Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor’s Desk" Quest 106:1, pg 2

As you know, myth conveys truths that cannot be expressed in ordinary language.

Here is one of the most ancient and universal myths. Once there was a cosmic being, who lived on a plane of existence on a much grander scale than our own. Something happened: a fall. We are not sure what this was—a deliberate choice, an act of rebellion, a fatal mistake, perhaps even a felix culpa: a “fortunate fault” that appeared to be a sin or an error but was in fact necessary for some unknown purpose—the acquisition of knowledge perhaps.

Of course this fall cannot be connected with anything on the timeline of history, even the history of the cosmos. That is because time and space—the background against which history takes place—are themselves the result of this event. We might be tempted to identify it with the Big Bang of physics, but I would be reluctant to do so, if only because ten or twenty or fifty years from now, physics may well change its mind (as it is entitled to) and decide that the Big Bang did not happen after all.

Often this being is imagined as a cosmic human that is composed of all men and women. But this fall caused this being to shatter into billions of tiny fragments, each of which believed it was alone and independent and forgot that it had ever been—and still was—united with a greater whole.

Each of these fragments is one of us. We imagine ourselves to be isolated and autonomous, but actually we remain inseparably connected to this universal human. We even know this truth at some level, although usually unconsciously. H.P. Blavatsky is quoted as saying, “ Universal brotherhood rests upon the common soul. It is because there is one soul common to all men, that brotherhood, or even common understanding is possible.” (Blavatsky, Collected Writings, 8:408).

Although the details vary, we can see this myth at the core of the tale of the biblical Fall of Adam, the Hindu descent of Purusha into avidya or obliviousness, and the dismembering of Gayomart in the Zoroastrian tradition, among many others. Indeed Adam, Purusha, and Gayomart are only a few of the names that have been given to this cosmic human over the course of time. I believe that this idea is also the central message of Finnegans Wake, the cryptic masterpiece by James Joyce.

To continue with the myth, even in this cosmic shattering there were some fragments that did not forget that they were part of this whole, or, if they did forget, remembered comparatively soon. They recognized, and recognize, one another, just as two people who are awake in a roomful of sleeping people soon become aware of each other. And they also understood that they had to awaken all the sleepers, not merely as a virtuous action, but because this was the only way that the cosmic being could be restored to his pristine state.

There are names for this group of people who are at least relatively awake. One of the best-known is the Brotherhood. (Of course the term is not gender-specific; it includes men and women equally.) The Brotherhood cannot be associated with any specific organization or tradition, no matter how much some may want it to be. It is not an organization. At street level, it is simply the collection of people who recognize their common origin and work to restore their common life. Beings on higher levels, which some identify with the Masters, are part of the same movement, but in other realms. We do not know much about these realms.

Some in the street-level Brotherhood are esotericists; many, no doubt most, are not. Their qualifications come not from any external initiatory rites (although these may take place) but from their awareness of their purpose and their commitment to fulfilling it. To invoke the theme of this issue, this Brotherhood can be seen as the divine seed that will bear fruit in the ultimate restoration of this cosmic being.

The Theosophical Society was almost certainly formed with some understanding of these ideas. That is very likely why its First Object is given as “to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity” (note the word brotherhood here). Again, of course, the Theosophical Society cannot be equated with the Brotherhood in any simplistic way. It is, like all the others, merely a branch of something much larger that will never and can never be organized in the form of a company or foundation. (I note in Vic Hao Chin’s article “Brotherhood” in the Theosophical Encyclopedia that originally the First Object was “to form the nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,” but in 1896 was changed to read “to form a nucleus.”) But we may believe that it remains connected to this larger entity and will continue to serve its purposes.

Richard Smoley

Printed in the  Winter 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Oliver, Lucy, "Preparing the Meditation Ground" Quest 106:1, pg 24-25

By Lucy Oliver

 Many years ago I read the following description of meditation and shivered slightly. Apprehension? Inspiration? Hard to say. 

As a darkened chamber in the high desert when all is still before the dawn. That word, too fast to be followed, too slow to be comprehended, so powerful to shake even the depths, so gentle and immovable, both speaker and listener, cause and end. Who understands it understands nothing, who declares its likeness lies; who knows it is ignorant; who does not know is ignorant. He who knows it as his centre lies, who does not know it as his centre is mistaken, for it is high noon in the busy city. (Davies, 71)                          

There’s the scene—darkness in an enclosure in the desert, apparently grappling with unearthly paradox. Seems that meditation is not for the faint-hearted! The darkness is sensory, for the meditation ground requires withdrawing from normal sensory engagement with outer objects in order to apprehend more subtle, inner sensations. Sense objects include thoughts, for the mind is classified as a sense in Buddhist metaphysics. The mind seems indissolubly wedded to its relationship with thought until, with experience, a meditator is able to take a stand in the darkness from ordinary mind, and know a different kind of perception.

Then, with senses darkened, an inner chamber is created, an enclosure, an ark in the desert of interactions with the world. It’s not a low desert of depression and inertia, when life loses meaning and emotions run dry, but a high desert, when those kind of meaningful interactions are consciously suspended. Their absence creates a desert of sense, poised and still, just on the edge of dawn—on the edge of meaning, awaiting illumination from a yet hidden sun.

