Found in the Hermetikon archive

Moss

Moss 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: unknown
Books: 72
Contexts: 4
Mentions: 214

Overview Reading Contexts Citations Related Books

Archive Profile

Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.

Herb identity

Common name: moss
Latin name: Not set(ambiguous)
Identity note: Archive hits may include true mosses, Irish moss, oak moss, names, or descriptive landscape text.

Safety

unknown

Moss is a broad category; safety depends entirely on species, environment, and preparation.

Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.

Kew POWO: Moss is a broad category; safety depends entirely on species, environment, and preparation.

Aliases

mossmosses

Moss in Historical Sources

Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.

Hermetikon's curated reading of Moss is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 1 preparation or ritual-use entry. The strongest recurring contexts are medicine, folk magic, and identity. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Identity

high

Culpeper separates ground moss from tree moss and assigns all mosses to Saturn, but the category is broad rather than species-specific.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 14

Medicine

high

Culpeper gives ground moss boiled in wine for stone and urine, and bruised moss boiled in water as a cooling application for inflammations and gout pains.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 14

Folk magic

medium

Frazer records a weapon-salve ingredient of moss from an unburied skull, applied to the weapon rather than the wound, so the evidence is folk-magic materia, not practical herbalism.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1890

4. The Magicianâ€™s Progress

Preparations and ritual uses

boiled application

high

Culpeper gives moss bruised and boiled in water as an external application for inflammations and gout pains, while treating moss as a broad plant category rather than a single species.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 14

Moss Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Astrology

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Anatomy of Melancholy.

Matched as mosses; high confidence.

Folk magic

2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Encyclopaedia of Occultism.

Matched as moss; medium confidence.

Preparation

7 passages across 7 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as mosses; high confidence.

Symbolism

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: The Golden Bough.

Matched as mosses; high confidence.

Moss Cited Excerpts

Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.

5 shown

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper

1653

"...owy ditches and many other such like places. The Tree Moss grows only on trees. *Government and virtues.*] All sorts of Mosses are under the dominion of Saturn. The Ground Moss is held to be singularly good to break the stone, and to expel and drive it forth by urine, being boiled in wine and drank. The herb being bruised and boiled in water, and applied, eases all inflammations and pains coming from an hot cause; and is therefore used to ease the pains of the gout. The Tree Mosses are cooling and binding, and partake of a digesting and molifying quality witha..."

Chapter 14Open in Reader

Preparationalias: mosseshigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1906

"...any extensive forests at the lowest levels of the country. Still, remains of them have been dug up in many lowland peat-mosses, where the bulk of the buried timber is oak. [1112] When Hatfield Moss in Yorkshire was drained, there were found in it trunks of oak a hundred feet long and as black as ebony. One giant actually measured a hundred and twenty feet in length, with a diameter of twelve feet at the root and six feet at the top. No such tree now exists in Europe. [1113] Sunken forests and peat occur at many places on the coasts of England, especially on lo..."

Â§ 2. The Aryan God of the Oak and the Thunder[1149]Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: mosseshigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1906

"...nevitable that the battery of the comparative method should breach these venerable walls, mantled over with the ivy and mosses and wild flowers of a thousand tender and sacred associations. At present we are only dragging the guns into position: they have hardly yet begun to speak. The task of building up into fairer and more enduring forms the old structures so rudely shattered is reserved for other hands, perhaps for other and happier ages. We cannot foresee, we can hardly even guess, the new forms into which thought and society will run in the future. Yet t..."

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE GOLDEN BOUGHOpen in Reader

Symbolismalias: mosseshigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...onounced, however, as that produced by Chaulmugra oil. This coloration is due to the presence of gynucardic acid, which Moss also found in this species (Dymock, J/a<. j="" o="" western="" india="" h.fflmatoxylon="" s.="" p.="" h-ffimatoxylon.="" the="" heart-wood="" of="" hasmatoxylon="" campechianum="" linne="" nat.="" ord.="" leguminosje.="" common="" name="" :="" lngimod.="" illustrations="" woodville="" med.="" bot.="" bentley="" and="" trimen="" planu="" botanical="" source.="" this="" is="" a="" tree="" from="" to="" feet="" in="" height="" occasionall..."

Page 82Open in Reader

Preparationalias: mossmedium confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...are carried in the same manner. The root is long, slender, and creeps upon the surface of old stumps of trees among the moss. The root is used, and it is best fresh; it is a safe and gentle purge; the best way of giving it is in decoction, in which form it always operates also by urine. It is good in the jaundice and dropsies, and is an excellent ingredient in diet-drinks against the scurvy; but beside these considerations, it is a safe and good purge, on all common occasions. ### The POMEGRANATE TREE. *Granatus.* A COMMON wild tree in Spain and Italy, kept ..."

Page 324Open in Reader

Preparationalias: mossmedium confidence

Books Mentioning Moss

Complete public source inventory, placed after the interpretive reading so the page opens with the most useful synthesis first.

72 books

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer | 1906

mossesmoss

16 mentionscited

The Family Herbal

John Hill | 1755

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Moss in Historical Sources

Identity

Medicine

Folk magic

Preparations and ritual uses

boiled application

Moss Archive Contexts

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Symbolism

Moss Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Moss