Guide to Understanding Healing Plants, A. Volume II. MP9239

A Guide to Understanding Healing Plants, Volume II
by Jochen Bockemühl.
Foreword by Wolfgang Goebel, MD
Translated by Harold Jurgens
Revised by David Heaf

“The way a plant is formed is what we see when we vividly grasp its form, colors, smell or composition and enter into its spatial and transformational totality without using abstractions.”

Jochen Bockemühl’s Guide to Understanding Healing Plants II presents an elementary botanical experience of fundamental chemical activities to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of pharmaceutical processes within plants and their connection to the human organism from a spiritual perspective.

In this volume, we meet a scientist who practices what he preaches—an approach to an imaginative way of viewing phenomena, in which outer sensory perception and soul participation unite in a loving understanding of nature. This links Bockemühl’s approach to those of scientists such as Paracelsus and Goethe, for both of whom love became the highest power of knowledge and without which life and healing processes would remain forever incomprehensible.

The foundation for this approach is the Goethean method of observing nature, and the study of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science offers the working hypotheses for our own path of research.

Originally published in German as Ein Leitfaden zur Heilpflanzenerkenntnis, Band II (Science Section of the School of Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 2000).

CONTENTS
Foreword by Dr. Michaela Glöckler
Introduction

I: Steps in Cognition
First Step: Cognition which Classifies Morphologically and Formalizes
Second Step: The Extension of Consciousness through the Imaginative Mode of Cognition
Third Step: Internalizing the Way a Plant is Formed into an Overall
Two Fundamental Experiences for achieving a New Understanding of Healing

II: A Revision of the Alchemical Concepts Sal, Mercury, Sulfur and Ash based on Experience
Mercury, Sulfur and Ash based on Experience
Becoming part of the Earth: Sal
Breathing Development: Mercury
Revealing the Cosmic: Sulfur
Reviving in Chaos: Ash

III: Human Organs as Orientations towards the World
Human Organs as Orientations toward the World
Organs of the Nerve-Sense System (Sense Organs and Brain) from the viewpoint of Sal
Organs of the Rhythmic System from the viewpoint of Mercury
Organs of Metabolism and Reproduction from the viewpoint of Sulfur
Limb Organs from the viewpoint of Ash Formation
Holistic Effects

IV: Getting to Know Plant Substance through Seeing, Smelling, Tasting and Touching
Seeing, Smelling, Tasting and Touching
Seeing—Standing Opposite the Phenomena—and Touching
Smelling—Atmosphere affects the Soul
Tasting—Substances affect the Body
Transition to Imaginative Smelling and Tasting

V: Ways to a New Understanding of Chemistry
Chemistry—Science of Transformative Processes
• Substance Formation in Plants

• Cosmic effects of plant substances
• Earthly effects of plant substances
Chemistry—Science of Transformative Processes
• Our relation to the four elements Earth, Water, Air and Fire
• Four aspects of chemistry of the inorganic
• Plant chemistry—qualities of the liquid state in the life processes of plants
• The four “humors” in the chemistry of the human being

VI: Chemical Elements as Principles of Action in the Context of Nature
Examples of Principles of Action and the Capacities that Plants and Human Beings gain through them
• Carbon
• Nitrogen
• Silicon or Silica
• Lime
• Sulfur
• Phosphorus
• Oxygen
• Hydrogen
Summary of Elements as Principles of Action

VII: A Comparison of Chicory and Dandelion
First Impressions of Chicory and Dandelion
Illustrations for Studying various aspects of Chicory and Dandelion
Stages in Development
From a Picture Movement accompanied by experience to an Experience of Gesture
A Higher Formative Principle
Smelling and Tasting with Chicory and Dandelion
Healing Effects of Chicory
Healing Effects of Dandelion
Form Variants of Chicory with regard to their Healing Effects
Comparison of Three different Types of Chicory (Torsten Arncken)

VIII: Effects of Substances in Common Horsetail and Common Valerian
Common Horsetail (Equisetum arvense L.) from the viewpoint of Silica and Sulfur
Common Valerian (Valeriana officinalis L.) from the viewpoint of Sulfur and Phosphorus

IX: Menodoron as an Example of a Specific Compound of Five Healing Plants
General Description of Menstrual Rhythms
Processes on Four Overlapping Levels of Reality in the Human Organism
Distinguishing the Various Levels at which Processes Occur in the Human Organism
The Five Healing Plants in Menodoron
Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica L.)
Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa pastoris L.)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.)
Oak (Quercus robur)
Marjoram (Marjorana hortensis)
Summary of Menodoron

X: Pharmaceutical Processes
The Use of Pharmaceutical Processes to Extend Perception of Special Plant Substances
Dry Heat Processes on Marjoram and Stinging Nettle
The Importance of Pharmaceutical Processes
Further Processing under Wet Conditions
Conclusions for the processing of Marjoram for the Menodoron Preparation

APPENDICES
1. Supplements to Chapter X, on Pharmaceutical Processes
2. Supplements to Chapter VII
3. Supplements to Chapter VIII, Valerian
4. Supplements to Chapter VIII, Horsetail, and Chapter X

About the Author
Jochen Bockemühl (1928–2020) was born in Dresden. He studied zoology, botany, chemistry, and geology and, in 1956, became a coworker at the Research Institut at the Goetheanum. From 1970 to 1996, he was director of the Natural Science Section, and beginning in 1980 led seminars on landscape in Europe and elsewhere. His publications in English include: In Partnership With Nature, Dying Forests, Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric World, and Awakening to Landscape.

A Mercury Press title
240 pages.
25 x 21 cms.
Paperback.