Castor Oil Stories
Dan Ginder, an A.R.E. member, writes, "Using castor
oil to help control allergies was most helpful. By putting a few
drops in my coffee on awakening, my hay fever didn't seem as irritating
as normal. But I forgot to do it until after the season started (about
late August through September). Next year, I'll try taking the castor
oil a month beforehand - and perhaps I can avoid hay fever altogether."
Using five drops of castor oil in the morning as
an aid to allergies was brought to our attention by Valentine Birds, one
of our cooperating doctors, who had obtained the information from one of
his medical friends from India.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1978, Volume
13, No. 4, page 174, Copyright © 1978 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
Cat bites are difficult to treat and are frequent problems facing patients and physicians alike. Some time ago, I treated one such problem with castor oil packs, kept on continuously - without heat - for 16 to 20 hours daily; I also included the usual therapies. The hand and wrist cleared up remarkably and quickly - much more so than I had observed in my past experiences. Since then, whenever we receive minor puncture wounds from our palm trees or other desert-type vegetation, we rub castor oil into the skin several times a day; this therapy has produced excellent responses. Not one infection has occurred when we use the castor oil. Once or twice, after a couple of days, we have had to take out a piece of the vegetation that had imbedded itself in the tissues; but no infection was present, and rapid healing resulted.
Our youngest son David brought home a rat, whose
career as a laboratory animal had ended. He took good care of the
rat, but at our annual New Year's party, someone tipped over Zorba's cage.
She was not wild, but scared at all the humans putting out their hands
to catch her. Gladys, my wife, was on the spot. She picked
Zorba up to place her back in her cage. Zorba, however, still
suffering from an adrenal fear response, reached around and bit Gladys
on the finger. The important part of the event was that castor oil,
rubbed into the rat bite for the next two days, caused the wound to heal
painlessly without complication. This incident illustrates how we
have used this oil - derived from the bean of the Ricinus communis - on
puncture wounds, bites, minor cuts, and bruises, and found it highly successful
for achieving excellent results.
[Note: The preceding case reports were written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1978, Volume
13, No. 2, page 84, Copyright © 1978 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
The Thorntons in Ohio reiterate information already found' in the Cayce readings on the nature of healing and the response of the body's cells to the consciousness, vibration, or influence of a "healing" agent. Castor oil has an antifungal effect (this we know from published laboratory research). It also has an eliminatory (cleansing) effect, as evidenced by its most common usage. We have observed clinically how the vitality of cells is upgraded by the application of castor oil, perhaps from its cleansing effect, which frees the cells to function more vibrantly. We postulate that the effect of this oil from the bean of the Ricinus corninunis acts to stimulate the lymphatic drainage of the area being treated.
Mrs. Thornton reports that during her last two months of pregnancy she massaged her abdomen nightly with castor oil; she attributes to this activity the fact that she had no stretch marks at all after her pregnancy was ended. The child born from this pregnancy then received some of the same treatment. The castor oil "works very well on his bottom when any redness appears."
Then Mr. Thornton smashed his finger. The family therapy, applied overnight, brought relief from pain and absorption of much of the blood.
From South Africa comes another castor oil story.
Hazel Tops, on a visit in the U.S., just by chance (!) boarded an American
Airlines flight in Dallas bound for Phoenix; also, just by chance (!),
Gladys and I were changing flights in Dallas on our way home from Nashville.
Jim Dixon, another old friend, brought Hazel up to gate number 13, and
there the four of us met with hugs and exclamations of delight. After
the reunion was adequately appreciated, Hazel told us about her youngest
daughter, who had stepped on a rusty pin. When she saw her daughter's
foot, there were two red streaks emerging from the puncture wound site
in the sole of the foot and extending up just past the ankle. It
was too late for the doctor, so a sloppy castor oil pack was applied and
kept in place all night. In the morning, the pain and tenderness
were gone, the red streaks had disappeared, and the patient was well.
Castor oil does it again!
[Note: The preceding case reports were written by William McGarey,
M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1978,
Volume 13, No. 6, page 269, Copyright © 1978 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
Pain in the terminal cancer patient is perhaps the most feared complication of neoplastic diseases in the human being. One wonders where the pain actually originates-for pain is perhaps the most difficult symptom to pin down and the least understood. Methods of cancer therapy derived from unorthodox sources seem to produce some help in this direction. In my own experience with cancer patients who were too far advanced with the disease to be helped by any of the therapies available, I have seen one traditional aid bring much relief from pain during the terminal days. Quite recently, a 62-year-old man developed a cancer of the brain. By the time he came under medical observation, it was quite advanced; then, a second malignancy was discovered in the wall of the bladder. Weight loss had come rapidly, and the only therapy offered him was chemotherapy. When the family consulted us, the patient was terminal, in bed and obviously had not long to go. He was advised to use castor oil packs on the abdomen. He had not used any pain medication up to that point, and remained pain-free until twenty-four hours before he passed away. Then he developed some pain in one flank. The castor oil pack was applied locally there, too, and he became comfortable once again.
An earlier instance of the use of these packs came nearly twenty years ago, when I was called upon to care for a woman who had a large abdominal cancer which was far advanced when I first saw her. She had become unable to care for herself. She refused surgery of any kind and went into a rest home, since she had no living relatives. There she received coffee enemas and abdominal castor oil packs daily for the next forty days, until her death. She had no pain at any time. One wonders if these cases - and I'm sure I am not alone in observing this - are simply coincidences, or does a soothing application with particular vibrations bring about a reaction in the autonomic nervous system of the lymphatic system which eliminates the situation that causes pain? At times there seem to be more cases that deviate from the rule than there are ones that obey it.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1976, Volume 11,
No. 3, page 137, Copyright © 1976 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
We recently received a letter from an A.R.E. friend
of ours whose son (six years old) took a nasty spill on his bike.
Her written story is an excellent report on what happened with Rowan:
"He had a 'goose egg' partially over his right temple and surrounding
area. I checked his eyes, and they seemed to focus all right.
I asked him if he wanted to go to church or stay home. He opted to
go to church ... but instead of going to his class, he stayed with me,
head in my lap. When we got home he complained of not feeling well,
and vomited. In talking to him, I discovered he couldn't remember
what had happened from the time he fell off his bike until sometime on
the way to church. I was very concerned by this time-felt he must
have a minor concussion. I put a castor oil pack on the bruise and
around his head, and asked him to lie down, and remain comparatively quiet.
If I recall correctly, in about an hour and a half he was asking for something
to eat, playing a game on the bed with his sister-and when I checked the
swelling, it was all gone. I removed the pack, and he got up.
That night I put it back on until morning. No repercussions that
I could see."
The therapy? It consisted of a mother's concern,
youth's ability to recuperate, and castor oil. And don't underestimate
any one of the three.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1976, Volume
11, No. 6, page 276, Copyright © 1976 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
". ..Four years ago I had my ears pierced.
They became infected and stayed that way for some time. I spent a
small fortune on doctors and medicine. I finally remembered the castor
oil and used it several times a day - and in three days' time my ears were
completely healed and I've had no trouble with them since.
"My sister used warm castor oil drops in her ears
after doctors had told her that her hearing had been impaired by having
a shotgun go off close to her. She had a 50% hearing loss and a loud
ringing in her ears. Since she began using the castor oil drops,
her hearing has improved and the ringing has almost stopped. I am
looking forward to a long association with the A.R.E." No wonder!
[Note: The preceding case reports were written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1978, Volume
13, No. 4, page 172, Copyright © 1978 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
"Not being sure of the time needed for the packs to be effective, I told the mother to massage her daughter's abdomen with very warm castor oil for 10 to 15 minutes, then apply the hot packs for an hour at a time, twice a day, for 3 to 4 days. I stressed keeping the packs hot and massaging the liver area. At the fifth day I returned and found the girl energetically playing with her friends. Her strength had returned, although her eyes still had a little yellow cast to them."
The doctor in the city saw her a bit later and pronounced her well and ready to go back to school.
In addition to the castor oil packs, infectious hepatitis
reacts well with a strong supportive dietary regimen. One of the
most pleasing responses occurred in the case of a 59-year-old man, who
developed hepatitis in the guise of intestinal flu. On his second
visit to the Clinic, it became obvious that our original diagnosis was
incorrect, and infectious hepatitis was verified by laboratory findings.
Because of the distention and discomfort of his abdomen - which brought
him to the Clinic in the first place - he had already started castor oil
packs on our recommendation. And thus on his second visit he was
feeling somewhat better. We found his liver to be enlarged 2-3 fingerbreadths
down from the rib margin. The diet prescribed consisted mostly of
clear liquids and was very low in starch and protein. On the fifth
day he was started on a blender mix prepared from water, unsweetened frozen
fruit, protein powder and yeast powder. Fish was added then to his
diet. Each day a clinical improvement in his condition was reported.
His laboratory findings ranged from a high on the second day to a normalization
of all reports on the 28th day. The SGPT was the last to return to
normal, moving from a high of 755 on the first test to 40 on the final
test. The icterus disappeared rapidly; the total bilirubin in the
blood returned to normal on the 15th day. On the 19th day the patient
felt well enough to return to work.
His diet remained light, high in vegetables and
fruits. The only proteins were fish, fowl and lamb, supplemented
with the blender mix. Castor oil packs continued over a three-month
period, given daily the first three weeks and thrice weekly thereafter.
