PLANT-SPIRIT MEDICINE
MYSTICAL PHYTOPHARMACEUTICALS
IN AN
OLD (AND NEW) KEY
David Kowalewski, Ph.D.
Environmental Studies
Alfred University
Alfred, NY 14802
fkowalewski@alfred.edu
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Dr. David Kowalewski is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies at Alfred University, where he continues teaching Wild Medicinal Plants, Deep Ecology, and related topics. His writings on the metaphysical dimensions of nature have appeared in Journal of Environmental Education and Green Teacher, and have been elaborated in Deep Power: The Political Ecology of Wilderness and Civilization (Nova Science, 2000).
ABSTRACT
Growing dissatisfaction with allopathic medicine has given rise to increased popularity of alternative modalities, in particular to an herbal renaissance. Part of this herbal revival is a rekindled interest in the notion that plants have a consciousness that can be accessed and used by a healer. In this view, it is the spirit of the plant that heals, while its biochemistry is a secondary adjunct. The present article describes this “plant-spirit medicine,” detailing modern objections, while also introducing empirical evidence that appears to support the perspective. The languages and media of plant-herbalist communication are provided, as well as a typical protocol for healing a patient. The implications for medical practice—especially with respect to the recent trend in “mind-body medicine”—are then discussed.
PLANT-SPIRIT MEDICINE:
MYSTICAL PHYTOPHARMACEUTICALS
IN AN
OLD (AND NEW) KEY
“Behold the herbs! Their virtues are invisible and yet they can be detected.” Paracelsus (cited in Wood, 2000:25).
In the industrial world, herbal medicine has been greatly neglected for more than a century. This seems odd, given that three-quarters of the world’s population rely primarily on plants for their medical needs. Yet the situation is rapidly changing. Disaffection with allopathic medicine because of high costs, dangerous side-effects, and other reasons has been accompanied by increased use of unconventional therapies, in particular herbal medicine, despite the refusal of insurance companies to cover almost all such modalities (Eisenberg et al., 1993). In particular, a growing interest in the non-physical dimension of healing is apparent, which in the herbal community has taken the form of a renewed interest in “plant-spirit medicine” (Aversano, 2002; Buhner, 2000, 2002, 2004; Cowan, 1995; Cruden, 1997; Harvey and Cochrane, 1999, 2001; Heaven and Charing, 2006; Montgomery, 1997).
Within herbalism, though, the notion that physical and spiritual are inseparable has a long pedigree. Traditionally across the world, herbalists assumed that, in the first instance, it is the spirit of the plant that does the healing, while its biochemistry is distinctly secondary (Buhner, 1998). The present article describes this time-honored perspective, addressing modern objections while introducing a wealth of empirical evidence suggesting it needs to be taken seriously. The work is based on many sources, including old and recent herbals, field guides, ethnobotanical accounts, presentations at national and international herbal conferences, workshops and symposia by herbal professionals, conversations with practitioners, herbal websites, student experiences in my university classes, and my own amateur herbal experience. It details the entire process of treating patients by means of plant spirits, from diagnosing the disease to the healing itself. It then raises the possibility of its use in integrated medicine.
SCIENTIFIC SKEPTICISM
“Why heal their bodies if their souls are dead?” A professional herbalist to the author.
For millennia native peoples have made use of the healing properties of countless plants. Their knowledge is truly encyclopedic, causing ivy-league and other researchers to mine their minds and gather tons of samples for testing in laboratories. But how did natives come about this vast knowledge? They never majored in botany, biochemistry, pharmacology, or other modern discipline of herbal medicine, nor had access to libraries, research labs, or the internet. The question begs for an answer.
The native answer could not be clearer. Everywhere, quite directly and explicitly and consistently, they have responded: “The plants taught us” (Drury, 1991). Among South American indigenes, for example, plants are known as “little teachers.” As one Cherokee herbalist put it, “[W]e ask the plants to direct us on how and when to use them as helpers” (Garrett, 2003:23). Native herbalists did not rely on logic or other rationalist forms. Instead, they say they learned by direct perception alone (Buhner, 2004).
Yet most scientists immediately write off such a view as superstitious “magical thinking” or schizophrenic hallucination. Instead, they claim, the knowledge came from three sources: accident, trial and error, and imitation of animals.
Accident. Presumably, serendipity accounted for the happy matching of plants with diseases. For example, someone with a splitting headache may have eaten some wild strawberries and realized, some time later, that the pain was gone and then made the connection.
Yet accident seems far too random an explanation for the voluminous and systematic knowledge possessed by native herbalists. Could the perfect tailoring of thousands of plants with thousands of ailments all over the world during the short period of hominid evolution have happened by accident? Can one seriously imagine every native with severe bleeding simply stumbling around for weeks (assuming death from shock did not happen early in the process) until they happened to lie down on a species that stopped the hemorrhaging? Since many herbs have been used for the same purpose across the world (e.g., yarrow as a styptic), can one imagine all these people accidentally finding exactly the same species? Moreover, in the case of serious maladies, how many patients would have died before the right herb was found? Many or most, for sure. Would native peoples have continued using this “roll the dice” approach after all these funerals?
Further, since natives ate plants as a major part of their diet—in fact dozens and even hundreds of species in the course of a week—how would they know which one in fact had cured the problem? This is a non-trivial problem, since most plants, according to an herbal axiom, work slowly (like nature itself) on an organism. Thus, so many species would already have been consumed by the time a cure was effected that determining the correct plant would have presented a statistical nightmare.
