Essential Oils
Frequently Asked Questions

The below answers are from transcribed portions of the cassette, Essential Oils: The Missing Link, by Dr. D. Gary Young. The full tape is available through Young Living Essential Oils; Code #3927  

Please note that Young Living Essential Oils has developed a wide range of products with the purpose of supporting the body's natural defense systems. They are NOT a "disease-care" company, but a nutritionally based health and wellness company. 

1. What are Essential Oils?
    

2. Why so much talk about essential oils increasing oxygen?
    

3. How does all this relate to antioxidants?
    

4. Is it true that essential oils were used therapeutically in ancient Egypt?
    

5. If essential oil therapy has been lost for hundreds of years, how and when did it make a come back?
    

6. If I am not sick, why should I use essential oils and supplements?       
    

7. How can essential oils help me to detoxify my body?
    

8. I keep hearing about the "frequency" of oils. What does that mean?
    

9. Is it true that the discovery of the frequency of essential oils was from your research?
    

10. Do you put essential oils in your supplements?
     

11. What is the benefit of having essential oils in my supplements?
     

12. What does it mean that, "The healing constituents can go beyond the blood brain barrier?"
     

13. I keep hearing that the oils have to be "pure." What does that mean? Can I buy "pure" grade A essential oils at the health food store?
     

14. What is Dr. Young's background, and how did he get to be an expert in such a rare field as essential oils?
     

15. I keep hearing about lavender being a "universal type" essential oil. Is this true?
     

16. Is it true that the essential oils get into our system almost immediately?  And how do they get into the system?
     

17. What are the benefits of diffusing essential oils?
     

18. How do we know that all these things happen, and how do they work?
     

19. How do we use essential oils?
     

20. What can you tell us about balancing the emotions with essential oils?
    
                  In Conclusion.... 

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"Essential oils, just to give you a real simple analogy...if we were to take the plant and human body and put them side by side we could so some very interesting comparisons.

You see, in the human body we have a substance called blood, and that blood has a very specific purpose. That purpose is to transport nutrients to the cells, to nurture and feed the cells. The essential oil is the blood of the plant.

"How many of you have cut your finger? What happens? You bleed. Why do you bleed? Exactly, to cleanse and to kill the bacteria because you have to do that to start the regeneration process of the tissue."

"Okay, how many of you ladies have seen a leaf on one of your house plants torn or damaged? What comes out? It's a liquid, isn't it? It's called the resin by some, some call it the blood of the plant. Some call it the life force of the plant but it's the same thing, it bleeds. It bleeds to cleanse that part where the plant is damaged, to kill the bacteria."

"You see, the Essential Oil is like the blood, it's a transporter system, and the primary ingredient inside that oil is called oxygen."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils Main Page.  
 

2. Why so much talk about essential oils increasing oxygen?
 

"One of the primary agents in the blood that is responsible for the delivery of the nutrients through the cell walls is called oxygen.

"If we take the oxygen out of the blood what happens? We would die very quickly. The cells begin to mutate and give off a toxic gas that creates a host for disease, and today we live in an environment where we are deprived of oxygen because of the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink (.Also see the Water Main Page and the chapter on  Certified Drinking Water Solutions.)

"Because of that we have set ourselves up to be victims, and it's quite obvious by what's going on in our world today. When we look at essential oils, they have the same role, and play the same function in the plant, as the blood does in the human body. The essential oil is the blood of the plant.

"As of 3 years ago, it was documented that essential oils produce the highest level of oxygenating molecules of any known substance known to man.

"So when we think about that, that we can get actual oxygen from the oil, it's quite exciting. Now not only can we get oxygen from the oils, but we also get negative ions and we get ozone. Are they important to us? Why? Can bacteria live in ozone? Can bacteria live in a negative ion environment? No!"

Recommended reading , Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils & Oxygen.
 

"You know it's interesting when you look at what's going on in our world, because there's a big wave that has hit the United States called antioxidants. Right? Everyone's looking for antioxidants and antimicrobial substances to take.