Meditators in all traditions, no matter what the method or context, should recognize the description, having had some experience of those moments when “the grinders cease . . . and those that look out of the windows be darkened.” And then perhaps “he shall rise up at the voice of the bird^” (Ecclesiastes 12:3–4). Commonly, during or after a long course or retreat, the experience of this kind of potency can feel like a world away from the daily hubbub. It is when your eyes are clear and still, and see into people and situations instead of grazing across the surface. It is the meditation ground prepared and waiting, but at the same time, it is not merely preparatory: it is meditation. It is what we meditators have in our hearts when we start out, and what we have to hold on to through the years when circumstances, routine, or disillusionment threaten our practice.

The task of preparing the ground for meditation involves tilling the soil on a daily basis, and depends more on consistency than on some sort of Herculean effort. Weeds may be quick to grow, and especially in the early stages, the grass in the other field always looks greener. (“Perhaps I should be . . . ? And how is it that other people seem to have reaped a wonderful crop of something—ideas, writings, followers, prestige  . . . ?”)

A desert, by definition, would appear to be a poor ground for growing anything. But somehow, in the “high desert, when all is still,” none of this matters. Not even the questions: Will the dawn come? I’ve worked and I’m waiting, but will I see dawn?

Expectations of fruition, the payoff, arrival, enlightenment are the driving force behind many a determined meditator. Yet we can never know what any dawn will bring. Triumph or tragedy, daylight simply declares it all. Ideally, the true scope of meditation will slip beyond our grasp at some point, because if it did conform to our expectations, however grandiose, the real potential would be limited and circumscribed by our fantasies or beliefs.

Nonetheless, the ground is workable, and it’s entirely reasonable to expect that with proper attention, care, and consistency, conditions can be set up to know a field of potency, of peace. What is more, it’s not that difficult, and every dedicated long-term meditator will have tasted it.

But is it ground for a seed to grow, a divine seed, which is creative, transformative, living, emerging from the potential of the ground to become realisation of a new kind of life? Where would such a seed come from? How is it planted? What is its nature?                                                                                                         

The Seed

With the understanding that ground and seed in this metaphor are not two things, but a unity of aim, practice, and experience, let us examine the seed aspect. The “word” in the passage above is one such seed, and belongs in the tradition of the via negativa, or neti, neti, “Not this, not this.” Whatever can be said of it is wrong, and yet it is “powerful to shake even the depths.” It is never the truth to say what it is, but pursuing descriptions of what it is not creates a potent vacancy in the middle of the conceptual field. All conceptions generated by mind turn inward and genuflect, and mind itself comes to rest. In this vacancy or emptiness, the seed germinates.

The Word or Logos as a symbol for the creative seed has a long tradition in both East and West. In the singular, it has a specific meaning, not just the general “word of God,” as teachings or scripture, but the ultimate symbol of something very small which contains limitless creative power and meaning: a word, mere sound, vibration. In Christianity, Christ as Logos is an embodiment of creative truth, incarnating otherwise intangible truths into the limitations of flesh. In the context of meditation, the Word is an object of attention used to focus meditation, particularly when it is sound-based, as in mantra.

Some examples of sound in meditation:

From a Western source is the instruction in the classic fourteenth-century text The Cloud of Unknowing: “Take a short word of one syllable” and “hammer the cloud and the darkness above you” (Cloud of Unknowing, 69). Here the word is like a lance, aimed to pierce through the darkness of not-knowing, or to “pierce heaven,” as the author describes it, and so the smaller and sharper the word, the better.

The Sepher Yetzirah, an ancient text from the Jewish Kabbalah, says that the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet can become sound combinations and used for meditation, while you “hold your mouth from speaking and your heart from ruminating, and if your mouth runs into speech and your heart begins to ponder return to the foundation. . . . on this recognition is the Covenant based” (Sepher Yetzirah, 159).

The Vedic tradition has a well-developed system of seed-syllables, called bija. Each Sanskrit syllable, mostly composed of a consonant, vowel, and nasalization, is designed to create an energetic vibration in a particular center of energy or chakra in the subtle body. The position of the tongue and breath create a particular vibrational frequency. As a meditation technique, the mantra syllable is repeated continuously, and, interestingly, is said not to depend on conscious attention for its efficacy. Mantra repetition can be a background to conscious awareness, a never-ceasing stream of sound sustained by conditioning set to automatic, while allowing the everyday mind to get on with other things. Details of the specific correspondences in this Indian system are readily found. One version is:

LAM for muladhara, the base chakra

VAM for swadhisthana, the sacral chakra

RAM for manipura, the solar plexus chakra

YAM for anahata, the heart chakra

HAM for vishuddha, the throat chakra

AUM for ajna, the third-eye chakra

AH for sahasrara, the crown chakra

 It’s wise to note, however, that any stylized symbolism lends itself to gross handling—that is, to materialistic and superstitious suggestions that rewards can be obtained by a coin-in-the-slot approach: select the chakra you want to activate, repeat the appropriate mantra, and open sesame! A brief glance at the Internet or some of the literature will reveal that the naive literalist approach is always with us.

Repeating a mantra supplants internal chatter, and when it becomes automatic, a subliminal unified foundation replaces the scattered involuntary meanderings of the mind. It’s possible at the same time to think, speak, or engage with the environment, or, in meditation, to engage with silence while the sound is still present. The wave nature of sound permits vibrational energy to be sustained, aloud or silently, until the actual sound-quantum drops away. At this point paradox enters, for it is “not this; not this.” Or, in contemporary symbolic language, both wave and particle are present.

It seems that a child in the womb responds to sounds, so the hearing sense is operating before birth, and hearing is the last sense to be extinguished at death. The first and last engagement with the sensory world is sound, penetrating the chamber of the womb and fading with external conscious awareness at the ending of life.

