Ageless Essential Oils

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History of Essential Oils

From Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese manuscripts, we know that priests and physicians have been using essential oils for thousands of years. In addition, there are 188 references to essential oils in the Bible. Essential Oils were used extensively in Renaissance Europe and were also used in ancient India. In fact, India is probably the only place in the world where this tradition and art was never lost. With over ten thousand years of continuous practice, Ayurvedic medicine (including the use of aromatic oils) is the oldest continuous form of medical practice. Much of what is known about the medicinal properties of essential oils comes from these sources.

The arrival of modern science in the 19th century brought about the decline of all forms of herbal medicine. This suppression, if you study history even a little, appears to be deliberately brought about by people who stood to gain financially. Scientists, quite probably with the best of intentions at first, began the practice--continued to this day--of isolating the main active ingredient of plants and then reproducing them in laboratories. In this way, Penicillin (derived from mold growing on bread), aspirin (naturally present in birch, wintergreen and meadowsweet), antibiotics, and so on came into wide-spread usage.

There is obvious value in many scientific discoveries but it must also be acknowledged by any open-minded person that these isolated compounds, such as those found in drugs and synthetic therapeutic oils, have many serious side-effects and can be easily abused. Every plant and, therefore, every essential oil contains hundreds of chemical compounds, most of them in very small amounts. We know that certain trace elements are fundamental for life and that the human body often requires one of them in order to assimilate another. Rational thought, and now scientific study, shows clearly that there is a undeniable corollary to this in medicine. The power of living products--herbals and essential oils--lies in the combination of their elements, and the trace components are every bit as important as their main constituents. In fact, it seems to be that the minor constituents have a synergistic (controlling and strengthening) effect on the main constituents, enabling the herbal or oil to heal more efficiently and without the nasty side-effects experienced when using the synthetic reconstructions (drugs or oils) that do not contain the trace elements.

With pure essential oils and herbals in their complete state you can heal and nourish without the traditional side effects of drugs!

Aromatherapy, as we know it in this day and age, began in France in the early 1900’s. England and other European countries learned of it quickly and it became a basic part of even mainstream medicine in most countries of Europe and Asia, as is the use of homeopathic medicines. Aromatherapy did not exist in any significant way in the United States until the early 1980’s and can be classed into two separate and distinct movements: pure and genuine essential oil therapy and a mass-market approach. Because of the prevalence of mass-marketing techniques, much of what you hear and see in the media and in promotional material is outright blarney and what you buy are too often synthetic substitutions. Education and personal experience are your best tools in this market; an oil source that you have come to trust is also invaluable.