Mugwort: Magical Properties & Uses

Mugwort is the pre-eminent herb of dreams and altered states in the Western tradition. Its primary magical uses are divination, dreamwork, and the opening of psychic perception: it is burned before scrying, tucked into dream pillows to produce prophetic dreams, and used to anoint scrying mirrors and divination tools. The active compound thujone is mildly psychoactive in significant quantities, which likely accounts for its longstanding association with visions and trance. For working witches, mugwort is most useful as part of pre-ritual preparation: it opens the mind to what is not immediately visible. It is also protective, with particular strength against the psychic disruption that can accompany deep divination work.

Mugwort has a long history as an emmenagogue (an herb that stimulates menstrual flow) and was used throughout European folk medicine for women's reproductive complaints. It is also a bitter digestive herb, used in European herbalism for poor digestion and liver support. Historically it flavoured ale before hops became the standard bittering agent. It remains used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as the herb of moxibustion, the warming practice in which dried mugwort is burned on or near acupuncture points. It should not be used in pregnancy.

Artemis, Diana, Hecate

Mugwort appears in the Lacnunga (the Anglo-Saxon herbal compiled around the 10th century) as the first of the Nine Sacred Herbs: "oldest of worts," the charm calls it, a plant of ancient power and the mother of all herbs. The Romans placed it in their sandals to prevent fatigue on long marches. Culpeper associated it with the moon and recommended it extensively for women's complaints throughout the monthly cycle. In German folk tradition it was gathered on Midsummer Eve and woven into garlands worn to ward off bad spirits; the dried herb was burned in the threshold smoke of homes.