Trial and error. Presumably, also, native herbalists diligently kept trying plant after plant, year after year, until they got it right for the patient. Yet to most herbal scholars, such a notion is best—and charitably—described as “ludicrous” (Brown, 2001). Try this thought experiment. Envision yourself as Adam in the Garden of Eden. You have five maladies, one major and four minor. How long would it take you to find a plant for each malady (even deserts have hundreds of plants)? We assume here, of course, that you do not die first from the major malady, or old age, before finding the right plants. Recall here the slow working of herbs, such that each individual species would have to be “tried” for days before knowing whether it was a winner or loser. The plants, of course, would have to be tried singly to avoid confusing the ineffective with the effective ones (called “simpling” in herbal parlance). There is clearly a time problem here. Realize as well that some species are counterindicated for certain ailments (e.g., plants containing coumarin for hemophiliacs) or conditions (Umbelliferae family for pregnant women). How many miscarriages would it take, for example, before native women concluded that trial and error is dangerous for fetuses and probably other living things? Not long, one supposes. Further, assume you did improve—how would you know for sure if the plant had cured you or the ailment had simply run its course? Natives, as far as we know, did not conduct clinical trials.
But this is only half of a rather ridiculous story. Let’s just assume that the “trying-and-erring practitioners” managed to select the correct species from the thousands of available plants. They would then also have to select the proper part of the plant. A species may clear up one disease only to cause another, since it may have both medicinal and toxic parts. For example, the fleshy tuber of the day lily is edible, but the stringy cord just above it is toxic. Further, practitioners would have to get the preparation right. Some plant parts are toxic unless prepared in a certain way. For example, the pokeweed leaf is toxic raw, but edible boiled. Moreover, they would have to get the dosage right. Too little, and the herb may be ineffective; too much, possibly toxic and even lethal. There is a saying in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): “The poison is in the dosage.” Any substance, we know, can make you sick if you ingest too much (e.g., ice cream). In sum, just how many “trials and errors,” during selection of species, as well as part and preparation and dosage, would have to occur before practitioners “got it all right”—a safe and effective herbal remedy (assuming again the patient did not die before this happened?) As they say, just do the math. The more one thinks about “trial and error” in a scientific-mathematical way, the more ludicrous it sounds.
But there’s more. Since a large percentage of plant species are horribly bitter, would an already sick person want to continue—or even start—this approach? Many people are sensitive to the bitter principle of plants and get sick from it—so an already sick person ingesting a wide variety of bitter plants (before presumably chancing upon the right one) would likely get horribly sick(er)—and possibly die. The person would likely conclude that the hypothetical cure (not even a proven one) is far worse than the disease. (Even in allopathic medicine, non-compliance with prescriptions is rampant; many patients refuse to take any, or all, of the “scientifically proven” pharmaceuticals because of their horrendous “side-effects” [sic—“main effects”]. Were early peoples any different?) Most importantly, many plants are toxic, in fact lethally so. How many people would have to die before a community realized that trial-and-error was a bad idea. It would take only one toxic plant—like a good poison ivy rub for a skin condition—to convince you (assuming you survived) that the approach is a hazardous one.
There is also the cultural problem. Native peoples simply do not think or act in this way. We can assume that since most patients do not feel at all like going out into the wild looking for possible plant cures, they use the local medicine person to find one. (How all these medicine people support themselves during all these long quests may be another problem.) As noted above, the medicine person would have to give the patient a large number of species before hitting on the right one—if ever. My own experience with native peoples tells me that a patient would simply stop going to such a “doctor,” having realized that they have lost “the medicine” (natives have their own version of quackery). Since native communities have only a few medicine people, the quest for the right species would probably stop quickly—and the trial-and-error method fail (again). Further, respected medicine people today are horrified that allopathy accuses them of using their own people as guinea pigs in dangerous experiments. The medicine people I have met would never do so.
Finally, there is the simple lack of any evidence for such an approach being used or even working. The burden of proof lies on its proponents, who as yet have failed to produce from the ethnographic record any report, from patients or medicine people, of trial-and-error being used to heal disease successfully anywhere in the world at any time (Buhner, 2000).
Imitation of animals. Presumably, finally, native herbal knowledge came from watching and imitating how animals used plants to heal themselves (Schul, 1977). True, monkeys and other animals heal themselves by using plants. Most of us have seen dogs gnawing on greenery to relieve indigestion. (In itself this is an interesting problem: How do they know which herb to ingest?). Native peoples are indeed keen observers of nature, and early Europeans are known to have watched animals using plants for healing (Wood 2004). Possibly, then, a few herbal remedies were found in this way.
As a complete explanation for the encyclopedic knowledge of native herbalists, however, the theory cannot be taken seriously. How would a practitioner know exactly what was ailing all the animals, especially if the malady were internal? Animals do not write monographs for medical journals about their diseases or research findings. Also, anyone who has actually observed wild animals know that, when sick, they spend most of their time in their shelters—much like sick humans stay home from work. So one must ask, how many opportunities would be available for herbalists to actually see a sick animal accessing a plant remedy? And even if they had such opportunities, how many would be willing—or even able—to follow the same creature for days just to see if the herb worked? Too, how would they know for sure whether sick herbivores and omnivores were ingesting a plant for medicine or for food? Since some animals consume a wide variety of plants (in some locales the white-tailed deer consumes 500 species), this is no easy question. Further, humans and animals get very different diseases, so herbalists might well assume, mistakenly, that a creature is ingesting an herb for a malady identical to a human one. A mangy coyote, for example, may look like it is ingesting a certain plant for its “skin disease,” but is actually treating its distemper.
