Medicine
highCulpeper gives onion a plague-era household profile: eaten fasting with bread and salt as a preservative, or roasted with treacle as a salve for plague sores and putrefied ulcers.
Found in the Hermetikon archive
Onion
Allium cepa
Onion 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
- low concern
- Books
- 80
- Contexts
- 3
- Mentions
- 321
Archive Profile
Identity, safety, and search aliases used to connect this herb to the archive.
Herb identity
- Common name
- onion
- Latin name
- Allium cepa(candidate)
- Identity note
- Archive hits are mostly food, medicine, and folk household references.
Safety
low concern
Food use is generally low concern; medicinal dosing and topical use can irritate.
Historical archive citations are not medical advice. Use modern clinical and poison-control sources for ingestion, dosage, pregnancy, and toxicity questions.
- Kew POWO: Food use is generally low concern; medicinal dosing and topical use can irritate.
Aliases
onionAllium cepaonions
Onion in Historical Sources
Curated archive synthesis of recurring uses, recipes, rituals, and interpretive problems.
Hermetikon's curated reading of Onion (Allium cepa) is built from 3 source-linked archive notes and 2 preparation or ritual-use entries. The strongest recurring contexts are medicine, astrology, and symbolism. Each note below links back to the archive source used for the claim.
Astrology
highFrazer preserves a lunar anomaly tradition in which the onion is said to sprout during the waning moon and wither during the moon's increase.
The Golden Bough | James George Frazer | 1911
Chapter IX. The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy.
Symbolism
highSpence records Egyptian onion symbolism, treating the layered bulb as an emblem of the universe and a plant believed to absorb infectious matter.
Preparations and ritual uses
Roasted salve
highCulpeper hollows a large onion, fills it with treacle, roasts it under embers, removes the outer skin, and beats it into a salve for plague sores or putrefied ulcers.
Syrup
highKing's gives an onion-and-sugar heat extraction in which onion slices layered with sugar produce a syrup.
Onion Archive Contexts
Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.
Astrology
4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Aradia.
Matched as onion; high confidence.
Preparation
7 passages across 7 books; strongest source: Culpeper's Complete Herbal.
Matched as onion; high confidence.
Safety
2 passages across 2 books; strongest source: Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
Matched as onions; high confidence.
Onion Cited Excerpts
Representative public passages with the herb mention highlighted and linked to archive source material.
Culpeper's Complete Herbal
Nicholas Culpeper
1653
"...untry people a great preservative against infection, to eat Onions fasting with bread and salt: As also to make a great Onion hollow, filling the place with good treacle, and after to roast it well under the embers, which, after taking away the outermost skin thereof, being beaten together, is a sovereign salve for either plague or sore, or any other putrefied ulcer. The juice of Onions is good for either scalding or burning by fire, water, or gunpowder, and used with vinegar, takes away all blemishes, spots and marks in the skin: and dropped in the ears, eas..."
Chapter 14Open in Reader
Preparationalias: onionhigh confidence
King's American Dispensatory
Harvey Wickes Felter
1854
"...ch other with sugar between. This is set by the (ire in a saucer or glass vessel, and kept there until the juice of the onion and the sugai have, by the aid of the heat, formed a syrup in the vessel. It may be given freely. SYRUPUS ALTHiE^ (U. S. P.)— SYRUP OF ALTERA. Synonym: Syrup of marshmnllow. Preparation. — "Althtea, cut into small pieces, fifty grammes (50 Gm.) [1 oz. av., 334 grs.]; alcohol, thirty cubic centimeters (30 Cc.) [1 lis, 7 111]; glycerin, one hundred cubic centimeters (100 Cc.) [3 fls, 183 TTl]; sugar, seven hundred gramme.s (700 Gm.) [1 l..."
Page 992Open in Reader
Preparationalias: onionhigh confidence
The Family Herbal
John Hill
1755
"...rt used; it is roundish, and composed of a great multitude of coats laid one over another. A syrup made of the juice of onions and honey, is excellent for an asthma. ### The Opoponax Plant. *Opoponax.* A LARGE and robust plant, of which we have but imperfect descriptions: it is a native of the East, and has not been brought into Europe. It is said to be eleven or twelve feet high: the stalk round, thick, and hollow. The leaves very large; and each composed of a vast number of smaller set upon a divided stalk. The flowers we are informed stand in very large rou..."
Page 301Open in Reader
Preparationalias: onionshigh confidence
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim
1533
"...eat of the fire doth make letters apparent to the sight which before could not be read, being writ with the juice of an onion, or with milk; and as letters wrote upon a stone with the fat of a goat, and altogether unperceived, when the stone is put into vinegar appear and shew themselves; and as a blow with a stick stirs up the madness of a dog which before lay asleep — so doth the Celestial Harmony disclose virtues lying in the water; stirs them up, strengtheneth them, and makes them manifest; and, as I may so say, produceth that into Act which before was on..."
Page 125Open in Reader
Preparationalias: onionhigh confidence
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer
1911
"...axing, do dwindle with the waning moon,†and he quotes from a commentary of Plutarch's on Hesiod a statement that the onion is the only vegetable which violates this great law of nature by sprouting in the wane and withering in the increase of the moon. 339 Scottish Highlanders allege that in the increase of the moon everything has a tendency to grow or stick together; 340 and they call the second moon of autumn “the ripening moon†( Gealach an abachaidh ), because they imagine that crops ripen as much by its light as by day. 341 From this supposed infl..."
