The Poison Path Herbal, One Year Later

The Poison Path Herbal, One Year Later

We’re closing in on the one-year anniversary of my first book.  The Poison Path Herbal:  Baneful Herbs, Medicinal Nightshades & Ritual Entheogens was published by Inner Traditions/Park Street Press in October of 2021.   I knew writing a book would change things, but I had no idea what it would set into motion.  I thought it was a good time to write about some of the things that I’ve come to realize since the book made its way into reader’s hands.  I am currently working on my second book, The Poison Path Grimoire: Dark Herbalism, Poison Magic & Baneful Allies, but before I say any more about that I would like to come full circle on The Poison Path Herbal.

I wrote The Poison Path Herbal over a number of years, starting in 2017.  It began as a call to compile all of the botanical information and plant lore that I had accumulated over the second decade of my occult studies.  There wasn’t a lot of information readily available on the topic at the time, and The Poison Path as it was being called had only been around for a few years, as far as people calling it that.  Sarah Lawless, Occvlta, Harold Roth and Tom Hatsis were a few of my early influences; unknowingly weaving together the threads of this web that would one day connect us all.

The Poison Path Herbal

The book starts out with a lot of lore and terminology that was originally in a totally different order, and I feel like I may have gotten a little off topic with some of the more esoteric connections that I was making.  Reader response to the book has been extremely positive.  People are excited to read about these plants, and hungry for knowledge about them.  Baneful herbs like mandrake and deadly nightshade strike a chord deep within our witchy hearts. 

It has served its purpose, getting this information out to the larger Poison Path community, and providing people with some kind of basis to start from.  That is the main issue people first encounter when looking into The Poison Path.  “It all sounds great, but where do we start and how do we not poison ourselves?!” I had the same problem, and it wasn’t until I realized that this information didn’t exist in any kind of public forum, that I set out on my experimentation.

The Poison Path Herbal is not the magnum opus, but the first step on an eternally winding path.  Looking back through the book, only just a few years later, leaves me with a feeling of wanting to do much more.  Every author feels this way because of the amount of time that passes between writing a book, and it actually being a physical book.  We are often very different people than we were when we wrote said book. 

The Poison Path Herbal, was the first book of its kind.  Up until then there were no books that took an in-depth approach to the formulation of entheogenic preparations for ritual use, while simultaneously providing accurate historical information and folklore on plants otherwise ignored.  I did it.  I got the important information together through rigorous research and personal experimentation, and now its out there.  It has created a ripple effect which has been amazing to watch. 

I was a relatively ‘green’ poisoner when I set out to write this book, and over the past five years I have learned and experienced more than I would have ever thought possible of the path and the places where it intersects.  Its so exciting to be part of something “brand new” to modern witchcraft, and to grow and share with a community of likeminded practitioners is my greatest honor.   

It has become much more than just my own personal practice and exploration of these plants.  Through the events of the past year, I have come into contact with so many new plant practitioners from different backgrounds, and I have deepened the relationships that I already had.  As a community, I couldn’t hope for a more supportive group of people.  The Poison Path is spreading and taking on a life of its own.  The plants are bringing us together in ways that we don’t even realize yet.  There are so many things to be said and stones to be looked under, and we need all of us to do it! 

The Poison Path Grimoire

There are so many different side avenues to take on The Poison Path, that are fascinating, alarming and magical.  Poison has played an important role in the understanding of magical practices, especially those regarded as malefic witchcraft.  The history of poison is as ancient as the origins of the witch-archetype and the story of both runs parallel into the deepest of antiquity.  Investigating poison as synonymous to witchcraft, opens us to many important connections between the two.  To understand the ways that ancient people thought about poison/witchcraft can provide us with the keys to understanding “poison” as an occult force that can be worked with. 

In various pantheons and mythologies from around the world, there are surprisingly many deities and spirits connected to the toxic and the contagious.  Interestingly many of these figures, some obscure and some well-known, all have their own connections to the occult arts as well.  Spirits like Medea and Circe can be called upon as spiritual allies to practitioners of occult herbalism, and have a special affinity for poisonous and psychoactive plants.  Part of the pursuit in walking The Poison Path is to form connections with these spirits.   

That is the focus of The Poison Path Grimoire, the practical incorporation of poison plant allies into spell work and spiritual practice.  Like all plants, poisonous plants have their own area of specialization when it comes to magical correspondences.  In this book, the reader will be taken on a journey of ‘poison magic’ history to gather correspondences and symbolic associations from some unexpected places.  Plant, mineral and occult correspondences of the Poison Path will be explored in depth, and the unique ways that these ingredients can be employed in ritual.  Since it is a grimoire, it will be full of recipes and rituals that tap into the powers of poison plant allies like deadly nightshade, hemlock and datura. 

Readers will learn safe and creative ways to incorporate baneful botanicals into their magic for a wide variety of different purposes.  By the end of the book, the reader will have an intimate understanding of the potential applications of baneful herbs in magical practice. 

I will be sharing more information about this project as it develops, and am looking forward to celebrating the anniversary of The Poison Path Herbal this Halloween!  Thank you all for your support and reading what I write! 

Banefully yours, Coby Michael

September 2022