"As of 3 years ago, it was documented that essential oils produce the HIGHEST LEVEL OF OXYGENATING MOLECULES OF ANY SUBSTANCE KNOWN TO MAN.

"So when we think about that, that we can get actual oxygen from the oil, it's quite exciting. Now not only can we get oxygen from the oils, but we also get negative ions and we get ozone.

"Are they important to us? Why? Can bacteria live in ozone? Can bacteria live in a negative ion environment? No! PURE essential oils are the most effective antioxidants and antimicrobial substances available."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils & Oxygen.
 

4. Is it true that essential oils have been used therapeutically for thousands of years?
 

"It has been discovered and determined now through research and the translation of the Papyrus and hieroglyphics in Egypt, that oils were the first medicine of man.  Even before herbs were used, oils were extracted from the plant and used before the actual plant was used.

"When God created this world he created everything naturally for us, and he gave us every substance we will ever need to protect our bodies from all the things that we have to deal with. Just like he gave to the Israelites. Yes, they were faced with a plague, and if you saw the movie "The Ten Commandments" it depicted it as an avenging angel, a green fog that floated through the city. It was a plague.

"Scientists and researchers of Egypt say it was nothing different than the AIDS we have today. They're convinced of that.

"So what did Moses do to protect the children of Israel from that plague? He used Hyssop oil in the lamb's blood. You can read about in Exodus, chapter 12. You can also go to Exodus chapter 30 verses 21 -27 and read about the formula, the oil formula that the Lord gave to Moses to give the children of Israel to protect them against the ravages of the diseases and the plague.

"We're talking about a substance that's been around since the beginning of time with a biblical foundation, and man has ignored it. It has been lost and forgotten."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - History of Essential Oils.

5. If essential oil therapy has been lost for hundreds of years, how and when did it make a comeback?
 

"Not until 1921 did it start to come back into our time, from an old gentleman, Dr. René-Maurice Gattefossé.

"He was a French cosmetic chemist working in his lab one day when there was an explosion, and received a third degree thermal burn on his hand, wrist and forearm.

"Knowing he needed to reduce the temperature, he reached over where one of his colleagues had just set a container with liquid in it, thought it was water, plunged his hand into it, and it was lavender oil. And it healed his burn without a trace of a scar.

"That man was so excited that being a chemist, he took the lavender apart to understand and find out how it healed his burn without a scar.

"From there he gave the research to Dr. John Valnet who was a medical doctor in Paris France. Valnet did nothing with it until the post war years of World War II when he was working with war victims from shrapnel wounds and losing them to gangrene because the antibiotics wouldn't work. Dr. Gattefossé sent him some oils and said "try the oils." He started using the oils and he saved every single patient!.

"That was the restoration of aroma therapy as it's called today. 1946. That's how new it is, yet the studies never really started until 1967. It is the most exciting thing that we have."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - History of Essential Oils.
 

6. If I am not sick, why should I use essential oils and supplements?     
 

Essential oils are not about sickness, but about supporting health. 

"Let's look at what the human body is up against today. We look at what's causing the poisons that we're inhaling, the industrial contamination that's effecting our air. Look at the foods we're eating today, fried foods in grease that causes carcinogenic activity in the blood.

"Foods that are devaluated and therefore we get no enzymes from the foods that we're eating.

"The foods that are coming from the fields are sprayed with chemicals. The ground is saturated with chemicals and has been for over 50 years... and we wonder why we can't get good wholesome food today.

"Not to mention the environmental contamination that's going into the aquifer, along with all of the contamination in the entire food chain that the human body is subject to.

"We absorb this not only through the food and the water but through the pores of our skin and the oxygen we breathe in through our lungs.

"These chemicals go down into the intestinal tract and cause a weakening of the membrane wall and they leach through into the liver and cause cell mutation. It changes the pH chemistry of the blood and all of a sudden we've got a problem.

"WE start creating a host for disease and then we wonder how can this possibly happen? So detoxification is extremely important today in our lives."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - How Do Essential Oils Work?
 