Chapter IX. The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy.Open in Reader
Astrologyalias: onionhigh confidence
Books Mentioning Onion
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
oniononions
41 mentionscited
Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton | 1621
oniononions
29 mentions
Encyclopaedia of Occultism
Lewis Spence | 1920
oniononions
16 mentions
King's American Dispensatory
Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854
oniononions
12 mentionscited
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1918
onionsonion
8 mentions
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable
E. Cobham Brewer | 1870
onionsonion
8 mentions
Mystic London
Charles Maurice Davies | 1875
onions
8 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1913
onions
7 mentions
The Book of Witches
Unknown Author (Historical Compilation) | 1900
oniononions
7 mentions
Christian Astrology
William Lilly | 1647
oniononions
7 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1916
oniononions
7 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1911
oniononions
6 mentionscited
Demonology and Devil-lore
Moncure Daniel Conway | 1879
oniononions
6 mentions
Psychic Self-Defense
Dion Fortune (Violet Mary Firth) | 1930
onionsonion
6 mentions
Mysteries of All Nations
James Grant | 1880
onions
6 mentions
Extraordinary Popular Delusions
Charles Mackay | 1841
oniononions
6 mentions
The White Spark
H. Stanley Redgrove | 1912
oniononions
5 mentions
Demonologia
J. S. Forsyth | 1827
onion
4 mentions
Encyclopaedia of Antiquities
Thomas Dudley Fosbroke | 1825
onions
4 mentions
Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted
Gustavus Hindman Miller | 1901
onions
4 mentions
Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception
Max Heindel | 1909
onionsonion
4 mentions
Literature of the Ancient Egyptians
E.A. Wallis Budge | 1914
onions
4 mentions
The Family Herbal
John Hill | 1755
onionsonion
3 mentionscited
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim | 1533
oniononions
3 mentionscited
Thaumaturgia
Richard Harris Dalton Barham | 1835
oniononions
3 mentions
Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses
Anonymous (Attributed to Moses) | 1800
oniononions
3 mentions
Witchcraft, Magic & Alchemy
Grillot de Givry | 1929
onions
3 mentions
Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Paracelsus
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) | 1493
onionsonion
3 mentions
Balder the Beautiful, Volume I
James George Frazer | 1913
onions
3 mentions
Jungle Ways
William Seabrook | 1930
onionsonion
3 mentions
Tibetan Book of the Dead
Padmasambhava (traditional attribution) | 1200
onion
3 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1913
onions
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1906
onions
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1912
onions
2 mentions
Aradia
Charles Godfrey Leland | 1899
onion
2 mentions
The Discoverie of Witchcraft
Reginald Scot | 1584
onion
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1913
onion
2 mentions
The Golden Bough
James George Frazer | 1890
onions
2 mentions
Illustration of the Occult Sciences
Ebenezer Sibly | 1784
onions
2 mentions
Transcendental Magic
Eliphas Levi | 1854
onion
2 mentions
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 10
Aleister Crowley | 1913
onion
2 mentions
Zanoni
Edward Bulwer-Lytton | 1842
onion
2 mentions
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 8
Aleister Crowley | 1912
onion
2 mentions
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 9
Aleister Crowley | 1913
onion
2 mentions
Philosophumena (Vol 1)
Hippolytus of Rome | 222
onion
2 mentions
On the Mysteries
Iamblichus | 300
onion
2 mentions
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1917
onion
2 mentions
Clavis Astrologiae Elimata
Henry Coley | 1669
onions
2 mentions
Witchcraft & Second Sight
John Gregorson Campbell | 1902
onions
2 mentions
The Influence of the Stars
Rosa Baughan | 1880
onions
2 mentions
The Mathnawi, Vol. 2
R. A. Nicholson | 1926
onion
2 mentions
Human Animals
Frank Hamel | 1915
onion
2 mentions
Myths of the Cherokee
James Mooney | 1900
onion
2 mentions
Curiosities of Superstition
William Henry Davenport Adams | 1882
onion
2 mentions
A World of Wonders
James Grant | 1845
onion
2 mentions
Myths and Fables of To-Day
Samuel Adams Drake | 1900
onion
2 mentions
Fact and Fable in Psychology
Joseph Jastrow | 1900
onions
2 mentions
Error's Chains
Frank S. Dobbins | 1883
onion
2 mentions
Morals and Dogma
Albert Pike | 1871
onion
2 mentions
The Law of Psychic Phenomena
Thomson Jay Hudson | 1893
onion
2 mentions
The Elements of Theology
Proclus | 450
onion
2 mentions
The Holy Kabbalah
Arthur Edward Waite | 1929
onion
2 mentions
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2: Anthropogenesis
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky | 1888
onion
2 mentions
Secrets of Black Arts
Anonymous | 1850
onion
2 mentions
The Evil Eye
Frederick Thomas Elworthy | 1895
onion
2 mentions
The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky | 1897
onion
2 mentions
Isis Unveiled Vol. 1
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky | 1877
onion
2 mentions
Strange Survivals
Sabine Baring-Gould | 1892
onion
2 mentions
Magic & Miracles
T. Adolphus Trollope | 1848
onion
2 mentions
The Willows
Algernon Blackwood | 1907
onions
2 mentions
Transylvanian Superstitions
Emily Gerard | 1885
onions
2 mentions
Pow-Wows
John George Hohman | 1820
onion
1 mention
The Mathnawi
R. A. Nicholson | 1925
onion
1 mention
Manual of Astrology
Raphael (Robert Cross Smith) | 1828
onions
1 mention
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 7
Aleister Crowley | 1912
onions
1 mention
Hatha Yoga Pradipika
Svatmarama | 1400
onion
1 mention
The Equinox Vol. 1 No. 3
Aleister Crowley | 1910
onion
1 mention
Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
James Hastings | 1908
onion
1 mention
The Kabbalah
Adolphe Franck | 1843
onion
1 mention
The Authentic Red Dragon and Black Hen
Anonymous | 1800
onion
1 mention