Besides language and sound-based meditation, of course the breath, image (yantra or mandala), evocation, and a variety of other foci for attention are common seeds. The effects are slightly different for each, but the ground has to be prepared in the same kind of way—with psychological and physical discipline, attitude, consistency, and silence.

In the passage at the beginning of this article, which comes from the tradition in which I have practiced most of my life (High Peak Meditation), the seed-word is described as “both speaker and listener, cause and end,” and thus transcends the duality of a subject and object. You, the meditator, speak the word and hear it; are active and passive simultaneously. Although paradoxical, it’s not just a neat trick. Finding the kind of balance that is neither one nor the other, neither this nor that, is the essence and deepest aim of any true form of meditation. It does not matter whether it is a “busy” form, with lots of precise instructions and visualizations, such as certain Tibetan types, or the simplicity of Zen, just sitting or following the breath. When the scattered mind is unified, and all conceptual threads are pulled into a single focus, presence is different. Being is different. If one knows this, no other justification is needed.

It’s true that not every technique called meditation has the same aim. Some are highly manipulative and product-oriented. However, if you want to uncover the potential of a divine seed as mantra, you have to let go of the wish to manipulate, to send the sound here or there, and to make it work for you. A seed is a living thing. The germinating principle within it is mysterious, not visible when you cut it open. If you plant it, you are invoking the life within it—its life, not yours. You can see the structure, the mechanism, but you cannot see within it the mysterious germinative force that will propel into existence a tiny violet, let alone a giant redwood tree.

In some way, every word spoken or written is a carrier of information, a symbol, conveying meaning, which germinates in the recipient to a greater or lesser extent. Communication is really a transaction between information clouds, or meaning clouds, surrounding the words. So, given that we are effectively trading in cloud formations, should we be surprised how often they get scrambled and we misunderstand each other?

However, if you take and repeat a sound or syllable that has no conceptual meaning in any particular language—not just any old sound, but one designed consciously, as, for instance, vowels found almost universally—you are using an abstract seed. The advantage of abstraction is that it avoids the cloud of associations round a word, and therefore it forestalls any unintended consequences and involuntary associations from past experience which routinely surge up when one’s guard is lowered, as it must be to meditate deeply.

As mental activity dies down, repetition will create a vibration from the shape of tongue, breath, and lips, and the subtle body responds, which may release emotional knots. Systems with an abstract infrastructure, for example combining letter-sounds according to certain principles, utilize the penetrating power of pure sound without the burden of meaning, making it easier to settle into silence as the breath becomes finer and almost ceases. Such systems directly invoke the high desert.

A true mantra or sacred word/syllable is precise. The seed will germinate a particular kind of life, if it grows at all. How can this happen?                    

Transmission: The Mystery of the Seed

The mystery of the seed is more than the technique. Whatever form it takes, tradition has it that a mantra imparted by a guru or a realized teacher has power and efficacy in a way that selecting a mantra for oneself does not. Transmission, passing on or awakening inner growth in another person, bestows the precious germ of life, and has an impact on many levels of psyche. It can be sudden and life-changing, or a ritualized handing-on, but the principle is simple: if one person inhabits and knows inner silence and is present with it, someone else can pick up the resonance, as a singing-bowl resonates when it is struck. Consciousness speaks to consciousness, “deep calleth unto deep” (Psalm 42:7), so a mantra given this way has a powerful penumbra and is a living seed. Deeply planted, with the power of conscious intent, it will go on resonating its significance so long as its life is tended, but the instructions and teaching to support it are also essential if it is to flourish. Ongoing guidance puts a hoe in your hand for preparing the ground and keeping it clear.

Despite the mystique and awe associated with it, the practical reality of oral transmission is not as arcane or rare as esoteric legend suggests, although its value cannot be overestimated. One form of transmission is simply the effect of human contact—to enliven and motivate, as if the field of another’s presence interacts with one’s own personal field and the resonance awakens a response. Personal interaction is always different from reading words or even hearing at a distance. In this way even a humble practitioner through their own dedication can transmit the lineage of their training. The lineage contains the power, not the individual; indeed a personal ego is an impassable block to the process. Naturally, the more directly and clearly someone is able to see into original nature, the more powerful is his or her influence to awaken the same in another. The basis of receiving as well as initiating transmission is the development of a true faculty of discernment, and so, by both education and practice, becoming sensitive to those echoes from Infinity in the Word “too fast to be followed.”

Time is also needed. Maybe a lot of time, for reading, study, focused discussion, and debate to help nurture that little seed. Personal guidance is possibly the most important part of the transmission process. All too easily circumstances can freeze, burn, or uproot the seed, or forgetfulness can allow it to wither. On the one hand its existence is fragile, “so gentle and immovable” but on the other “powerful to shake even the depths.” And so the intangible power of the word-seed is poised against the fragility of human resolve.

Yet, in age after age, inner knowledge has been preserved and passed down. Seeds have different shapes and sizes, as lineages and methods differ, but every tree in a forest is different, and no two roses are exactly the same. In each individual form is a common life, a center that is both known and not known, and with the unfolding power of discernment, dawn in the desert morphs into “high noon in the busy city.”

The meditation ground can be located anywhere. The chamber travels with you, and the stillness before dawn is always present, for it is high noon, the hour of transition when the bells of the Angelus used to ring in Christian Europe to remind man, woman, and beast to lay down tools and take a breath, honoring and remembering the spirit—the seed within.