7. How can essential oils help me to detoxify my body?
 

"It's really interesting to know that essential oils, because of their structure, will literally push chemicals and metallics out of the cells.

"How? Because they have the highest level of oxygenating activity of any substance known to man.

"Oxygen pushes toxins out and pulls potassium back into the cell. essential oils will re-establish normal cell function and balance."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - How Do Essential Oils Work?
 

8. I keep hearing about the "frequency" of oils. What does that mean?
 

"Now this is something that's very exciting. We need oxygenation, antioxidants and increased frequency. What's a frequency? Is frequency important to us? Are our bodies electrical? Absolutely.

"And, it's very interesting when we study this and see that not only is our body electrical but everything around us has an electrical frequency.

"But there's different types of frequencies and this is what's interesting because your lights overhead, they also have a frequency called 60 Hertz. Essential oils have a frequency from 52 to 320 Hertz.

"But the difference between the oil frequency and your light frequency, television, telephone or microwave, your electrical AC frequencies are incoherent, chaotic frequencies. They fracture the human electrical field.

"Essential oils have a coherent, harmonic DC frequency, so they're harmonious with the electrical field of the human body.

"So essential oils give us oxygen, antioxidants and frequency."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils and Frequency.
 

"Now this is just a little bit about essential oil frequency. We were the first to discover essential oils literally contain an electrical frequency.

"We did a study of over 200 subjects at the Eastern State University in Cheney Washington.

"We found that the average body frequency range is 62-68. The brain frequencies are 10 hertz higher than the body during the day and then it reverses during the night and the brain frequencies are 10 hertz lower, body frequencies are 10 hertz higher.

"We took two young men who had a 66 hertz frequency, one held coffee, his frequency dropped to 58 in 3 seconds.

"The other one drank it. His frequency dropped to 52 in 3 seconds.

"The young man that drank the coffee, we didn't let him have any oils, it took 3 days for it to go back up.

"The young man that just held the coffee, we let him breathe the Essential Oil of RC, his frequency went up in 21 seconds.

"We found that disease begins at 58 hertz frequency. Flu starts at 57. Candida 55. Epstein Barr at 52 and Cancer at 42.

"What this tells us is that when we do things in our lives that compromise our frequency in the human body, we can become a victim. essential oils re-establish a normal frequency in the human cells, documented at the Eastern State University."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils and Frequency.
 

"I make food supplementation and was the first to create this type of formulation, the first to develop it in the world and that is using essential oils in the food supplements.

"Why? Because we found essential oils work as a transport mechanism in the food supplements.

"The reason we're starving to death nutritionally is because we're not assimilating the nutrients on the cellular level.

"Essential oils have the ability because they're soluble with the lipids in the membrane to go through the cellular wall, and to carry with it nutrients that there's an association with.

"Because that's their purpose in the plant life, to transport nutrients through the cell wall and deliver it inside the plant. So when we took essential oils and put them inside the plant it was very exciting, because we got a delivery system."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual - Essential Oils Main Page.  

11. What is the benefit of having essential oils in my supplements?
 

"Now I want to back up a bit and give you something to think about.

"Going back to the blood, the blood is the transporter of nutrients. Vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, enzymes. That's the pathway they travel to go to the cells.

"Then the cell wall has to be receptive to those nutrients and those health food ingredients, but when we have a deficiency in oxygen, the cell membrane literally will start to thicken because the pH changes, and when it thickens, then the oxygen that's present there, also being compromised because of lifestyles, is not able to get the nutrients through the wall, and so we wind up with the nutrients in the blood serum but we can't get it inside the cell, and so we wind up having the cell mutation, creating a host for viruses, bacteria's and germs.

"Now, if essential oils are responsible for the oxygenating molecules, and they have the ability to transport nutrients, that they are the life force of the plant, what do you suppose happens to that oil when we cut the plant and dehydrate it? We evaporate 98% of that live substance that's responsible for the healing force of that plant.