This case indeed responded well to the treatments.
[Note: The preceding case reports were written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1978, Volume
13, No. 4, page 173, Copyright © 1978 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
A Personal Account
by Cathy C.
About 10 years ago, at the age of 27, I suddenly lost the sight in my left eye due to optic neuritis. I went to three ophthalmologists including the head neuro-ophthalmologist at NYU hospital. I was offered only steroids as a treatment, which I was afraid to take because my body is extremely sensitive, and I was concerned about the side effects.
Fortunately, a family friend told my mother to get
me to a chiropractor immediately. I was a member of the Edgar Cayce organization,"
The Association for Research and Enlightenment," and I was aware that Cayce
recommended chiropractic adjustments for all sorts of ailments, and that
the A.R.E. had a listing of chiropractic members. I decided that I wanted
to be treated by a chiropractor
who would treat me with theCayce remedies for blindness.
I called the A.R.E. And was given the name of Dr. John Pagano in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. I called him immediately, and he told me to come over right away. My mother agreed to drive me to his office, although she had always been skeptical about my interest in the Cayce readings.
When we met Dr. Pagano, he told me that he had successfully treated a woman the previous year, who had been blind in both eyes for several months due to optic neuritis. Dr. Pagano told me that he could make me no promises, but he would treat me the same way he had treated her, according to the Edgar Cayce readings.
The first thing he did was to take an x-ray of my neck. When the x-ray developed, he was excited to find that the deviation shown in the x- ray of my neck proved to be identical to the deviation in his previous patient's neck. He suspected that my spine was pressing on the optic nerve and cutting off the circulation.
Dr. Pagano massaged my neck with his hands and then with an electrical massager to increase the circulation to the area. He then adjusted my neck in the area that Cayce said affects blindness. When I got home, I made a phone call to the other woman whom he had helped. She was very encouraging. I told her that the three doctors I had seen were pessimistic about my prognosis. She told me not to worry, she had been told by experts that she would probably never see again.
Later that evening, I was excited to find that my sight had begun to return. After a week of adjustments, my sight was completely restored. I went back to one of the ophthalmologists I had seen, and told her what had happened. She examined me and said, "It's amazing -- you're cured!" I have never had a recurrence of the problem. Neither has Dr. Pagano's first optic neuritis patient.
Since then, Dr. Pagano has treated several more (optic
neuritis, and otherwise) visually impaired patients, with varying degrees
of success.
I believe that the adjustments were what helped
me the most, but Dr. Pagano also had me try the following Edgar Cayce recommendations:
While sitting up straight, gently roll your head
over to the left side as if to touch your left shoulder. Slowly bring it
back up and over to the right side. Repeat this several times. Roll your
head forward and backward several times in the same manner. Then slowly
roll your head to the right, forward, left and backward several times (in
a circle). Then roll it in reverse order several times.
Potato Peel Poultice
Make a paste of potato skin peelings from thick-skinned
potatoes. Include a little of the pulp. Place over your closed eyes for
approximately 20 minutes. This helps to reduce eye strain.
Carrot Gelatin
Buy a bag of organic carrots. Grate them into a gelatin
mixture as if making jello. Be sure to include the top portion of the carrots,
including the greens if possible. It is better to use the unflavored jello,
because you don't want to pollute your body with sugar and artificial coloring.
(See Healthy Diet). Cayce said that gelatin helps the body to assimilate
vitamins and minerals 6 times better than it would otherwise do, and that
the Vitamin A will be carried directly to the optic nerve.
Glycothymoline Packs
Soak two cotton balls in a 50/50 mixture of gylcothymoline
and water. Gently squeeze them out and place over each closed eye for approximately
30 minutes.
Rolled Towel Stretch
Roll a towel into a tight cylindrical roll. Lie down
with your neck stretched over it. Make sure it's big enough to allow
the arch of your neck to stretch out over it.
Castor Oil Drops
Place one drop of pure cold-pressed castor oil in each eye before sleep. (Cayce also recommended this for cataracts.)
Healthy Diet
In general, Cayce recommended eating whole grain
cereals or citrus fruits in the morning - but never at the same meal. He
suggested they be alternated from day to day. At noon he recommended fresh
raw vegetable salads, including many different types of vegetables, and
soups or broths with whole grain brown bread. For dinner, one should eat
"a well coordinated vegetable diet, with three vegetables above the ground
to one below the ground. Sea food, fowl or lamb; not other types of meats."
(Please see the Cayce files on diet for more in depth information on the
subject.)
Right Thinking
Cayce stressed the importance of the mind and "right thinking" in any healing process.
[NOTE: The above information was used with the permission of the author
who has provided this information on her web site at: http://www2.cybernex.net/~coraino/blind.html]
Certainly, if awareness of creative forces is the
healing element in exercise, foods, medicine or surgery, then anything
which will bring that awareness to the body prior to the onset of any disease
process will prevent it. Indeed, it is the unawareness, the lack
of consciousness of the Divine, which - in the final analysis - is the
cause of disease, according to the readings.
Let me quote from a letter received several years
ago from Sally Schaefer. It tells a simple story in itself, a story
of infection, pain and possible incapacity - all prevented (in little ways,
to be sure). At the same time it is a story of how aiding the body's
physiological processes can bring it quick healing and save the sufferer
not only problems but money that would otherwise have been expended on
doctors or hospitals.
"Shortly after my initial introduction to Edgar
Cayce, during a weekend visit to my folks, the subject of home remedies,
and castor oil in particular, emerged. I made no comment about my
use of it, but rather pressed my dad, who reported that as a youth (50
or so years ago) he and his family applied it to a bleeding wart on one
of their mules. They kept the bottle in the barn and made the application
a part of the daily chores. He said it took a long time but that
the wart healed and eventually hair grew over the spot.
". . I have discovered that just a little castor
oil, rubbed on with the finger, on a beginning pimple or small boil, prevents
it from forming; or if I'm a little late in treating, it very often disappears
without coming to a head and draining on the skin surface. I suggested
this to my nieces, along with a better diet, and it has worked for them
also.
"Approximately two months ago, I crashed into some
wooden bleachers while playing volleyball. Before the evening game
ended, I had an egg-sized swelling on my leg, just below the knee, in addition
to the surface abrasion. After bathing, I soaked four layers of flannel,
approximately 4" square, and tied this in place with an old nylon stocking.
Next morning - no swelling, no signs of a bruise, no pain. I removed
the dressing, and by noon I felt pain. By 2 o'clock, there was renewed
swelling and signs of discoloration. I hurried home after school
and immediately applied another castor oil dressing. In one hour,
pain and swelling were gone, despite continued use of my leg. By
the next morning, only faint discoloration defined the bruise, which surrounded
the impact area and also trailed downward about one inch wide along the
shin bone for about four inches. I continued the dressings for the
next three evenings and through the nights.
"I never did get a real bruise - to the amazement
of the other teachers who wouldn't believe I had used only castor oil.
(Fact is, they couldn't believe I had used castor oil!) The area never
swelled again. And the abrasion healed quickly."
Prevention and cure are often born of the same measures,
and there is not only wisdom, but also billions of dollars in health care
being weighed in the scales as we consider what the New Age medicine would
consist of.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1981, Volume
16, No. 2, page 92, Copyright © 1981 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
"The patient is a 26-year-old male with a five-year
history of episodic flareups of a painful pilonidal cyst. It was
never larger than an olive until the last week of October, 1975, when it
reached the size of an egg. Sitting and walking became more difficult.
He finally went for medical help and was scheduled for surgery on the 29th
of November.
"I was visited by his mother who is my patient.
She asked if there were anything I could suggest to relieve the pain since
the doctor had only given him antibiotics. I recommended applying
a four-inch gauze pad saturated in castor oil with a heating pad on high
heat for one hour before bedtime. His wife was to give him a five-minute
digital massage two inches from the border of the cyst, working in a circular
motion towards the cyst but not directly on it. This was done and
repeated the following morning. At 4 p.m. Sunday the pain returned,
and his wife applied another compress. Within minutes he felt relief.
The cyst opened and began to drain.
"He reported to his doctor on Monday for the scheduled
surgery, but indicated that since the cyst was draining he wanted to cancel
the surgery and let nature take its course. The doctor insisted that
the sac had to be removed, but the patient refused.
"Within one week the cyst was down to the size of
a pea, the smallest it had been in five years. He reported that with
the first application he was able to sleep for the first time in ten days;
now the cyst is barely palpable. He was instructed to continue the
hot castor oil compresses for one additional week after cessation of the
drainage." (Dr. Al Giaquinto)
"I have used the castor oil packs for a variety
of conditions, from open abrasions to strained muscles, and all with great
success. I have even converted my skeptical husband to the castor
oil packs following an incident with our son. He had somehow managed
to get his hand smashed between two rocks, not breaking any bones, but
badly abrased and contused. Against my medical training and my husband's,
we applied a warm castor oil pack to the hand. The next morning the
results were dramatic. The swelling had completely subsided and the
healing had occurred at an incredible rate. By the third day healing
was complete... The remarkable thing other than the healing was the absence
of pain after an hour following the application of the pack." (Georgia
Van Wormer)
Castor oil packs certainly have proved their worth
and versatility.
