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Popular among the artist/writer crowd, it was thought to enhance creativity. Some American Indian tribes smoked the foliage as a hallucinogen.

Medicinal Uses--

Wormwood has had many useful medical applications. In fact, the first known mention of wormwood is in the Ebers papyrus, a medical document dating to 1550 B.C. The Egyptians and many later cultures used it as a vermifuge, and the name "wormwood" may refer to this property of ridding the body of worms. It was also thought to prevent the plague.

Religion--

The foliage was smoked by some American Indian tribes, inducing visionary states during religious ceremonies.

The Bible refers to wormwood a dozen times. For instance, in Proverbs 5:4:

For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, And smoother than oil is her speech; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, Her steps lay hold of Sheol.

The most well-known reference, though, is in Revelations:

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

A Christian legend says that wormwood sprang up in the biblical serpent's trail as he left the Garden of Eden--as a barrier to prevent its return. Consequently, snakes are not supposed to enter a garden where wormwood grows.

History--

Russian peasants thought that wormwood's bitter taste was because of the herb's "absorption of bitter human suffering".

Absinthe is the main source of wormwood's notoriety. There is simply no other beverage which is surrounded by so much mystique and ceremony. Its mystique is of course helped by the fact that the liqueur has been banned in most countries since the early part of this century.

Wormwood is best known as the primary ingredient in absinthe. Absinthe enjoyed some popularity as well as some controversy in the mid 19th century. The most well-known maker of absinthe was distiller Henri-Louis Pernod. Absinthe became popular among the cultural community in 1890s Paris. Absinthe is thought to inhance creativity. Celebrated absinthe drinkers included the painters Lautrec, Gauguin, Manet, Van Gogh and Picasso, along with the writers Rimbaud, Verlaine, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe and Jack London.

Absinthe remains controversial today and is banned in some countries. The psychoactive principles are not well understood.

The seeds are easy to grow and bloom into an attractive, silvery plant.