Ancient Health Secrets Forgotten
Introduction
I wrote this article several years ago and remember the “Ahah!” moment when I grasped this simple concept in my mind: That “Good” doesn’t have to be half bad (or part poison), and “health” shouldn’t be maintained through Compromise. No, nothing’s “Perfect” here, but it Was. Yes, we all struggle but that doesn’t mean that Wholeness doesn’t exist anymore. The truth began to dawn on me when I first began to study essential oils and their properties. I’m keeping this article, because its simple truths still ring true!
Most of us have taken Tylenol (aspirin) for a headache or received a prescription for a cold or an infection. And most of us have experienced some sort of relief or noticeable improvement or at least change from taking different prescriptions, drugs and chemicals etc.
But have you ever stopped to wonder what makes these drugs so powerful?
There is a downside to them also. Most of us who have had to take a drug or prescription have noticed side effects or other complications arise through taking it. It’s like acquiring one sickness to get rid of another or alleviating pain in a certain area to have complications in a different area. This has simply become the norm for most people who go to the doctor and receive typical medical treatment. What if, though, that was not supposed to be the “norm“. What if there actually is a better way away that doesn’t have the downsides and the negative side effects?
Natural vs. Synthetic
Let’s start with the first question. Where do the ideas for these drugs and chemicals come from, and what gives them their power?
Since I have been working for Young living and studying essential oils, I have begun to understand the amazing properties that our Creator put inside of plants. These properties (That we call constituents) have a number of different effects on our bodies. Some have the ability to stimulate nerve endings, tissues or cells and speed healing in a certain area, (we recognize this as reduced pain and inflammation) some have the ability to stimulate or wake up cell receptors on various organs, others have the ability to cool the body or minister to the mind: clearing and detoxing. Whether we realize it or not, every good thing we’ve ever seen come from a drug, came from nature first. In fact, the better the drug, the more closely it mimics a specific property found in nature. You may have heard about the pain alleviating and blood thinning properties found in the bark of willow trees, which is where the idea for aspirin began.
The problem: anything that we try to manufacture never can quite duplicate what God gives us in the living things he has created.
Comparing chemicals in drugs to constituents in the essential oils of plants.
Let me give you some examples of certain chemicals and drugs that have certain effects on our bodies and then compare them with the constituents that occur naturally in essential oils.
Probably all of us has taken aspirin at some point. The history of the origin of aspirin is that it comes from the bark of a willow tree. The Chemical property or constituent found in willow tree bark is salicin: Which contains this pain reducing property…. however, most aspirin you find in your cabinet is acetylsalicylic acid. A compound that combines salicylic acid and acetic anhydride. Salicylic acid may actually be metabolized from salicin (that compound found in willow bark) and is sometimes categorized as a plant hormone. The acetic anhydride that combines with salicylic acid is simply a chemical compound or “reagent“ that gives us the pill form of aspirin we use today.
Salicylic acid may have gone through some pretty rigorous processing, but acetic anhydride is known to be an irritant and combustible with harmful vapor. That means that every time you take aspirin you’re putting a little bit of poison into your body. While some component of aspirin is “natural“ at its beginning (source), it’s no wonder that the end product drug has so many harmful side effects: tinnitus, hearing loss. Nausea, vomiting, G.I. distress and bleeding, altered liver function enzyme levels, rash, bruising hypersensitivity reactions etc. Yikes!
Another thing I thought was interesting is that salicylic acid is used for many conditions such as acne and other skin issues: warts, psoriasis, acne, ringworm, dandruff… It is also used in many Pharmaceuticals, also as a food preservative, anti-bacterial and antiseptic.
It is literally amazing/mind-boggling the number of conditions and amount of products this acid/compound is used for and added to.
It seems a little fuzzy though as to how much of this element is natural, chemically altered/created or how it is synthesized. It does, though, seem to have some pretty amazing pain relieving properties, and so we can put up with the “occasional downsides”…
Another wonderful fact about these chemically created products is that we seem to have a pretty straight-forward explanation for what it does and how we can benefit from it (i.e. it relieves pain).
As complex as drugs and chemically formulated products may seem, the reality is that plants are even more complex.
Peppermint oil, for example, contains many constituents: menthol, Mentone, mentholfuran, 1,8 cineole (Eucalyptol), isomenthone, neomenthol, pulegone, menthyl acetate
The wide array of constituents found in peppermint allows it to be useful for so many conditions: it is anti-inflammatory, anti-tumoral, pain relieving, antiparasitic, antibacterial, anti-viral, antifungal, used as a digestive aid/stimulant, as well as a decongestant among other things…
Rosemary has many constituents: 1,8 cineole (eucalyptol), camphor, camphene, alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, borneol and limonene
Some of its properties are liver protecting, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumoral, Antifungal, antibacterial, anti-cancer, anti-depression, moderation of high blood pressure, enhancing mental clarity and concentration….
Pretty much every natural oil is antibacterial and supportive of every bodily function and system which varies based on which constituents are found in the plant and in what quantity.
In the world we live in, based on our current medical facilities, and the “typical“ way that medicines are prescribed; the idea that we could be using products that are 100% helpful and completely non-harmful is something totally foreign to us.
The fact that we could be taking something that can decrease our pain, increase circulation, balance our blood pressure and hormones, all while elevating our minds and helping us feel better in every way should be exciting to us!
The crazy “new“ things we’ve been discovering in the world of health are not actually new, but have mostly been forgotten as we have replaced what was perfect, pure and good with something we thought we could manufacture, promote and proliferate while claiming it was just as good as or better than the original.
It’s not. We have been fooled into thinking that the broken, corrupt way we continually try to heal ourselves is the way it’s supposed to be.
It all goes back to stewardship of what has been given to us as a gift. We are supposed to care for, cultivate and improve and expand the world around us. We are not supposed to try to re-create what was already established as good to begin with. You can cultivate life. You cannot create it. In trying to do so we, by default, take a part of that life, along with its life-giving forces, away. What it leaves us with is more death and less life.
Some may think this just sounds “religious” but I do believe there are only two roads we can be on: one leads to life and the other leads to death. All our choices are heading us in one direction or the other.
Disease processes do not happen overnight. They are a result of the choices we make and the things we choose to put into our bodies. Some in our control, some out of our control. There will always be some sort of death around us, we’ll never be able to get away from it all right now. But, in very many ways we can continue to choose life.
Just as we all know that eating real, live food, cultivated in living, active soil brings us life in ways that boxed, processed “fake“ food never could. We should take the same approach in our “medicines”. Purely natural herbs, supplements and well-made essential oils (which are simply the most powerful and potent part of the plant) have healing abilities far beyond our chemically produced “drug” compounds.
Such a simple reminder of who our healer is and that his ways are better than our ways. Every time!
References
The two main resources I have drawn from for the information in this article is from the Essential Oils desk reference eighth edition by Life Science Publishing and from the Springhouse Nurses Drug Guide fourth edition… As well as various online resources and Wikipedia.