David Hoffmann - Herbalism (The Elements of...)

DAVID L. HOFFMANN has been practising as a consultant medical herbalist for many years, and has lectured widely on holistic herbalism, as well as personal and planetary transformation. He has also been active in the environmental movement, and has done much writing and broadcasting in these areas.

The Elements Of is a series designed to present high quality introductions to a broad range of essential subjects.

The books are commissioned specifically from experts in their fields. They provide readable and often unique views of the various topics covered, and are therefore of interest both to those who have some knowledge of the subject, as well as those who are approaching it for the first time.

Many of these concise yet comprehensive books have practical suggestions and exercises which allow personal experience as well as theoretical understanding, and offer a valuable source of information on many important themes.

In the same series

The Arthurian Tradition

Astrology

Buddhism

The Chakras

The Celtic Tradition

Christian Symbolism

Creation Myth

Dreamwork

The Goddess

The Grail Tradition

The Greek Tradition

Human Potential

Natural Magic

Pendulum Dowsing

Prophecy

Psychosynthesis

Ritual Magic

Shamanism

Sufism

Tai Chi

Visualisation

Thorsons Element, An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Great Britain in 1990 by

Element Books Limited

Longmead, Shaftesbury, Dorset

Cover illustration by Miranda Gray

Cover design by Max Fairbrother

David L. Hoffmann 1990

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN 9781852301736

Ebook Edition JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780007532223

Version: 2014-07-08

Thank you Diana, for the Love with which you bless me, and for being such an impeccable mid-wife as I gave birth to this book.

We are part of the earth and it is part of us

The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.

This we know.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one

family.

Chief Seattle

In all creation there are mysterious healing forces, which no person can know unless they have been revealed by God.

Hildegard Von Bingen, Book of Divine Works (Liber Divinorum Operum)

Planet Earth what a beautiful and bounteous world to call home. The more we turn our attention towards the nature of our relationship with the environment, the more profound become the insights into the close embrace we share. Whether on the global scale of our effects upon climate and the climates effects upon us, or at the biochemical level of plants as medicines, the connections revealed are powerful and very real. Of the many ways in which our ecological inter-relatedness shows itself, the art and science of herbal medicine is for many people the most unexpected.

Above all else, herbalism is the medicine of belonging, the direct experience of the whole healing the part. Our world blesses us with herbs, with leaves of life. In the face of the blind abuse and rape of nature, we discover remedies that can help us survive the impact of humanitys mistakes. To heal ourselves we must know ourselves, and ecology, spirituality, intuition and common sense tell us that we are all one. If our world is sick and poisoned then so are we. If the forests are being destroyed, then we die a little with each felling. Every whale that is respected and allowed to live to blesses us. Each river cleaned and renewed flows through our veins and renews us.

Humanity is being faced with the realities of a shared planet. This may take the form of a drought caused by the Greenhouse Effect, pollution-induced birth defects or the purgatory of human overpopulation. On the other hand it may be the dawning recognition that the intimate embrace of our world is a healing force moving humanity towards a transformation of our relationship with the Earth, ourselves and each other.

The Gaia Hypothesis proposes an illuminating context within which to place herbs and humanity. First postulated by James Lovelock, it has been developed by many people, bridging the worlds of science and spirituality. Gaia was the Greek goddess of the Earth, consort of Uranus and mother of both the gods and the Titans. There are variations of spelling and pronunciation as the name is from Ancient Greece with its subtly different alphabet; Gaia, Gaea or Ga are all used. Lovelock has suggested it as an appropriate name for the complex being that is the whole of planet Earth. We have since defined Gaia as a complex entity involving the Earths biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.

Lovelocks research for NASA, investigating planetary biogeochemistry, led to his formulation of the Gaia Hypothesis, which suggests that the Earth is not a physico-chemical mechanism but a living entity with the equivalent of senses, intelligence, memory and the capacity to act. This is an entirely non-human intelligence that in our anthropocentric arrogance we do not directly perceive. Within the fabric of Gaia there is an interwoven and intelligently driven web which generates balance, continuity and stability. She is the Earth spirit, she is all things biological and inorganic, and she is also the interactions between them. She is ecology!

Formulation of the Gaia Hypothesis marks a special point in humanitys evolution. For the first time there is a clear point of contact between science and spirituality. Both world views can now agree that all of life is one, that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. This can be said in both mystical poetry or in terms of the physics of biogeochemistry, but the same thing is being expressed.

How does herbalism fit into this world view? Evolutionary biology tells us that all of a speciess needs are met by its environment, otherwise it could not survive. This holds true for humanity as much as for slime moulds. The environment provides us not only with food, shelter and resources of all kinds, but also with waterfalls and the joy of sunsets. All human needs are met, spiritual as well as physical. Starvation and its associated evils are usually brought about by human blindness and greed. Whether it be food distribution, the economics of North/South inequities or desertification due to climate changes, they all carry the hallmark of human short-sightedness.