HERB - Herbal Oil?

[Walter J. Wakefield]

The recipe I have I got from my mundane herb club.  I actually thought it
was earlier than that, but they did not date it.  This is essentially the
same recipe - a large handful of each lavender, mint, rosemary, rue,
sage, and wormwood in 1 gallon strong cider vinegar in a covered stone
jar.  Let stand 14 days in the summer's heat, strain and add 1 oz.
pounded camphor gum.  I think I have also seen a recipe that calls for a
hogshead of vinegar and pounds of the herbs.

For it to work as an antiseptic, the sage, lavender, and wormwood are
required.  I might be inclinde to add thyme and/or cloves as well.  These
are all strongly antiseptic.  I ran across a study somewhere (I know not
where now) done around WW II comparing the antiseptic abilities of
various compounds.  They compared herbal essential oils to phenol, which
was the standard for disinfecting things at the time.  Oil of clove and
oil of thyme were something like 10 times better at killing germs than
phenol, and sage, lavender, and wormwood were close.  Wish I could find
that again!

And I too would like to know what the occult connection is, unless it is
just a cleansing agent?

Suzanna, the herbalist, Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra

________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
============================================================================
Go to http://lists.ansteorra.org/lists.html to perform mailing list tasks.