Preparation
mediumCulpeper uses hemlock vinegar in a compound plaster with melilot plaster, turpentine, ammoniacum, styrax, marjoram oil, and nard.
Found in the Hermetikon archive
Hemlock
Conium maculatum
Hemlock appears in Hermetikon as an archive-backed plant entry, with references across historical medical, magical, symbolic, and ritual contexts where the source texts support them.
- Risk
- high
- Books
- 53
- Contexts
- 5
- Mentions
- 205
Archive Profile
Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.
Herb identity
- Common name
- hemlock
- Latin name
- Conium maculatum(ambiguous)
- Identity note
- Distinguish poison hemlock from hemlock tree and water hemlock.
Safety
high
Poison hemlock is associated with severe poisoning and respiratory paralysis risk.
Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.
- CDC/NIOSH: Poison hemlock is associated with severe poisoning and respiratory paralysis risk.
Aliases
hemlockConium maculatumpoison hemlock
Hemlock in Historical Sources
Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.
Hermetikon's curated reading of Hemlock (Conium maculatum) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are preparations and safety. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.
Safety
mediumKing's distinguishes related poisonous umbellifers and calls hemlock dropwort one of the most energetic narcotico-acrid poisons, reinforcing identity caution.
Safety
mediumHill separately warns that hemlock dropwort is poisonous in a terrible degree and easily confused with similar umbelliferous plants.
Preparations and ritual uses
Hemlock-vinegar plaster
mediumCulpeper's plaster dissolves ammoniacum in hemlock vinegar and works it with melilot plaster, turpentine, styrax, marjoram oil, and nard.
Anaphrodisiac ointment or plaster
mediumFrazer cites ancient belief in hemlock ointment or plaster applied externally as an anaphrodisiac, while noting conium's depressing action.
Hemlock Archive Contexts
Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.
Medicine
1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: Three Books of Occult Philosophy.
Matched as hemlock; medium confidence.
Astrology
2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Encyclopaedia of Occultism.
Matched as hemlock; medium confidence.
Preparation
5 passages across 5 books; strongest source: Anatomy of Melancholy.
Matched as hemlock; medium confidence.
Ritual
3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: The Golden Bough.
Matched as hemlock; medium confidence.
Safety
4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable.
Matched as hemlock; medium confidence.
Hemlock Cited Excerpts
Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.
Culpeper's Complete Herbal
Nicholas Culpeper
1653
"...orate them with a pound and an half of Melilot plaster simple, Turpentine an ounce and an half, Ammoniacum dissolved in Hemlock Vinegar, three ounces, Styrax five drams, oil of Marjoram, and Nard, of each half an ounce, or a sufficient quantity, make it into a plaster with a hot mortar and pestle, without boiling. *Culpeper.*] It mollifies the hardness of the stomach, liver, spleen, bowels, and other parts of the body: it wonderfully assuages pain, and eases hypochondriac melancholy, and the rickets. #### *Emplastrum de minio compositum.* Or, A Plaster of red L..."
Chapter 62Open in Reader
Preparationalias: hemlockmedium confidence
King's American Dispensatory
Harvey Wickes Felter
1854
"...a species of palsy after eating it. It is poisonous, but not so dangerously so as the (Hnnnthe Cromta (^Dead-tongue, or Hemlock drojiworf; see Rclnlol .S^vfc/o), which is consiilered the most energetic poison of the narcotico-acrid Umbelliferie. By desiccation, they lose much of their poisonous properties. The (K Phellainlrimn is occasionally found in this country. The seeds are the j.arts used. They are ulnml f>j inch long, of a yellowish-green color, elliptical, slightly curved, flat on one side and gibbous on the other, striated with 10 filiform ribs.'and te..."
Page 567Open in Reader
Safetyalias: hemlockmedium confidence
The Family Herbal
John Hill
1755
"...ts, which are very different in their qualities, and one of them is poisonous in a terrible degree; this last is called hemlock dropwort; care must therefore be taken that the right kind is used, but this is sufficiently different from all the others. The flower is composed of six little leaves, and is full of yellow threads in the middle; the flowers of all the others are composed only of five leaves each. They are all umbelliferous plants, but this is not; the flowers grow in clusters, but not in umbels: they grow like those of the ulmaria or meadow sweet. ##..."
Page 174Open in Reader
Safetyalias: hemlockmedium confidence
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer
1906
"...rolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion , pp. 549 sqq. ). In antiquity it was believed that an ointment or plaster of hemlock applied to the genital organs prevented them from discharging their function. See Dioscorides, De materia medica , iv. 79; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxv. 154. Dr. J. B. Bradbury, Downing Professor of Medicine in the University of Cambridge, informs me that this belief is correct. “Although conium [hemlock] is not used as an anaphrodisiac at the present day, there can be no doubt that it has this effect. When rubbed into the skin it depresses..."
