by Richard Katz

The Festival of St John the Baptist, celebrated particularly in Europe, is June 24, just after the northern Summer Solstice, when the solar light forces have peaked. It is also around this time that we collect the St. John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum, whose yellow radiating flowers are at peak bloom.

About the St. John’s Wort plant

St. John’s Wort is a perennial, native to Europe and surrounding regions, and widely naturalized in the temperate regions of the world, including the USA. St. John’s Wort needs adequate sun, well-drained, but not particularly fertile soil. It grows well in grasslands, pastures and meadows, and also in forest clearings. St John’s Wort grows from a robust rhizome, spreading by runners that grow along, or just under the surface of the soil. Despite its medicinal properties, St John’s Wort has been considered an invasive weed, and its population has been reduced by the introduction of the St. John’s Wort beetle Chrysolina quadrigemina. Thus growing St. John’s Wort for its medicinal properties can be challenging.

“Wort” is an old English name for “herb.” The genus name Hypericum is from the Greek hyper meaning “above” or “over” and eikon, meaning “image,” and which is also the root word of “icon.” One explanation is the Hypericum was traditionally placed over a religious picture or icon to ward off evil spirits, or perhaps it means that it had power over an “apparition” or appearance of an unwanted spirit. The species name perforatum, refers to the translucent spots on the leaves, which appear as if perforated.

The herb has been known at least from the time of the ancient Greeks for both its medicinal and spiritual properties, as a protection against evil forces which led to disease. The Christian era extended the spiritual meaning of the plant, with the association with St. John the Baptist, whose festival stands in relation to the northern Summer Solstice as Christmas relates to the Winter Solstice. St. John, as the Essene initiate into the mysteries of the Sun, pointed to the Christ as the embodiment of the Sun force that has descended into the depths of the Earth. His statement, “I must decrease so that He may increase,” parallels the descent of the Sun from Summer to Winter Solstice, when the solar light and warmth must become an inner, rather than outer experience.

The traditional medicinal uses of St. John’s Wort were closely associated with its spiritual properties. In Greek and Roman times, it was used not only for spiritual protection, but also as a fumigant for purification of the home, and for a host of ailments from wounds and bites, digestive disorders, and melancholia (depression). Paracelsus, the great 16^th century alchemist-physician, considered St. John’s Wort as the “king” of herbs, a universal remedy, especially indicated for wounds, but also for despair (depression) and suicidal tendencies provoked by “specters” (visions of evil spirits).

Modern clinical use of St. John’s Wort is extensive and includes treating pain, nerve damage, insomnia, inflammation, as a diuretic and to promote the healing of bruises, burns and lacerations. In homeopathic practice, Hypericum is used extensively as a first-aid remedy for nerve pain and puncture wounds. Studies in recent decades have indicated the effectiveness of St. John’s Wort for treating mild to moderate depression, including seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

St John’s Wort oil glands containing many medicinal oils and resins, most prominently hyperforin and hypercin, the latter of which yields a deep red color when the leaves and flowers are macerated and placed in olive oil to create a traditional healing liniment. Hypercin is also known for its photosensitizing properties, which is one of the reasons that it is considered injurious to cattle who graze on the plant, who can then become overly photosensitive. The oil is also used for childhood bed-wetting, by applying it to the inner thighs before bedtime.  

One of the effects of St. John’s Wort extracts taken internally is that they can speed up the metabolism, which is important for digestive dysfunction, which can be one of the contributing factors in depression. This also has the effect of speeding the liver’s processing of toxins, and thus some pharmaceutical drugs may be rendered ineffective. Thus, the medical profession cautions against taking St. John’s Wort because of this interaction with prescribed drugs.

Understanding the healing gesture of Saint John’s Wort

St. John’s Wort is an herb of the sun, embodying both the light and warmth forces. We clearly see its light gesture in the radiating form of the plant’s growth pattern, from the spreading stems to the wide-open petals and stamens, which reach out to meet the time of maximum outer light, with the high sun of the Summer Solstice.

The photosensitizing qualities of St. John’s Wort are an expression of its ability to make us more permeable to the light. This is an important therapeutic process for Winter Solstice soul state, such as in depression (darkness of soul) and Seasonal Affective Disorder (feeling the lack of external light). However, in the Summer Solstice soul state, the light is too intense, and we lose our healthy boundaries. This is the image of the penetration or puncturing of the skin in wounds or feeling invaded by malevolent psychic forces. The summer sun can pull us out of ourselves, and then at night we become disembodied, as the as the child who can no longer control his bladder, or when we have nightmares.

The St. John’s Wort plant is able to take the light and warmth of the sun and transform it into its wonderful healing oils and resins. These substances bring warmth into our blood and metabolic regions, helping us incarnate our spiritual forces. The folk name for the red St. John’s Oil as “the blood of Christ,” shows connection to the healing mystery of the blood. Thus St. John’s Wort is not only a plant of the light, as we particularly see in the upper regions of the plant, but also a plant that brings warmth and vitality into the earth, as we see in the lower regions, particularly the rhizomes and roots below the earth. The same forces which are nourishing to the skin, anti-inflammatory, and soothing to the nerves, for the herbal and homeopathic uses of St. John’s Wort, are nourishing and stabilizing to the soul, when traumatized by its vulnerability to the psychic influences and over-expansion.

Thus St. John’s Wort, including its use as a flower essence, is far more than a depression remedy. It is a regulator of our relationship to the inner and outer light. Its spiritual lesson is to fortify ourselves by taking up the light into the warmth of our blood, where it can protect and nourish our bodies and souls and allow us to radiate light and warmth from within.

Please enjoy this video of FES staff member Jon Enos with the St John’s Wort plant at Terra Flora.