Rudolf Steiner, a brilliant scientist who approached healing from the view of a total personality, gives us a wonderful science called Anthroposophic Medicine. Steiner's view allows us to look at the physical, etheric, astral and ego bodies, as he calls them, and combines them into a science in which we can apply the oils. The physical body has many aspects. We are not just cells and organs. We have an etheric, an astral and an ego body (that I sometimes call the spiritual body), which allow us to live, move, and have our being in this very physical world. I have changed Steiner's ego body to spiritual body because I feel humanity is moving into spirituality.

    Essential oils are really a spiritual approach to healing. It must be realized that to heal the physical body, we must first heal the etheric, astral and ego bodies. It is very important to look at a science that deals with these processes because our very nature is being threatened by new laws that could be passed in the near future.

    Recently, I received a Red Alert Bulletin from the National Health Federation. It seems that our laws are now being controlled by the United Nations. In October of 1996, in Bond, Germany, the pharmaceutical and food corporations met to pass worldwide laws that will limit our use of vitamins, minerals and herbs. Our only recourse is to look at the science we have in aromatherapy as a spiritual aspect of human development. We must find a way to understand the process of healing the other bodies around our physical body and not make our science solely one that deals with just the physical body.

    It is very obvious that we have fallen asleep to all reality except the physical. It is up to us to wake up to the other aspects of creation. Steiner's Anthroposophic theories and the oils can help us understand the process of activating consciousness in the other realms. Throughout history, the temples and churches have taught esoteric wisdom. They cloistered this information in their walls, and kept it from the public. Egypt's wisdom of mummification and the oils were only provided for the elite and the priesthood. Now it is time to take this information to the masses. It is time for humanity to understand the process of spiritual development. The oils and the process of anointing have always been used to advance humanity into a spiritual reality. In the writings on the temple walls in Egypt, we see people smelling the lotus blossom. From our study of the oils we know that smelling activates the limbic system, which allows us to enter the other bodies. The amygdala gland stores all memory of fear and past trauma. By releasing these traumas, we can clear the etheric, astral and ego bodies.

    The rose has replaced the lotus in our society. It has one of the highest frequencies and stimulates an increase in energy within the center of the brain where the control glands of our physical body reside. These glands are the pituitary, pineal, thymus, hypothymus, and amygdala. This center is called the limbic system and can be activated by smell. It is by raising the frequency within our physical body that we raise the frequency within our other bodies. The rose has the highest frequency. Dr. Young's oils are all engineered to take us to a realm higher than the physical body. That is why it is important to look at a science that deals with activating the higher bodies. Because this is the true way of healing.

    Let us look at Anthroposophic Medicine1 so that we can have a clearer understanding of how to approach a science that deals with healing the etheric, astral and ego bodies. Steiner breaks Anthroposophy into a four-fold process of earth, water, air, and fire, which all relate to a different aspect of the makeup of human beings: earth represents the physical body; water, the etheric; air, the astral; and fire the ego, (or spiritual body). He then breaks this science down into a three-fold process of how the four elements interact to make a viable spiritual human being. The three-fold process describes the three functional systems that operate the physical body: 1. The nerve/sense system, 2. The rhythmic system (heart and breath), and 3. The metabolic system (blood and lymph).

    Anthroposophic medicine is an esoteric explanation of how the four bodies interplay with the three-fold functional processes. It is when all the bodies resonate to the three-fold systems (nerves, rhythmic, and metabolic) that the physical body can be in a perfect state of health. Steiner's explanation takes us back to the understanding that this process can be balanced in the center of the brain in the limbic system. This is a new concept to most in the medical profession. But once the process of healing all of the bodies is understood, then the sense of smell will be elevated to a new importance and aromatherapy can be understood in an esoteric manner.

