Mistletoe, with its milky white berries and slender, silvery leaves, hangs from apple, willow and poplar trees in many parts of Britain today. Sacred all over Europe since ancient times, there are numerous references to its healing powers in ancient Greek mythology.

The Roman naturalist, Pliny, described how the Druids cut mistletoe at the winter solstice. They would walk, he said, leading two white bulls, deep into the forest, to their sacred oak grove, where bunches of mistletoe, dimly visible in the pale wintry light, hung from the bare branches of a giant oak. The chosen Druid clambered up the oak tree, with his golden sickle. He climbed along the huge branches in his long white robes while the rest stood waiting below, holding the four corners of a white cloak to catch the sacred boughs as he threw them down. So the golden moon-shaped sickle, symbolic of the feminine, cut the silver mistletoe, symbolic of the masculine. The Druids believed mistletoe, whose translucent milky white berries resemble spermatozoa, was the soul, spirit, or life-essence of the oak. To appease the oak tree for the loss of his sexual vigour, the Druids sacrificed the bulls, and offered up prayers to the Oak God, Hu, asking him to make the mistletoe auspicious ‘to those to whom he has granted it.’

According to Robert Graves the Druids cultivated mistletoe on apple and oak trees. Mistletoe growing on apple trees was called “the Silver bough.” It was sacred to the Celtic god Manannan and surrounded by magical myth. One person was chosen, as a great honour, to carry it to the god. He did not need any other food or drink during the journey for he was filled with the enchanting music flowing from its branches.

Mistletoe berries can be hallucinogenic. The Druids probably ate them during shamanic rituals to help them prophesy, see into other worlds, heal the sick and perform their magic. Like all shamanic peoples they knew which plants contained hallucinogens properties and they treated these plants with great respect, for they were very sacred.

According to the Vogel Insitutie, Canada, mistletoe absorbs different alkaloids (powerful plant compounds) from different trees. These alkaloids would probably have changed the quality of the vision experienced by the person who ate the berries. Taking these berries was highly dangerous since they are so toxic, and the Druids made sure that no one took them without their authorisation, impressing upon the people that terrible misfortunes would happen to anyone who cut mistletoe without permission.

According to Robert Graves, the Druids also used mistletoe as a medicine. They were expert medicine men, and they would have observed that during the course of the year the properties of mistletoe changed. According to Scheer and his colleagues in Germany in 1992, the proportions of the various constituents of mistletoe vary considerably according to the season. The Druids used it as a nerve tonic, to treat epilepsy, to treat stitches in the side; as an ointment for stiff joints and green (ie gangrenous) wounds. They gave it to wrestlers and athletes to give them strength and courage and used it to treat declining virility.

Since the 1920s a steady stream of doctors, pharmacists and scientists researching mistletoe demonstrated that it contains compounds which stimulate the immune system and compounds which stop cancer cells multiplying. The main constituents include very large compounds called lectins, smaller viscotoxins and alkaloids. Some of the mistletoe alkaloids combine together with some of the lectins and viscotoxins to form special anticancer compounds, unique to mistletoe. These stimulate the immune system as well as inhibiting cancer cells. Both crude and fermented mistletoe juices also contain immune-stimulating polysaccharides.

During the Middle Ages, Druidic traditions gradually died out and people stopped using mistletoe as a medicine or shamanic tool. It was not until the 1920s, when Rudolph Steiner became interested in its properties, that modern mistletoe research began. He believed the ancient Druids held the key to many of the health problems of his day. So he decided to go to Britain, ancient Druid capital of Europe, to seek inspiration. He travelled to the west of the country, where he found a giant Celtic Iron Age fort, high in the Shropshire hills. Standing in the cold wind alone on the hill fort, looking down on the emerald, moss green, gold and dark green patchwork of Celtic fields, he tuned in to the ancient wisdom of the Druids, who had ruled that place long ago. And as he stood there, he had a vision of mistletoe and he understood that this was the plant he was looking for.

Noticing that trees with huge outgrowths tend to suffer from repressed growth in other parts, he began looking at trees with mistletoe on them. These trees did not suffer in the same way. He believed that the excess of etheric force left the tree and went into the mistletoe. Since Steiner believed that an excess of etheric forces causes cancer in humans, he thought mistletoe would absorb these excessive forces, thus allowing the astral body to break up the tumour and disintegrate it.

