Holy Basil: The Sacred Herb of Ayurveda

The Plant Path: Herbalism, Medical Astrology & Spagyric Alchemy

Sajah Popham

Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.8 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Holy basil is a sacred plant in the Indian and Ayurvedic traditions. There is a wide range of conditions for which it is used, both physically and psychologically. Holy Basil is one of nature's panaceas, making it a powerful plant to grow in your garden and stock in your home.

In today's plant profile, you'll discover:

Holy Basil's unique taste and how it supports your nervous, digestive, immune system, and more
Holy Basil's unique combination of adaptogenic and nervine properties to support the modern stressed condition"
Spiritual applications for this ancient herb
Its relationship to Jupiter and the Fire Element
How to prepare medicine with the fresh and dried plan

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ABOUT THE PLANT PATH

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The Plant Path is a window into the world of herbal medicine. With perspectives gleaned from traditional Western herbalism, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Alchemy, Medical Astrology, and traditional cultures from around the world, The Plant Path provides unique insights, skills and strategies for the practice of true holistic herbalism. From clinical to spiritual perspectives, we don't just focus on what herbs are "good for," but rather who they are as intelligent beings, and how we can work with them to heal us physically and consciously evolve.

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ABOUT SAJAH

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Sajah Popham is the author of Evolutionary Herbalism and the founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism, where he trains herbalists in a holistic system of plant medicine that encompasses clinical Western herbalism, medical astrology, Ayurveda, and spagyric alchemy.

His mission is to develop a comprehensive approach that balances the science and spirituality of plant medicine, focusing on using plants to heal and rejuvenate the body, clarify the mind, open the heart, and support the development of the soul. This is only achieved through understanding and working with the chemical, energetic, and spiritual properties of the plants. His teachings embody a heartfelt respect, honor and reverence for the vast intelligence of plants in a way that empowers us to look deeper into the nature of our medicines and ourselves.

He lives on a homestead in the foothills of Mt. Baker Washington with his wife Whitney where he teaches, consults clients, and prepares spagyric herbal medicines.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the plant path, your window into the world of herbal medicine, with Saja and Whitney Popham, founders of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.
0:23.6	Hey there everybody, Saja Popham here, founder of the School of Evolutionary Erbilism.
0:27.6	And, you know, the other day I did a post about Hyssop and was talking about how that plant is mentioned in the Bible and how I tend to get really excited when we find plants
0:39.3	that have some sort of association with a religion or a spiritual lineage.
0:44.3	And so today I'm going to be talking about holy basil.
0:47.3	And this is one of the most revered plants in Ayurvedic medicine and in all of India. So this is a really, really great plant
0:57.0	for a lot of practical purposes, but also for spiritual purposes. So here we are talking about
1:03.0	Tulsi. All right, so here we are in our humble little patch of holy basil. And in Ayur Iurb this herb is called Tulsi which
1:14.4	those names are pretty much used interchangeably these days Tulsi or Holy Basil
1:18.4	the Latin name is Ossum Sanctum and this is a great remedy you know this is one
1:23.9	that has become really popular over the last number of decades in Western
1:29.3	herbalism. It clearly grows very well. It's pretty easy to grow and it's been pretty well adopted
1:37.3	into Western herbalism from Ayurvedic medicine. But of course this plant has been used in Iyerveda
1:43.3	for a very, very long time.
1:46.3	This is, it's in the mint family, so we can see that by the square stems, the opposite leaves,
1:51.1	and the distinctly aromatic nature to this plant. So some of the core properties of it here
1:59.0	with the taste of the herb.
2:01.6	This is one of our aromatic mints.
2:04.6	So it's very rich in essential oils and it has that pungent taste as the primary flavor to it.
2:10.6	Underneath that pungent property, there is a little bit of an underlying sweetness to this plant, but really it is the pungent
2:19.3	nature of it that kind of dominates any other potential flavor that we might notice there.
2:25.3	And this is pretty common for aromatic mints. There's lots of different aromatic mints,
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