[Note: The preceding case reports were written by William McGarey,
M. D. and are excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1981,
Volume 16, No. 5, page 229, Copyright © 1981 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
The healing influence of the oil of the Racinus communis has been documented thousands of times now, and the following stories just amplify the documentation.
Swelling of the left middle finger between the interphalangeal joints bothered Edna Atkins, but she fussed along with the swelling for many weeks before actually getting down to the business of treating the finger. She had heard how good castor oil was for a variety of ailments but had just never tried it. She related the following: "I finally got out some oil one evening while watching TV and just rubbed it around the second joint a while. I did this two evenings, leaving it on when I went to bed. The third night I was again going to rub the joint, but could not find the spot any longer. I couldn't even be sure which hand or finger it was, as there was no sign of swelling or difference between any fingers any longer!" She didn't even know the diagnosis, but the cure was great!
From an unrecognized source - a nutrition columnist - the following account was sent in: "Recently a reader asked for help in treating granulated eyelids. I had this condition so bad that all my eyelashes fell out. The doctor's medication did not do any good. My grandmother suggested that I rub castor oil on my eyelashes at night. After one month, my eyelashes began to grow back, very thick and long. I am now 26 years old and use the oil treatment once a week. People ask me how I got such long, dark eyelashes. I tell them and most of them laugh at me. But I know it works."
Lastly, an A.R.E. member developed a growth in the corner of his eye, with surgery apparently just around the other corner. "I gently massaged it every night for five minutes with castor oil. After about three or four months, it did not get bigger - but did not disappear. In the back of my mind I remembered a Cayce reading that suggested some bicarbonate of soda with the castor oil. Thought it worth a try. After the massage, I put a tiny dab of bicarbonate of soda on the growth. The growth got very irritated and sore for a few days, fell off, and never returned again. Did not even leave a scar. I have tried same treatment for brown patches on my face. Castor oil with bicarb of soda. Same thing happened: got sore for a few days and then the brown patches completely disappeared."
Cayce remarked about someone having a castor oil consciousness. This man had a castor oil/bicarbonate of soda consciousness. And it worked.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1981, Volume 16, No.7, page 287, Copyright © 1981 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
After less than a week of using the packs, the pain had subsided so much that the landlord waxed enthusiastic. He waxed so much, in fact, that he started buying castor oil by the gallon. He purchased several yards of wool flannel and rigged up his bed like no prescription I have ever given. Over the mattress cover, he placed a large plastic cover. Then came several layers of flannel - then two more layers of flannel, then a blanket on top of that. The room was always heated, even while the landlord slept. Then he poured castor oil on the flannel over the entire bed and climbed in between the several layers of wool flannel. Every day he would add some castor oil to the bed, and apparently when the whole setup became too old to be of value, he would discard the blanket, the flannel, etc., and bring in some new materials.
The story would just be humorous - even if true, which it is - if he derived no significant benefits from the treatments. He didn't even wipe off the oil from the skin when he got up in the morning. Truly a monumental experiment for one man. But the experimenter still continues to see his doctor regularly, tells him what he is doing, and feels better than he has in years. Now he is able to do his gardening, do the carpentering needed around his place, and recently even climbed up on the roof to fix a leak. His physical condition is better; his blood pressure apparently is improved; and he has a new life in front of him.
He did his own personal research project after reading much about the use of castor oil as given in the Cayce readings in the booklet, Edgar Cayce and the Palma Christi. Healings of the body indeed may come about in many ways and manners.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1975, Volume
10, No. 6, page 275, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
An alcoholic for more than 20 years is the description one of our correspondents gave herself in a research report which she submitted recently. But she used castor oil packs on her abdomen for an entirely different reason four years ago. It seemed that she had developed a severe abdominal pain. She did not consult her doctor, so her own diagnosis of "probably an intestinal disorder" will have to suffice, no matter how inadequate. She reports that her pain lessened a little each day, as she applied the packs on a twice daily routine. An apparent constipation was thoroughly corrected on the second day, but she continued the packs for a period of two weeks.
The most remarkable result of her own little adventure in consciousness, however, is the real point of this story. She adds as a postscript to her report that "Since the day I first used oil packs, I have not touched a drop of liquor - nor have I had the desire to do so. I was an alcoholic for more than 20 years. I used to drink myself to sleep every single night."
My question is: What is it that happens to people that makes a simple act of healing turn their lives into a new channel of living? Why should applications of castor oil packs rival Alcoholics Anonymous in this particular event in time and space? Life offers us a multitude of unanswered questions, doesn't it?
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1975, Volume 10, No. 6, page 276, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Castor oil can be used in a variety of ways. Hemet Pathak, M.D., brings us this story from his native India: five drops of castor oil each morning, taken on an empty stomach in a little juice or water, is often beneficial therapy for allergic manifestations in the G. I. tract, as well as with skin and naso-pharyngeal allergies. This type of therapy has its roots in Indian herbal therapy, with which Dr. Pathak is an expert. The anti-allergenic nature of castor oil used in this manner was discovered accidentally in a man who was highly sensitive to penicillin. He had been on the castor oil for another reason when he was given penicillin by someone who did not know of his allergy. When he realized what he had been given, he was frightened - but nothing happened. The allergy was gone. An unofficial report of some 140 cases has been made, with highly encouraging responses being noted.
Dr. Pathak and Valentine Birds, M.D., reported in a letter that they have used two to five drops of castor oil orally on a daily basis, both with and without castor oil packs on the abdomen, and have noted encouraging results in the allergies of children. Further, they have noted that a single cathartic dose of castor oil given immediately after an accident when a whiplash type of injury is incurred often reduces the severity of the pain in the spinal musculature. They follow this up with osteopathic techniques, castor oil packs, pressure techniques and acupuncture as the situation warrants, and have found these patients respond in a more satisfactory manner.
The use of the cathartic, of course, is a fundamental concept in the physiologic suggestions in the Cayce material. When an accident or an illness creates more toxins or waste products of any kind in the body, it is helpful to rid the body of them as quickly as possible.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, January, 1975, Volume
10, No. 1, page 37, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
One of our correspondents reported the use of castor oil as an antiallergic therapy. She has a severe allergy to sugar and caffeine and when she takes in these foods, she reacts with "itching, running, scaling of the eyelids, red, inflamed and bloodshot eyes, and microscopic 'bumps' under . . . top eyelids." About three years ago she added to this list a twitching of both eyelids occurring five to ten times daily. Strong corticosteroid ointments for the eyes could not control the twitching, although it did help the other symptoms.
She had read about castor oil and its benefits, but would not try it until she read Edgar Cayce and the Palma Christi. Rubbing the castor oil on her upper and lower eyelids, the allergic victim found relief. On the sixth day of treatment, the twitching stopped. True, it recurs if she overloads her body with chocolate, for instance, but now she uses the castor oil daily and is not troubled with the problem.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1975, Volume 10, No. 2, page 84, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Many massage oils were described in the Cayce readings; perhaps this is because massage was given as a therapeutic modality more often than any other type of therapy. From Quebec, Canada, comes an interesting story about one of these massage mixtures:
"I would like to tell you about a discovery I made, just by coincidence. Last summer ... I used to prepare the solution prescribed by Edgar Cayce, a beauty aid for the skin (the peanut oil, olive oil, rosewater and lanolin mixture). Since I have a sensitive skin towards sunburns, I prepared it and used it as a suntan lotion all over my body ...
"We used to spend the weekends in the Laurentian hills, north of Montreal. The mountains are very beautiful, except for the unbelievable amount of black flies and mosquitoes. Needless to say, they manage to destroy any hopes of a trouble-free sunbathe Within minutes we were beleaguered by literally thousands of them. Everyone in our group was bitten awfully except a friend and myself ... (we used the lotion) ... Not one bite. This news might not be important to city dwellers, but ... "
I would agree with my Canadian friend that those susceptible to insect bites might find this adaptation of the massage mixture beneficial. The exact formula, taken from reading 1968-7, is: peanut oil, 6 ounces; olive oil, 2 ounces; rosewater, 2 ounces; and lanolin (dissolved), 1 tablespoonful.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1975, Volume 10, No. 3, page 128, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
A low back problem of 40 years' standing was aggravated
when a patient lifted a box of rocks. She went to her doctor and
received some manipulative relief. She continues: "but by November
the pain had not left - in fact was getting worse. I would have to
wake up in order to turn over in bed - with the help of my hands.
Sitting was always painful - especially riding in a car. I decided
to use the castor oil pack with the treating pad, which I did for one to
three hours every night for a week. By the end of the week, the pain
was gone and has never returned. The castor oil left me wondrously
pain-free and flexible for the first time in years."
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1975, Volume 10,
No. 3, page 131, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
In nearly twenty years of association with the concepts of healing and regeneration found in the Cayce readings, my experience tells me that all people should have the opportunity to bring about healing for themselves or for others. This can be done by prayer, of course, which is usually not dramatic, even though it is effective. Utilizing the same concept that all healing comes from within the body, the opportunity might come through application of a castor oil pack or vinegar and salt, or some such remedy that often is not only dramatic in its effectiveness but also satisfies that desire for healing. Such a thing happened to a Kansas City woman whose five-year-old boy stepped on a nail and developed typical red streaks of cellulitis. Her story needs no amplification:
"First, believe me, when it comes to my children's health, I am not in the least likely to take chances, so do not think I acted impulsively or took any unusual chances. It started on a Sunday morning when my five-year-old complained that his foot hurt and he had some red streaks on his ankle. I took his temperature, and it was normal, but his foot, where he had stepped on a nail the previous day, was now quite red. There were also two or three streaks raised like welts, almost to his knee. I had never seen blood-poisoning streaks before, but I was sure that it was indeed blood poisoning, though my husband didn't think so.