"As I look through the audience I see quite a few people here that are probably old enough to remember the days when they used to gather herbs fresh in the pasture or field or out on the hill, and come home and make up their poultices and their teas and their extracts, and it worked.

"So you tell your children about it and when your children get sick they go down to the health food store and buy a bottle of that same herb in a capsule form, take it home, take six bottles of it and nothing happens.

"And we wonder why? It is because modern man has taken the life force out of the herbs by dehydration.

"So when I discovered that, or learned about that, that's when I started spraying the oils back into the powdered herb and it brought back the bio-availability of the nutrients that weren't there before or available to us before, because the catalyst agent had been evaporated out of them.

"So we were the first to put essential oils back into the plant, and re-establish that activity."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - How Do Essential Oils Work?
 

12. What does it mean that, "The constituents can go beyond the blood brain barrier?"
 

"Now look at lemon oil. Lemon oil is pressed from the rind or the peeling.

"Now this is taken right out of my French medical encyclopedia, this is hard copy research, this is not my work and of course you can see that it's in French, Latin, and so what we're looking at here where it says "active principles" these are the constituents or the chemical ingredients found inside of lemon oil that are identifiable. Many have not been identified yet.

"We look right here, there's one agent here called sesquiterpenes. I'm going to talk a little bit about it as I go along. Sesquiterpenes. The reason that's important is because they just found in 1994 at the Medical University of Berlin, Germany and Vienna Austria that sesquiterpenes go beyond the blood-brain barrier. Now, I don't know how important that is to anyone, but I'll fill you in.

"June 1994 it was documented that the agent of sesquiterpenes has the ability to go beyond the blood-brain barrier and was discovered in high levels in frankincense and sandalwood oils.

"I attended a 3 day medical conference in Grasse France September 5th, 6th and 7th of 1994. I saw this research presented, and I saw the brain scan slices of before and after the inhalation of frankincense and sandalwood and how it increased the oxygen production in the limbic system, particularly around the pineal and pituitary glands, and increased the secretion of antibodies, endorphins and neurotransmitters. Documented hard copy from Berlin and Vienna Austria."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - Essential Oils & The Brain Chart, and Psychology of Essential Oils.
 

13. I keep hearing that the oils have to be "pure." What does that mean? Can I buy "Pure" essential oils at the health food store?
 

"America people don't understand essential oils, but what they do understand is marketing.

"They know how to buy the garbage that's rejected from France, and bring it to the United States and cut it with propylene glycol, and synthetic constituents like linalyl acetate, and put it in a bottle and sell it as Essential Oil of lavender, and if you don't know the difference, you're just a victim.

"So if you go down to a health food store and you see a half ounce of lavender oil on the shelf for $5-$8 a half ounce, you KNOW that you're getting garbage, because pure lavender oil, you can't buy it in France for that price. So those are things that are very important.

"Just to give you an understanding, there are four hybrids of lavenders, but they're called lavandins. They're not therapeutic for aroma therapy use, but that's what's sold in the United States predominantly, because people here don't know the difference.

"Our lavender we produce in France, because we have our own farm in France and we have our own farm out in Idaho. We do our own growing in order to produce top quality.

"You have to distill this plant and that's how the oil is extracted, through steam distillation.

"It has to be at low pressure, low temperature, and lavender has to be in the chamber for a minimum of one and a half hours, better two hours.

"But the commercial distilling in Europe for the perfume industry distill lavender oil in fifteen minutes at 400 degrees and up to 150 pounds of pressure, and they pump chemicals into the water while they're doing it.

"So these are things that are very important for you to know. It's not just a matter of running out to a health food store and buying oils because the people who are marketing oils predominantly are in it for the money, they don't care about the purity and they haven't taken the time to study."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - Are You Using Pure Essential Oils?

"I've spent 11 years in Europe, Israel and Egypt studying the history and working in the Universities.

"My studies have been in the Medical University of Geneva Switzerland.

"I started in 1984. The University of Paris. I have worked in two hospitals in Paris. I've studied in the Warwick University, the London University, the University of Cairo where I've spent 3 years working, studying and traveling. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"It's been an incredible study. I've spent 5 years off and on in Southern France learning the ancient art of distillation so we can maintain that purity."

