’s own reiteration: “That which is imaged in the single plant, is always the image of some cosmic constellation. Ever and again, it is built out of the Cosmos.”⁴

The simplest principle I have stumbled upon regarding herbs is this: look out into nature for the same conditions causing problems in your garden for a plant that is thriving without diseases — this may be medicine for your garden.

Identifying such remedies for the garden is relatively easy because it is a one-to-one relationship: one plant in your garden fails to grow well when it’s, say, too cold and too wet, but a wild plant in the same garden might thrive. This tells you that this healthy wild plant has the inner power to overcome those same conditions. Trying to find a suitable analogy between soil conditions in the field and conditions within the human organism is a completely different problem and requires an extremely well-tuned intuitive imagination.

This principle applies not only outside the plant in terms of its conditions, but within the plant. The “soil” of the leaf is the root, and the “soil” of the flower is the leaf and stem. The conditions of the former are what the latter overcome. As a plant may be studied in relation to its landscape, so too the leaf may be studied in relation to its root — and the flower in relation to the leaf in which it is “rooted.”

In Steiner’s medical lectures, he speaks of eczema and recommends seeking out something in nature that behaves the same way: birch bark. The flaking birch bark is almost an image of eczema in nature. By reducing this bark to biochar, it has lost its original impulse and has become the opposite, hungry to absorb the exact process that would emerge as flaking skin. As such, biochar from birch bark, properly prepared, Steiner suggests as a remedy for eczema.

As suggested in an Appendix to the Agriculture Course, “One can make the weed-destroyer (pepper) more effective by burning the root-stock together with the seeds of the weed in question.”⁵ The first thing we see from a seed is the pipping root — there is a great kinship between the root and the seed, or else a seed would not first produce the root. Each seed is almost a little loop of cambium “pinched off” in such a way that it can root again. In plants that don’t reproduce by seeds commonly (e.g. bamboo), the portion of the plant that contains the reproductive power must be burned. When this is done, the opposite impulse is produced. The biochar produced from bamboo roots is hungry for everything that makes a bamboo plant alive and gobbles it up, depriving the living bamboo of the power of proliferation.

If physicians were to recommend a remedy for edema (excessive water retention), they would want to look to plants that retain an enormous amount of water, particularly in naturally arid conditions. Succulents such as cactus or aloe vera hold many keys. In particular, the flower of these is an impulse of overcoming the accumulation of watery fleshy mass and a gentle discharge of excess. If a remedy made from the fresh flowers proved not strong enough, biochar made of the fleshy green body of the same succulent might be added in addition to the floral remedy. And if this still were not enough, biochar produced from the roots of the same kind of plant might be added. It is impossible to say in advance what is needed for anyone, because everyone is so different. Steiner warns us that there are as many healths as there are individuals! But this isn’t just true of health, this is also true of illnesses. Each person is so extraordinarily unique that we each have a unique way of digesting, of being healthy — and of being sick. There are many commonalities — we are all human, after all — but when a cold passes through a group of people, the symptoms and severity vary drastically.

Knowing that remedies might be made out of flower, leaf or stem, and root — and biochar might be made of each aspect, you don’t have just three potential remedies from each plant, but another three as a mirror image of the first three remedies. If you extend this further and the plant produces fruit and seed, you have another two potential remedies (and their negative images produced as biochar). The combination of such remedies out of a single plant quickly boggles the imagination — and this is a healthy feeling, for we cause far more harm by imagining we know too much than by imagining we know too little. In terms of the garden, biochar made out of weed seeds helps inhibit the germination of the same species — and if that were not strong enough, biochar of the leaves would help deprive that same species of vitality (not just germinal force), and, if necessary, this could further be combined (as Steiner suggests) with the biochar made from the roots of the same plant.

If we look at each plant, the roots hunger for the conditions of the soil that the leaf and stem overcome. What the root assimilates, the leaf discharges. As Owen Barfield refers to light as “the etheric in the etheric” the flower itself is like the plant within the plant. You’ll forgive the expression, but the flower expresses something evolving out of plants into the future that, eventually, will leave the rest of the plant behind, somewhat like how we leave behind our umbilical cord and placenta when we are born. Once we have traversed the sea, we do not brag the boat with us across the dry land. Vestiges of the past remain with us but as vestiges. There gradually develops within (and out of) the human etheric body a new angelic “light body” born from overcoming and sublimating etheric vitality.⁶ Alchemically, one might call this a “quintessence.” It is not something that happens by accident. As the leaf overcomes the root, the flower overcomes the leaf as if it is a plant “rooted” in the leaf and stem.

