MAGICALLY CHARGED HERBAL TINCTURES
by Clare Vaughn

Anyone who has put St. John's Wort and vodka into a glass jar and set the jar in sunlight to steep has magically charged an herbal tincture. An herbal tincture is a natural way to absorb the energies of an herb or other magic item to make a health-giving medicine.

The actual process of charging a tincture is not difficult. The critical ingredients for success are knowledge and intent. Know what energies you want to put into the tincture, and why. You may need to do advance research and planning, but always formulate your intent to charge the tincture with healing energy. Hold this intent as clearly and steadily as you can while you charge, and you're well on the way to success.

Once you have the actual magical intent clear in your mind, the question is what method you want to use to charge the tincture. You can choose from several different options, either singly or in combinations, based on your preferences and magical tradition. In all of the discussions below, I assume you are charging an ordinary small glass bottle of tincture, but you could equally well charge any amount in any container.

Touch Charging

The touch charging method involves charging the tincture directly through your body. You can use your own energies, or bring outside energies through yourself. To charge a tincture using this method, take the tincture bottle in your hands and spend a moment aligning yourself with the energies of the tincture. Summon the energies you want to charge the tincture. Hold this until you feel that the tincture is thoroughly charged. Allow the flow of energies to taper off and stop. Set down the bottle, and release any energies you may be bringing through yourself.

Prayer Charging

The prayer method brings higher energies into play by requesting the aid of a divinity or angelic being to help you charge the tincture with healing energies. Hold the tincture bottle and ask the aid of the being(s) you want help from, using any prayers or blessings you are comfortable with. This method is particularly helpful if you have trouble holding focus, or if you are afraid of doing something wrong while charging the tincture.

Invocation Charging

With invocation, you are bringing divine or angelic energies directly down into the tincture. Instead of asking a spirit to help you charge the tincture, you are asking it to charge it for you. As with the previous method, use whatever level of contact with the tincture you prefer; use whatever actual method of invocation you are comfortable with. Some traditions of prayer cross the line into invocation, and most methods of invocation also involve prayer, so this method can become a more intense version of the previous method. You may find with practice that you want to move from one into the other during a single charging operation.

Ritual Charging

Some magical practitioners prefer to use a full-blown scripted ritual to charge items such as amulets or talismans, and this method is useful for tinctures also. It requires a chunk of time, but the investment may be worth it. Select your ritual, make your preparations, and treat the bottle of tincture as though it were a blank amulet or talisman waiting to be charged. Perform the ritual in the usual fashion. It is wise to temporarily shield the tincture in silk while doing the closing phase of the ritual, but you can unwrap it again once you're through and ready to put things away.

Sun and Moon Charging

Using the Sun and Moon to charge a tincture requires no energy input from you, and no ritual unless you want to use one. Make sure the tincture you want to charge is made from herbs that work with the proper luminary. For example, a tincture of St. John's Wort would benefit from standing in sunlight but not from exposure to moonlight, while a tincture of mugwort would benefit from sitting out all night in moonlight but not from being put in the Sun. If you plan to use moonlight, consider which phase of the Moon will be best for your intention: the waxing Moon is best for increase; the waning Moon for decrease, and so on. Once you have made your plans and are ready to carry them out, expose the tincture to the light in question for at least a couple of hours. Your tincture can stand for up to an entire day (sunrise to sunset) or night (moonrise to moonset) at one time. You can also repeat these exposures every day or night for a set period of time--a week, a lunar
quarter, or other duration.

Gems and Metals Charging

Charging with gems and metals requires no energy from you, and no ritual unless you want one. It does require knowledge, though. The only metals you can safely use to charge a tincture are gold and silver, both of which are nontoxic. Likewise, use only hard gemstones which will not dissolve in alcohol. The sole exception to this rule is the pearl, which may dissolve, but which like gold or silver is safe in tiny doses. If you're not sure the gemstone you have chosen is safe in alcohol, soak it in a little pure water instead and add one or two drops of this water to your tincture. Soak the gemstone, gold, or silver in the tincture for two hours, and then remove it and rinse it clean of tincture residue.

Final Suggestion

Ready to make a plan and put it into action? Here is an example, start to finish, of how to magically charge a tincture. This is a suggestion for one way to charge a mugwort tincture intended to help shrink ovarian cysts.

To start, take the bottle of tincture outside on the first night after the Full Moon, just before moonrise. Place the bottle where it will get as much direct moonlight as possible. Invoke the power of the waning Moon to shrink and reduce that which is too full, and ask the Moon to fill the tincture with its power. Expose the bottle to the moonlight from moonrise to moonset, being sure to take it back indoors before sunrise. Repeat each night until the dark of the Moon.

For Further Study

Herbal Healing for Women, Rosemary Gladstar. Fireside, 1993.

Natural Magic: Potions and Powers from the Magical Garden. John Michael Greer.