Then it was back to field and plow, and back we go to the busy city.

Sources

The Cloud of Unknowing and Other Works. Translated by Clifton Wolters. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin, 1961.

Davies, W.G. The Phoenician Letters. London: Mowat, 1979.

Sepher Yetzirah: Book of Formation. Translated by Gila Zur and W.G. Davies. Unpublished ms., 1976.

Lucy Oliver has been a teacher and practitioner of meditation derived from Western oral tradition for over forty years. Her book, The Meditator's Guidebook (Inner Traditions), has been in print since 1996. She lives in London, and her research into sacred symbolism at Oxford University became Symbolic Encounters, a method of pointing out the symbolic roots in language on a path of knowledge (www.meaningbydesign.co.uk/). She was a founding member of Saros Foundation for the Perpetuation of Knowledge and of High Peak Meditation, established in the United Kingdom in the 1970s as a systematic approach to meditation based on the sounds and symbols which underlie language, and on the principle that the direction of meditation is towards the source of one’s being, common to all humanity regardless of religion or belief.

Printed in the  Winter 2018  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hebert, Barbara, "Viewpoint: The Silent Whisper" Quest 106:1, pg 10-11

By Barbara Hebert

National President

Recently I had the opportunity to travel into the city of Chicago to visit friends. It was a lovely fall weekend, and there were people everywhere. Watching this small sea of humanity—various ages, different cultures, diverse styles of clothing, and so on—I was seized with a sense of wonder. Where are they all going? Where have they all come from? What are their lives like? What challenges do they face? How do they handle them? These people are all dissimilar, but yet are all unified at the core.

It wasn’t much of a jump to begin wondering about life and the meaning that each of us gives to it. What gives meaning to my life? What gives meaning to your life?

Getting up in the morning, getting dressed, and going about our day—whatever that encompasses—is part of what we need to do in order to function in this physical world. I wonder, though, if these daily chores provide meaning for our lives in a deeper way. Judith Johnston, in a 2010 blog for the Huffington Post, writes:

What sustains you? What puts a smile on your face and lights up your heart? What keeps the embers of your soul on fire? What really matters deeply to you? It is so easy to get caught up in the ongoing activities and demands of our lives, often forgetting or losing track of what is most meaningful to us . . . For me, there are three things that give my life its deepest meaning: my spiritual evolution, my freedom and the opportunity to be of service to assist others in lifting upward. These are the things that, if all else were stripped away, would continue to sustain my spirit and enrich me.

Considering this question (“If all else were stripped away, what would sustain my spirit and enrich me?”) offers the opportunity for insight and self-awareness. For me, daily chores needed to function in the physical world, while necessary, do not “light up my heart” or “keep the embers of [my] soul on fire.” How do we find those things that give meaning to life? Every one of us may have a different answer to this question, but the question itself provides a common ground from which to start.

Johnston’s comments about the three things that provide her with the deepest meaning are reminiscent of the teachings inherent within Theosophy: spiritual self-transformation; the freedom to study, learn, and grow in relation to what rings true for each of us; and serving others in an effort to transform the consciousness of all beings.

Focusing on spiritual self-transformation, which incorporates learning, growing, and serving, pushes us to look within. N. Sri Ram, the late international president of the TS, writes: “What each one of us fundamentally needs is that inner peace which is to be discovered solely within ourselves, which no-one else can give, which the world with all its resources, can never supply.”

When we look within ourselves, when we find that inner peace, we begin to lead more authentic lives. Living an authentic life, from this perspective, means living from the perspective of who we truly are at the deepest level. We begin to live without artifice or pretense, recognizing that the physical world, while an important aspect of living in a physical body, is not reality. Carl Jung said, “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Jung also said, “Looking outwards has got to be turned into looking into oneself. Discovering yourself provides you with all you are, were meant to be, and all you are living from and for.”

When we look into our own hearts and listen to the silent whisper from ourselves, we begin to find those things that provide meaning for our lives. We find the gentle exhilaration that comes from leading an authentic life, from becoming who we truly are. We begin to awake, as Jung says, discovering our true selves and the inner peace referred to by Sri Ram.

To return to our original question, then, what gives meaning to life? The answer for each of us will be different, but for me, meaning comes from the continuous quest to look inside, listen for the silent whisper, and do all in my power to live an authentic life, to become who I truly am.

I haven’t succeeded yet, and it doesn’t look as if I’ll succeed any time in the near future! Daily I am distracted by the mundane chores of being in a physical body in a physical world. I look outside, and, as Jung says, I “dream.” The physical world becomes my reality: the need to go to work, to do laundry, to cook food. Daily I am distracted by the busyness of my mind and the constant swirl of thoughts. I am not listening for the silent whisper; rather, I am sidetracked by the seemingly ceaseless thoughts of what I should do, what I have done, what I should have done instead, what others should do and have done, and so on, ad infinitum. Then my busy mind says, “You’re not listening for the silent whisper” and continues to spin with thoughts of what I should do in order to listen for the silent whisper. Living an authentic life isn’t as easy as it sounds, so what should we do?