The root is formed out of the sunlight of yesteryear (humus and salts), the leaf and stem out of a mixture between coarser liquids and this year’s sunlight, and the flower itself is assembled almost entirely out of this year’s sunlight. Additionally, Goethe says: the seed is the greatest contraction, the fruit the greatest expansion.

The root hungers and assimilates the forces that the green leaves express in their unfolding, while the flower helps overcome the root. The roots of cactus are enormously thirsty and absorb water rapidly whenever it is available. Yet at the same time, a cosmic force radiates (exudes) into the soil: a great portion of the sugars produced by plants are sent into the soil bringing the nectar of liquid light into the earth. A remedy made of the root of cactus would initially stimulate a strong earthy absorptive power. By contrast, the direct influence of the flower of cactus would be mildly dehydrating. Whereas the direct effect of the moist green aspect of a cactus would stimulate water retention. This is only one example, and not at all prescriptive, but when reduced to biochar (or otherwise fermented), these each become inverted: the biochar of cactus root becomes a strong earthy discharging instead of absorptive, the succulent green made into biochar would stimulate a tendency to keep off water instead of retaining water, and the flower converted into biochar would become mildly hydrating instead of slightly drying. If a single plant were fully understood, it would be an entire apothecary.

When a plant produces a flower, it is a kind of “rupture” which is why trees like American Chestnut can grow up until the point of bud break, at which point they invariably become infected with the chestnut blight. We cannot consider the flower merely a “part” of the plant.

The problem with this adaptive principle isn’t that it’s a cure-all, but precisely the opposite: only a suitably flexible and lively imagination can identify and use this idea in a viable way. And I’m not saying my own imagination is such a thing. A man may conceive of the mathematics of establishing a satellite in a geostationary orbit, yet he may not be able to construct a rocket with his own hands. For an advanced formula to be used effectively, an equally advanced imagination for its application is required. Anyone who has lived long enough will find themselves saying, “‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’”⁷

The first step in eating is always a kind of poisoning: we are flooded with nutrients we need to live, but we are also permeated by forces we do not need. You could say that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that a holistic remedy, paradoxically, should contain an element of its own contradiction. More on this later.

If we ate celery and couldn’t remove all the “bits” of celery from our bloodstream, we would end up with fragments that don’t belong within our organism and deposits accumulating throughout us. Likewise, if we ate pork and couldn’t remove the porky qualities from us, we would become progressively poisoned. It happens that sometimes someone has an inability to process specific foods or to remove their byproducts. This can happen for many reasons. But it’s important that we recognize the various causes of disease. Hereditary (or “karmic”) diseases are virtually incurable barring an act of God — symptoms can be treated, but the root cause usually cannot be addressed; such a person, if there is a suitable remedy to alleviate suffering, will likely need it for the rest of their life. Psycho-somatic ailments — real physical symptoms due to intense emotional distress — must be addressed on the same level of calming the “soul” — calming the turbulent waters of one’s inner experience. Dietary diseases require a consistent dietary change implemented early enough. Environmental diseases require an environmental answer, as well as external treatment. The more superficial the cause, the easier the cure. But the more the cause of an illness is concealed by the veil of time, the harder it is to uproot. The problem is that these are generally interwoven. For example, I may have a genetic predisposition to diabetes, but I may also inherit dietary habits that I find very difficult to change yet will invariably cause diabetes in me. These are distinct things but often show up in constellations.

If, though, our organism is healthy, it generates a counter-impulse to jettison what does not belong in us, but in doing so, overcompensates. For example, when someone drinks wine they become “inspired” — filled with the dynamic charisma of the spirit — but the next morning the person is tired, overwhelmed, and has a headache. Even Steiner says that Goethe wrote some very good poetry under the influence of wine. The experience of a hangover is the organism not only expelling the unearned surplus of spirits contained in alcohol, but also expelling a portion of your own share of spirit. After drinking too much alcohol, we initially feel inspired and the next day we feel dispirited!

