VMs: Witches' unguents... and the VMS?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

I've been reading "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" by Ioan P. Couliano 
recently - an extraordinarily interesting book, though I have to say that 
the first 25% of it was pretty heavy going - but persist, and you shall be 
richly rewarded. :-)

He mentions (in the passage below) Isidore Teirlink, "Flora Magica: De 
plant in de tooverwereld" - can anyone track a copy of this down? None of 
the UK library catalogues I've checked has a copy. :-(

The same book is mentioned (very briefly) on this Belgian site (though I 
don't speak Flemish), so maybe the author of the page might have a copy?
	http://users.pandora.be/annetanne/calendula2.html

Note that the Library of Congress has a different book called "Flora 
Magica", but that's Fritz Martin Engel, "Flora magica. Geheimnis und Wesen 
der Pflanze." München, Keysersche Verlagsbuchhandlung (1966). I assume that 
this is a different book (though I don't know for sure).

Anyway, if you suspect that the VMS may be partly to do with witchcraft, 
the following (fairly extended) quote from it should interest you...

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

				* * * * * * *
------- pp.152-4 --------
A story told for the first time by Nider in his Formicarius, and often 
repeated, gives us all the data we need for understanding how witches 
obtain their visions of flight and of the sabbath. Nider relates that a 
Dominican, having met one of these mulierculae who laid claim to having 
flown on the sabbath with the followers of Diana, asked for permission to 
witness her exploit. The woman smeared her body with am ointment, recited a 
set phrase, and at once sank into such a disturbed sleep that she fell out 
of bed and knocked her skull on the floor. Convinced she had visited 
distant countries, she was astonished when the monk informed her that she 
had not left her room. [28]

The names "pixidariae" and "baculariae" that are attached to witches attest 
to the importance, in their practices, of the box of ointment and the 
broomstick. [29] Jordanes de Bergamo states explicitly that they rode 
horseback on a stick smeared with ointment or that they used unguents on 
their armpits. [30] Examining the recipes for unguents, we understand 
immediately the reason for these customs.

Several recipes are known, [31] which contain, besides various other 
ingredients whose role should be carefully studied, certain active 
components extracted from plants that belong mostly to the same family as 
the nightshade, such as Datura stramonium, Hyoscyamus niger, Atropa 
belladonna, Aconite, Solanum nigrum, Physalis somnifera, Helleborus niger, 
or Cannabis indica, used separately or in combinations of two or three. 
Among these powerful narcotics and hallucinogens, those used most often 
were Datura, also called the "Magicians' weed" or the "Sorcerors' weed" or 
the "Devils' weed," and Solanumnigrum ("Magicians' herb", "Verjus du 
Diable"). [32]

<....>

In all witchcraft the importance of the broomstick cannot be overlooked. 
Many sources inform us that it was smeared with ointment, and many 
sixteenth-century engravings portray naked witches taking off on their 
broomstick. Now, the extracts of the nightshade plant have just this 
peculiarity of being absirbed through the skin, entering the organism where 
they immediately become active. [34] The most sensitive parts of the skin 
are, precisely, the the vulva in women and the armpits, which explains the 
apparently incongruous use of the baculariae. [35] The hypothesis that the 
"classic" sorcerors whose existence has been authenticated at least since 
the tenth century, were merely a combination of empirical pharmacists and 
drug addicts is not new. Present-day pharmacology has raised it to the rank 
of fact, and anthropologists have at least accepted it almost unanimously. 
[36] Of course, the uniformity of means does not suffice to explain the 
uniformity of witches' hallucinations.
-------------------------------
Notes:-
[28] Nider, Formicarius, II, 4, cited in Henry Charles Lea, "Materials 
toward a History of Witchcraft" (New York and London, 1957), p.260-261
[29] Joseph Hansen "Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des 
Hexenwahns" (Bonn, 1901), p.196
[30] Ibis., p.199
[31] Cf. Isidore Teirlink, "Flora Magica: De plant in de tooverwereld" 
(Antwerp, 1930), pp.21-23 (six different prescriptions).
[32] Ibid., pp 86 and 90.
[33] Ibid. p. 46.
[34] I owe this information to Professor van Os, who taught pharmacology at 
the University of Groningen. He has also been kind enough to provide me 
with the rudiments of a bibliography on this subjects (especially 
R.E.Schultes and A.Hoffman, "The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens", 
Springfield, 1973). The alcaloids contained in the Solanaceae differ from 
the alcaloids contained in the hallucinogenic plants of Mexico and South 
America by virtue of their faculty of being absorbed through the skin. On 
the contrary, the latter are characterised by the presence, in their 
chemical structure, of a group called indol, which does not penetrate the 
skin. That explains the different customs of European sorcerors compared 
with the medicine men of Central and South America.
[35] See M.Harner, "The Role of Hallucinogenic Plants in European 
Witchcraft", in M.Harner (ed.), "Hallucinogens and Shamanism" (Oxford 
University Press, 1973), pp. 125-50.
[36] See Harner's and Duerr's point of view [in H.P.Duerr "Traumzeit: Uber 
die Grenze zwischen Wildnis und Zivilisation" (Frankfurt: Syndikat, 1978)]. 
As early as the beginning of the century, some scientists experimented with 
the action of "witches' unguents" made according to traditional 
prescriptions. Let us listen to the account one of them gives of the use of 
the active ingredients of the Datura stramonium and the Hyoscamus niger: 
"Shortly after anointing myself I had the impression of flying through a 
tornado. When I had anointed armpits, shoulders, and the other parts of the 
body I fell into a long sleep, and the following nights I had very vivid 
dreams of fast trains and marvelous tropical landscapes. Several times 
dreamed I found myself on a high mountainand was speaking to people who 
lived in the valley although, due to distance, the houses down there 
assumed tiny dimensions": quoted by Teirlink, p.23.
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