In order to change behavior, we must, first, become aware of the need for change and, second, be willing to make the changes needed. In addition to awareness and willingness, there must be an understanding that change is a process that takes time. How much time? That will vary with each one of us; however, it is unlikely that change will occur rapidly. A Chinese proverb says, “The person who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”

We begin by recognizing there is a mountain to be moved, having a desire to move it, and then carrying away those small stones. Knowing that there is an authentic life to be lived is a step forward. Recognizing that distraction happens to every single one of us on a daily basis is a step forward. Realizing that my busy mind prevents me from listening for the silent whisper is a step ahead. Although these may appear to be small steps, clearly the movement is forward. Another Chinese proverb states, “Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”

Once we begin to take the steps, to carry away the small stones, we are no longer standing still. We are beginning the quest—regardless of how long it takes—to become who we truly are. It is this spiritual quest that gives meaning to life. It is a quest that every individual can undertake, regardless of whether one adheres to a specific religious or spiritual tradition or not. It is a quest that can provide great trials and tremendous enlightenment. It is a quest every individual will eventually commence. This spiritual quest to live authentically is a quest to live wholly or holily, both of which words, according to former national president John Algeo, derive from the same root. Algeo goes on to say that “holiness is not a matter of wearing a saintly halo. It is a matter of being completely and fully human. Most of us are not yet fully human. We are only on the way to becoming so.” He continues, saying, “The source of holiness and of importance is the Divine Wisdom, Theosophy. And it is not to be found in the Theosophical Society, although it may be found through the Society. Theosophy is to be found in our own hearts and minds.”

So when the question is asked, “What gives meaning to your life?”, what is your answer? The answer for many is in the process of looking within to discover the authentic self, the quest to one day become completely and fully human, the journey to recognize our holiness and the holiness of all beings.

Printed in the  Winter 2018issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Graves, Julia, "What Is a Signature? A short introduction to the ancient doctrine of plant signatures" Quest 106:1, pg 24-25

By  Julia Graves 

It is a fascinating approach, not only because of the satisfying symmetry of such correspondence, but because generally it is an accurate guide. I adopted the doctrine of signature as a teaching aid in identifying medicinal herbs.
                                                                                                                —Ben Charles Harris (Harris, 4)

The celebrated physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) saw the doctrine of signature as a proof of how microcosm and macrocosm were analogous—as above, so below. He says in Astronomica magna: “The expert must know how to recognize the virtue of all things thanks to the signs, be it an herb, a tree, a living being, or an inanimate object.” While this thought originates from his alchemical studies, which are pre-Christian, as a devout Christian he concludes by writing that this is because God created things as such, and that he left signs for us to discover the virtues he has hidden in all of creation. It is quite noticeable how, throughout his work, entire passages are free from any Christian notions, while others attribute everything back to a creator God.

To Paracelsus, signatures are the knowledge of the inner essence based on outer characteristics (Jacobi, 53). He said, “Thou shalt know all internal [characteristics] by looking at the outside.” “God does not want things to stay hidden, which He created for mankind’s benefit and which he gave man as his property into his hand.  .  .  .  And even though He Himself hid it, so did He mark upon it outer, visible signs, that are special marks. Not different from One, who buries a treasure and does not leave it unmarked, because he puts a sign onto the spot, so he himself can find it again.” Calling it the “art of signs,” he writes, “As you see, every herb has been brought into the shape that is akin to its inner nature [by God]” (ibid., 169f.). Because of the law of correspondence, the universe is established lawfully enough for him to base his knowledge of medical plants upon it. He writes: “There is a further necessity that you know such shapes in the anatomy of herbs and plants and that you bring them together with the anatomy of the disease. The simile, according to which you should treat, makes healing understandable.” And, “Who writes about the power of the herbs without the signature, is not writing from knowledge. He writes like a blind man” (in Wood, Magical Staff, 21). Thus tumorlike plants such as tree fungi treat tumorlike diseases. Today, the reishi and chaga fungi, for instance, have been proven to have strong anticancer properties. Paracelsus’s definition might be paraphrased this way: “Like colors, shapes, and other characteristics in the plant cure those same or corresponding colors, shapes, and characteristics in the body” or “that which looks like a body part or disease in the plant cures that body part or disease in animals or humans.”

Paracelsus’s law of similes—“like cures like”—applied to herbology, means that a specific characteristic of the plant will cure the thing similar to it in the human body or mind. It looks like what it cures. Likeness or similarity here are ways of talking about the analogy contained in the doctrine of signature.

Paracelsus saw the innermost essence or essential properties of a substance as something like a secret. It was not secret in the sense of something one has not been told, but of something ineffable, beyond words. Who or what we ultimately are cannot be expressed in our limited language, and trying to put labels to it brings us away from the secret—the truth (ibid., 25). Unlike his contemporaries, he did not believe in the rational or analytical way of matching correspondences, such as curing the right eye of a human with the right eye of an animal. This did not work, because it was not in keeping with natural magic. His transrational magic of healing with natural substances meant that a flower with a luminous look, such as eyebright, something that was not an eye but eyelike—could, by way of that correspondence, cure the eyes as if by magic. Eyebright is one of the most efficient remedies for conjunctivitis.

The doctrine of signature is the practical application of the doctrine of correspondence. It is also the practical application of the law of contraries, since the signature of the plant, its quality, can be matched with the signature of the disease either by way of correspondence or by way of contrariness. While this might seem confusing and contradictory, it is not when one understands that the law of action and reaction as a healing principle encompasses both of these seemingly opposite laws.

Although one can say that the doctrine of signature is the applied form of the law of correspondences, one could also say in reverse that the doctrine of signature is the ancient foundation for the law of correspondences. The more modern version is the homeopathic like-cures-like based on the pathology created by a poison. While to Paracelsus, “it looks like what it cures,” Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, took the law of similarity to mean “it causes what it cures.”