    History states that it was Steiner who influenced Bach into creating the flower essences. Bach's biographers wrote that he studied Homeopathy under Steiner. Steiner was one of the few people who comprehended the process of healing through the limbic system. Flower essences, homeopathy, and aromatherapy all work to bring balance into the limbic system. This is the mystery that most healers don't comprehend. Steiner steeped his wisdom in esoteric knowledge to teach the basic wisdom without shocking people who only wished to look at the body in a physical way. True healing can only take place when the astral, the etheric and ego bodies are balanced.

    Anthroposophy encompasses a world view that we are not simply a machine with isolated parts, but that we are soul and spirit interweaving into a physical body. Let us look at the four elements and relate them to the physical body.

    The first element is the earth, which relates to the physical body. This is the mineral world. It is the minerals which make up our skeletal structure. Minerals have an electrical charge. Essential oils can raise or lower the electrical frequency and bring balance to the mineral structure.

    The second element is water, which relates to the etheric body. In other holistic modalities, the etheric body refers to chi, or the life force. The etheric bodies are shown in the plant kingdom. An example is when we put water on a seed and it grows to the sun. It is the water that brings about this life giving process. The etheric force (water) takes the plant out of the mineral kingdom and puts it into the etheric world. The human body is 80-85% water. We are like the plants in that we also have an etheric body, which is carried by our blood, lymph and cellular fluids. Essential oils strengthen, by their very nature, this lymph system. I find this very important today because it is in the lymph system that the immunity lives. Fungi and bacteria have their own consciousness. It is the oil's electromagnetic frequency that brings a consciousness to the healing of the etheric body through its chemical components of phenyls, ketones, esters, etc.

    The next element is air which relates to the third dynamic body-the soul, or the astral body. Astral meaning it relates to the stars. This is where we get our genetic makeup-from the different star systems, bringing about our animal bodies. This is the body we share with the animal world. It encompasses our desires, passions, and emotions. The etheric world brings about the life force and creates the physical plant. The astral world creates an animal body which brings about movement and because of this movement, we can express ourselves in the desires of a normal day's life: love, hate, fear. The astral body allows us our humanness. If we could see our astral bodies they would probably be black and blue from all our emotional upheavals. The essential oils allow us the very special process of entering the soul body, through the amygdala gland. That is why it is important to understand the process of healing through the oils. Because it is in this process that we can heal the astral body.

    The final element is fire, which relates to the ego, or the human spirit, or the higher self. It is that part of us that can think, speak, and stand upright. This ego has a tangible body in terms of Anthroposophy, which is carried by fire, which is our warmth body. It is our spiritual self which gives us our creative ability and the ability to recognize our God self. It is that aspect of ego that creates the fire within to control the other elements and the magical frequencies of creation. Ego can be either negative or positive. It is the fire of love that should animate the spirit. Love is the basis of all religion.

    Essential oils have the ability to raise the frequency within our physical body so that we can be a creative force. They help us unite with the spiritual self. The creative force will take us into the reality that we are not just a machine with isolated parts, but a combination of many bodies. Essential oils, through the limbic system, work on all the bodies. And that is the true nature of aromatherapy.

    So when laws are passed that control and limit our use of vitamins, minerals and herbs, we simply have to state our knowledge in esoteric and Anthroposophic terminology so that we are free to teach the spiritual wisdom of essential oils.

    Rev. Mary Hardy, Ph.D., received her doctoral degree in Homeopathy and Nutrition in 1985. She is the co- author of Pyramid Energy/The Philosophy of God, The Science of Man, and The Alchemist's Guide to Homeopathy. Mary has learned the importance of raising the electrical frequency within the body, and has found Young Living's Essential oils and herbal products to be wonderful tools for raising brain frequency and stimulating consciousness. Contact Mary by mail: 3252 Lakeview Drive, Allegan, MI 49010, or by fax: (616) 686-0083, or phone: (616) 673-4849.

Mary Hardy is an Independent Distributor for Young Living Essential Oils. Any material presented in this newsletter is my own interpretation and does not always express the views of Young Living Essential Oils. All diagrams except for the head are copyright of Michael Scholes School for Aromatic Studies, 1996.