In ancient times, the primary ritual significance of the mandrake was in erotic cults. Because of the poor quality of the sources that have come down to us, however, only rudimentary information about these practices is available. The most important source about the use of mandrake in the Orient is the Old Testament, where the fruits (love apples) are mentioned numerous times under the Old Hebrew name duda’im, and namely as an aphrodisiac (not all interpreters of the Bible recognize the identification of duda’im with Mandragora). According to Rabbi Jacob ben Asher (1269-1343), the name duda’im has its basis in numerology. The numerical value of the word is identical to that of the Hebrew word ke’adam, “like a human,” and is an allusion to the anthropomorphic shape. It is possible that the mandrake, which according to kabbalistic principles is a symbol for becoming one, may have been used in secret mystical rites in ancient Israel.

The aphrodisiac quality was attributed primarily to the scent of the ripe, golden yellow fruits. The Book of Genesis contains an account of what may have been an archaic magical ritual:
And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest [May], and found mandrakes [duda’im] in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to [her sister] Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes. And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son’s mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee tonight for thy son’s mandrakes. And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son’s mandrakes. And he lay with her that night. And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son. (Genesis 30:14—17)

A similar ritual with the magical fruit appears to be the basis of the much cited text of the erotic Song of Solomon:
“There will I give thee my loves, The mandrakes give a smell.”
(Song of Solomon 7:12, 13)

In the Near East today, the aromatic fruits of the mandrake are still regarded as aphrodisiacs and used in love magic.
In another legend from the postbiblical period, the creation of the mandrake is attributed to Adam himself:
When Adam was separated from his wife Eve for a long period, the long abstinence played a trick on him. He fantasized about her presence with such ardor that his semen, which shot forth as a result of the loving embrace and sprayed onto the floor, gave rise to a plant which took on human form, the Caiumamth, the mandragora.

The most extensive description of this magical and erotic root and the ritual surrounding its harvest is from Flavius Josephus (first century), who wrote in Greek so that he could make the customs of the people of Judea more comprehensible to the Greeks. It is possible that he obtained his magical and botanical knowledge from the Essenes, with whom he lived for some time:
In the valley that is on the north side of the city Machairos is a special place known as Baaras, where a root of the same name grows. Every evening, it shines with a fire red glow. But if someone wishes to approach it to pull it out, then it is difficult to take hold of, it pulls away from the hands and cannot be held until one has poured menstrual blood or urine onto it.
But even then, any direct contact with the root means sudden death, unless one carries it in the hand so that the tip of the root faces down. Alone, one can also take pos- session of the root without any danger in the following way: You dig the earth up all around it, so that only a small piece of the root remains covered by the soil. Then a dog is tied to it. When this tries to follow the person who has tied it, it will of course quite easily pull the root from the ground. But in that moment the dog will die, as if to atone for he who has really taken away the plant. From then on, one can take hold of the root without fear. The reason that this root is so sought after in spite of its dangerous nature is to be found in its peculiar effects: for it has the power to dispel the so- called demons, that is the spirits of evil deceased persons who enter into the living and kill them if they are not aided, simply by coming near the afflicted. (Flavius losephus, History of the Judean War)

In ancient Egypt, mandrake fruits were used as gifts of love during courtship and probably were eaten as aphrodisiacs. The love plant appears to have been associated with Hathor, the goddess of love. The mandrake beer that was consecrated to her played an important role in the famous myth describing the destruction of the human race and the creation of heaven. The sun god Ra was angry with humans because they had contrived to attack him. In his anger, he created the terrible lion-headed goddess Sekmet (an early form of Hathor) to punish the race of humans. She raged among the people for an entire day and was not yet finished when the sun set, for she wanted to utterly extinguish humanity. But Ra did not want this, and he thought of a trick to end the goddess’s deadly rampage. He had mandrake fruits brought to him from Elephantine, an island in the Nile. According to other versions and/or translations, hematite or “red ocher” was brought as well. At the same time, he ordered the production of a huge amount of barley beer (seven thousand jugs). He mixed the mandrakes (and the hematite or red ocher) into this and had the fields covered in the bloodred beer (the “sleeping drink”). The following sunrise, when the goddess saw the beer, she first perceived her reflection and thus recognized herself. Because of its red color, she thought the beer was human blood, and she eagerly drank it to the last drop. “Her countenance became gentle as a result, and she drank; this did her heart well. Drunken did she return, without having recognized the people”.
Out of thankfulness, humans never again rose up against Ra. Sakmet transformed herself into the cow Hathor and carried Ra into the heavens.In commemoration of these dramatic events, which took place at the beginning of time, Ra established the Hathor festival (literally, “festival of drunkenness”), during which young maidens consecrated to the goddess would make a beer known as sdr.t (“sleeping drink”) using a similar recipe. The Hathor festivals were ecstatic orgies with obscene performances, sacrificial activities, and wild music. Later, Hathor was celebrated as the inventor of beer and the “mistress of drunkenness without end” .

