The Western Gate

The Green Mysteries ~ Arcana Viridia ~ An Occult Herbarium
by Daniel A.Schulke
Three Hands Press

Six Years some people waited to have their initial orders fulfilled of this book. Six years ! From Daniel Shuclke comes this “complete” “exhaustive” Herbal encyclopaedia. Another one to add, for the ‘Green’ Witches amongst us, the Verdant Gnostic path, the animist world of Nature and humanity, the flora and the fauna~ The Green and the Red.
Daniel Schulke previously wrote (amongst other books) ‘Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow‘- a much loved and well sought after book, ignore the bit about being delivered from fallen angels and just dwell in the folk and myth and legend of the Herbal Path within, it’s a great book.

I suppose, it could be that this would be seen as equal or comparable to that volume and others of the same ilk. It certainly has its competition. As a bog standard Herbal encyclopedia with the likes of Cunningham/ Culpepper/ Grieves and a whole host of contemporary writers on the Verdant Gnostic path. Do we need another one on the shelf?
Can this one replace all the others?
All the hardback editions sold out, well it was on a mailing list for six years. You can pick up the hardback second-hand for a few hundred pounds ! I received my softcover book, not sure what difference, if any, there would be in content from the hardcover, and really this does need to be bound in a hardback, its going to fall apart by the time, if, I read the whole thing, especially after a bit of cross referencing and research.
Being an encyclopedia, alike a dictionary, we perhaps don’t read them in the same manner of books, instead, researching, flitting, flicking and generally fooling around with it. There are some, let’s say, articles within….
A lengthy introduction begins and not least one is introduced to Schulke’s writing style, which though heavy and labouring somewhat isn’t as tiresome as some of his contemporaries, if John Dee-Queen Elizabeth I alchemist, conjurer and dabbler, were alive today, this is perhaps how he would write.
Of the content itself, the plants, the herbs? I’ve always believed, nay, known that the best way to be familiar with plants is to walk around with a guide, to forage with an expert. Hands on. Pictures never do plants justice, we need to see them in their environment, feel them and get to know them. If a book is going to have illustrations, and this does have quite a few, then every plant needs to be illustrated, fully, leaves, stems, underside, roots, the whole kit and caboodle. The illustrations are ok, not each plant, not every aspect, so they’re more decoration than worthy of study and certainly by omission of many illustrations are not in this context essential, its either complete or its not!
In the midst of the encyclopedia, at various random weed like durations some text, articles appear, nothing to do with the plant in present question, no rhyme or reason, just pop out here and there like unwanted bamboo, though, to be fair, the articles are a good read, even if they are worded like a narrator from a 1970’s open university program… or a reincarnated John Dee.
The plants are not shown with correspondence ala;Culpepper. Ie, the poisonous plants being of Saturnian nature, those of a perfumed nature of Venus etc, which is annoying. Suddenly some plants do have a table of correspondences, including planetary? It, for whatever reason is omitted from some/most but not others? It’s almost as if the author gave up listing a box of correspondences for every plant and instead just chose some. Like the situation with illustrations (perhaps the artist was charging too much) ?
And then! Suddenly a full glossy colour print pops up, erm… ok.
There is a glossary of terms, and a very extensive and useful bibliography, which begs the question, can this replace my buckling shelf of various books of the Verdant path? No, definitely and absolutely not, therein we question terms like exhaustive, complete and indeed encyclopedia. Secondly is it worth purchase? Not if it starts going for the ridiculous prices of Viridarium Umbris, but if can be picked up with a decent disposable income then it’s a curious, strange addition to the shelf. It’s certainly not the classic we was lead to believe and nowhere near as exhaustive as other encyclopedias, Maude Grieves two volumes in one can be picked up, in hardback, for a fraction of the cost of this, and it’s a much better book on which to ponder the qualities of herbs/flowers etc. Yes this book, has some nice illustrations and those , yeah whatever, colour plates, and on the whole feels as though it was wrote from another century but, it is wanting. There’s something else I want from a modern -‘herbarium’, something that will be concise and let’s face it, that would probably warrant six volumes. That all said, it’s a nice-ish book, completely overrated at the outset so it always had an uphill struggle to appease the waiting crowd. It feels rushed and being as it took six years after the orders went in, and being as apparently it was 25 years/ 10 years (depending on which blurb you read) in the making is a bit worrying. It doesn’t feel complete, it certain isn’t the “complete lexicon” or absolute essential addition that is often muted prior to purchase. It’s appealing…. but standing next to its brother, the viridarium umbris, it was always a tough act to follow, and it would be a jealous soul indeed if it lived. Cain was the archetype farmer, who harvested and planted, who followed the moon tides that he would know of the seasons, and many regard, even as legend, him to be the father of all witches, that he stood in the shadow of his more beloved brother to the extent of bashing him over the head, well there’s the euphemism. Its standing in the shadow of the ‘greater’ being.