Finally, and most importantly, a good many plants are safe for animals but toxic to humans. Birds, for example, relish poison ivy berries, and vultures crave rotten meat. One winter I watched deer nearly devour an entire yew shrub with great delight—the plant is very toxic to humans. How many people, then, would have gotten sicker, and died, before a native community concluded that animal herbalism was not a very good practice. Only one patient would have to have ingested just one lethal plant, such as water hemlock, before natives disabused themselves of the notion that blindly following the animals’ foraging was a sound idea. Presumably therefore, even being generous, one has to rule out any systematic knowledge from animal mimicking.
These three theories, then, not only insult the intelligence of indigenous peoples (in order to privilege allopathic research?). They raise the more fundamental question about the ability of such “ignorant” people to survive as a species. This is a non-trivial point. Just ask yourself, for example, this question about animal mimicking: How long would cardinals have survived as a species if they acted like eagles? So, if native hominids did use these three “methods” consistently, how could they have survived as a species? But they did survive, so apparently they were smarter than that. In fact, they did develop a systematic and effective method for finding herbal medicine—they asked the plants.
IT TAKES A SPIRIT TO HEAL A SPIRIT
“If the doctor is busy, the priest is asleep.” Russian saying.
According to ancient herbal tradition, disease can be traced to a spiritual cause (Park, 1996). As one Native-American herbalist, who was asked by President Bill Clinton to serve on committees of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), put it, “Ninety percent of pain is soul pain” (Low Dog, 2004). To treat illness, then, means dealing with a sick spirit (Winston, 2004b). Specifically, the sick person’s energetic system, or spirit, is out of balance in some way (Herrick, 1995). Sickness, then, arises first spiritually, and only then manifests physically. As such, physical symptoms are only the tip of the healing iceberg (Montgomery, 2003; Weed, 2003). According to one herbalist, a plant-spirit healer “not only tries to correct the symptom and illness, but also to reach the bad medicine that originally started that illness” (Brown, 1985:42). Otherwise the healer is just chasing symptoms (Bennett, 1997).
As a native herbalist might say, then, “It takes a spirit to heal a spirit.” Indeed, according to indigenous medicine, all healing knowledge comes from the spirits (Harris, 1972; Plotkin, 1993). The herbalist, then, needs to engage the spirit of the plant. To the ancients, this is not so difficult. In evolutionary terms, plants are our biological ancestors, who according to native belief have an interest in healing us, their descendants. As one Choctaw medicine woman put it, “[I]t’s not simply the plant that we need. . . . The entire spirit must be used” (Corson, 2005:74). According to the Iroquois, “When plant[s] . . . are used, it is always assumed . . . that it is the spirit . . . of the plant . . . that is effecting the cure” (Herrick, 1995:30). It is the plant’s spirit, then, that heals the patient. Among the tribes of Michigan, medicine people must know the spirit of the plant in order to unleash its power (Morrison, 1993:68). “All one has to do,” say plant-spirit practitioners, “is ask the spirit of the plant” (Aversano, 2002:40; see also Cowan, 1997).
The herbal healer, then, must not merely access the plant’s biochemistry, but its metaphysical energetics. Whereas a plant’s biochemistry may effect a temporary curing (relief of a physical symptom), only its spiritual energy can effect a healing (removal of the energetic cause). For this reason, many native-minded herbalists rail against a “this plant for that ailment” approach—what I call “vending-machine herbalism.” Instead, a more holistic treatment is necessary for a truly healthy patient. Plants, then, are not simply drugs in green coats, as most allopaths view them, but conscious healers in their own right. The herbalist, then, needs to understand the spirit of the plant, not just its biochemistry. According to one Incan medicine woman, this is why laboratory researchers are often unable to get the same results as native herbalists (Alarcon, 2002).
As such, the herbalist is only a link—but a vital one—between the spirit of the plant and that of the patient (Willard, 1993). In the words of an Ecuadoran herbalista, “The herbalist is only a tool of the plant” (Alarcon, 2002). Native-minded practitioners, then, do not heal—the plant does, and consciously so. They just mediate nature’s spirits.
Even in the European tradition, such an idea is far from bizarre. In ancient Greek mythology, it was the spirits—the gods—who taught humans the medicinal uses of plants (Reader’s Digest, 1986:53). In Celtic communities, plants gave healing information to medicine people (Conway, 1997). Here it was also forbidden to damage rowan and other sacred trees. The Druids ceremonialized in sacred groves and begifted oak and other trees by pouring wine next to their trunks (Hopman, 1991). Indeed later in Europe, in biology and related fields, vitalism—which holds that a vital force pervades nature—long held sway, and is currently experiencing a comeback (Stansbury, 2000).
According to plant-spirit medicine, then, it is not at all the amount of physical knowledge about plants—such as number of species, botanical structures, biochemical interactions—that is crucial for the herbalist. Instead, it is the quality of that knowledge, in particular the ability to cultivate a personal relationship with a plant’s spirit (Cowan, 1995). In Belize, for example, Mayan healers feel especially close to the herbs.
They treat them like members of the family and consider them allies in their healing work. They talk to them as if they were human friends, since they believe that . . . [they] respond, as would any living being, with their own intelligence (Arvigo and Epstein, 2001:15).
It is not how much practitioners know about plants, then, that is vital, but how well they know them. To claim knowledge of a plant by simply slapping on a label and noting its habitat is like saying you know somebody because you have their name and address. It is mere telephone-book knowledge.
Indeed, one persistent theme is that the most powerful healers make use of only a few species. Don Eligio Panti, for example, a famous Mayan healer in Belize, knew of hundreds of medicinals, yet used only 15-20 regularly (Arvigo, 1999). A current herbalist in Guatemala knows 600, yet uses only 60 (Prechtel, 2002). Stalking Wolf, an acknowledged Apache herbalist, used only 3 regularly—oak, pine, and wintergreen (Brown, 2001). Still others use only 1 (Prechtel, 2003). But by knowing only 1 intimately, an herbalist can be said to know them all. As a Choctaw medicine woman told her apprentice:
Find one plant . . . and work with that one. . . . Marry it and be faithful to it. Sleep and dream with it. Pray to it. Show it respect and it will teach you. . . . If you truly know one medicine plant, then you will know something about all of them (Corson, 2005:38).
