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Research Library · Planets & cycles · Plants & herbs · Video research

☉ The Sun project — every summary and video → 🌿 Sajah Popham project — every summary and video → 🍒 Hawthorn project — every summary and video → 🌿 Angelica project — every summary and video → 🌾 Ashwagandha project — every summary and video → 🌻 St John's wort project — every summary and video →

The Sun's herbs: heart, warmth, vitality and spirit

Herbalist Sajah Popham on the Sun in medical astrology and four herbs that carry it — hawthorn, angelica, ashwagandha and St John's wort — checked against the old books and the trials.

15 October 2026 9 min read ▶ 49-min video 12 sources · 9 peer-reviewed

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Diagram of the Sun at the heart with four themes around it — heart, warmth, vitality and spirit — each with its herb

In brief

In medical astrology the Sun rules the heart and the vital force, and Sajah Popham matches its four sides with four herbs: hawthorn for the heart, angelica for warmth, ashwagandha for vitality and St John's wort for the spirit. The astrology is the old one — Lilly in 1647 gave the Sun “the Heart, the Brain and right Eye, and vitall Spirit”. The evidence behind the herbs runs from strong to none: St John's wort matches antidepressants for mild to moderate depression; hawthorn eases heart-failure symptoms without saving lives; ashwagandha has small trials for stress and sleep; angelica has no trial of its own.

1647 Lilly: the Sun “governeth the Heart, the Brain and right Eye, and vitall Spirit”
5,489 people in the St John's wort depression trials — the strongest evidence of the four herbs
27.9% heart events on hawthorn against 28.9% on placebo in the two-year SPICE trial
873 people in 15 trials of ashwagandha for stress and anxiety — small, mostly in India

Learn from the source

Sajah Popham

Herbalist and host of The Plant Path; founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.

He teaches herbal medicine through the energetics of plants and people, and herbal astrology alongside it.

evolutionaryherbalism.com ↗ Every summary of Sajah Popham’s work →

The heart and the vital force

The Sun in the body

The Sun sits at the centre of the solar system, and for Sajah Popham it is the centre of the psyche and of the body: stretch out your arms and the lines cross at the heart. In medical astrology it rules the heart and the whole cardiovascular system, with its sign Leo, the fixed fire of midsummer in the north. That is the old tradition: William Lilly, in 1647, wrote that the Sun “governeth the Heart, the Brain and right Eye, and vitall Spirit”, and gave Leo “all weaknesse or diseases in the heart”.

The Sun at the heart, linked to four boxes: heart (hawthorn), warmth (angelica), vitality (ashwagandha) and spirit (St John's wort), with Lilly's words and the debated parts
The Sun in the body. Sajah Popham's four sides of the Sun, each with its herb — and the old books behind them.

For members

Read the whole summary

3 sections, 3 diagrams, the video with its chapters, 13 claims checked against the research, 12 sources with the names of the people who did the work and links to it — and downloads in PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

  • 🔒 Four herbs, four sides of the Sun
  • 🔒 The Sun's year

The Research Library is part of every paid plan: Crescent, Half Moon and Full Moon.

More in these projects

The Sun →The heart, vitality and warmth
  • Hawthorn, the heart herb ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled tonic for the heart, the blood vessels and an anxious mind — checked against the small trials, the…
  • Angelica, the warming bitter ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of warmth, for cold digestion, cold hands and a cold uterus — checked against the herbal…
  • Ashwagandha, the calm adaptogen ▶ 6-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of vitality, for stress, sleep and the immune system — checked against the trials, the…
  • St John's wort, the midsummer flower ▶ 10-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of the spirit, for low mood, the liver and nerve pain — checked against the depression trials,…
Sajah Popham →Herbalist · The Plant Path, School of Evolutionary Herbalism
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  • Hawthorn, the heart herb ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled tonic for the heart, the blood vessels and an anxious mind — checked against the small trials, the…
  • Angelica, the warming bitter ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of warmth, for cold digestion, cold hands and a cold uterus — checked against the herbal…
  • Ashwagandha, the calm adaptogen ▶ 6-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of vitality, for stress, sleep and the immune system — checked against the trials, the…
  • St John's wort, the midsummer flower ▶ 10-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of the spirit, for low mood, the liver and nerve pain — checked against the depression trials,…
  • Judith Hill: time matters ▶ 93-min video · Medical astrologer Judith Hill, interviewed by her student Sajah Popham: timing herbal medicine by the Moon, the zodiac in the body, the…
  • Burdock, the all-purpose alterative ▶ 13-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's gentle blood cleanser for the liver, the lymph, the skin and the gut — checked against the chemistry of inulin,…
  • Dandelion leaf, the potassium diuretic ▶ 8-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's “universal diuretic” that brings its own potassium — checked against the one study in people, the food tables,…
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  • Lemon balm and the overactive thyroid ▶ 40-min video · Sajah Popham's “happiest herb on Earth” for a racing heart, a restless mind and an overactive thyroid — checked against the laboratory…
Hawthorn →Crataegus monogyna
  • Hawthorn, the heart herb ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled tonic for the heart, the blood vessels and an anxious mind — checked against the small trials, the…
Angelica →Angelica archangelica
  • Angelica, the warming bitter ▶ 9-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of warmth, for cold digestion, cold hands and a cold uterus — checked against the herbal…
Ashwagandha →Withania somnifera
  • Ashwagandha, the calm adaptogen ▶ 6-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of vitality, for stress, sleep and the immune system — checked against the trials, the…
St John's wort →Hypericum perforatum
  • St John's wort, the midsummer flower ▶ 10-min video · Herbalist Sajah Popham's Sun-ruled herb of the spirit, for low mood, the liver and nerve pain — checked against the depression trials,…