Found in the Hermetikon archive

Black Pepper

Piper nigrum

Black Pepper 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: 59
Contexts: 6
Mentions: 239

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: black pepper
Latin name: Piper nigrum(candidate)
Identity note: Pepper may refer to many pungent plants; black pepper is the intended anchor.

Safety

moderate

Food use is common; concentrated piperine or medicinal use may affect drug metabolism.

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

MSK About Herbs: Food use is common; concentrated piperine or medicinal use may affect drug metabolism.

Aliases

black pepperpepperpeppercornPiper nigrum

Black Pepper in Historical Sources

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

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

Preparation

high

Culpeper uses black pepper in a compound electuary with aromatics, roots, steel filings prepared with vinegar, sweet almond oil, musk, and honey.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 59

Identity

high

Hill's Black Pepper entry anchors the intended plant as Piper nigrum and describes it as an eastern climbing plant, which helps separate it from other pepper-named plants.

The Family Herbal | John Hill | 1755

Page 311

Ritual

medium

Agrippa's spirit-raising fumigation includes pepper-wort with lignum aloes, storax, musk, saffron, and lapwing blood; this is pepper-name ritual evidence but not securely black pepper.

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

Page 145

Preparations and ritual uses

Compound electuary

high

Culpeper's electuary uses black pepper with myrobalans, aromatics, roots, steel filings, sweet almond oil, musk, and honey.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal | Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

Chapter 59

Spirit fume with pepper-wort

medium

Agrippa's fume uses pepper-wort in a spirit-working incense; preserve this separately from black pepper because the plant identity differs.

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

Page 145

Black Pepper Archive Contexts

Compact source patterns from the extracted citation set.

Medicine

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

Matched as pepper; medium confidence.

Astrology

4 passages across 4 books; strongest source: Fourth Book & Magical Treatises.

Matched as pepper; medium confidence.

Folk magic

3 passages across 3 books; strongest source: Aradia.

Matched as pepper; medium confidence.

Preparation

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

Matched as black pepper; high confidence.

Ritual

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

Matched as pepper; medium confidence.

Safety

1 passage across 1 book; strongest source: Liber 777.

Matched as black pepper; high confidence.

Black Pepper 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

"...Emblicks, Nutmegs, of each five drams, Water-cress seeds, Asarabacca roots, Persian Origanum, or else Dittany of Crete, black Pepper, Olibanum, Ammi, Ginger, Tamarisk, Indian Nard, Squinanth, Cypress roots of each half an ounce, filings of steel prepared with Vinegar twenty drams, let the Myrobalans be roasted with fresh butter, let the rest, being powdered, be sprinkled with oil of sweet Almonds, then add Musk one dram, and with their treble weight in Honey, make it into an electuary according to art. *Culpeper.*] It helps the immoderate flowing of the menses in wo..."

Chapter 59Open in Reader

Preparationalias: black pepperhigh confidence

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter

1854

"...le Ointment aconite aconitine alkaline camphorated ammoniacal.. . antimonial bayberry compound . . . belladonna benzoin black pepper. '. '. blue boracic acid . . . . boric acid brown ] citrine .' calamine calomel .' camphor cantharides .... carbolic acid . . . chrysarobin citrine cocculus indicus creasote cucumber diachylon , discutient [ eucalyptus ' 1322 1344 1271 , 1366 .1923 !3, 1372 ...1323 . .1:122 . . 1377 . . 1400 •5, 13.57 . . 1260 . . 1345 ..1260 ..2091 r, 1364 . . 1321 ..1336 . . 1320 . . 1320 . . 1322 ', 1323 '. 1322 .1320 . 1326 , 1325 .1322 .1448 1323 ..."

Page 1316Open in Reader

Preparationalias: black pepperhigh confidence

The Family Herbal

John Hill

1755

"...ing it, though it will do very well in infusion, or by way of tea. It is excellent against stoppages of the menses. ### BLACK PEPPER. *Piper nigrum.* AN eastern plant, of a very singular kind. It grows six or eight feet in length, but the stalks are not able to support themselves upright: they are round, green, jointed, and thick, and when they trail upon the ground, roots are sent forth from these joints. The leaves are large, of an oval figure, of a firm substance, and ribbed highly: they stand on short pedicles, one at each joint. The flowers are small and incons..."

Page 311Open in Reader

Preparationalias: black pepperhigh confidence

Liber 777

Aleister Crowley

1909

Page 122Open in Reader

Safetyalias: black pepperhigh confidence

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim

1533

"...e the fume of spermaceti for the raising of spirits. Wherefore, if a fume be made of that and lignum-aloes, red storax, pepper-wort, musk, and saffron, all tempered together, with the blood of a lapwing, it will quickly gather airy spirits together, and if it be used about the graves of the dead, it gathers together spirits and the ghosts of the dead. So, as often as we direct any work to the Sun, we must make suffumigations with Solary things, and if to the Moon, with Lunary things, and so of the rest. And we must know that as there is a contrariety and enmit..."

Page 145Open in Reader

Astrologyalias: peppermedium confidence

Books Mentioning Black Pepper

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

59 books

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Nicholas Culpeper | 1653

black pepperpepper

24 mentionscited

King's American Dispensatory

Harvey Wickes Felter | 1854

black pepperpepper

23 mentionscited

The Family Herbal

John Hill | 1755

black pepperpepper

17 mentionscited

Encyclopaedia of Antiquities

Thomas Dudley Fosbroke | 1825

Archive Profile

Herb identity

Safety

Aliases

Black Pepper in Historical Sources

Preparation

Identity

Ritual

Preparations and ritual uses

Compound electuary

Spirit fume with pepper-wort

Black Pepper Archive Contexts

Medicine

Astrology

Folk magic

Preparation

Ritual

Safety

Black Pepper Cited Excerpts

Culpeper's Complete Herbal

King's American Dispensatory

The Family Herbal

Liber 777

Three Books of Occult Philosophy

Related Archive Material

Related herbs

Books Mentioning Black Pepper