“The mandragora officinarum or mandrake, is accredited with possessing the most remarkable magical powers. Its narcotic properties were recognized by the Greeks, who employed it to deaden pain during surgical operations, and it has been identified also with baaras, the mystic herb used by the Jews for casting out demons. … The occult properties of the mandrake, while little understood, have been responsible for the adoption of the plant as a talisman capable of increasing the value or quantity of anything with which it was associated.As a phallic charm, the mandrake was considered to be an infallible cure for sterility. … The root of the plant closely resembles a human body and often bore the outlines of the human head, arms, or legs. This striking similarity between the body of man and the mandragora is one of the puzzles of natural science nd is the real basis for the veneration in which this plan was held. ….
According to a popular superstition, the mandrake shrank from being touched and, crying out with a human voice, clung desperately to the soil in which it was imbedded. … During the Middle Ages, mandrake charms brought great prices and an art was evolved by which the resemblance between the mandrake and the human body was considerably accentuated. Like most superstitions, the belief in the peculiar powers of the mandrake was founded upon an ancient doctrine concerning the true nature of the plant. ‘It is slightly narcotic,’ says Eliphas Levi, ‘and an aphrodisiacal virtue was ascribed to it by the ancients. … The analogies of Nature compel us to admit the notion, at least as a possibility, that the first men were, in this case, a family of gigantic, sensitive mandragora, animated by the sun, who rooted themselves up from the earth.’” ~Manly P. Hall
Magical Mandrake
While the mandrake has physical properties such as being a narcotic and pain reducer, those physical properties are not really magical. The use by the Jews to cast out demons seems more like magic. Having the ability to increase the quality or quantity of anything it is associated with is certainly a magical property, and a highly desirable one. But is there any real evidence that it has those magical properties?
Exagerated Mandrake from Harry Potter
Magical Mandrake Explained
While the Magical Mandrake may have narcotic and pain-killing abilities, the other properties may be due simply to the placebo effect. That means that when given a useless treatment that they are told will work, about twenty percent of the people will get well simply because they believed the treatment would work. Belief is a powerful thing. Or it may be that the real powers of the mandrake are more spiritual but the mystery schools didn’t want to reveal its true properties so they gave the mandrake magical ones.
Magical Mandrake Men
Eliphas Levi suggests that the real secret of the mandrake is that the men were actually giant sensitive mandrakes. What evidence he may have of that idea is not given. I suspect that like many myths regarding spiritual things, it is allegorical rather than literal. We get a hint of that when he says these magical mandrake men were “animated by the sun”. Here he is saying much in a short statement if only more of us understood the allegory. What it is saying is that just as the sun turned ordinary mandrakes into magical mandrakes, so also the Spiritual Sun turns plant-like humans into spiritual super-beings by awakening their latent spiritual faculties.