DO PLANTS HAVE SPIRITS?
“If you’re a good herbalist, you know the plants. If you’re a master herbalist, the plants know you.” A professional herbalist to the author.
One can almost hear the eyebrows of most white-coated allopaths rising to the occasion. Yet logic, experience, and scientific evidence appear to offer support for the notion that plants are conscious healing spirits. Specifically, plants appear to have a consciousness capable of sending information-loaded healing energy to, and receiving it from, other organisms nonlocally. Moreover, they seem to do this in ways described by ancient herbalists. To wit:
• The classical distinction between so-called “unconscious” plants and “conscious” animals is hardly clear, as seen in the “in-between behavior” of several species like the carnivorous Venus flytrap.
• Since humans evolved from plants, one can reasonably hypothesize at least a “proto-consciousness” in the latter. For example, according to Mayan elders, humans are just trees that can walk (Prechtel, 2002). In this view, plants are our ancestors. Indeed, since they are much older, they have a special wisdom that we “new kids on the block” are ignorant of. Species-wise, according to the ancient perspective, they are the wise species.
• The most important life-sustaining fluids of plants and humans, namely chlorophyll and hemoglobin respectively, are biochemically almost identical (Gerber, 2001; Murphy, 1992).
• Native peoples all over the world over have referred to botanicals as the “plant people” (Brown, 1985:234). Moreover, they have attached similar spiritual qualities to identical species, which is sometimes used to explain why in many widely separated places certain plants are used for exactly the same maladies (Buhner, 1998).
• Some herbs known as amphoterics (from the Greek amphoteros: each of two) appear to have an “equilibrating consciousness,” able to level out dysfunctionally painful extremes to moderate levels (see Table 1). These plants have a balancing action, thereby alleviating painful abnormalities. They operate as regulators of cycles, by smoothing their peaks and troughs and by normalizing their timing. If menstrual bleeding is delayed, for example, they stimulate flow, but if prolonged, curtail it (Viereck, 1987). The question then arises: “How do they ‘know’ how to do this?” If you ask yourself how the thermostat in your house works, you have to admit that some engineering consciousness was behind it. If a plant does the same thing with regard to physical functioning, can one say with a straight face that there is no consciousness behind it? In fact, amphoteric plants seem smarter than thermostats, since they need no programming by humans to do their regulation, and smarter than electrical engineers, since they need no schooling to learn how to regulate, or how to manufacture the chemicals to do it. So it bears repeating: How do the plants ‘know’? Thus far, allopaths have avoided the amphoteric question. In the words of one herbal researcher, amphoterics “make scientists throw up their hands” (Cabrera, 1999).
• According to extensive research, plants seem much less like inert botanicals and much more like conscious humans in terms of their nervous-system functioning, biochemical reactions, and interactions with the wider environment. Plants have a nervous-system functioning in many ways like that of humans. For long it has been known that electromagnetic conduction in a plant is fundamentally the same as in the nerve of an animal (Bose, 1902; 1926). Indeed, plants appear as sensitive to electromagnetic fields as humans (Buhner, 2004). Recent research has suggested that plants have feeling states (Frances, 2001). Electrodes attached to plants, for example, show them reacting to a variety of non-physical stimuli; polygraph and other tests have shown human-like responses to:
A threat of violence to themselves;
Physical harm to nearby creatures;
A human in a group who has harmed another plant;
A dog walking by;
Owner’s pleasure and pain, even at a great distance;
Owner’s spontaneous decision to come home;
Owner’s loving thoughts;
Assimilation of barbiturates and aspirin;
Other organisms (as small as bacteria) being killed nearby.
Plants will vary in their responses depending on the immediate experimenter. For example, they grow faster if caressed by their owners. They also seem able to communicate with other plants, especially about attacks from insects or disease, resulting in protective biochemical changes. When prayed and serenaded to, they better resist insects and produce higher yields (Backster, 1968; Backster and Powers, 2003; Brown, 1971; Gilmore, 1977; Loehr, 1959; Thomas 1985; Tompkins and Bird, 1972; Watson, 1986). In short, the evidence suggests that plants do not just send and receive a wide variety of information about their surroundings much like humans, but do so in mysterious, nonlocal ways. They seem especially sensitive to love and pain, suggesting not merely a consciousness, but a compassionate healing one.
• Some modern botanists who have made great scientific discoveries, such as George Washington Carver and Luther Burbank, admitted conversing with the plants they were experimenting with (Buhner, 2002; Ingerman, 2000). According to Burbank:
• Homeopathy, which was widely accepted in the 18th and 19th centuries and is still practiced widely in Europe, and which is experiencing a comeback in North America, also suggests a healing plant consciousness. Homeopaths make a solution from a plant, which they then progressively dilute (dematerialize?) and “succuss” (vibrate vigorously) for greater potency. The resulting solution may be so diluted that the original chemicals cannot even be measured by the most sensitive instruments. The medicine thus appears to contain an “energetic memory” of the original constituents. Seemingly, in this way, the “pure spirit of the plant” is “potentized.” Indeed, the most powerful homeopathic remedies are those with the fewest molecules of the plant. One might speculate, then, that the more “spiritual” the herbal medicine—one in which only the “spirit” or “energy” of the plant remains—the more effective it is. In homeopathy, “[T]he smaller the . . . matter, the more powerful the force . . . as if power were a prisoner of matter” (Tompkins and Bird, 1998:7). As such, one might say that the plant’s “spirit” alone is able to heal, or that its most “active ingredient” is its spirit. Not surprisingly, the effectiveness of homeopathy is “baffling modern scientists” (Tilford, 1997:176). According to the chief of research on brain biochemistry at the NIH for 13 years, several placebo-controlled studies have supported its efficacy, but as yet no physical mechanism has been found to account for the results (Pert, 2000; see also http://homeopathic.org; Wood, 2000, 2004).
