What if healing is not only anatomy and chemistry, but myth and fragrance? The Mythicum invites you into a world where the ancient descent of Inanna into the underworld becomes a map for our own struggles, losses, and rebirths—and where the scents of plants become living companions on that journey.

Drawing from medical physiology, medical anthropology, and the art of aromatherapy, this book weaves together clinical science with mythopoetic narrative. Sixty-one essential oils are paired with legendary and mythological figures, each one a mirror of human experience: Basil with Demeter, Sandalwood with Perseus, Cedar with Gilgamesh, Lotus with Siddhartha, and many more.

Within these pages, you will find:

• Mythic Vignettes: Poetic retellings of Inanna’s Descent through seven gates, each gate an archetypal stage of loss, surrender, and transformation.

• Essential Oil Monographs: Clinically grounded profiles of oils, with attention to safety, chemistry, and therapeutic potential, informed by the gold standard of aromatherapy science.

• Aromatic Practices: Rituals and safe applications for diffusion, anointing, and blending, crafted to help the reader embody myth and scent together.

• Mythopoetic Insight: A lens for understanding grief, identity, and renewal through mythic archetypes and aromatic allies.

Whether you are a clinician, trained aromatherapist, or simply a seeker drawn to story and scent, The Mythicum offers itself as more than a book—it is a guide, a lantern for uncertain times.

Step into the descent. Discover fragrance as story, story as medicine, and medicine as the art of becoming whole.

Mythicum saepe veritati miscetur.
Mythical lore is often mixed with truth.

My formative years were steeped in the living poetry of a home forever humming with the vibrant presence of plants. They were everywhere. I fondly remember how the African violets resided on a plant stand, glowing under lights that beckoned their ascent. Their petals told velvety secrets to those who would pause to listen. In the backyard, cooking herbs found purchase along the walls and every crag. My father was known to invite the crushed leaves of sweet Basil to perfume his neck and cheeks. Everyday and every meal was a fragrant promise and a sacred rite.

My mother, an Italian alchemist at heart, would slip sprigs of stolen verdure clamoring to come home with her into her purse: a Rosemary stem wrapped in tissue, a snippet of mint. She would later baptize them in water as if performing some sacred rite that called forth an expanse of roots. Along the sun-drenched kitchen window, saplings would stretch toward the light as if enchanted by a mysterious spell.

The garden of my maternal grandmother was a realm of abundance: sun-ripened tomatoes, the luscious scent of peppery Basil, and baby eggplants rich with anticipation of becoming a flavorful addition to a sandwich on Italian bread. We would err to not mention the fig tree that was buried every fall. In a very unconscious way, these women were like incarnations of Demeter, the Roman goddess of the harvest. Their hands turned “lifeless” soil into a living bounty where a seed of Fennel and a sprig of mint became a cornucopia that never let anyone go hungry.

And then, there was Latin

My high school Latin teacher wove mythology into the rigid bones of grammar. The mythological gods were not dead. They thrived in the rhythm of our structured incantations of noun declensions and verb conjugations. Their stories threaded through the dry Latin syntax like vines through a garden trellis. I can still see them. Apollo is lounging in the sunlit rows of my mother’s herbs and Persephone’s smile is still tangled in the carnation of a prom boutonnière. The past never truly fades. It silently seeps into the present with aromatic insistence.

As I study the chemistry of essential oils, the old myths take flight again, not as distant tales but as living companions. Sometimes experiences forged in childhood act as the fulcrum that leverages new understanding. I found that the garden of my childhood and the language of the ancients have fused into something new, something essential. Thus was born The Mythicum. Let me explain.

A Latin Lesson Worth Learning

In Latin, when an adjective like mythicus takes the neuter suffix “-um,” it undergoes a metamorphosis — not merely grammatical, but alchemical. No longer a mere description, it is transformed. It becomes a thing unto itself — a vessel of pure essence. Mythicum ceases to mean “mythic” in the abstract. It is transubstantiated into the very flesh of mythic experience.

This shift mirrors the transformation of a Rose in the still. The flower’s scent, once bound to petals, is liberated in alchemical steam, rising as an essential oil to become a concentrated truth. Likewise, the “-um” unfurls the adjective, releasing its spirit into fullness. The Mythicum is not myth-like. It is myth, distilled to its most potent form. To substantivize is to consecrate: to declare that an idea is no longer intangible, but a presence we can hold. The “-um” is the alembic5 where language becomes tangibly real.

In the pages ahead, you will encounter The Mythicum not as a textbook, but as a living vessel. It is a map traced in fragrance and story, a guide to help you find bearings when life feels uncharted. Just as the garden of your childhood could yield both nourishment and wonder, so too this work seeks to remind you that myth and medicine, aroma and story, body and spirit, are not separate but entwined. Each gate, each guide, each oil is an invitation to remember what has always been true: that healing is not a destination but a rhythm, and that renewal arises from descent as surely as spring follows winter.