The contemporary herbalist Matthew Wood explains that signatures represent configurations of energy or patterns—archetypes—in plants, and that these correspond to similar patterns in people. “We are not looking here for superficial resemblance, but for one that operates on the level of essence,” beingness (Wood, Herbal Wisdom, 21f). “The law of correspondence, the doctrine of signature, and the law of similars point to the existence of a core essence, configuration, or identity-pattern at the root of every natural substance” (Wood, Magical Staff, 25). He sees true signatures as more profound and magical if they are less rational, in keeping with Paracelsus’s understanding of natural magic. Ferns do not really look like spleens, yet their leaf pattern is the spleen signature, and that holds true like magic even in nonferns, such as sweetfern (Comptonia) or even wood betony. 

	Wood Betony

I would define a signature of a plant as a characteristic that can be detected by one of the senses—the eyes, ears, nose, tongue/taste, tactile sensation—in concert with the mind giving it meaning. These give rise in turn to the signature of the colors and shapes, of the sounds, smells, and the taste pharmacology so well developed in ancient Western as well as Indian and Chinese herbalism. Unbiased, skillful observation of nature is crucial. It does not extend to the molecular structure of the plant tissue, since to identify this in the scientific sense, we would need a microscope and other gadgets in a laboratory. The doctrine of signature is in this sense prescientific—positively so. It is a shortcut to plant knowledge when we do not want to wait for decades for the lab results, most of which become distorted by looking at isolated substances rather than at the vast orchestra of molecules playing in concert inside of herbal tissue. The molecular signature is not part of our direct experience of the plant. It is a mental construct that we reach with the help of technology, and that we believe based on scientific authority. Instead of anthroquines, we taste bitter and see yellow. Bitter and yellow is the signature, “anthroquines” a mental construct. However, we will not be surprised to find heart glycosides in a plant with such a strong and unmistakable heart-healing plant signature as foxglove or lily of the valley. I see the molecular structure as the expression of the signature on the molecular level. If we are right that the macrocosm resembles the microcosm, such as a characteristic of a planet and a plant, then it should also apply to the next levels down, as in the plant and their cells—and so it does.

We are entering an era when things are understood within the context of their energy or energetic fields. In this view, the doctrine of signature is the recognition that similar energetic patterns give rise to similar shapes and unfoldment in two different things—in this case, a plant or plant part, and a person or body part/mind-set. This is the correspondence of energetic pattern. It is with this in mind that we understand why the big, heavy peony buds that in their spherical compactness look so like a skull with sutures will yield a medicine for trauma to this hard, dense, heavy body part—especially helping to open up the blocked sutures, as verifiable in sacrocranial treatment.

My Haitian folk herbalist friend Jacquelin Guiteau put it succinctly: “The doctrine of signature is how the medicinal plants introduce their healing powers to the healer.” So it is, above all, a means of communication, a language.

A Poetic Language

The doctrine of signature is really a poetic language describing a multidimensional reality in which different facets of signature are simultaneously true, and in which the interplay of the countless elements cannot be exhaustively and finally interpreted. Since it is the human mind that gives meaning to nature, naturally the signatures and their categories shift from one cultural context to another, one adding to the other without contradiction but rather contributing another piece to the larger picture. I was challenged by my brother, who was thoroughly trained in natural science, when trying to explain to him the doctrine of signature: “But if you say that a mushroom growing on a tree is like a cancerous tumor, then, because a mushroom has mycelia, the tumor should therefore have them too.” I did not know what to reply in the moment, although an easy misunderstanding might assume that we are in the realm of mathematics, where if A equals B, then therefore B equals A. We are, however, in the realm of similars. If something is similar, it is not the same. There is a corresponding underlying principle, but the two corresponding things are not identical. The mushroom reaches out via mycelia, the tumor via chemical signals. If they were the same, they could not be a plant on the one hand and a human disease on the other. So since the doctrine of signature helps to draw parallels between a plant and a human condition, it can never be a pair of identical things. It can only be similar. We are entering a realm of analogies, and sometimes our modern minds have become so attuned to natural science that we lose sense of what an analogy is—it serves to make the point by one or more parallels, but if stretched too far, it will stop working. We should therefore always remember that the doctrine of signature is in the truest sense an art, and not a science reducible to mathematical formulas. As much as it is an art, it is also a science of observation in the sense that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe formulated for his approach to natural science. It was his idea, later promoted by Rudolf Steiner, that we should train our senses to a point where our mental force of observation of nature becomes like an organ.

The art of interpreting poetry means that there is never just one meaning, and that one can never find all the meanings. It would be impossible, for instance, to make a complete list of all the possible interpretations of Goethe’s Faust. In poetry, while a word might appear in the line, and the meaning of the word by itself is such and such, we might expect it to take the same meaning in the context of that very line. It is the beauty of the oscillating imprecision of language that the context, intonation, diacritical marks used, and even background of the listener can alter the meaning of that very word. In the same manner, the context in which one doctrine occurs in a plant with regard to its other characteristics can alter or override its meaning. In that sense, the doctrine of signature is an art of interpretation of the direct encounter with the plant, making thorough use of the associative function of the brain that fully engages both of its halves.

Within poetry, the same word or grammatical structure does not always mean the same thing. Depending on the context, the same word will mean different things in different lines. Similarly, yellowness in a flower will mean different things in different plants. In Oregon grape it means that it is a liver-healing plant; in dandelion, that it heals the solar plexus with its associated fear and power issues; in yellow day lily it means that it bestows happiness and joy, dispelling depression; and in sunflower it means that it strengthens the inner sun archetype, the inner father.