• Phenomenal crop yields at the famous communities of Findhorn in Scotland and Perelandra in Virginia have been obtained by working with plant spirits (Findhorn Community, 1976; Wright, 1993).
In short, the notion of plant spirits cannot be casually dismissed. But if they do exist, what are they like? Practitioners agree that a plant’s energy pattern is “archetypal,” suggesting a species consciousness rather than an individual one. It is the species nature of a plant, then, that is its spirit, while individual plants in the ground are simply manifestions of that spirit. This implies that, if herbalists know one individual of a species, they know them all. One can deduce, then, that a single dandelion growing in France will immediately recognize and acknowledge an herbalist from Germany who has cultivated a relationship with “Dandelion” (Bennett, 1997; Winston 1998).
The species consciousness or “spirit” of a plant is experienced by some herbalists as a unique vibration, which is often expressed and heard as a special song or chant (Corson, 2005:301). According to one modern plant-spirit practitioner:
Each [plant species] spirit has a vibration that filters through the physical plant body . . . [and that] embodies the healing energies of that spirit. Its vibration also resonates with the emotional, physical, and spiritual aspects of the person it will assist in the healing process. . . . Plant-spirit healing works with light energy and is a vibrational . . . process. Each living thing is made up of light of many frequencies or vibrations. . . . When we work with plants, or the[ir] medicines . . . we open ourselves to receive the vibrational healing that directs itself to the place we need it most” (Aversano, 2002:43-44).
The “Overspirit” of all plant species—namely the ruling “Spirit of the Plant Kingdom”—according to some herbalists, is alcohol (appropriately dubbed “spirits”) (Sarangerel, 2001). It might therefore be viewed as the “distilled” spirit of all plant species (any plant matter can be used to make it), or as “Pure Plant Spirit” writ large. The “Spirit of All Plants,” then, as the universal plant energy, has great power to change other spirits, including those of its descendants, among them humans.
Alcohol certainly has powerful “spiritual” features. It evaporates extremely fast—so fast that 200-proof alcohol is not even manufactured or sold. It has the power to intoxicate the human spirit. (It also intoxicates other animals, such as birds with fermenting berries in their crops on hot summer days). It relaxes inhibitions, that is, it “releases the spirit.”
Belief in alcohol’s spiritual nature can also seen in its use during native healing and other sacred ceremonies in many parts of the world. In South America and Mongolia, for example, it is sprayed or flicked on patients by medicine people (Perkins, 1995; Sarangerel, 2000). Its healing ability is also evident in its application as a powerful antiseptic (as on patients before injections) and linament (as on patients with muscle ailments). Alcohol is also universally lauded by herbalists for its ability to extract medicinal ingredients from plants and form healing tinctures. This powerful solvent ability, one might say, derives from its status as the most powerful plant spirit. Too, the resulting tinctures are immediately absorbed into the blood stream of patients to start their healing work without delay. As the powerful “Universal Plant Spirit,” then, it quickly and easily “spirits away” the healing energies of various species to places where the patients need them most.
Conversely, though, when alcohol is not used in a healing way, but instead abused for trivial and selfish ends, it easily causes dysfunctioning (e.g., vomiting, blackouts, addiction). Alcoholism, according to many, derives in the first instance from a spiritual malady—the physical symptoms only come later. To the Cherokee, it is caused by soul-sickness. Many victims agree; as one Alcoholics Anonymous member told me, “Something got to me before the alcohol did.” Instead of dealing with their soul-sickness in a sacred way, however, alcoholics abuse and disrespect the “Spirit of All Plants”—a big mistake. Alcohol, according to the ancient herbal perspective, will retaliate. To the Cherokee, abuse causes one to lose their own spirit by being captured by the powerful “Spirit of All Plants,” who makes the abuser its slave (i.e., an addict). Alcoholics, then, lose their spirit by becoming slaves of the “Universal Plant Spirit.”
Similar problems occur from abusing specific sacred plants, for example cocaine addiction from sacred “Coca.” According to some Native-Americans, lung cancer from excessive smoking is “Indian revenge” for violating sacred “Tobacco”—for treating it with disrespect (see Winston, 2004a). (Original wild tobacco—Nicotiana rustica—is considered hallucinogenic, i.e., a gateway to the spirits.) For the Choctaw:
Long ago, it was a gift to be used solely by spiritual persons as a walkway between worlds, as a medicine with miraculous powers. . . . Used correctly, tobacco has supernatural qualities. When tobacco is not respected, smoking or any other use . . . is a capricious act. A misunderstanding of this plant will . . . destroy you. Used improperly, tobacco becomes an impediment to consciousness. . . . [T]obacco will wrathfully and justifiably turn on you. Eventually you will become addicted to it. Instead of giving you power, the spirit will take power away and ruin you. Either use tobacco spiritually, or stay far away from it (Corson, 2005:277).
Sacred plant spirits have great power, then, and like all power, cut both ways. They both heal the respectful user and enslave the disrespectful abuser.
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
“Nature . . . do[es] not speak the tongue of man . . . [but] the universal language of the heart.” Herbalist Tom Brown, Jr. (1985:17).