The mandrake was also a sacred love magic in ancient Greece. Even the plant’s collection took place under the auspices of the love goddess: “One should, it is said, make three circles around the mandrake with a sword and cut it while facing west. And when cutting the second piece, one should dance around the plant and speak as much as possible about the mysteries of love”.
The Cypriot cult of Aphrodite developed directly out of the Oriental cult of the love goddess Ishtar, Astarte, Asherot, et cetera. J. Rendel Harris proposed the theory that the Greek cult of Aphrodite could be traced back to the Greek assi- milation of the Oriental conceptions about the mandrake. Aphrodite was also known as Mandragoritis (“she of the Mandragora”), a name passed down to us by Heschius. The Mandragora thus had an intimate connection to the love goddess and was sacred to her (cf. Papaver somniferum). In the late ancient Mysteries of the Great Goddess, Aphrodite was identified with Hecate (Apuleius, Metamorphoses). Thus, the “mandrake of Hecate” was nothing other than the sacred plant of the love goddess.
The mandrake, and especially its root, was the plant of Hecate.

The chthonic goddess (also known as Enodia or Trivia) was from Kairen (Asia Minor) and bore many Asian attributes. As the goddess of the three paths,  she had three forms,  three heads, and six arms. She was simultaneously rooted in heaven, on earth, and in the underworld. As the goddess of the nocturnal spooks (visual hallucinations), she was accompanied in her wild activities by barking dogs and noisy specters (auditory hallucinations). Hecate was both the harmful witch goddess (poison foods) and the goddess of birth (aphrodisiacs, erotic hallucinations). A description of Hecate’s magical garden is contained in the saga of the Argonauts: “Many mandrakes grow within”.

Eusebios (ca. 260-339 C.E.), the Christian and Greek church author, held Hecate, the goddess of the underworld, to be the “ruler of all evil demons,” the “black one,” or a “demon of love madness” that was the equivalent of Aphrodite. She is the mother of Italy’s Circe and Colchis’s Medea, the “cosmic super witch”. She sends to humans dampening sleep and heavy dreams and causes epilepsy (the “sacred disease”) and madness (mania); in other words, she is capable of inducing altered states of consciousness. It almost appears as though the dark goddess would reveal herself only through the effects of the mandrake juice. As Democritus (ca. 470-380 B.C.E.), the “laughing philosopher,” described in his lost work Cheirokmeta (“things made by hand”), one could invoke the goddess with the mandrake:
Now it is known that the book Cheirokmeta is from Democritus. And how many adventurous things is this man able to report, who after Pythagoras was the most dedicated student of magic! He reports about the plant aglaophotis, which received its name because of the wonder of humans for its special color, and which thrives in the marble quarries of Arabia on the Persian side, which is why it is also called tnarmaritis [= marble plant]; the magicians use it when they wish to invoke the gods.

Many late ancient conjurations (magic papyri) appeal to Hecate as the most important goddess. She was usually invoked in love magic, and then often in association with dogs, and even with Cerberus. In the magic papyri, Medea was sometimes invoked in place of Hecate.

The mandrake was also the plant of Circe. The daughter of Helios, she was knowledgeable about magic and lived on the Italian coast above Sicily. Today, Monte Cicero remains as the sacred mountain of Circe.
It is possible that the mandrake was already identified with moly at an early date.

We can only speculate about the ritual use of mandrake in Germania. The mandrake apparently was associated primarily with love magic and divination but also with magical and ritual healing. Hildegard von Bingen described a small ritual to influence the psyche (a kind of ritual healing of depression):
And when a person is so confused in his nature that he is always sad and always in distress, so that he often has weakness and pain in his heart, he should take mandrake after it has already been pulled with its root from the ground, and he should place it for a day and a night in a spring...and then place it, washed by the spring, next to him in his bed. The plant will become warm from his sweat, and he should say: “God, who makes humans from the dirt of the earth without pain. Now I place this earth, which has never been stepped over, beside me, so that my earth will also feel that peace which you have created.”

In Renaissance magic and in early modern occultism, mandrake was utilized as an incense that was under the influence of the moon. In Mecklenburg, mandrakes formerly were placed under the pillow so that one would have prophetic dreams..
In Romania, an erotic mandrake cult existed into the early twentieth century (Eliade 1942). In this cult, the mandrake was regarded as the plant of life and death and was seen as an aphrodisiac and magical love agent. The plant was harvested during the full moon between Easter and Ascension Day. The harvest was conducted according to ritual guidelines:
The plant should be collected without others knowing;
 . . . women and girls dance naked around the mandrake, sometimes they are content with simply letting down their hair The couples caress and embrace one another. To collect the leaves of the mandrake, the girls lie on one another in the manner of the sex act. Four young girls pluck the mandrake and speak magical formulas over it; they bury it in the middle of the street, where they then dance completely naked. During the dance, four young boys remain close by to watch over them; they repeat:

“Mandrake, good mother,
marry me in this month,
if not in this, then in the next,
but make it so that I remain a girl no longer.”

Offerings (salt, bread, sugar, wine, alcohol, eggs, et cetera) were placed into the hole from which the mandrake was taken. The root was carried home, carefully washed, and worn as a talisman.