"I decided to try the Cayce castor oil packs and heat and would give it no longer than four hours. If he was running a temperature or was worse in any way by that time, I would call the doctor. I had used the packs for bruises and swelling but never for anything this serious before. I put the pack on and wrapped an elastic bandage around it, then fastened the beating pad around that and made him sit and keep his foot elevated. At the end of four hours, the red streaks were definitely fading and the swelling had disappeared. The pain was nearly gone also, and there was no temperature elevation. I left the pack on with heat the rest of the day, then that night took off the heating pad, leaving the pack in place.
"By the next morning, the foot looked completely normal, and when my boy stepped on it, there was no pain. I watched him carefully for several days, but the symptoms never came back, and everything was great. No shots or pills and no doctor bill or hospital bill, and it cleared up so fast. I have since used it for the same type of infection with the same results."
This enterprising woman used the same castor oil packs for sprains and bruises, bumps and that sort of thing; for infected finger nails and even poison ivy. She told us also how she used the salt and vinegar pack on her 16-year-old boy who severely sprained his ankle.
"I melted the salt with the hot vinegar and made a poultice and plastered the foot thickly with it and then wrapped it with old sheet strips. I left the poultice on until it was completely dried and started to flake off. His foot was much better that night and by the next day he was walking nearly normally and by the end of the week he was active, doing everything except jumping and running."
Then she adds her own philosophical observation, which I think is a fascinating bit of home-spun truth:
"It's a funny thing, though. In working with my kids, the ones that believe it will help are helped. The one daughter who does not believe in home remedies and faith healing, the salt and vinegar did not help her sprain even though all other factors were the same."
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1975, Volume 10, No. 4, page 174, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Thrombophlebitis of the leg was an occasion in our family to use some of the concepts developed in the Edgar Cayce material. The physician is told to "heal thyself." So my wife Gladys and I went to "work on her left great saphenous vein when it became inflamed recently. There was tenderness, moderate to severe pain, palpable thrombus but no edema. Inflammation appeared and coursed up over the medial aspect of the knee; five to six inches of the structure were clinically involved. The symptoms started one evening, worsened during the night, and therapy began midmorning the next day.
Treatment in this case was: (1) light, high-vitamin diet with forced fluids; (2) castor oil pack over the affected area held in place with Ace bandage; (3) increased vitamin intake (probably not necessary if #1 is followed); and (4) the healing hands of a friend.
Diet, in our opinion, is a valuable therapeutic tool in every illness, diet especially in an acute condition. The castor oil pack has always been the most important of these treatments, and we have used it over the years in similar cases.
Her response was quite remarkable, as in some of our prior experiences with superficial thrombophlebitis. The pack was applied during the day on the first and second day. By the time 24 hours had passed, there was no redness, no pain, and only a faint residual of tenderness. In 36 hours, there were no remaining symptoms or abnormal findings; the patient was well; there was no recurrence.
The usual response to conventional therapy (elastic bandage and an anti-inflammatory agent) is relief of pain and swelling in five to seven days. If not resolved by then, vascular surgery is often recommended; the excision of the affected veins can then hasten a cure and prevent deep extension of' the thrombus and possible pulmonary embolism. Nothing is mentioned in articles or texts about the importance of dietary principles in either preventing or treating a thrombophlebitis. And certainly castor oil packs have not yet evolved into the medical literature.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1975, Volume 10, No. 5, page 222, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Mabel Alford related a castor oil story during our week's program on Home and Marriage in Virginia Beach last year. A longtime A.R.E. member, she has attended many workshops and read widely in the Cayce material. Though she is experienced in taking care of herself', this time she forgot for a while. About a year ago, she was mixing up cement and neglected to put gloves on, thinking that it was not really necessary. No problem doing the work that morning, but later on in the afternoon, her hands started to hurt. As the pain grew more severe, the skin started to peel off in places. She took some aspirin that night, but couldn't sleep because of the pain. She tried soaking her hands in aspirin water, but that didn't help. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, she remembered castor oil. She actually dipped her hands in the oil, put on stocking gloves and then, when she got back into bed, slept like a baby.
Prior to using the castor oil, her hands were stiff
and the tissues edematous, and she had visions of not being able to work
the next week. (She is a check-out clerk at a supermarket.) But when she
took the gloves off the next morning., there was no pain, no swelling,
and she round no problems in using her fingers and hands at work.
[Note: The preceding case report was written by William McGarey, M.
D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1975, Volume
10, No. 5, page 223, Copyright © 1975 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
From Dr. Mayo Hotten comes the report that lie has used castor oil packs over the eyes in two cases to reduce the inflammation of pterygium - perhaps sufficiently to prevent surgery. Then I received a report recently about a twenty-four-year-old housewife who, when she underwent a routine examination, was found to have a golf-ball-sized cyst on her left ovary. She was scheduled for a return visit, but in the meantime applied castor oil packs to her lower abdomen for one hour each day, four days each week. She noticed that she received a very welcome relief from the menstrual cramps she had suffered with for such a long time. When she was again examined for the cyst, it had disappeared entirely.
Another story, of interest to parents, is the case of a year-old boy who could not find relief after five to six months of chronic diarrhea. I told his parents about the use of castor oil packs, and the possibility of using Glyco-Thymoline packs also. They recently wrote me that their young son, now twenty-two months, has no problems with his G.I. tract - it cleared up completely on just the castor oil packs.
They also told me about a friend of theirs who has had almost complete remission of his epileptic seizures by regularly massaging his right upper abdominal area with a mixture of peanut oil and olive oil, and taking small dosages of olive oil by mouth.
Oil has a healing quality, apparently, that cannot be matched or really duplicated. I receive so many spontaneous communications from A.R.E. people from all over the country who have used these simple therapy ideas advantageously. The following quotation about application of oils is an example:
"Within our groups here, we have had quite a few successes using castor oil - my husband has removed a very dark mole from the tip of his nose and is now working on another one on his forehead. One of our young men has been using the oils (castor, lanolin, peanut) on a scald mark which he suffered at the age of three years, and this has been developing new skin from the center out since he first started using the mixture about four months ago! I, myself, had tremendous success using castor oil while in the hospital for surgery. I came down with a cold that was making my eyes water so badly I couldn't see. After using it just one night - with the nurse standing there watching me to make sure I wouldn't drink it! - the cold was gone, and by morning there was not one single trace of my ever having it. Prayers are always used when any of us apply the oils, so we can vouch for the results on a Cayce treatment level!"
[Note: The preceding report was written by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1972, Volume 7,
No. 6, page 285, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
Bob McTammany is a surgeon in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He told me the following story about a post-vaginal hysterectomy patient who developed a febrile course and a large pelvic abscess which improved on antibiotics and proteolytic enzymes, although a 10 x 10 cm mass remained. She refused further surgery, and after several weeks of malaise, fever, low abdominal tenderness and pain, and no general improvement, she was then convinced that she should begin application of castor oil packs, used one hour daily. She improved remarkably symptom-wise, and examination in one month showed almost complete resolution of the pelvic abscess. Bob feels that these packs might be beneficial to post-operative patients in order to improve wound-healing and reduce the incidence of infection.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1972, Volume 7, No. 3, page 185, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Ernie Pecci, whose special concern is mental retardation, was one of the outstanding lecturers at the latest symposium. At his two Multipurpose Centers near Oakland, California, he has been working with castor oil packs applied to the abdomen. A recent letter from him states, in part: "In what I would call a major breakthrough, a University of California medical researcher wants to conduct some research studies on the use of the castor oil packs based upon our previous success. They are especially interested in investigating my hypothesis that 'minimal brain damage' is really an endocrine dysfunction which might be helped with the use of the castor oil packs. They have set up an elaborate EEG monitoring system which can be linked to computers which would indicate whether learning is really enhanced after treatment."
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1972, Volume 7, No. 3, page 185, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
An A.R.E. member in Irvington, New Jersey, wrote that he had had palpitation of the heart which had not responded to any treatment. He used hot castor oil packs over his abdomen three days each week for an hour and a half. Every third day he took one teaspoonful of olive oil. This therapy was continued for four weeks and the symptoms cleared up for eleven months, recurring when he underwent some psychological shock. Then, after another four weeks of therapy, the symptoms disappeared again, and have been absent for over a year now.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1972, Volume 7, No. 3, page 185, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Three stories about castor Oil used in as many different ways. A letter from an old friend who has been reading the material from the A.R.E. for many years: she writes about her husband who "was very ill in the hospital for two months - taken because of continuous nausea and vomiting. [He had a large mass removed from his lung, his hiatal hernia re-done, but no one could find the cause for the continued nausea and vomiting . . . To make a long story short, he came home from the hospital still having the same symptoms vomiting, nausea.
"All of a sudden the idea of castor oil packs occurred to me. After all, the medical profession wasn't able to help him. After two packs she began to bet better! Blessings on Cayce! Now he is practically like himself except for tiring easily." Five months they continued the packs. Persistence! And results!