Even if plants have spirits, though, how can communication possibly take place across the species barrier? Even groups within the human species have different languages, making communication difficult if not impossible. Practitioners note three universal “languages” in which healing information about plants is embedded: heart-talk, songs, and bear signals. These languages are “spoken” through a number of specific media, such as dreams and visions.
Heart-talk is crucial for communicatng with a plant (Mongomery, 2003). (For extended scientific discussions of cardiac energy fields and their role in sending and receiving embedded information, see Buhner, 2002, 2004; www.heartmath.org.) Practitioners do not talk to plants with their mind, since it is uniquely human, but rather with their “heart,” since it is common to all creatures. Your dog, for example, understands perfectly your loving gaze, while it blissfully ignores your commands to sit or fetch. To hear a plant’s message, then, herbalists have to listen with their hearts.
According to some indigenous peoples, at one time all creatures spoke the same language—heart-talk (Winston, 2004b). In the words of one herbalist, “[Ancient] man and the trees understood each other because they spoke a common tongue” (Brown, 1985:11). In the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, for example, plants and animals and humans lived in harmony, so they presumably had a common understanding, otherwise chaos would have ensued. According to the Cherokee:
In the ancient times, all of the animals, fish, birds, insects, and plants could communicate with one another. They share the common language of peace, harmony, and friendship (Cohen, 2003:288; see also Garrett, 2003).
Heart language is universal because love is the universal emotion (Abram, 1996). The most successful herbalists have profound affection for each plant, and this love, according to many, accounts for their prowess (Prechtel, 2002). Perhaps not surprisingly, in this view, plants respond especially well, in terms of overall health and yields and so on, to the loving vibrations of their owners’ hearts (Loehr, 1959).
Thus, the synchronization of the vibrations of the plant and the herbalist’s heart—their bioresonance—is able to effect a healing response (for more on vibrational medicine, see Gerber, 2001). Vibrational synchrony appears to be the key. Plants, according to one modern herbalist, “heal vibrationally, as our spirits work in mirrored relationships to those of the plant[s]” (Aversano, 2002:40). According to Mayan herbalists, then, when approaching a plant one should “court it, seduce it” (Prechtel, 2003).
Songs too are universally regarded as an important language, especially for their ability to communicate heartfelt emotion to the plants (Buhner, 1998). By storing emotional data in their vibrations, they speak to the heart more than the brain. Plant-spirit practitioners unanimously assert that plants appreciate their singing (Frances, 2004; Retallack, 1973). In fact, scientists have discovered that when exposed to certain kinds of singing and instrumental music, plants grow healthier and more uniformly, mature sooner, bloom more abundantly, and produce higher yields. When birds sing, plant stomata—“lung”structures enabling the exchange of gases with the environment—stay open longer. Birdsong, as a result, can affect a plant’s fruits and nutrients. Orange trees, for example, produce 30 percent higher yields and 100 percent more vitamin C. Alfalfa too shows increased yields, and when used as a feed for livestock, increases milk production even when less volume is fed than normal; it also has more nutrients, especially protein. Soybeans are similarly affected (Backster and Flowers, 2003; Brown, 1971; Loehr, 1959; Tompkins and Bird, 1998; Thomas, 1985). For good reason, perhaps, Native-Americans warn against disturbing the dawn chorus of birds (Brown, 2001).
Many native cultures say that each plant species has its own song, which expresses its unique spirit. This song can be accessed by medicine people, through visions or other means, and in the view of many practitioners, must be learned before the plant bestows its full healing power (Arvigo and Epstein, 2001; Gilmore, 1977; Kindscher, 1987; Prechtel, 2002; Winston, 2004a; 2004b). In the words of a Choctaw medicine woman to her apprentice:
Learn the words and learn them exactly . . .[a]nd not in the head but in the heart. The remedies are practically worthless without the medicine songs. . . . Always sing . . . the proper song. That is what makes them stand up with power. Without them, the cures are about as good as old dishwater (Corson, 2005:56).
To the Mayans as well, the song is necessary for complete healing (Prechtel, 2002). In the Midaywiwin Medicine Society, a first-degree healer not only had to know common medicinal plants, but also “the music that made them work” (Morrison, 1993:9). Such songs are considered “big medicine” and are often handed down from medicine person to apprentice (Montgomery, 2003). For good reason, then, today’s herbal conferences always begin and end with a song—phytopharmaceuticals in a new (and old) key.
Bear signals too have long been considered a language of plant-spirit medicine. Bears are said to be especially willing to share their herbal knowledge with medicine people (Aversano, 2002; Schul, 1977). According to the Cherokee, for example, desert parsley is called “bear medicine” because “Bear” taught them the plant (Winston, 2004b). Indeed, in many native cultures, “Bear” is the totem of the herbalist (Garret, 2003; Harris, 1972; Wood, 1997). Bears are thought to have special knowledge of herbs, since they pay attention to plants that other animals totally ignore. Presumably they are one of the few animals that heals its own wounds (Drury, 1991). Herbalists whose plant knowledge comes from bears are seen as especially powerful healers (Buhner, 1998; Wood, 1997).
Bears are associated with a host of synchronicities for herbalists. The ancient wisdom of the Lakota, for example, says that bears are the only species of animal that teaches humans about medicinal plants in dreams. If you have dreamt of bears, you can not only become an effective herbalist, but the plant species that “Bear” taught you are especially powerful medicine (Buhner, 2002; Wood, 2005). One day in my class on Wild Medicinal Plants, while teaching about “Bear” signals, I asked if anyone had dreamt of bears. One avid student, who was taking two weeks out of her summer vacation to audit the class, responded, “Yes, last night.” On numerous occasions, while gathering wild herbs, I have looked up only to see bears very close by, doing the same thing, and looking at me as if to say, “Oh, it’s you.” At herbal conferences, bear sightings and sign are common. As I tell my students, too many coincidences are probably no coincidence.