Chapter 20Open in Reader
Preparationalias: hemlockmedium confidence
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer
1890
"...es again. The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia tell of an ogress, who could not be killed because her life was in a hemlock branch. A brave boy met her in the woods, smashed her head with a stone, scattered her brains, broke her bones, and threw them into the water. Then, thinking he had disposed of the ogress, he went into her house. There he saw a woman rooted to the floor, who warned him, saying, “Now do not stay long. I know that you have tried to kill the ogress. It is the fourth time that somebody has tried to kill her. She never dies; she has nearl..."
LXVI. The External Soul in Folk-TalesOpen in Reader
Preparationalias: hemlockmedium confidence
Books Mentioning Hemlock
Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.
Culpeper's Complete Herbal
Nicholas Culpeper | 1653
hemlock
33 mentionscited
King's American Dispensatory
Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854
hemlock
31 mentionscited
Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton | 1621
hemlock
11 mentions
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable
E. Cobham Brewer | 1870
hemlock
8 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1908
hemlock
7 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1926
hemlock
7 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1890
hemlock
6 mentionscited
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1906
hemlock
5 mentionscited
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1913
hemlock
5 mentions
History of Witchcraft and Demonology
Montague Summers | 1926
hemlock
5 mentions
Transcendental Magic
Eliphas Levi | 1854
hemlock
5 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1913
hemlock
4 mentions
The Book of Witches
Unknown Author (Historical Compilation) | 1900
hemlock
4 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1916
hemlock
4 mentions
The Family Herbal
John Hill | 1755
hemlock
3 mentionscited
Christian Astrology
William Lilly | 1647
hemlock
3 mentions
Balder the Beautiful, Volume I
James George Frazer | 1913
hemlock
3 mentions
Manual of Astrology
Raphael (Robert Cross Smith) | 1828
hemlock
3 mentions
The Magus (Vol 1)
Francis Barrett | 1801
hemlock
3 mentions
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim | 1533
hemlock
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1890
hemlock
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1913
hemlock
2 mentions
Key of Solomon
King Solomon | 1400
hemlock
2 mentions
Encyclopaedia of Antiquities
Thomas Dudley Fosbroke | 1825
hemlock
2 mentions
Metamorphoses (Books I-VII)
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) | 8
hemlock
2 mentions
The Influence of the Stars
Rosa Baughan | 1880
hemlock
2 mentions
Bulfinch's Mythology
Thomas Bulfinch | 1881
hemlock
2 mentions
Thaumaturgia
Richard Harris Dalton Barham | 1835
hemlock
2 mentions
The Law of Psychic Phenomena
Thomson Jay Hudson | 1893
hemlock
2 mentions
The Age of Fable
Thomas Bulfinch | 1855
hemlock
2 mentions
Philosophumena (Vol 1)
Hippolytus of Rome | 222
hemlock
2 mentions
Witchcraft and Superstitious Record
John Maxwell Wood | 1911
hemlock
2 mentions
Genethlialogia
John Gadbury | 1658
hemlock
2 mentions
Principia Discordia
Malaclypse the Younger (Gregory Hill) | 1963
hemlock
2 mentions
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Antoine Fabre d'Olivet | 1813
hemlock
2 mentions
Primitive Culture, Vol. 2
Edward Burnett Tylor | 1871
hemlock
2 mentions
The Evil Eye
Frederick Thomas Elworthy | 1895
hemlock
2 mentions
Psychic Self-Defense
Dion Fortune (Violet Mary Firth) | 1930
hemlock
2 mentions
Compendium Maleficarum
Francesco Maria Guazzo | 1608
hemlock
2 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1917
hemlock
2 mentions
Encyclopaedia of Occultism
Lewis Spence | 1920
hemlock
1 mention
Clavis Astrologiae Elimata
Henry Coley | 1669
hemlock
1 mention
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 2
Aleister Crowley | 1909
hemlock
1 mention
Book of Black Magic
Arthur Edward Waite | 1898
hemlock
1 mention
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 1
Aleister Crowley | 1909
hemlock
1 mention
Illustration of the Occult Sciences
Ebenezer Sibly | 1784
hemlock
1 mention
A Vision
William Butler Yeats | 1925
hemlock
1 mention
Celtic Fairy Tales
Joseph Jacobs (collector/editor) | 1892
hemlock
1 mention
Jungle Ways
William Seabrook | 1930
hemlock
1 mention
Bulfinch's Mythology
Thomas Bulfinch | 1855
hemlock
1 mention
The Phantom World
Augustine Calmet | 1746
hemlock
1 mention
Human Animals
Frank Hamel | 1915
hemlock
1 mention
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1913
hemlock
1 mention