Found in the Hermetikon archive

Myrrh

Commiphora myrrha

Myrrh 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: moderate
Books: 80
Contexts: 4
Mentions: 477

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: myrrh
Latin name: Commiphora myrrha(candidate)
Identity note: Resin identity varies across historical trade and ritual sources.

Safety

moderate

Pregnancy and medication-interaction cautions are appropriate for medicinal use.

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

MSK About Herbs: Pregnancy and medication-interaction cautions are appropriate for medicinal use.

Aliases

myrrhCommiphora myrrhamyrrha

Myrrh in Historical Sources

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

Hermetikon's curated reading of Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are preparations, ritual uses, and symbolism. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.

Preparation

high

Myrrh appears as an aromatic ingredient in compound preparations rather than only as a symbolic resin. Culpeper's oil formula places it beside saffron, calamus, and cardamom, while dispensatory material also treats powdered myrrh as a pharmaceutical ingredient.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 61

Ritual

high

In occult sources, myrrh functions as a ritual fumigation material. Agrippa includes it in a Saturnine suffumigation mixture with black poppy seed, henbane, mandrake root, and loadstone, placing the resin in a planetary ritual context rather than a culinary or ordinary medicinal one.

Three Books of Occult Philosophy | Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim | 1533

Page 146

Symbolism

high

The archive also preserves mythic and symbolic uses of myrrh. Frazer's Adonis material presents the myrrh-tree as a vegetation image, giving the page separate resin, ritual perfume, medicine, and mythological tree-symbol contexts.

The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1907

Chapter X. The Gardens of Adonis.

Preparations and ritual uses

Compound aromatic oil

high

Culpeper's oil of saffron includes myrrh with saffron, calamus aromaticus, and cardamom steeped over several days. This is historical materia medica evidence, not a modern recipe recommendation.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 61

Aloes and myrrh pill

high

King's American Dispensatory includes powdered myrrh with purified aloes and oil of peppermint in pill preparation material.

King's American Dispensatory | Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

Page 613

Myrrh Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Astrology

3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: Liber 777.

Matched as myrrh; high confidence.

Preparation

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.

Matched as myrrh; high confidence.

Ritual

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: The Discoverie of Witchcraft.

Matched as myrrh; high confidence.

Safety

3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.

Matched as myrrh; high confidence.

Myrrh 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

"... to eat. #### *Oleum Crocinum,* Or, Oil of Saffron. *College.*] Take of Saffron, Calamus Aromaticus, of each one ounce, Myrrh, half an ounce, Cardamoms nine drams, steep them six days, (the Cardamoms excepted, which are not to be put in till the last day,) in nine ounces of Vinegar, the day after put in a pound and an half of washed oil, boil it gently according to art, till the Vinegar, be consumed, then strain it. *Culpeper.*] It helps pains in the nerves, and strengthens them, mollifies their hardness, helps pains in the matrix, and causes a good colour. #..."

Chapter 61Open in Reader

Preparationalias: myrrhhigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...No. 60 powder, thirteen grammes (13 Gm.) [201 grs.] ; puritied aloes, in fine powder, ten grammes (10 Gm.) [154 grs.] ; myrrh, in fine powder, six grammes (6 Gm.) [93 grs.]; oil of peppermint, one-half cubic centimeter (0.5 Cc.) [8 Til]; water, a sufficient quantity to make KXI pills. Mix the oil of peppermint with the powders, then beat the mixture with water so as to form a mass, to be divided into 100 pills "—{C. S. P.). Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.— Tonic laxative (see Myi-rh, Aloes, and Rhubnih). U.-^eful in chronic constipation and gastric and iiUe..."

Page 613Open in Reader

Preparationalias: myrrhhigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...ot, half an ounce of dry orange peel, and a quart of sack. Lastly, what is called elixir proprietatis is made of aloes, myrrh, and saffron, of each an ounce, sal armoniac six drams, and salt of tartar eight ounces, in a quart of mountain wine. These are all the tinctures and wines that need be kept in a family, whose charity is designed to be very extensive; the expence of the whole is a trifle, not worth naming, and the trouble scarce any thing. Books are full of directions in particular for every tincture, as if every one were to be made a different way; bu..."

Page 39Open in Reader

Preparationalias: myrrhhigh confidence

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim

1533

"...th catamenia, or the blood of a goose. For Saturn, take black poppy seed, henbane, root of mandrake, the loadstone, and myrrh, aad make them up with the brain of a cat or the blood of a bat. For Jupiter, take the seed of ash, lignum aloes, storax, the gum benjamin or benzoin, the lazuli stone, and the tops of the feathers of a peacock; and incorporate them with the blood of a stork, or a swallow, or the brain of a hart. For Mars, take euphorbium, bdellium, gum ammoniac, the roots of both hellebores, the loadstone, and a little sulphur; and incorporate them al..."

Page 146Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: myrrhhigh confidence

The Golden Bough

James George Frazer

1911

"...ut, the goddess of the sycamore. 260 The rite recalls the story that Adonis was born after ten months' gestation from a myrrh-tree. 261 Further, in a sepulchre at How (Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is depicted overshadowing the tomb of Osiris, while a bird is perched among the branches with the significant legend â€œthe soul of Osiris,â€ 262 [pg 111] showing that the spirit of the dead god was believed to haunt his sacred tree. 263 Again, in the series of sculptures which illustrate the myst ic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philae, a tamaris..."

Chapter IX. The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy.Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: myrrhhigh confidence

Books Mentioning Myrrh

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

80 books

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Myrrh in Historical Sources

Preparation

Ritual

Symbolism

Preparations and ritual uses

Compound aromatic oil

Aloes and myrrh pill

Myrrh Archive Contexts

Astrology

Preparation

Ritual

Safety

Myrrh Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

The Golden Bough

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Myrrh