If you do some research into the Royal English Archives, you'll come across an interesting little tidbit. It's a recipe for "thieves' oils." So the story goes: In the 17th century, when all of Europe was in the thrust of the Black Plague, a small band of marauding thieves seemed immune to the disease. They would enter the homes of Black Plague victims and have no fear of touching the bodies as they searched for jewelry and money. The King demanded to know their secret.

 

     Their secret had to do with the oils they rubbed on their bodies. Because their family was from a long lineage of apothecaries, they had knowledge about how to use oils medicinally and prophylactically against disease. The King got the exact formulation they were using against Black Plague and this saved his entire family from the disease.

     Today we think of essential oils as mere pleasant additions to a relaxing massage. But in olden days, some cultures valued oils even more than gold because their powerful healing properties were known.

Essential oils have the same function in the plant as blood has to the human. When you cut yourself, blood comes out of the cut. The blood cleanses the wound and kills bacteria so that regeneration of the tissue can begin. Similarly, when you cut a plant, resin, or the oil of the plant, is released.

 

     Blood is a transporter. It carries nutrients to the cells. Oxygen is the constituent of blood that delivers the blood through the cell walls. When oxygen is taken out of the blood, the cells mutate and give off a toxic gas. This, then, creates a host condition that will breed disease. So, too, with plants. Oils serve as the defense system in plants. These oils oxygenate the plant and carry nutrients, vital elements and chemical constituents to every cell in the plant. They contain each of the plant's healing nutrients including trace minerals, vitamins, hormones, amino acid precursors and other components. They give the plant the ability to destroy infections, stave off infestations, initiate and maintain growth and repair structural damage. The essential oil of the plant is literally the life force of the plant.

 

     When essential oils are applied to human skin, they carry the same healing force as they do to the plant. Because they themselves carry such a high concentration of oxygen, they also produce in the human system the highest level of oxygenating molecules of any substance on Earth. Because the oils are so highly concentrated, they are at least 50 times more therapeutically potent than the plant itself or herbs made from the plant.

 

       Essential oils detoxify the body. Oxygen pushes unwanted chemicals out of the cell. Normal cell function and balance is established only when there is sufficient oxygen.

The absorbability of essential oils into the human system is unsurpassed. If you are deficient in oxygen, your cell membranes will begin to thicken. When this happens, oxygen is not able to get its nutrients through this thick wall. You may have been eating all the nutritional food in the world, but if the blood can't get the nutrients into the cell, you may have well-nourished blood but you won't have well-nourished cells. Essential oils are soluble with the lipids in the cell membrane and thus go through the cellular wall.

 

     In addition, essential oils have the capacity to change the electrical frequency of the body. Our bodies are electrical. So is everything around us, including our television, our lights and our microwave. The difference between us and our electrical appliances is that we have a harmonic, coherent frequency whereas appliances operate at incoherent, chaotic frequencies. Our appliances have the ability to fracture the frequency at which we operate.

 

       We know that the body awake averages a frequency of 62-72 Hz. Disease sets in when the frequency drops. The frequency of the body drops when the body comes into contact with substances that have lower frequencies: junk food, canned or otherwise denatured food, drugs and even synthetic vitamins. Research has shown that merely holding a cup of coffee in your hand can drop your frequency (probably through the aroma which, as we will see, has a more powerful effect on us than any of us would imagine).

The electrical frequency of essential oils ranges between 52 and 320 Hz. They have the highest frequency of any substance known to man. Because they are living substances, their frequency is harmonic with the human frequency. When essential oils come into contact with our bodies, the frequency of our bodies becomes raised to a degree so that we become inhospitable hosts to pathogenic organisms.

 

 

The Prescription:

 

      Essential oils can be applied directly to the skin. Within 21 minutes of being placed anywhere on the human body, essential oil will penetrate every cell within the body. We rub our bodies with oils as specific medicines.

 

      Merely breathing in the fragrance of essential oils is a powerful healer. The healing begins in the brain. There are 800 million nerve endings in the nose that detect odors. The nerve from the olfactory bulb extends back toward the mid-brain and then on to the pituitary and pineal glands and finally to the amygdala. At La Casa, each day we pick fresh ylang ylang flowers, eucalyptus, orange, mint, lemongrass or lemon leaves and whatever herbs meet our health needs at the moment. We crush these plants in our hands and just breathe in. We are breathing in the fragrance of the essential oil as it oozes from the plant, just as blood oozes from our skin when we are cut.

 

     Essential oils can also be diffused in the air. Research has shown that oils can kill most air-born microorganisms. A French study colonized 210 various microbes; within 30 minutes of misting the air with a mixture of oils, only four colonies remained alive. You can mist your air with the fragrance of an essential oil by simply placing a few drops of oil -- 10 to 15 -- in a regular plant water mister diluted with some water.

 

Enough research has been done that we now have a lot of information on what conditions are affected by which essential oils. Possible therapeutic properties of essential oils:

 

      We also believe that the therapeutic effect of food supplements and herbs is greatly enhanced when essential oils are part of the formula. When herbs and food supplements are prepared for sale, they are dehydrated. This dehydration releases 90 percent of the essential oil of the plant. Without the oil, most of the life force of the plant has been evaporated out. We feel that this is one reason why herbs used today are less effective than when our ancestors used to just go to the fields and pick what they needed. When the essential oil is reintroduced into the supplement, you are guaranteed that the nutrients will reach the cellular level in your body.

 

• Rose and lavender work well to treat insomnia. Rub the oil up and down the spine just before bedtime.

• Peppermint relieves nausea, vomiting and fever and soothes indigestion.

• Ylang ylang may reduce hypertension and high blood pressure. Bergamot is thought to be effective for insect bites, cold sores, sore throat and thrush.

• Clove is one of three essential oils in which no bacteria, virus or fungi can live. It is used regularly in European hospitals.

• Bitter fennel, dill and coriander have all been shown to aid diabetics in getting off insulin