Healing Plants. Volume III. MP9161

Healing Plants. Volume III
Insights through Spiritual Science.
by Wilhelm Pelikan.

This new botany of medicinal plants presented in this work is based on anthroposophy, the modern science of the spirit founded by Dr. Rudolf Steiner. This science makes it possible to re-establish a link that had fallen into oblivion for a long time and to make us aware again of the relationship between human being and medicinal plant.
The point of view taken allows us to discover the interactions between the human being and the world of nature outside the human being from which we obtain our medicines.
The aim is to open paths for the human mind to a national pharmaceutical botany on the basis of which new insights on the healing powers of plants can be gained which are based not merely on tradition and ethno-botanical discoveries.
The illustrations by Walther Roggenkamp show what nature has withheld, what words cannot express. Aspects of the plant's essence emerge, being only hinted at in nature but visible to the mind's eye through the artist's graphic creations.

From the original Publisher's Prefatory Remarks:
All good things come in threes. With this book Wilhelm Pelikan is presenting the third volume of his Healing Plants to the world. The three volumes are not just a numerically continuous accumulation of things that constitute medicinal plants - you can see an intensification in them, and this third volume gets more into the essence of plants. Each plant is described so that you see its outer features an also in such a way that you can experience what it does in between the seedling and the seeds. A plant's development throughout the year reflects its life processes.
Each plant and it many forms is described as a physical phenomenon in the realm of the four elements - earth, water, air and fire. These elements are based on substances, and they are also a bridge to the life, chemical, light and warmth ethers. This brings the description in the life realm. Pelikan also goes a step further when he describes the elemental beings' activities in various parts of the plant, or he cites what Rudolf Steiner said about this. The first step towards a perception of these beings is a recognition of their deeds. Thus Pelikan not only gives questing readers a detailed description of medicinal plants and their substances, he also points to a training path that enables them to follow the plant's life processes and to get an inkling of the beings that are working on them. The forms and living development of a medicinal plants enable them to follow the various kinds of ether and also it elements and substances, and to relate them to the members of a sick human being. This gives the rationale for a therapy.
Several examples are given of how Rudolf Steiner combined various plants with an active healing principle. A large number of plants are described as processes. The extension of medicinal botany according to spiritual scientific findings lies before us here.
Our best wishes accompany this book. Let us hope that many people will partake of the fruits of rich and spirit-filled life.
Friedrich Lorenz, M.D., for the Goetheanum's Medical Section.

From the Contents:
How Does One Experience Elemental Beings?
Mistletoe Plants - Santalales
Orchids and their Elemental Life
Valerians - Valerianaceae - Find their Formative Forces - Language
Pineapples - Bromeliaceae
Ginger Plants - Zingiberaceae
Survey of Monocotyledons
Nettle Plant as Organs of Earth Life and as Regulators of the Iron Process
Pimpernel - Anagallis
Sumacs - Anacardiaceae
Achlamydeae - Perianthless Flowering Plants
Hemp - Cannabis sativa
Witch Hazel - Hamamelis virginiana
Regarding the Sun Class of Flowering Plants - Proranales
Hazelwort - Asarum europaeum, and Birthwort - Aristolochia clematises
Spice Plants and the Members of a Human Being
Horse Chestnuts and the Weaving of Undines
Violet Family - Violaceae
The Elm - A Mercury Tree

A Mercury Press title
2 coloured illustrations by Henni Geek, completed in Dornach during the 1920's
72 black and white illustrations by Walter Roggenkamp.
264 pages.
23 x 15 cms.
Paperback.