Secondly, a letter from another woman who applied information on her own: "I thought you might be interested in hearing that my mother had a lump near her vagina. We applied castor oil and camphorated oil. In three weeks, it reduced in size from the size of a walnut to the size of a pea; in five weeks it was gone, and has not returned."
Thirdly, a patient of mine who had cut his right ankle on a piece of glass had it repaired at the Emergency Room of Scottsdale Baptist hospital, but there was such extreme hyperesthesia and pain that the 17-year-old football player had to use crutches to get around. I saw him three days later, and at that point his entire ankle hurt, and the wound was painful to the touch. It was not infected, but I felt that the nerve supply in that area had been injured and possibly a ligamentous laceration had produced the extreme symptoms. In all event, he was instructed how to use castor oil packs over the wound. He felt markedly better two days later and was able to go without crutches. Sutures were removed at seven days, and he was back playing football six days after that. Instead of hyperesthesia distal to the wound area, there was now just a bit of numbness. Bob was told to continue massaging the area with the oil until the numbness was gone.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1972, Volume 7, No. 3, page 108, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Biochemical bases of understanding the functioning of the human body may have been adequate for the mind of the physician for many years here in the western part of the world, but it can no longer stand the test of experience, reason, and pure logic. For instance, how can oil achieve a healing effect? Witness these two stories, both of which deal with arthritis:
From Pittsburgh, Pa., I quote this: "In reading Jess Stearn's Edgar Cayce, the Sleeping Prophet, I noted with much interest his references to arthritis and the use of pure peanut oil. As a rheumatoid arthritic I have found it to be of great benefit to my condition. After using peanut oil as a massaging oil for several years, I have to agree with Cayce's belief that it not only lubricates but heals as well. I am sure that had I known about the oil in this use I would have been spared much misery. Why isn't the use of peanut oil to reduce joint inflammation and pain in arthritis better known? Does the medical profession spurn it as a home remedy?"
From California: "Mother had arthritis so bad she was committed to the hospital. She was there for two weeks and released with no apparent help. The arthritis was centered in her fingers which were doubled back in her palms - she didn't think she would be able to open up her fingers again. Father brought her home and started a treatment of hot castor oil - rubbing her hands, arms, and shoulders and legs three times a day. Within a period of three to four months her condition improved to the extent she could walk, use her arms, and her hands straightened out and today she is completely cured. She was 76 years old when she was at her worst and is now 81."
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1972, Volume 7, No. 3, page 109, Copyright © 1972 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
A 12-year-old boy found that he became hoarse. When instructing his school chums at the street crossing, and his teacher called this situation to his mother's attention. It was found that the hoarseness was only temporary: after sleeping through the night, the boy would awake the next day with his hoarseness gone; however, any strain on his voice became sufficient irritation to cause it to reoccur. His parents became concerned, and took him to an ear-nose-throat specialist, who did a laryngoscopy and found two large nodules on the vocal cords. Mother was well versed in the value of castor oil packs, so she put off any thought of surgery (the condition was not thought to be cancer) and applied packs to the neck three days in a row, left the treatment off for two days, and then repeated it. This regimen was continued for three months. The hoarseness gradually disappeared, and there were no symptoms when the packs were discontinued. A year later, the throat was re-examined by the same specialist, and all that was found was some minimal scar tissue - no nodules, no irritation. Three years afterward, there still were no symptoms.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1977, Volume 12, No.
4, page 177, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
One of our correspondents, Barbara Deal of Dundas, Ontario, Canada, has been struggling with an allergy problem in her oldest son, who has also had asthmatic bronchitis. She writes:
"I might tell you of the amazing success I have had in treating this allergic child with castor oil. He has been allergic to animals, and if he comes in contact with dogs, cats, etc., his eyes will swell and itch. If left untreated, this reaction worsens until it is a full-fledged asthmatic attack. However, I now immediately wash hands and face, apply castor oil directly onto the eyelids and surrounding areas, and within half an hour, there is no sign of a reaction. Needless to say, not one of the doctors, nurses or lay people to whom I have suggested this treatment has taken me seriously."
Barbara's story reminds me of the Biblical injunction that the wisdom of God is foolishness to man. And castor oil seems so foolish! Perhaps it was one of God's children who named the plant the "Palma Christi" back in the Middle Ages.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1980, Volume 15, No. 5, page 244, Copyright © 1980 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Swimming, chlorinated water and August sunshine in Arizona combined to inactivate Beth Grady, one of the Clinic children. She was not even up to eating Mexican food-a delicacy in this area. Her skin was red, her cheeks bright pink, her eyes watering while showing up the colors of the flag. She was miserable. Her mother, who is an R.N. and assistant director of our Temple Beautiful Program, proceeded to rub her down with castor oil from head to foot that evening, even dropping some of the oil in her eyes with an eyedropper, and put her to bed. By morning, her eyes were clear, there was no pain, the skin had turned to a light brown color - and Beth was back to normal!
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1980, Volume 15,
No. 5, page 245, Copyright © 1980 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
Alice Riddle exercised her ingenuity in using castor oil by inventing a small wool-flannel pad that folded over onto her earlobe. She soaked the pad in castor oil and held it in place with an earring that clips on from below. Three days of this, and the earlobe was clear of infection.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1979, Volume 14, No.
2, page 83, Copyright © 1979 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
W. Lindsay Jacob, a psychiatrist … recently called and told us this story: A patient of his had tinnitus for over three years-so severe that it prevented her from working, and so baffling in its nature that her doctors sent her to a psychiatrist. Lindsay had heard how castor oil drops have really worked a variety of magical tricks with allergies, and suspected an allergy as the culprit in this frustrated patient. He started her on castor oil drops (6-8 each morning) on her tongue, followed by a glass of water. He was greatly excited at the response. After only four weeks, the tinnitus had completely disappeared and the patient was back at work.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1979, Volume 14, No. 2, page 83, Copyright © 1979 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Recently a boy about fifteen years old appeared in my office on crutches, about forty-eight hours after he had had a laceration of his right ankle sutured in one of the emergency rooms. It was a small laceration, about a half-inch long, but it hurt him so much he could not put his weight on his foot. The wound was healing nicely, with no sign of infection, but it was extremely tender to the touch. I assumed, since there was no tendon involvement, that there had been involvement of nerve tissue to an undue degree. The boy was instructed to keep a soft pad of cloth saturated with castor oil on the wound overnight for the next few nights, kept in place with an elastic bandage. The pain was nearly gone in twenty-four hours, absent in forty-eight hours, and he was playing football (against orders) in seventy-two hours - before the sutures were removed.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, January, 1973, Volume 8, No. 1, page 46, Copyright © 1973 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
After a period of therapy, a little boy who could not be kept out of trouble in the examining room on his first visit lost his hyperactivity and became a strong proponent for castor oil packs. His father used them on his tummy while he watched television. For almost a year, he would not do without a pack for a single day, and the changes in activity were remarkable enough that he was presented to a symposium of doctors as a case in point.
This little boy was first seen at six years of age, in February, 1967, because of being so very thin, with a poor appetite, severe abdominal pains and severe emotional upsets and temper tantrums. He had a history of severe upper respiratory infections until he was two years old and had had many antibiotic shots. At the time of examination, he was unable to sit still at any time and was continually active.
After two months on the castor oil packs, he was sitting quietly and turning the pages of a book in the consultation room. The mother reported that the abdominal pains were much better. He was eating well and sleeping well and was more normal in every way although he was still having temper tantrums. He looked forward to taking the packs because they seemed to relax him.
He was seen monthly throughout 1967. He continued to progress and gain weight during the rest of the year, and in June, 1968, his weight was up to forty-seven pounds, and he was continuing with the castor oil packs. He was not seen during 1968 and 1969 because he was doing so well.
When I last saw him in January, 1971, his weight was up to sixty-four and one-half pounds. He had had no colds or infection during this whole year. He had not needed castor oil packs. He was doing so well in school that he was in the top reading group in his school. He had many friends, and during the Summer of 1970 he had been on the swim team and won seven ribbons. He seemed to be very well adjusted at that time. His mother stated that once in a while he would have a stomach-ache and would begin to feel a little out of sorts and would ask for his castor oil pack.
In another case, a speech therapist wrote: "After reading one of your medical bulletins, I suggested to the mother of a student of mine (chronic hyperkinetic brain syndrome, age three, also epileptic) that she rub castor oil on the child for a half hour before naps and bedtime. Site reports that after three days the child still has difficulty in getting to sleep, but that now she sings herself to sleep instead of' the whining-crying and that although she still awakens during the night, she sings instead of crying." The oil, of course, was massaged into the abdominal area.
Our January symposium two years ago centered on this distressing problem. Now comes a report from James Satterfield (Behavior Today, July 3, 1972) that hyperkinetic children apparently have an immature nervous system. This was shown by the EEG blips evoked by auditory stimuli, which were fewer in number and of less amplitude than those in the control group. Satterfield, a psychiatrist, studied thirty-one hyperactive children between the ages of six and nine, and twenty-one normal controls.
