elfhame | The Green Mysteries

Author: Daniel Schulke

Illustrations by Benjamin Vierling

From the author of Veneficium comes The Green Mysteries, the monumental product of twenty-five years of experiential research on the spiritual and occult properties of plants. Being a compendium of trees and herbs from countless spiritual traditions, this exhaustive Herbal of esoteric botany examines in detail the folklore, magical uses and spiritual essences of the vegetal kingdom. While presenting the material through both magical and mythopoetic narrative, the stance of the book is also grounded firmly in supportive disciplines such as botany, chemistry, and anthropology, and also includes up-to-date phylogenetic and pharmacological findings. The text focuses especially upon the Doctrine of Plant Essence, and how those powers are utilized in the active practice of magic and sorcery.

Interspersed with encyclopedic plant entries are short narratives addressing such concepts as the Witches’ Flying Oinment, intoxicating incense, the herbal dimsension of Alchemy, and the ‘Green Saints’ such as Al-Khidir, the medieval Wildman, and the forest-dwelling Nymphs who nourished the Greek gods. More than a mere collation of previously existing works on plants, much of the material is drawn directly from the author's private field notes, diaries, and manuals of magical operation from 1991-2016, presented in an engaging narrative style. 

THE GREEN MYSTERIES contains:

—560 pages, with over 275 original illustrations specifically commissioned for this book, with original calligraphy by Gail Coppock
—12 full-page color plates
—Magical Correspondences, Ethnobotany, Folklore & Chemistry
—Charts, Tables, Diagrams and Lexica of Magical Botany
—Extensive information on Pharmacology and Posions
—Recipes and Ritual Formulae