Practitioners list several specific media through which these three languages convey healing plant knowledge to the herbalist. The particular “informant” may take the shape of the plant itself, or some other entity that teaches about them, such as a deceased relative, medicine person, or animal. Sometimes too the plant will show the herbalist an animal, spirit, or other person who teaches its healing power (Buhner, 1998; Cowan, 1995). The media include:
Doctrine of signatures. For centuries, herbalists have garnered medicinal knowledge from the physical features of the plants. According to this perspective, the plant intentionally reveals aspects of its healing power, e.g., the disorders it can heal and the parts of the body it is good for, through its peculiar “signature,” namely its physical features such as habitat, color, leaf venation and so on. Horsetail, for example, which grows in rocky wetlands, treats kidney and bladder gravel; and violet leaves, which are shaped like hearts, support cardiovascular health (Wood, 2004).
Just magical thinking? Coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not. During one “weed walk” in my Wild Medicinal Plants class, I pointed out the strange shape of bloodroot leaves. One student blurted out, “They look just like lungs!” I asked him to read aloud our field guide’s description of the plant’s uses. He told us that the plant is good for “asthma, bronchitis, lung ailments” and has been “used as an ingredient in cough medicines” (Foster and Duke, 2000:54). (On the use of the doctrine of signatures by allopathic physicians, see Harris, 1972.)
Dreams. A very common medium is the dream, being cited by Apaches, Mayans, Amazonians, and other peoples (Arvigo, 2000; Brown, 1985; Buhner, 1998; Harris, 1972; Plotkin, 1993; Prechtel, 2003; Wood, 1997). According to one story from the Michigan Indians:
My granddad . . . had sore eyes . . . so he couldn’t see. Laid down and went to sleep. He dreamed about a little flower. . . . [S]omeone told him, “Use that.” When he woke up he hold his . . . friend [who] replied, “I seen that [flower]” . . . [and who] went out and got [it]. . . . That’s what . . . [my granddad] used in his eye[s]. . . . Couple days he could see (Dobson, 1978:73).
And another from the Kalahari Bushmen:
No one taught Montay . . . . [H]e dreamed about special medicines. . . . He was shown where to find these things. He went to that place . . . and it was all there (Keeney, 1999:75).
And still another from a Zulu medicine woman: “I find out about the patient’s sickness and what plants to use from my dreams” (Koloko, 2001).
Waking visions. Apparitions of plants and other entities are frequently mentioned (Bennett, 1997; Buhner, 1998; Dobson, 1978; Weed 1997; Winston 1998). In the Kalahari desert, for example, one Bushman noted:
When I’m . . . sitting down to pray and sing, the spirit of my father and grandfather come to me. They show me which roots to dig up and what to do with them to help others (Keeney, 1999:85).
In Celtic lands, a plant presents itself to an herbalist as a guide or helper (Conway, 1997). Peruvian herbalist Manuel Cordova-Rios also finds in visions the plants he needs for patients. In one case:
[H]er internal organs appeared on the screen of my vision. As the liver came into my sight . . . I knew it was no longer serving to purify the blood. . . . [T]he appropriate plants appeared . . .—flowers from the retama tree and roots from the retamilla shrub (Buhner, 2006:42).
At Perelandra and elsewhere, practitioners have experienced the helping plant “devas” as swirling spheres of light energy (Wright, 1993; see also Aversano, 2002; Montgomery, 1997). In the Amazon, if a healer meditates on a patient’s illness, a vision of the needed plant will appear (Lamb, 1985). Here too herbalists use a drink from the psychoactive plant ayahuasca to get visions about the medicinal uses of other plants, where to find them, and how to prepare them. This species is appropriately called the “teacher of teachers” (Palmer, 2004).
Voices. Herbalists hear plant spirits in the form of talk, call, or song (Bennett, 1997; Buhner, 2002; Winston 1998). As a Cherokee medicine man put it, “The plants . . . talk to you and tell you what they are there to be a helper for; you just gotta know how to listen” (Garrett, 2003:149). In Iroquois cultures, a plant will stand up and call sick people to itself so they can find it (Buhner, 2003). According to a Zulu medicine woman, when a new patient arrives, she hears voices telling her the medicinal plant’s location, appearance, harvest time, preparation, and dosage (Koloko, 2001). In western Africa as well, spirits tell healers which plants to use for their patients (Indigo Films, 2005). To receive such information, though, humans need to listen with their hearts (Garrett, 2003).
Shamanic journey. A common medium is imagery obtained during a flight of the soul to the spirit world (Bennett, 1997; Brown, 2001; Ingerman, 2000; Montgomery, 2003; Weed, 2003). Soul-journeyers, for example, may find a plant and then ask it questions about medicinal uses. Or, they may ask a power-animal or spirit-guide to take them to the needed plant.
Intuition. Herbalists may get “a feeling,” hear an “inner voice,” or sense an “inner vision” about a plant (Brown, 1985; Winston, 1998).
Wavings. According to the Cherokee, a plant needed for healing may wave on a windless day to beckon searching herbalists, or to answer their yes-or-no questions (Winston, 1998; 2004a; 2004b).
Touches. Physical contact such as a pat or a stroke, as if the plant had human hands, has been noted by Cherokee and other herbalists (Aversano, 2002; Winston, 1998).
