Medicine of the Planets

March 14, 2013 — astrology, medicine, nature

Astrological Man

planetary rulers of organs

Zodiacal man, 17th century engraving.
Woodcut from Felice Passera, Il nuova tresoro degli’arcana farmacologici galenici, Venice 1688-89.

In the history of medicine the planets and cosmos were the guiding clues that were used to discover treatments and cures.  All plants are ruled by planets as are parts of the body.  Before YouTube people studied the heavens and did lots of praying.  They reached a number of conclusions about cosmology of which most humans today are unaware.  Pharmacists, medical doctors and healers used astrology in practice as a matter of course.  Everything depended on seasons and the sun. Before we dug coal and oil from the ground civilizations rose and fell because of food supply.  Knowing how to make, prepare, gather, and preserve food for the seasons was a matter of life and death. It stands to reason that knowledge of farming and nature was also the only means to improve diet, hygiene and health. Plants are the medicine from which drugs are synthesized now.  Plants are the food from which processed foods are prepared today.

Plants were gathered and cultivated to be used as food and medicine.  The phases of the moon were and still are important in plant cultivation.  More detailed information about the meaning and use of plants was studied by the ancients.  In fact, in Basel, Switzerland, arguably the big pharma capital of the world, the botanical garden is smack dab in the middle of the medical school campus.  This was the same medical school from which my man Paracelsus was expelled for being a heretic.  We like to think we are all that today with our science.  I believe we have allowed a much narrower view of life to reign.  I think we are made whole and healthy by the cosmos.  Smaller, short term thinking is not all that healthy.  Taking drugs of unknown origin is the new normal.  You might look at these planet guys and think they are silly, but they would not pop pills without any rational reason.  We cannot return soon enough to growing, knowing, and using plants as food and medicine.  That is what nature intended, gentle readers.