This is of interest to us, perhaps, because of the concept that the body can be returned to normal, in balance, in development, in function, and because the primary therapy we have been working with in the problem of hyperactivity is castor oil packs applied to the abdomen. The theory behind this is that such a vibratory influence in some manner causes this central portion of the autonomic nervous system to bring about a coordination and equalization within the body which would then promote a more rapid maturation of the nervous system than would otherwise be expected.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1973, Volume 8, No. 2, page 86, Copyright © 1973 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
A woman from Minnesota wrote recently that Cayce "often had suggested castor oil, and I decided to try it for removing a calcium deposit lump on my foot. My doctor had suggested surgery ... I rubbed it once daily for about ten minutes, and within three weeks it was completely gone! Later I decided to try the same treatment again on a large wart on my forehead. It took about four weeks for that to disappear."
Another correspondent, writing from Ontario, Canada, decided to use castor oil locally for an intense irritation of the tissues surrounding the eyes. "At first," she wrote, "I tried putting the saturated pads in position oil the closed eyelids for several minutes, and was sufficiently encouraged by the results to decide oil an overnight application, with a light. bandage to hold the pads in position. The complete success of the experiment was remarkable, dispelling not only the irritation but the general lassitude that accompanied the condition.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1973, Volume 8, No. 3,
page 132, Copyright © 1973 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
The Palma Christi - the Palm of Christ - is the name given during the Middle Ages to the common castor oil plant. No one knows exactly why it was so named. But it's interesting to consider the importance of symbols and the place symbology plays in the lives of men.
Was it just coincidence when our son, David, told us one morning that he had had a dream that Jesus put his hand on his back, and his back got better? David had fallen on the sharp edge of a step just before going to bed; the blow had been so severe we were apprehensive about a possible fracture of a vertebra. It hurt him so much, at eight years of age, that nothing helped except to keep him quiet. We placed a castor oil pack on his injured part and he slept on the floor beside us that night, very restless until about four o'clock a.m., when he suddenly quieted down and went soundly to sleep.
When he awakened and told us the dream, we examined his back. It was fully normal in all respects. There was no pain, no aching, no sign of injury. David was well. What did the job? Was it imagination? Was it only the soothing of the oil pack? Was it a vibratory effect? Was it a spiritual healing? Certainly my medical experience of more than twenty years told me that there Should have been some very painful muscles and bones in the morning at the very least. How does healing come about anyway?
Garth Nicholson, who heads the Electron Microscopy Laboratory of the Salk Institute in LaJolla, California, grows cultures of normal and cancer cells in his laboratory. He reports that one of the lectins which they have purified "from toxic local wild castor plants in the marsh regions of San Diego County . . . can kill cancer cells at concentrations at which normal cells are not affected." The process apparently is related to the ability of the protein to agglutinate apparently is related to the ability of the protein to agglutinate cancer cells and destroy them by a process operating at the cell membrane structural level.
By this time, no story about the castor bean plant would surprise me - I've heard too much about its healing power as found in the oil extracted from the beans. But let's consider man's place in the larger scheme of things, for healing of the body is the potential of every human being. And we should know our nature better - then, perhaps, we might know more about how a lectin destroys the cancer cell, how an oil pack might ease an injury or an illness.
The readings relate illness and health to error and right action; this concept is superimposed on a cosmic plan that places man in the center of things, with a spiritual origin and a spiritual destiny. Space, time and patience become important concepts to contend with and work with.
As has been given, error or separation began before
there appeared what we know as the Earth, the Heavens; or before Space
was manifested.
This becomes hard to conceive in the finite mind;
as does the finite mind fail to grasp the lack of or no time. Yet
out of Time, Space, Patience, is it possible for the consciousness of the
finite to know the infinite.
Hence, then, the interpretations of Spirit as
it manifests to the sons of men must follow closely what we have chosen
as Holy Writ.
Before this began (this not as history but as
the basis of the interpretation), we have had how one Amilius with that
projection of self brought into being the awareness of desires as related
to relationships with the beings - or matter - about.
Hence there began what is now known as the correlating,
or the cohesive activity, or the relativity of matter as it relates to
what becomes positive and negative.
Remember, negative is only error. (262-115)
The human body and its mystery is like space and its infinitude, like the atom and its vastness, for we understand none of these with our finite minds - even as we understand God only partially and our own spiritual nature with limited vision. But all of these mysteries help us understand that healing of the body might well come to us in many forms, for we indeed do not know what we are - not yet!
Thus the lowly castor bean plant, which someone called the Palma Christi, may have many secrets locked within its nature which could be a healing influence when its full potential is discovered.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1973, Volume 8,
No. 5, page 221, Copyright © 1973 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
One of our correspondents, who has been an active
A.R.E. member for many years, wrote about his experience with castor oil
packs as an adjunct to childbirth. He reports that his wife "used
the castor oil packs during labor with our second child, and she very strongly
feels that it was responsible for the brief delivery - four hours as opposed
to twenty-seven hours labor with our first child. Furthermore, we
have given the newborn castor oil rubs daily and find her to be a
most remarkable baby in her disposition and also very alert."
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1973, Volume 8,
No. 5, page 222, Copyright © 1973 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
Experiences people have had with the oil of the Palma Christi - or castor oil - are always interesting and informative, and continue to provide us with more insights into how the body really does heal itself. From a Study Group member in California comes an account of a unique application of castor oil packs. Melodie's parents had a large degree of difficulty centering around the snoring of the male member of the species. It seems that everything had been tried. Her parents had even gone to separate rooms so that sleeping would be better. But this is her story:
"My parents are both sleeping better now, thanks to the castor oil pack. My mother has insisted that my dad wear a pack every night for the last two weeks (pack with heating pad 1 hour - then just the pack all night).
"Now instead of her being kept awake by loud, gutteral, choking snores and frequent angry outcries/yelling originating from nightly dreams of fighting, she is occasionally awakened by the most soft, whimsical giggling coming from the original offender - my dad! And the snoring has ceased totally! Mom also reports an enhanced sense of humor, a very affectionate husband and a spirit of cooperation that just won't quit."
Another castor oil story comes from Boulder, Colorado. Linda had been encouraged to attempt a bit of personal research after reading an article entitled "Research Is Often a Singular Affair." This is her story:
"I had a skin cancer on my nose, near my right eye. It has disappeared after three days of applying castor oil first, then sprinkling baking soda over the spot! I had had the cancer two years, trying every natural method I had read or heard about. Previously I tried a mixture of castor oil with a small amount of baking soda, but with no success."
However, she tried a slightly different method and it worked! Research is indeed a singular affair, isn't it? And so often successful.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1983, Volume 18,
No. 6, page 262, Copyright © 1983 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
Stephen Hasman tells the story of his brother being stung by a bee in Ohio. He came into the house with "goose bumps" on his arm, the evidence of the bee sting showing clearly. It was already sore and the swelling had become markedly evident. Stephen, who has had much experience with castor oil, got out his bottle and placed just one drop "on the welt which had an open puncture on it." In less than ten minutes, his brother reported that the soreness had gone and the swelling for the most part had subsided. After supper, there were no complaints. His brother's wife was asked why they didn't have castor oil in their home.
From Kentucky comes another report dealing with this same oil being used for arthritis:
"Since the early 1970s when I first obtained your book, Edgar Cayce and the Palma Christi, I have been experimenting with castor oil. I have also been reading The A.R.E. Journal to see if my results are the same as others.
"My brother-in-law was scheduled for an operation on his finger (the one next to his forefinger) to scrape off the crystals that had formed there and that were giving him a lot of pain. His mother suggested he check with me on the castor oil, and I told him I didn't think it would help as the finger was really in bad shape. However, as it turned out, he had quite a herd of cattle and was unable to have the operation as scheduled, so used the castor oil anyway - just rubbed it on, he said. Two weeks later he visited his doctor who told him, 'Well, it's gone."' Another story from the same source:
"I have a lady friend and neighbor in her late 80s who called me one day. The two middle fingers of her hand were locked and had been for years. Her thumb was twice its regular size, and the little finger and forefinger were giving her so much pain she was crying and couldn't use them. I stressed to her that it would not be possible to unlock the fingers or correct the thumb, but based on the results of my brother-in-law, we might be able to save the other two fingers - or at least stop the pain. She didn't have a bathtub, so we got a container for a foot bath and used a pound or so of Epsom salts in which I asked her to bathe her feet for half an hour each evening, all the time pressing, rubbing or flexing her feet (simply to keep her hands in the solution). I told her then to wrap the hands in castor oil for the evening and place a castor oil pack on her stomach with a heating pad. She called a couple of days later saying that the fingers had stopped paining and she was continuing treatment.
"I know a couple of other people who were bothered with crystals, so I thought it would be interesting to take a picture of her hands since no one would believe it without the pictures. So I borrowed a camera and went over no later than two weeks after she had started treatments. To my immense surprise, she had those two fingers unlocked and was making a quilt. She said she used the foot bath with water as hot as she could stand it for the time I stressed, then put the castor oil pack on her stomach with a heating pad and wrapped her hands with castor oil cloths, put on rubber gloves, took her magnifying glass and a book to bed with her and alternated her hands on the heating pad the rest of the evening. No pain in the other fingers, thumb greatly improved, fingers still working okay and she still works on the quilting. Whenever they begin to ache, she just gives them a repeat treatment."