Being a poetic language, signature is also sometimes cryptic—it escapes us. We do not understand. It is too profound yet for us to decipher. It is not only a foreign language to learn, it is also a language that requires us to change our minds: to the degree that we still our mind chatter and become calm, allowing nature to talk to us, we will understand more clearly. To the degree that we tune more into nature herself, she will speak up.

Herbalist David Winston considers the doctrine of signature part of something much larger that he calls the “language of plants.” He regards the doctrine of signature as we know it as the last remnant of the European tradition of the language of plants, which includes as its physical aspect the doctrine of signature, then knowledge of the plant’s personality, and finally of its “isness.” This can only be known through well trained intuition, in direct communication with the plant. These three aspects together make up the full language of plants. I would add that the language of plants is part of the larger language of nature, which includes geomancy, palmistry, and face reading. The same principles can be used to decode the underlying characteristics of anything in nature, including landscapes, minerals and stones, animals, and humans.

Art and poetry engage the right brain, while science uses the left. The doctrine of signature is a thoroughly holistic approach, engaging both brain halves. In our analytical culture, “it’s a mystery” means that it cannot be understood or known. However, as Wood suggests in his book The Magical Staff (ix), mystery can communicate—not to the analytical mind, but to the holistic view, to intuition. What mystic and cryptic really mean is that we have not yet found words in the realm of duality to describe it. Thus nature and plants’ unfolding can never be pinned down in one finite definition of the truth, but will remain forever mystical and elusive, forever spurring us on to new visions of multidimensional layers of truth from a realm beyond words.

The Grammar Rules

Besides being a poetic language, signature is similar to the language of dreams in that there can be no negations—no “yes, but” and so on. Interestingly, Native Americans sought to acquire plant knowledge in dreamtime. It is a language of associated characteristics, all of which are a flow of simple, straightforward, positive statements: “I am like this and this and that,” simultaneously true all at the same time. In this language, adjectives play the main role: “I am soft, straight, yellow, cool, and bitter.” “I like humid, acidic soil.” So it is really those adjectives we should pay attention to. If in tuning into a tree someone comes up with “I just feel beauty, simply beauty,” then this is a good hint that one has tuned into something other than the plant itself—perhaps the abstract idea of beauty or love and light. Sometimes, instead of tuning into the plant and its essence, we tune into this something else, such as the landscape or the atmosphere of the moment. For instance, stately trees in general emit a sense of serenity and peace. That is due to their size and age, and is not specific to the tree species. While it is all right to get a sense of peace from tuning into a plant in true plant attunement, signature would not stop there, but would be precise and qualify the sense of peace. Sedating healing plants, or relaxing nervines, can bestow this feeling. So it can feel like “peaceful, cooling,” or “peaceful, relaxing.” Plants are not abstract. Not “out there.” They are earthy, juicy, and real. Right here!

These positive statements can seem to be contradictions. A plant such as nasturtium might be shade-loving and watery, thus cooling, and at the same time pungent in taste and warming. Cooling and warming are contradictory, but here the plant is saying that it contains both these in harmony. It can teach us about maintaining moderate warmth while staying moist.

Another example is the inflated seedpod of Lobelia inflata. It has been taken as a signature for the alveoli inflated in an asthma attack, or as having the form of a stomach. Being a stomach and being alveoli are contradictory, but looking similar in shape to both of them is not. Hence lobelia continues to be an excellent herbal remedy for both asthma and ills of the stomach.

In this context, it is worth pointing out that in holistic case taking as well as in psychotherapy, it is precisely those adjectives our clients use to describe their conditions—“I am heartbroken, discouraged, and down”—that are the most noteworthy things they are telling us, since it is these that will lead us to the right remedy. Thus we ask: how do you feel? It is telling that this very description of subjective symptoms is given no value in orthodox medicine (whose language abounds with nouns: “proliferation of streptococci in the trachea,” etc.).

The truth about nature is multidimensional and multifaceted. So whenever we find ourselves becoming dogmatic about it being only one way or another, we can be sure that we have fallen away from the ultimate truth about Mother Nature, who simply cannot be pigeonholed.

The Rules of Communication

The first rule is that you can only hear what you allow to filter through the constant chatter of your mind. Meditators trained in stilling and calming the ongoing flow of inner talk are very good at perceiving what is out there in a calm, unbiased manner.

The second rule is that we can perceive correctly only what does not get distorted by our layer of neuroses. It is well known in psychotherapy that any neurosis we might have will distort the inner messages we receive. A simple example is a woman who got very upset and offended at the mere sight of a calla lily, calling it “an ugly monkey penis.”

Calla lily

She had been sexually abused. Our neuroses quite literally become colored glasses through which we see the world—it would be best to at least know we had them on our nose, and better still to know which color they were.

The third rule is to let reasoning and interpretation come only after the direct communication with the plant; before or during it will cut the communication. This requires some mental effort. It is to restrain ourselves, once we have found the slightest inkling of a signature, from running and writing it down and talking about it, rather than staying with the experience and let it unfold.

The fourth rule is that we forget when we go from one mental state to another. It is commonly known that people remember what they experienced while drunk when they become drunk again, but not while sober. We suddenly remember last night’s dream when slipping into sleep the next night. In the same way, as we “go under” into a meditative state to do the plant attunement, we tend to forget the images and message as we come out of that state back into our everyday mind. It is therefore helpful to learn to come across the threshold slowly and mindfully in order to avoid interrupting the link of memory.