Also see Who Is Dr. Gary Young?
 

"The lavender oil we're producing at the farm in Idaho has a linalyl acetate level of 67. The highest quality produced in the world.

"Look at here, "Toxicity: subcutaneous injection showed low toxicity, no human photo-toxicity reported.

"So it's totally safe, and that's the beautiful part of essential oils. You don't have to be concerned about having side effects from pure oils. Cut, adulterated, synthetic, absolutely...... but not pure, not the way God intended it to be."

Note: Historically lavender has been used for many, many different reasons.  When I  was first studying essential oil therapy, I was taught, "When in doubt use lavender."  - Kat King
 

"How do we get oils quickly into the system? Through the olfactory nerve, to the pineal, pituitary, amygdala.

"When you breathe an oil into the system, and through the nasal cavity, it is first picked up by the neurons that hang down from the olfactory, right between the eyes at the top of the sinus cavity.

"Those oil molecules are carried within milliseconds into the center of the brain.

"Now they have found that through the inhalation of essential oils into the mid-brain system, they will cause a secretion of antibodies instantly, endorphins and neurotransmitters.

"Now we're seeing a direct response on the immune system from the inhalation, and topical application of essential oils like none other that has ever been created."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - Transdermal Absorption of Essential Oils.
 

"So diffusing puts the oils into the atmosphere in your home. You're getting increased oxygen because it releases the oxygenating molecules, you're getting increased ozone and negative ions because that's where it comes from in nature, from the plant oils."

You're getting all the immune-enhancing properties when you are inhaling these oils. "So it makes the most perfect air purification system that has ever been invented, or rediscovered, and we can't afford to be without it."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - How Do Essential Oils Work? , Essential Oils & The Brain Chart, and Psychology of Essential Oils.
 

"How do we know these things happen, and how do they work? By simply studying the properties in the oil.

"This is Thyme Vulgaris, this is a chromatogram. Everybody knows what Camphor is, right? It's soothing, it's penetrating to the tissues.

"Camphor is synthetically made from the active ingredient called camphine. So when we look at this oil, which is Thyme oil, we know that it's going to have a very powerful effect in penetrating.

We look at the pinenes, the cineols, and the terpenines. "So when we take an Essential Oil in the laboratory and analyze it, we know instantly the value it has."

"Depending upon the percentage of activity, it will tell us whether it's a pure oil or whether there's been something done with it. So the science is incredible."

Recommended reading, Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - How Do Essential Oils Work?
 

"How do we use oils? Diffusing in the air, through the feet.

Many of you here are probably Reflexologists and are certainly working with the feet. Start working with oils through the feet."

For more information see  Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual  - Essential Oil Applications and the chapter on Reflexology.
 

"How many people here have emotions? Is there anyone that has no emotional problems at all?

"Do you know that the ancient Egyptians used oils to do what they call cleansing of the flesh and the blood. Removing the evil deities from the mind.

"Because they believed if they didn't remove the evil deities from the mind, which we call negative emotions, they couldn't come back into the body they left in the tomb."

"I was allowed March last year, one year ago, to go into a secret chamber where this ritual was performed, and I was allowed to photograph the walls.

"We started translating the hieroglyphics that told about this ritual.  It was a 3 day ritual, and they used oils to take the people through it and totally eradicate the negative memory and memory trauma from the people."
     
Recommended reading - Wisdom of Ancient Healing Manual , Psychology and Essential Oils.
 

"It's been really a pleasure to be here and share with you what I call the missing link.

"What I also find to be the most exciting thing, that has been rediscovered in the world, and that's the world of essential oils, how we can use them in our food products, in our food supplements, and create a beautiful opportunity to build the immune system and not become a victim.

"Let's be thankful for what we have, let's always have thanks in our hearts for all that we have. Let's live with that and keep a smile on our face, and joy in our heart. Let's share with the world the blessings God gave us a long time ago."