Similarly, eating meat gives animating energy, but the body seeks to expel that surplus animality; in doing so, the foreign astral is ejected, but so too is some of your own astrality, which, over time, leads to an enervated will. The more an animal consumes of meat, the more it sleeps. When the etheric body is stronger than the astral body, we have a kind of vegetative health, but we easily become lazy when we are not actively stimulated by a current meal. By contrast, when someone eats vegetables, they are “poisoned” with slightly excessive ethericity; when the healthy organism seeks to expel this surplus etheric quality, it also expels some of your own portion of ethericity. This is why yogis and spiritual practitioners often aspire to a vegetarian diet: it gradually reduces the etheric body to the bare minimum, enhancing the astral body instead. But when you look at vegetarian animals, they sleep very little. Rudolf Steiner himself credited his ability to give three to four lectures per day to his vegetarian diet — and he also only slept a few hours a night. It is no particular surprise that Steiner was both so productive but also died fairly young. He says, “Were only the etheric body to work, then the plant would unfold endlessly leaf by leaf; this is brought to a conclusion by the astral body. The etheric body is muted by the astral.”⁸ When someone eats a vegetarian diet, there is the gradual enhancing not of the etheric body but rather of the soul and spirit — a heightening of consciousness. By contrast, dependence on meat brings a gradual enhancing of the physical and etheric bodies, at the cost of higher consciousness. This isn’t a moral assessment of which anyone should consume — some people require meat to maintain their lives and they would waste away without it. But one can glimpse here how a moderate omnivorous diet would not lead as quickly to extremes.

All of this has to be taken into consideration when seeking out new remedies. This will appear to contradict what was said above about cactus, but the use of succulent green part of a plant initially brings a water-retaining tendency but over time (assuming the organism is healthy enough to create the counter-impulse) very slowly depletes the etheric body in favor of drying astral effects. This is why many remedies appear to work at first, and then progressively appear not to. For the strongest medicines, we should really include both an etheric aspect and an astral aspect — as in the case of biodynamic preparations: an animal aspect and a plant aspect. Why? Because when we include both an animal part and a plant part, the counter-impulse that would have been generated cancels itself out. This is why, in my mind, Steiner says it is a serious error to rely solely on plants for human remedies. Why? Because it treats humans too much like animals. No, Steiner says we should “animalize” our remedies. For me, this “fixes” the intended effect in a way that it is not then jettisoned fully by the body’s normal healthy functions. Someone suffering from edema might need various aspects of cactus — flower, biochar from the succulent green part, biochar from the root, etc. — but might also require an animal element worked into the same remedy. One immediately imagines that a suitable sheath would be rather like the biodynamic preparations: select the sheath from a healthy animal⁹ that naturally contains the process influenced by the medicinal herb. But given the great variety of ailments and the uniqueness of human healths, one quickly sees this could never be done on a large scale or statistically. It would have to be an intimate remedy for one particular person. The recipe might be adapted for another person with a similar condition, but no two ailments are exactly the same any more than a dandelion growing in two different soils is ever exactly the same.

But at a certain point, what the Bhagavad Gita refers to as tamasic (rotten, stale, junk food, alcohol, etc.), rajasic (pungent, spicy, meat, coffee, etc.), and sattvic foods (mild vegetables, rice, tea, etc.) are foods which make people tired, animated, or bring calm energy, respectively. But for the “post-guna” state, for the true initiate, foods no longer cause the same effects. I remember visiting a large operation and witnessing huge wood chip piles steaming from their self-generated heat. The tour guide explained that sometimes the wood chip piles get so hot they actually catch on fire. But when the fire department arrives, the workers warn them not to spray water on the piles. The firefighters rarely listen and spray hundreds of gallons at the blaze. Instead of extinguishing the fire, something miraculous happens: the water becomes fuel for the fire. When a fire gets hot enough, water quickly expands into water vapor and is broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen, and the oxygen fuels the fire. You might as well be pouring kerosene on a fire in such a state. We rarely think of water as something that fuels fire, but even rocks can melt when a fire is intense enough. “To the pure all things are pure”¹⁰ but only once someone has become, so to speak, all flame. To someone who has become spiritualized, whether it is meat — or even alcohol — it all contributes fuel to the fire. “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”¹¹

1. Charles Taylor, Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment, pg 4.

2. Footnote: “It will be impossible to bring this idea to the perfect understanding of the reader unless he is able to use his own intuition. These doctrines contain the spirit of Paracelsus, and those who wish to realize the full extent of his meaning must be able to enter mentally into his sphere of mentality.” - Dr. Franz Hartmann

3. Paracelsus, in The Life and Prophesies of Paracelsus by Dr. Franz Hartmann, pg. 53.

4. R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture II, (GA327, 10 June 1924, Koberwitz)

5. R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Appendix, (GA327)

6. In Kabbalah, these are referred to as “robes of light,” which Adam lost at the fall.

7. John 1:15

8. Steiner, Rudolf, Stuttgart, February 8, 1909, GA98

9. Paracelsus refers to this aspect as mumia.

10. Titus 1:15

11. Matthew 11:18-19