Liber XI · Herbal Magick · Chapter VII: Planetary & Astrological Herbs
Planetary Herbs: Astrological Botany from Picatrix to Culpeper
Planetary and astrological herbs explained: Hermetic plant lore, Picatrix, Ficino and Agrippa, Culpeper's herbal, planetary hours, and modern magical correspondences.
Planetary herbs are plants assigned to the rule of one of the seven classical planets, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and often to signs of the zodiac. In Hermetic, Arabic and Renaissance thought these correspondences explained a plant's medical and magical virtues as channels of celestial influence; the system reached its most popular form in Nicholas Culpeper's astrological herbal of 1652.
Hellenistic Origins: Plants of the Planets and Decans§
The idea that plants share in the powers of the heavens grew from Hellenistic astrology and Hermetic philosophy. A Greek treatise On the Virtues of Plants, attributed to the physician Thessalos of Tralles (first century CE), frames its teaching in a story: the author travels to Egypt, where a priest arranges a vision of the god Asclepius, who reveals which plants belong to each sign of the zodiac and each planet and when they should be gathered. Other Hermetic writings assigned plants to the thirty-six decans, and the Kyranides, a Greek compilation of uncertain date, catalogued the hidden virtues of plants, stones and animals.
Behind these texts lay a cosmology in which the planets govern the sublunar world through sympathy. Each planet has its metal, colour, stone, animal and plant; things that share a planet share its nature, and by gathering them together, especially at the right astrological moment, the magician or physician could concentrate its influence.
Picatrix and the Arabic Science of Talismans§
The richest medieval source is the Ghayat al-Hakim, "The Goal of the Sage," an Arabic compendium of astral magic usually dated to the tenth or eleventh century and translated into Spanish and then Latin at the court of Alfonso X of Castile around 1256 as Picatrix. It describes the properties of each planet and gives prayers, talismans and fumigations made from plants and resins for invoking planetary spirits. Its Latin version circulated widely among Renaissance magicians. The catalogue entry for the Picatrix describes its contents and editions.
Ficino, Agrippa and the Renaissance System of Correspondences§
Marsilio Ficino's Three Books on Life (1489) advised scholars, who were thought to suffer from melancholy under Saturn, to cultivate the gentler influences of the Sun, Jupiter and Venus through scents, foods, music and plants such as rosemary, mint and saffron. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) turned these ideas into an encyclopaedic system. In the first book he lists the things belonging to each planet, including plants: solar plants, for example, are those that turn toward the sun, along with peony, celandine, balm, ginger, gentian, dittany and vervain.
Agrippa's tables, read alongside the planetary seals and magic squares of his second book, became a standard reference for later magicians; see Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy and the catalogue text of the Three Books. Learned medicine of the period also used astrology to time the gathering of herbs, bloodletting and the administration of remedies.
Culpeper's Astrological Herbal§
Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654) gave planetary herbalism its most enduring popular form in The English Physitian (1652), later called Culpeper's Complete Herbal. For each plant he gave a description, the places and times it grows, its "government and virtues" and the planet that rules it. Examples in his herbal include:
- Sun: rosemary, St John's wort, angelica and celandine.
- Moon: watercress, chickweed and willow.
- Mercury: lavender, fennel, dill and parsley.
- Venus: vervain, yarrow, mugwort and the damask rose.
- Mars: wormwood, nettle and garlic.
- Jupiter: sage, borage and dandelion.
- Saturn: comfrey, hemlock, henbane and deadly nightshade.
Culpeper explained that diseases could be treated by sympathy, with an herb of the same planet as the illness, or by antipathy, with an herb of the opposing planet; he also used astrological charts cast for the moment a patient fell ill. The differences between authors are instructive: Agrippa counted vervain among solar plants, while Culpeper made it an herb of Venus. Several of the Saturnine plants on his list are dangerously poisonous and are described here only historically; see the witch's garden for their folklore and toxicity.
Planetary Hours and the Timing of Herbal Magic§
In astrological magic, when a plant is gathered matters as much as which plant is chosen. Each day of the week is ruled by a planet (Sunday by the Sun, Monday by the Moon, and so on), and each day and night is divided into twelve unequal "planetary hours," each ruled in turn by a planet in the so-called Chaldean order. Grimoires and herbals advised gathering a plant in its planet's day and hour, often while the Moon was waxing or in a favourable sign, and some specified prayers or the use of particular tools.
Medieval and early modern astrological medicine applied the same logic to the body. The "Zodiac Man," a figure found in countless manuscripts and printed almanacs, showed each sign ruling a part of the body from Aries at the head to Pisces at the feet, and physicians were warned not to treat a body part while the Moon passed through its sign. Plants ruled by a planet were thought to act especially on the organs and humours that planet governed: Saturnine herbs on the spleen and black bile, Martial herbs on the gall and the blood's heat, lunar herbs on the brain and the body's fluids. These ideas belong to the wider system of correspondences and the talismanic practice described in astral magic.
Renaissance alchemists in the tradition of Paracelsus extended these ideas to "spagyric" medicine, which treated plants by alchemical processes believed to separate and recombine their planetary essences. Planetary timing also shaped the fumigations used in ceremonial magic, discussed in the guide to incense and resins.
Planetary Herbs in Modern Magic§
Modern occultism inherited these correspondences and expanded them. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn arranged plants, perfumes and stones in tables keyed to the planets, the Hebrew letters and the Tree of Life, and Aleister Crowley's 777 (1909) published a version of these tables. Later handbooks, such as Scott Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs (1985), assigned planets, elements and genders to hundreds of plants, combining Culpeper, Agrippa, folklore and their authors' own judgement.
Readers should be aware that these lists are not uniform and that many attributions are recent. Historians of science regard planetary herbalism as part of the pre-modern worldview rather than a valid account of how plants act on the body. Its significance lies in what it reveals about the Hermetic vision of a universe bound together by correspondences, a vision traced in the history of herbal magic.
Frequently asked questions§
What are planetary herbs?§
They are plants believed to be ruled by one of the seven classical planets and to carry that planet's qualities. Renaissance magicians and astrological herbalists used them in medicine, talismans, incense and ritual, often gathered at astrologically chosen times.
Who decided which herbs belong to which planet?§
There was no single authority. Hellenistic Hermetic texts, the Arabic Picatrix, Agrippa and Culpeper all made assignments, based on a plant's appearance, taste, temperature, colour, medical effects and traditional associations. Their lists often disagree.
Is Culpeper's Complete Herbal still used?§
It remains in print and is widely consulted by modern practitioners of astrological herbalism and magic. Its medical claims, however, reflect seventeenth-century knowledge and should not be relied on without modern professional advice.
What herb is ruled by Saturn?§
Culpeper assigns several plants to Saturn, including comfrey, hemlock, henbane and deadly nightshade. Saturn was associated with cold, dryness, age and death, which is why many poisonous plants were placed under its rule.
Sources and further reading§
- Picatrix: The Latin Version of the Ghayat al-Hakim — David Pingree (ed.), 1986
- Three Books on Life — Marsilio Ficino, 1489
- Three Books of Occult Philosophy — Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, 1533
- The English Physitian — Nicholas Culpeper, 1652
- Culpeper's Medicine: A Practice of Western Holistic Medicine — Graeme Tobyn, 1997
- Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition — Frances A. Yates, 1964
- Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement — Nicholas Campion, 2012
- Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs — Scott Cunningham, 1985