Divination. Knowledge can be obtained through the casting of bones and other divinatory tools. A Zulu medicine woman, for example, goes into the bush with a divining rod, which “moves itself” when the needed plant is located (Koloko, 2001).
What specifically do plant spirits teach the herbalist? Part or all of the entire medicinal protocol, from diagnosis to administration, is possible. Items include the exact nature of the patient’s disease; plant species needed; features of the plant; location of the plant; time to gather; part of the plant needed; specific part of that part needed; procedure for gathering, including ceremony and prayer; preparation of the medicine; formulation if any; dosage; times of administration; and duration of treatment.
THE PROTOCOL
“Don’t pick the plant, let the plant pick you.” Professional herbalist to the author.
Assuming you have the necessary information, how should you, a practitioner, go about the actual process of healing a patient? The following stylized protocol summarizes the do’s and dont’s.
The correct mindset is crucial. Gather with humility. As the Cherokee put it, “We cannot live without these kin, but they can live without us” (Garrett, 2003:15).
In order to bioresonate with the plant for the sake of receiving its healing information and energy, you need to slow down. Evolution, say some practitioners, is a process of increasing metabolic rate. As a result, plants have a much slower metabolism than we humans, and since plants are unable to speed up, humans have to slow down (Buhner, 2000; Prechtel, 2003).
Acknowledging the sacredness of nature, especially in prayer, is also crucial (Arvigo, 1999, 2004a, 2004b; Brown, 2001; Winston, 1998). Indeed, recent research on prayer has shown its usefulness to healing (Dossey, 1995). Without it, according to some Mayan practitioners, the healing energy of the plant may remain in the ground, inaccessible to the herbalist (Arvigo, 1997, 2003). For the Iroquois as well, a medicine person needs to pray to the plant in order to access its healing power (Buhner, 2003). Indeed, research has shown that plants will flourish when sent prayerful thoughts, but wither and die when sent hateful ones (Brown, 1971; Retallack, 1973).
Gather herbs from the wild if possible, rather than purchasing from others (Koloko, 2001). As noted above, a personal healer-plant relationship is vital. So too, if possible, is a personal patient-plant relationship. Preferably, then, go out with your patients so they can meet the plant and establish their own personal relationship (Mitchell, 2002). Gather as close as possible to the patient’s residence, since these plants are subject to the same environmental stresses. Once you find the plant, convey aloud your clear intent to use it for healing the specific ailment of the specific patient (Harris, 1972). Ask the plant for permission to gather, and honor its answer (Prechtel, 2003).
Then do a ceremony to “work with the spirit of the plant” (Walker, 2004:15). The most common ceremonies are offerings of tobacco, songs, and handmade fetishes. Tobacco is not only a sacred species, but also boosts mineral uptake by the plant to which it is offered and repels hungry insects. (Plants, one might say, appreciate eco-friendly pesticides.) Songs express your heartfelt emotion for the plants. Fetishes are also appreciated by plants, who lack the hands and mobility to make them (Buhner, 2000; Frances, 2001, 2004; Gilmore, 1977; Harris, 1972; Mitchell, 2002; Morrison, 1993; Prechtel, 2002; Winston, 2001).
After gathering, apologize for harming the plant, then thank it (Arvigo, 2004b; Bean and Saubel, 1972; Corson, 2005; Mitchell, 2002). In the European tradition, gatherers would sing a song of thanksgiving to the tree which had provided its material (Hopman, 2002). Prepare the plant medicine too with a song, as do Amazonian herbalists (Lamb, 1974). Then administer the medicine, also with a song if possible (Avila, 2002; Perkins, 1996). (On this and similar “song doctoring,” see Mokelke, 2004.)
BRINGING THE MAGIC BACK IN TO MEDICINE
“If you really want to understand herbs, at some point you drop down the Alice in Wonderland hole and start talking to them.” John Fink, owner of an herbal school (cited in Kiesling, 2005:32).
Herbalism has yet to be fully appreciated in industrial societies. Yet, some herbalists argue, it is far superior to non-primitive medicine, since it is far less dangerous. Bleedings and mercury prescriptions were used for decades by allopaths as panaceas, while powerful purgatives and emetics made many sick people far more “active” than they ever wanted to be. According to one historical survey, it is not a great exaggeration to say that “between the 15th and 20th centuries, more people were bled, purged, or poisoned to death by physicians than ever died of the diseases that physicians were supposed to cure” (Reader’s Digest, 1986:63). Early surgeries, and indeed today’s hospitals, are ravaged by infections, despite the ready availability of many well-known herbal antibiotics (Buhner, 1999).
Plant-spirit medicine in particular seems to deserve a seat at the medical table. Clearly the evidence warrants experimenting with the perspective as an alternative modality within “integrated (conventional-alternative) medicine,” specifically as a useful “mind-body medicine” (Cabrera, 1999; Dossey, 2000). Already the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the NIH has funded research on the herbs of TCM (Lewis, 2006). Similar institutions seeking to combine the two modalities include the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in California, and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. Kaiser Permanente too has researched the shamanic uses of herbs.
If plant spirits are truly powerful and universal healers, then might they not be used, for example, to shift the cheerless sterility of the modern doctor’s office, clinic, and hospital to a more life-enhancing mode? To what extent are people staying sick and dying because plant-spirit medicine is dismissed as mere “magical thinking”? How many herbal medicines fail because the spirits of the plants are unengaged? Might ceremonies honoring “Alcohol,” the Universal Plant Spirit, help cure the soul-sickness of alcoholics? Might sacred “Tobacco” be used as a smudge to cure nicotine-addicts and even heal lung-cancer patients? These and related questions deserve answers. Plant spirits, it seems, are still singing to us, and perhaps now we are ready to hear their songs.