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Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow
An extensive grimorium of Wortcunning, or herb-magic, the Pleasure-Garden treats of the secret knowledge of trees and herbs as delivered by the Fallen Angels unto mankind. The book’s principal concerns are the sorcery and gnosis of the Greenwood, as arising from the varied luminaries of the Eternal Gardens of the Arte Magical. As a grimoire of Spiritual Botany, the Book is a Hortus Conclusus of text and image intended for the indwelling of these plant-spirits. The work encompasses magical practices, formulae, and mystical exegesis, all treating the respective arcana of Nature-Spirits and the powers of individual plants. Magical foci are on devotion, purity, humility, silence, solitude, and the hieros-gamos of wortcunner and plant as a tutelary relationship, in conjunction with the Mysteries of Cain, first tiller of the soil. The whole is intended as a textual reification of occult herbalism within the context of the Sabbatic Craft Tradition.
The work was initially issued in Three Editions:
Standard Edition: limited to 576 numbered copies, casebound in gilt-stamped luminescent green bookcloth.
Deluxe Edition: limited 72 numbered copies casebound in full brown goat, gold-stamped with slipcase and accompanied by the mystery-text The Epistle of the Tree, 526 pages.
Arbor Infernis Edition: This special edition edition was limited to 77 copies, casebound in Moss-green cloth with Mandrake Death’s Head blocked in gold on the front cover. Each copy is accompanied by an orginal hand-drawn talisman of coloured ink on papyrus, bearing one of 77 Emanants of the Arbor Infernis — the liminal genii of Midnight’s Eden.
The work was initially issued in Three Editions:
Standard Edition: limited to 576 numbered copies, casebound in gilt-stamped luminescent green bookcloth.
Deluxe Edition: limited 72 numbered copies casebound in full brown goat, gold-stamped with slipcase and accompanied by the mystery-text The Epistle of the Tree, 526 pages.
Arbor Infernis Edition: This special edition edition was limited to 77 copies, casebound in Moss-green cloth with Mandrake Death’s Head blocked in gold on the front cover. Each copy is accompanied by an orginal hand-drawn talisman of coloured ink on papyrus, bearing one of 77 Emanants of the Arbor Infernis — the liminal genii of Midnight’s Eden.
520 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 9, 2018
This is rather an encyclopaedic handbook of herbal magic than everything else, meaning, it mostly benefits the more advanced practitioner (which is not a bad thing) who wants to get concrete advice on the properties of a nearly every conceivable plant or practice. At the same time you might want to at least cursory read it from cover to cover and write down a more informative table of contents or reference-sheet to actually get from A (your intention) to B (the right page). The verbose, archaic language of Schulke is obviously not for everyone, what bothers me more is the complete lack of context of the presented information. Basically I continously asked myself: "says who?" I don't say this from any kind of scientific high horse or such, but just to point to a general problem of occult practical literature which abounds in practical teachings, giving very little experiential or historical backup.
July 22, 2012
Daniel Schulke has written a deep, intense treatise on magick that is not for the faint of heart. Taken directly from the Cultus Sabbati, "Viridarium Umbris: The Pleasure Garden of Shadow" is an in depth look and contemplation of the witch's herbal craft. I highly recommend it for anyone who considers themselves a serious student of magickal herbalism and Craft.
September 9, 2014
I loved this. I'm not a big fan of herbal magick stuff, it's always too simple and superficial. This is a book that is essentially an entire magickal path around plant based magick and covered everything. I have other works by Schulke I never touched, definitely going to read them soon after this.
July 31, 2011
The compleate book of herbal sorcery and the best of of the author, as it does not limit itself to his own particular tradition's symbolism and instead presents a full working grimoire of the Green Arte.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews