[image from Johannes Stephan Kestler’s Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, (1680)]
“From an alchemical perspective, Saturn is of great importance as it is the border between personal, and transpersonal, or cosmic, powers. The Black Crow is the symbolic messenger of Saturn, symbolizing the Black Phase of alchemical transformation, sometimes referred to as The Dark Night of the Soul. In relation to pswychoactive substances and what they can bring to the table in the spiritual process, in regards to shamanic like concepts of symbolic “Death and Rebirth” this seems like the perfect planetary host.”
In the alchemical tradition hemp … was … numbered among the Saturnian plants, together with mandrake … henbane … the opium poppy … [etc.] all of which distinguish themselves because they are able to alter consciousness, that is transform the spirit. It must be assumed that the alchemists of medieval times, for example Agrippa … were aware of the psychoactive effects of hemp … so … as an “elixir” … hemp transcends time, the alchemist can have an experience of immortality (Rätsch, 1998).
“A 16th-century grimoire, referred to in C.J. Thompson’s Mysteries and Secrets and Magic, (1927) offers instructions for the contraction of a magic ring dedicated to Saturn, and made of the planet’s metal, lead, and to be used for receiving oracles. The instructions call for cannabis or other narcotic plants under the dominion of Saturn to be used in its construction, for further magnetizing it with the Saturn’s prophetic power:
Write or engrave thereon ye name of ye angell Cassiel, then fumigate it. Then being so prepared, put it on thy finger as thou art entering into thy bed sand speak no word to any person, but meditate thereon. If thou wilt complete the ring, truly, ye shall put a piece of ye roote of some special herb governed by Saturn and put it under ye stone of a signet, as for example a little root of dragon or dragon-wort, or of black hellebore or hemp, upon which puts some little onyx stone or sapphire, or lapis lazuli, but onyx is best, but let it first be made and engraved, and make ye mood to cast it, and all finished in due time with name of ye angel of Saturn.”
Excerpts from: "Liber 420: Cannabis, Magickal Herbs and the Occult" by Chris Bennett.