Thus, the calmer, clearer, and more unbiased you are, the better. For a long time, I tried not to read anything about a healing plant before I went to sit with it to feel its essence. I found that not having read other people’s comments left my mind fresh and free. In Zen Buddhism, this is called beginner’s mind. Afterward it was also very helpful to go back and check my findings against those of others, to see how much overlap there was. It is a way of checking back later with oneself about whether one is indeed tuning into the plant and reading the signature, or just tripping. This all ties in with the principle known in psychological testing, as well as quantum physics, according to which the observer, especially the observer’s intention, influences the outcome of the experiment, and further, that objects under observation, even inanimate objects such as electrons, behave differently under observation than when not observed.

“The doctrine of signatures operates through at least two different subjective faculties, the intuition and the imagination” (Wood, Herbal Wisdom, 23). He explains the difference as follows: intuition is the ability to see patterns in the world; imagination is the ability to see images.

Ayurveda takes this into the context of direct yogic perception, a kind of insight gained based on perfect concentration, a completely still mind with an unmoving focus, a state in which the observing mind and the observed object are said to merge into union like water poured into water (Gyatso, 31ff). “The human being transmutes life into consciousness through perception. Through direct perception, the seer is the seen, the observer the observed” (Frawley and Lad, 5).

The sages of ancient India approached healing and herbs with this same consciousness [of total communion with the plant]. Theirs was not a science of experimentation, but a form of direct participation. Experimentation implies distance, a division between the observer and the observed, subject and object. As a result, it is mediated, measured, translated. In dissecting the corpse, the penetration of the soul is missed. Direct perception, or meditation, is the science of yoga. Yoga allows the essence, the thing-in-itself, to disclose itself. When this happens, a full revelation of material and spiritual potential occurs.

The seers, through the yoga of perception, let the plants speak to them. And plants disclose their secrets—many of which are far subtler than a chemical analysis would uncover. Approaching plants in the same way today, not as objects for self-aggrandizement but as integral parts of our own unity, the true value of a plant will flourish for our unselfish use.

To become a true herbalist, therefore, means to become a seer. This means to be sensitive to the being of the herbs, to commune in receptive awareness with the plant-light of the universe. It is to learn to listen when the plant speaks, to speak to the plants as another human being, and to look upon it as one’s teacher.(ibid., 5f.)

The Universal Language

In a realm free from human culture and from language stuck in the limitations of dualism, we can imagine a world made from energy—in the physical sense of its definition, as something immaterial that functions to do work. Energy has received all kinds of labels through the ages and times—the Chinese call it chi, the Indians prana or vayu; it has been called life force in the West and medicine power by the northern Native Americans. It matters little what it is called—it is the dynamic, immaterial aspect of life that propels things, making them function. It is the difference between a living body and a corpse, a live herb and a dried one. In Ayurveda, prana or vayu (wind), as it is called, is said to be the flow of energy that courses the body in set patterns, in part following the nerves and blood vessels, and which propels physiological functions, such as breathing, urination, or blood circulation. It is called wind to illustrate its transmaterial nature as well as its dynamism and mobility. In traditional Chinese medicine, chi and blood are said to be like two sides of a coin, that is, they go together. So the flow of blood and the flow of chi are coupled, again giving chi a dynamic, nonmaterial aspect. Greek humoral medicine thought of the humors or body liquids in a similar fashion, and this is how holistic practitioners of today use the term energy. Energy language is becoming a universal language and an accepted principle, surprisingly uniting such disciplines as quantum physics and chakra healing.

In this universal language of energy, we find that we can establish the doctrine of signature based on a universally observable correspondence of underlying energy patterns and their development.

These can occur at any level: ginseng roots looking like little persons and therefore being the supreme tonic for humankind as a whole; resins oozing out of injured barks, healing and sealing them, hence being powerful antiseptic wound healers; wild snapdragon with yellow flowers shaped like huge jaws helping with digestion and temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ: tight jaws and teeth grinding).

Sources

Frawley, David, and Vasant Lad. The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine. Santa Fe, N.M.: Lotus Press, 1986.

Gyatso, Lobsang. Lorig Nyerkho Kun Tu [blo rigs nyer mkho kun btus]. Dharamsala, India: Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, 1998. A Mahayana Buddhist monastic text on cognitional theory.

Harris, Ben Charles. The Compleat Herbal: Being a Description of the Origins, the Lore, the Characteristics, the Types, and the Prescribed Uses of Medicinal Herbs, Including an Alphabetical Guide to All Common Medicinal Plants, 2nd ed. New York: Bell, 1985.

Jacobi, Jolande. Paracelsus: Arzt und Gottsucher an der Zeitenwende. 2nd rev. ed. Olten, Germany: Walter, 1991.

Wood, Matthew. The Magical Staff: The Vitalist Tradition in Western Medicine. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic, 1992.

——. The Book of Herbal Wisdom: Using Plants as Medicines. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 1997.

JULIA GRAVES grew up in Germany in close communion with nature. She trained in Anthroposophic massage therapy, herbalism, and medicine from an early age. Julia has traveled around the world, from North America to the Himalayas, to study the doctrine of signatures. She is a practicing herbalist, a maker of flower essences, and a naturopathic doctor. She organized a naturopathic relief clinic in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and presently lives on her farm in France. This article and the accompanying illustrations are excerpted from her book The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures (Lindisfarne Books, 2012) and reprinted with the kind permission of Lindisfarne Books.