Quite amazing, isn't it? Some of these stories definitely touch new areas in healing.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1982, Volume 17,
No. 6, page 279, Copyright © 1982 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
I am not sure whether the following story has a near relative in the Cayce data or if it was simply an adaptation of a specific therapy treatment. The story comes from Esther Spearrin, who has attended A.R.E. conferences at Seabeck (near Seattle) for many years:
"I had my knee operated on after an injury and, because a piece of the bone was broken right at the knee joint, surgery was done to 'hold the piece from falling into the knee joint.' According to my orthopedic doctor, I had one bolt, two pins and wires inserted into my leg just at the knee joint or just above the knee joint to hold these together while they healed. They healed well and there was no trouble until I came to Seabeck in 1974. Then I noticed that the knee began hurting so that I could not walk upstairs without pain. I had debated before about buying a gallon of castor oil to use in packs, etc. Now I had to do so. After purchasing the oil I applied a cloth saturated with the castor oil over my knee, put plastic over that, and then a dry cloth wrapped around the knee to keep it in place overnight. I did this just a couple of times, and the rest of the week at Seabeck I had no trouble. Even now, after several years, no more difficulty has been experienced with the injury of the knee."
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1980, Volume 15, No. 2, page 49, Copyright © 1980 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
A report about castor oil packs and their use in the course of human illness and health: Arno Erath developed a leg problem while exercising; it was diagnosed as a torn muscle fiber in the left leg. He writes:
"After a checkup in the hospital, the doctor told me that I had to stay in bed for three days or more, and it would take about three weeks until I would be able to walk normally again. This I did not like at all. So I went home and did the following: Right on the spot of the sharp pain, I applied Musterol (obtained from the U.S.A.). In addition to this, I put a castor oil pack on the leg, well bandaged. Every four hours I changed the pack.
"The result was astonishing! I felt the
pain vanishing by the hour. After one day, I was able to walk slowly.
After three days there was still some tension left, yet I could walk just
as if
nothing had happened."
Thanks, Arno, for the story. It has remained somewhat of a mystery as to why so many people enjoy making false prophecies out of the prognoses of their doctors. I guess it must be the joy of seeing their own bodies beat the odds as quoted by the physical body's best-qualified odds-makers.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, May, 1980, Volume 15, No. 3, page 146, Copyright © 1980 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Children, as a rule, are more subject to infectious diseases than adults. The following story comes from my correspondence with a registered nurse, Peggy, whose baby developed ear trouble at the age of nine months. Her pediatrician prescribed antibiotics and a decongestant. One month's treatment left the infant with fluid behind the left tympanum and a residual inflammation. A change of decongestants for another month left the other ear more inflamed, a condition which brought about a further change of decongestants. If the ears had not cleared in another three weeks, drainage tubes would have to be inserted by an otologist. It was at this point that our correspondence began. Drawing on my experience in the field of healing and my familiarity with the Cayce material, I wrote as follows:
"Briefly, I think these things might be helpful as far as your baby is concerned. I would try to get her on a very alkaline diet. This is a bit difficult for a one-year-old baby, but I think it would be important. Then castor oil drops in the ears at bedtime and early in the morning; Glyco-Thymoline packs to the neck for half an hour or so once a day, with packs going around to include the cervical glands. She should have lots of Vitamin C-1 think you can get this in liquid form now - and high dosages of this would be helpful.
"Massages to the upper back for 15 to 20 minutes each day gently would be a good thing and castor oil packs to the abdomen. This should also be done once a day for about an hour, and I would use the heating pad.
"Don't forget that the laying on of hands by those that love the child are part of the whole process of healing, and as involved in the healing profession as you are, you are probably already doing that sort of thing. The thing I would suggest is to have your daughter lie on your lap as she goes to sleep - in taking her afternoon nap or whatever - and hold your hands on her head behind the ears almost encompassing the ears. She might not like to have her ears covered with your hands, but if she doesn't mind that would be good. Then just let yourself be a channel of healing and let the energy flow through your body and onto the ears themselves.
"Doing these things over a period of time would be very helpful, I'm sure."
It was two months before I heard what had happened to the wee girl. Her mother answered for her at that point and expressed the daughter's approval of the therapy program. Here is her letter:
"The baby is fine now; her ears have cleared up completely. Just before I received your letter, I had started giving her increased doses of Vitamin C, rubbing some castor oil over her abdominal area at night, and saturating the front of her diaper with castor oil as well. However, I did not use heat. I also gave her a little Glyco-Thymoline occasionally by mouth because I felt she had a tendency to be acid. As soon as I received your letter, I began adding your suggestions to these treatments. When I took her back to the doctor a few days later, he was surprised to find that her ears had cleared up completely. Her improvement was especially disconcerting to him since she had refused his prescribed medicine since her last visit to his office. Thank you for your time and information. Our love and blessings."
Thank you, Peggy, for your report. I just wonder if you thought of those things to do on your own all by yourself, or did you read my mind; or perhaps was I doing a mind-reading job on you? After all the thousands of readings Cayce gave in which he obviously communicated with other people's minds, I have given up trying to figure who thought of what first - or are we all psychic?
Seeing how Peggy's little girl responded to her touch, her concern, and some of the ancient applications that have been for the most part discarded by modem medical practices, I recalled what Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is reported to have said: "The drugless healer is one of the best things that has come into the life of the present." Might we not put Peggy into the classification of a drugless healer? I think so.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1979, Volume 14, No. 4, page 167, Copyright © 1979 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
Castor oil packs are used frequently in our treatment of individuals afflicted with this serious condition. The packs are helpful in a variety of ways, one of them being that they soften the skin locally where they are applied. From the many readings Cayce gave for people with this condition, I found that more than once he offered the suggestion that the skin should be washed with bicarbonate of soda prior to applying the flannel packs saturated with castor oil. Since the soda does an excellent job of cleansing the skin after the packs are removed (it is one of the few substances that will cut the oil itself), I figured that its use may have some relationship to the removal of toxins from the skin before the packs; thus the toxins would not be carried into the body by the heat and the oil.
Last summer, one of our scleroderma patients used the packs on his abdomen while he stayed at our out-patient residence, and he forgot to take one of them with him when he left. Marguerite Haugen, director of the O.P.R., thought she would just wash it out and send it to him. When she opened it up, there were black marks scattered across the entire pack, and these marks did not disappear when the pack was washed.
Another patient of ours found her packs turning black after just a few treatments. This patient had polycythemia vera, a condition in which there is a serious overproduction of red blood cells. She needed to have blood removed from her system regularly. The full therapy Cayce suggested was not implemented, but with just the use of the packs and infrared lamp treatments, her trips to the hospital to have blood removed became less frequent.
It would be interesting to discover if the heat and the castor oil actually "drive" materials from the skin into the deeper regions of the body. Indeed the patient, experiencing the unusual events often related to disease, remains our richest source of information about what is going on in this wonderful creation called the human body.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, July, 1979, Volume 14, No. 5, page 208, Copyright © 1979 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
From the A.R.E. Dallas Council Newsletter comes the following story. Bob Linscott had apparently been having severe arthritic symptoms for years and, at the same time, was severely allergic to bee, wasp and yellow jacket venom - to the point that he became a hospital emergency patient each time he was stung. The residual would last for days. At least this was his history. Here is his story:
"I am 62 years of age, weigh 220, stand 6 feet tall. All my life I've worked hard. The last seven or eight years have been pretty bad. I've been unable to put on my socks or tie my shoes. I could not move my arm to scratch my back. In other words, no matter what, I could not move without pain, because my body was so stiff. I had cramps at night. My wife Wanda was trained by Emmaline Barker to give massages. After the third massage I caught myself turning my neck to look back - something I had not done in five years. Today I am free from pain and do everything - including climbing a 40-foot ladder all day.
"On July 11th I was stung by three yellow jackets.
I told the men working with me that rather than rushing me to the hospital
as they normally would, to rush me the castor oil from my truck (I carry
it with me). They did and I rubbed it on the bites, then sat down
to meditate. As I did, I felt the pain, itch and poison start flowing
from the upper part of my leg and down and out my toes! Today is
July 12th, and I worked all day. I feel great-just fine. Thank
God, the A.R.E. and Emmaline!"
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D.
and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1979, Volume
14, No. 6, page 262, Copyright © 1979 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
Not many suggestions from the readings were directed toward the healing of animals, but no ingenious human being will let his beloved pet suffer if he has any idea of how to relieve his discomfort.
Four stories have come to my attention, all from patients who have been working with their own bodies at a creative level of healing. Three of these, incidentally, deal with that most common treatment in our experience: castor oil packs. The other comes from a woman who grew up on a farm where she was in charge of the horses. An old friend of the family was a vet who often came to visit her. He would talk to Sarah, giving her little jewels of wisdom about the care of horses. One day Sarah had a headache, and the vet told her that if she would lay her head on the side of the horse, her headache would go away. It did. The old vet told her, too, that if a horse cut itself on a barbed-wire fence, the scar from the injury would produce gray hair if nothing were done about it. But, he informed her, if she would bathe that cut in castor oil every day until it healed, the hair would grow back in its natural color. Sarah discovered that this application always worked, and she found it interesting that castor oil was of as much value to her animals as it had often been to herself.
Another story deals with a lesion on a dog's back. The lesion grew rather rapidly and did not respond to any cleansing or ointments applied to the troubled spot. Grace, the dog's owner, thought about taking her dog to a vet, but she decided to try using castor oil first. She immediately started applying the oil liberally to the diseased area, which had grown to be almost three inches in diameter. Results came rapidly. The next morning the dog no longer scratched at the lesion, and within three days the healing process had become clearly evident. After a few more days the therapy was no longer needed, and the dog's hair had grown back.