May this book serve as a faithful companion to you. May it offer you images to contemplate, practices to experiment with, and stories to lean on when your own feels fragile. Most of all, may it help you glimpse that you, too, are part of the great cycle of descent and ascent, loss and renewal, silence and song.

Go forward, then, with courage and gentleness. Take what speaks to you and leave what does not. Trust your intuition, honor your seasons, and let fragrance and myth walk beside you as companions of light. May your journey through The Mythicum open new paths of understanding, healing, and joy. And may you find, at every gate, that you are never alone in the sacred work of becoming whole.

Andrew S. Bonci, Sr.

The Mythicum is not a manual to be mastered but a constellation to be lived. Think of it as a guide-star, much like the celestial patterns our ancestors used to orient their journeys across sea and sand. Just as those constellations held stories that directed not only travel but also meaning, the Mythicum offers narrative bearings when you feel disoriented, untethered, or uncertain of your path. It is both a compass and a mirror, showing you not only where you are, but who you are becoming.

Step 1: Begin with the Myth of Inanna

Your entryway is the ancient Sumerian story of Inanna’s Descent. Read it carefully, perhaps even aloud, and let its rhythms settle into your bones. This myth is not merely a tale, but a motif of descent, death, and resurrection that has spoken to humanity for over 4,000 years. Inanna’s journey echoes through the cycles of nature, through the waxing and waning of the moon, and through the inevitable turns of human life. Her people, who lived sixty-five lifetimes ago, worried over the same losses, loves, and uncertainties that we face today. We may cloak our anxieties in the garb of modern technology, but beneath it we remain the same mythopoetic beings who need stories to make sense of suffering and renewal.

Step 2: Attend to the Gates

As you read, notice the seven gates through which Inanna must pass. Each gate marks the surrender of a power, a protection, or an identity. These are not ancient artifacts but living metaphors. Ask yourself, “Which gate do I now stand before? What has been taken from me, or what must I release?” At each gate within the Mythicum, you will find five questions designed to help you listen to your own life with greater depth. They are not tests but invitations, meant to help you discern where you are in your descent and what kind of work awaits you in your mythopoetic practice.

Step 3: Choose Your Guide and Tool

Once you have located yourself at a gate, turn to the Guides and their Tools. These Guides are drawn from the great storehouse of human story—mythical, literary, sometimes legendary figures who embody truths about loss, courage, or transformation. Each is paired with an essential oil, a fragrance whose chemistry touches the nervous system while its symbolism stirs the soul. Do not overanalyze your choice. Instead, trust the tug of intuition, the right-brain whisper that draws you toward one figure and fragrance. Then, read the monograph as though it were narrative medicine. Notice how the Guide’s story resonates with your own, and how the oil’s therapeutic properties invite subtle shifts in your inner landscape.

Step 4: Enter into Practice

With the guidance of your chosen pairing, begin experimenting with suggested practices. These may be as simple as inhaling a scent while journaling, or as embodied as incorporating oils into a ritual of prayer, meditation, or massage. Settle on a rhythm that feels authentic to you, and carry it forward with patience. The goal is not to force a quick solution but to allow the story, scent, and psyche to work together until you sense movement or resolution at a deeper level.

You will encounter the symbol (triangle), which is designed to alert you to take precautions when using certain oils. Safe practices and precautions are discussed and described in the section titled Practice Guidelines. These practices are pragmatically discussed to facilitate the teachings of The Mythicum and are derived from the work of Tisserand and Young (2014).

Step 5: Allow the Journey to Unfold Non-Linearly

Although we speak of steps and gates, this path is not strictly linear. You may find yourself circling back, leaping ahead, or revisiting a guide who once spoke to you. This is no failure but simply the condition of being human. Descent and ascent weave in spirals, not straight lines. Consult the Mythicum freely and as often as needed. Each return to the text and its oils is a return to your own unfolding self.

When Your Mythic Journey is Not a Mythical One

It is vital to remember that sadness, anger, grief, and disorientation are not signs of failure, but instead natural aspects of the human condition. The Mythicum is designed to help you live meaningfully with these cycles. Yet there are times when what feels like a mythic descent may actually be something more—depression, trauma, complex grief, or medical conditions such as thyroid imbalance or adrenal fatigue. When distress becomes unrelenting, when daily function is impaired, or when safety is at risk, this is not the work of mythopoetic reflection alone. Such times call for the wise counsel of physicians, psychologists, or other licensed practitioners who can help address the physiological and psychological roots of suffering.

The Mythicum is a companion, not a substitute for care. Use it to enrich your journey, bringing insight and a healing fragrance to your losses and renewals. But also honor the boundary between myth and medicine. A myth can illuminate your path, but it cannot set a broken bone or screen for a circulatory problem. A fragrance can soothe the nervous system, but it cannot correct an endocrine imbalance. Knowing the difference is itself part of wisdom.