Steiner therefore decided to carry out research on mistletoe. He discussed, as described in the Park Atwood Clinic 1997 brochure, possible methods of preparation with doctors, pharmacists, and scientists, willing to experiment with his idea. Within a few years they had come up with a fermented mistletoe preparation, which they called Iscador. In 1935 the Society for Cancer Research was formed at the Institut Hiscia, Arlesheim in Switzerland, and Iscador was further developed there, with Steiner advising on the method. In the 1930s several other pharmaceutical companies developed their own mistletoe preparations using different methods.

Since the 1930s scientists collaborating with Steiner grew mistletoe on a variety of different trees eventually choosing eight trees: silver-fir, sycamore, almond, hawthorn, birch, ash, apple, pine and oak, to produce eight distinct varieties of Iscador, all marketed by Weleda, to treat different types of cancer. For example, doctors prescribe apple (Mali-Iscador M) or fir mistletoe for breast cancer and oak (Quercus-Iscador Qu) or pine (Pini-Iscador P) for tumours of the digestive organs. Doctors in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland have been prescribing Iscador ever since, and it is now the most commonly used cancer drug in Germany, according to Ronald Grossarth-Maticek, Director of the Institute for Preventive Medicine, European Centre for Peace and Development, United Nations, Heidelberg, Germany.

In a normal healthy person there are certain mechanisms in every cell in their body, which keep each cell type different. In a cancer patient these ‘differentiation’ mechanisms fail and one type of cell starts to multiply, growing into a cancer. In addition to this, people with cancer have depressed immune systems, which do not destroy cancer cells before they have the time to replicate in the same way as a fully functioning immune system does. The special mistletoe anticancer compounds help to keep differentiation mechanisms working, thus preventing the cancer from forming. They also stimulate the immune system to destroy cancer cells when they have formed.

In 1997 Chernyshov and his team gave Isacdor to some of the children who had been affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident. One of the effects of radiation fallout is to depress the immune system, and these children all suffered from repeated respiratory diseases, indicating that their immune systems were not working properly. After three weeks the clinicians noticed the numbers of different immune cells from the children’s blood had increased, indicating that their immune systems were working better. They were less tired, happier and had fewer headaches, sweats and painful muscles and joints.

Iscador is often used together with conventional treatment, such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. It stimulates the immune system and alleviates pain and side-effects of conventional therapy. Patients taking Iscador can cut down on painkillers and lead a more normal life. It also protects the DNA of the patient’s healthy cells from damage by the radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Sometimes Iscador is used to treat patients in the final stages of inoperable cancer, in order to improve the quality of their lives.

Herbalists use natural mistletoe juice or tincture, sometimes together with periwinkle and violet root tinctures (since all three have anti-cancer properties) to treat cancer. They combine this with other immune stimulating herbs such as Echinacea and herbs to restore the appetite and stimulate the digestive system. They also prescribe a strict diet of organic raw vegetables and fruits, vitamins and minerals. This sometimes brings about a complete cure.

You should not try to treat yourself with mistletoe. The whole plant is poisonous, especially the berries. An overdose can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels, leading to coma, seizures and death. It should only be prescribed by a registered herbalist or doctor.

There is a chapter on mistletoe in the book: The Healing Power of Celtic Plants.

The book covers a whole range of healing herbs used by the ancient Celts and their Druid medicine men, together with descriptions of ways we can use these plants today.

Angela Paine grew up on a hop farm in Ken where her botanist father taught her about plants. She ended up in Florence in 1967, washing books in the National Library, after the great flood, later marrying, having two children and living in an old olive press in Tuscany. On her return to Britain she embarked on a first degree in Human Physiology, a post graduate diploma in Pharmacology, then a PhD in medicinal plant chemistry. She went on research trips to Africa and South America to collect plant material used as medicine, and collaborated with scientists around the world, publishing internationally in scientific journals. She spent time in the Golden Valley on the border with Wales, where she continued her research into the medicinal properties of the local, native plants which were used by the ancient Celts and wrote her first two books. She now lives in Stroud, where she wrote her next book: Healing plants of Greek myth. Always remaining in contact with Florence she was inspired to write her latest book: Healing plants of Renaissance Florence. She runs workshops and courses on medicinal plants and how to use them to make tinctures, oils, ointments and teas.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/healing-power-of-celtic-plants