Not many of you own a duck, so you will probably not have the opportunity to treat one; but you may find this duck story interesting. It comes from Mary and Art, both A.R.E. members, who moved north and became part-time farmers. Gradually they stocked their farm with many animals, including some ducks. One day Mary noticed that one of their ducks was walking with a limp (a duck limp?). Investigation showed a growth and a swelling on the middle toe of one of the duck's feet. The growth had become quite large, and the new farmers were concerned about it. Mary had many times used castor oil herself for a variety of problems; so she fashioned a ducksfoot glove, soaked it with castor oil, placed it on the ailing foot and covered it with plastic. The treatment was administered twice a day for three days, each application lasting an hour or two. Finally the swelling decreased markedly and no more therapy was needed. Within a few days the foot was normal again.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1977, Volume 12, No.
2, page 81, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
Every first aid kit, in the estimation of one cooperating doctor, should contain a small bottle of castor oil, some Band-Aids, a castor oil pack and the willingness to fast. He did not explain how that willingness would be packed with the rest of the items, but he did tell me why he was strongly in favor of including all four.
It seems that he went out into the relative wilderness with his wife, who shortly developed a severe bout of nausea and vomiting. His examination led him to diagnose her condition as coming from overeating and the change in living conditions, from a "virus," or from a cleansing resulting from a period of meditation in which she felt especially close to the Indians who had lived in that area. It looked like things were in a bad way, since he had not brought any medications along with him, and they were miles from a pharmacy. Then he remembered his castor oil pack. This was applied with tenderness and compassion, and there was certainly a degree of healing in that attitude. The willingness to fast was already in hand (You should have seen her look at any food offered her), and her recovery was on the way. She stopped vomiting and in 24 hours was fired up and ready to go again.
Then her physician husband used his fingers to test a heating element to see if it was on or off. His fingers were slower than the heating element in transmitting the message, and the pads of his right middle and index fingers were burned. He had that little bottle of castor oil handy, however. The fingers were doused in the castor oil immediately, and after an hour Band-Aids, also wet with castor oil, were applied to both fingers. The pain subsided almost at once. He confided that he put fingernail pressure on the nerve centers (which I determined were also acupuncture points) of his hand and wrist just proximal to the burned fingers. The next morning his fingers showed no real sign of the burns, although blisters had already started to form and the seared tissue where his fingers had touched the hot element was obvious.
So, with this story in hand, I determined that I would also include these four little items in my first aid kit every time I departed from close contact with civilization.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1977, Volume 12, No. 2, page 85, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
The use of castor oil in treating drug overdose is perhaps the latest therapeutic triumph registered by the plant, which the imaginative people of the Middle Ages called the Palma Christi. It has been reported from Canada (by Dr. Michael Diamond) and from the University of Medicine in Miami, Florida, that individuals who have attempted suicide by taking large overdoses of drugs are being given quantities of castor oil greatly exceeding the ounce or two usually taken as a cathartic or for inducing labor in pregnant women. Nearly a pint is administered twice a day, and patients who were comatose and expected to remain so for four or five days recovered in 24 hours. Some physicians believe that the castor oil absorbs the drugs, quickly removing them from the system. Thus the harmful effects of the body's prolonged exposure to drugs are prevented. Some doctors add charcoal tablets to the castor oil; this acts as a detoxifying agent and enhances the curative effect. This treatment could well save the lives of many who have taken large drug overdoses.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, March, 1977, Volume 12, No.
2, page 86, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
From the Journal of the American Medical Association, April 21, 1900, comes a communication by a Dr. Harold Moyer of Chicago about our old friend, castor oil. Dr. Moyer was interested in the treatment of facial neuralgia - which gave even more trouble in those days than it does today. Dr. A. J. Ochsner had called Moyer's attention to the use of castor oil after he noticed it mentioned in a German medical journal.
Two ounces of castor oil, given daily by mouth over a period of six to twelve days, produced "brilliant" results in at least 13 consecutive cases from Ochsner's surgical clinic at Rush Medical College. Moyer subsequently used the same approach on 15 cases over the two years following his contact with Ochsner. Of the seven cases observed, only five were facial neuralgia, the other two being brachial problems. Results for the most part were highly gratifying. One such case was that of a 37-year-old man whose facial neuralgia had lasted for six months. At the end of one week's treatment with daily ingested castor oil, the pain had disappeared completely; no recurrence reported. Strange substance, this oil from the seed of the Racinus cotizinunis! One wonders why, in the Middle Ages, someone called this plant the Palm of Christ or Palma Christi.
In the Cayce readings, it was recommended only several
times to be given orally, rather than externally in pack form. However,
Cayce once remarked that those who have a castor oil consciousness should
take castor oil. I might mention that Dr. Moyer added a few drops
of the essence of anise to each pint of castor oil - to make it less offensive
- and gave his patients the oil well mixed in with Dogshead ale!
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D.
and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, September, 1977, Volume
12, No. 5, page 231, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation,
Virginia Beach, VA.]
Castor oil has a way of taking us from the ideals and goals of the present back to the reality of the healing process. That venerable oil from the castor bean has had a specific use in Venezuela among several old mothers, who are sometimes engaged in instructing young mothers. One such old mother visited her daughter in Phoenix and noted how her five-month-old grandson had practically no hair at all. She started immediately to massage his head with the oil 20 minutes before his daily shampoo. It was no time before the boy had a healthy head of hair. I have not yet tried that on my bald spot, but I'm thinking about it.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, November, 1977, Volume 12, No. 6, page 272, Copyright © 1977 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia Beach, VA.]
The covering of the human body is at the same time necessary, convenient, the largest organ of the body, and most likely the site of the most numerous difficulties - probably because it is on the outside. Perhaps the fact that its troubles can be seen accounts for the large number of circulating files on a variety of skin conditions which have been compiled at the A.R.E. Whatever the reason, warts, moles and various types of unidentified skin "growths" are self-treated by members of the A.R.E. and are subsequently reported to me. I have no way of knowing how many failures at self-treatment end up in the doctor's office for therapy, but I suspect - from my own experience in recommending these simple procedures - that it is not too many.
One member tells about a large mole which was located on his neck right where the collar rubbed. He used castor oil on a band-aid and, with repeated applications, it started to shrink. "I kept up the swabbing," he reports. "Then, by the end of the second week, it was very dry with a thin strand holding on. A few days later it fell off and hasn't since come back."
Another intrepid soul had a plantar wart on each foot. He took the suggestions of the readings and used hydrochloric acid on the warts, but they only grew larger. Then, while visiting in Virginia Beach, he did some research in the readings and found suggestions about spirits of camphor and sodium bicarbonate. After two weeks of daily treatment to the warts, which were by then an inch in diameter, they were almost gone.
The man also had a 3/16 inch conical-shaped skin lesion, which I think must have been all epithelioma, located on his left cheek. He used the same combination lie had used oil tile plantar wart, and the growth receded but did not disappear. When he stopped the treatment, tile growth reappeared. He then "tried soaking baking soda with castor oil," he reports, "using band-aids to hold the mixture to the skin. The growths subsided in about two weeks, to one tiny hard spot. I continued to apply the castor oil-soda mixture as a massage, without Band-Aids, for about two months and eventually the skin became normal."
From the circulating file on Skin: Moles and Warts comes this interesting observation:
Q. What should I do about the more oil my neck, on which the doctor
put some acid for removal?
A. Not anything in the present. As those properties
suggested begin to take effect, and there are the adjustments in the circulation,
we find that these will gradually take away the conditions.
We would keep same soft with a little of an equal
combination of Mutton Tallow (melted), Spirits of Turpentine and Spirits
of Camphor; not so much put on the area of the mole itself as the area
about it, so that it will be absorbed by the effect of the properties through
the radiation, see? (2426-1)
You should read these files - they are extremely interesting. Sometimes, as much philosphy and basic spiritual truth are found here as in any of the life readings or elsewhere in the readings. And the files are continually being updated and upgraded.
[Note: The preceding report was provided by William McGarey, M. D. and
is excerpted from The A.R.E. Journal, January, 1974, Volume 9, No.
1, page 36, Copyright © 1974 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation, Virginia
Beach, VA.]
A Virginia veterinarian related to me some of his experiences with the suggestions from the Cayce material. It seems that many doctors start off with the use of castor oil locally because it is so simple and is always so effective. It seems that vets occasionally come in contact with raccoons, and ‘coons often bite resulting most of the time in an infection. The bite is also painful. Well, my friend, Dr. Helberg, found that he could best treat such a bite by warming castor oil in a pan and putting his finger in the warm castor oil. The pain goes away immediately, and the finger heals quickly. How long in the warm castor oil? Perhaps 15 - 30 minutes. (I have myself found that the ordinary southwestern scratches - cactus puncture wounds, etc. - respond quickly to liberal application of castor oil locally.)
But the most fascinating story that comes from the field of animal medicine, as recounted by Dr. Helberg, is one dealing with a goat. It happened that the doctor was called to see this nanny-goat because of a mastitis. When he looked at her, he saw that one quarter of the udder was black and blue. This is a serious prognostic sign, and the goat is usually dead within the next 18 to 24 hours. He used Terramycin and cortisone anyhow, but the farmer wanted to know what else he could do. He was told to bring the goat inside, to keep her warm, then put a castor oil pa