A few days ago, I opened
a window and smashed my finger in the process. It hurt!!! It throbbed
and began to get more and more painful. I went to the bathroom, put
some castor oil on a piece of cotton and wrapped it around my finger, holding
it in place with a piece of Scotch tape. Within a minute, the pain
stopped although it continued to throb a little bit. Ah relief!!
I worked in the garden for the next
few hours, wearing a glove over my bandaged finger. When I came in
I removed the cotton and castor oil to wash my hands. I thought the
pain had stopped. Within a few minutes of washing my hands, it started
to hurt again, so I re-bandaged it with the cotton and castor oil and a
new piece of tape. At bedtime, I removed the cotton, and it had stopped
hurting. I was so pleased to be reminded again of what amazing pain
relief castor oil applied to the outside of the body can bring.
When my children were little, we
used it all the time. In fact, I carried a bottle of castor
oil, cotton batting, and ace bandages to wrap around the cotton in my first
aide kit in the car. I still do. Now instead of scraped knees
or elbows, dance injuries cause me to bring the bottle of castor oil out
of the kit.
I first read about castor oil about
32 years ago when I was reading about the American psychic, Edgar Cayce.
I used castor oil packs on my abdomen when I wasn’t feeling well a few
times back then, but never tried it for bumps, bruises or cuts. It
wasn’t until I had children that I began to use it in earnest.
I remember the first time clearly
- I had inadvertently closed a car door on my two-year-old’s fingers.
I’d read an article by a mom who was also a nurse who described using castor
oil for this type of injury for one of her children. I tried it out.
I poured lots of castor oil on some cotton, held it to my child’s fingers,
which were bruised but not broken, and continued nursing him. He
fell asleep. I continued to hold him and managed to get the cotton
and castor oil wrapped around his fingers. He woke up about an hour
and a half later. He said his fingers didn’t hurt anymore.
There was no swelling and the bruising had disappeared. I was amazed!
This was the first of many experiences of the healing power of castor oil
-“Palma Christi” or “the hand of Christ.” Its external
healing powers are nothing short of miraculous. And there are no
negative side effects.
Although Edgar Cayce and Dr. John
R. Christopher, the father of American Herbology revived it is use in this
century, this oil has been used for many hundreds of years in various parts
of the world. The Ebers Papyrus (1550 B.C.) from Egypt contains one
of the first references to the use of castor oil as something that was
placed in the eyes to relieve and protect them from irritation. Since
that time it has been used in many countries for various ailments- from
helping to remove warts and moles to promoting lymphatic circulation and
promoting breastmilk production.
Most people think of castor oil
as a very effective laxative with a horrible taste. When used externally,
it doesn’t have the laxative effect. Instead it promotes lymph flow,
boosts white blood cell production and soothes away aches and pains while
helping to reduce infection. It almost sounds too good to be true,
doesn’t it, but throughout my children’s growing up years I watched it
soothe and heal their cuts, bumps, and bruises. I felt less helpless
when my children hurt themselves because I was able to put something on
whatever hurt that stopped the pain and helped promote healing.
When my sons played baseball, they
found that applying castor oil to their pitching arms helped take away
muscle pain and helped their muscles recover faster. When my daughter,
Holly, who was four at the time slipped and fell hitting her forehead against
the curb in a parking lot, castor oil again came to the rescue. Fortunately,
no skin was broken, but a large bump began to form on her forehead.
After crying for a little bit, Holly was ready for me to put castor oil
on her bump. I poured a large amount of castor oil on some cotton
and then placed this on her bump. She held it there for a minute
and then let me fasten an ace bandage around her head to hold it in place.
A few minutes later she said it was hardly hurting, and she was ready to
go into the store. Later that evening, there was hardly any swelling
or discoloration where she had hit her head. She kept the cotton
and a bandage on her head that night and in the morning decided she didn’t
need it any more.
Dr. William A. McGarey has written
a book about castor oil, The Oil That Heals, that relates how he has used
it in his clinic for the past 25 years. In his book he also relates
Edgar Cayce’s description of why abdominal castor oil packs work for a
number of conditions. Cayce explained that “castor oil packs can
strengthen the Peyer's Patches, which are tiny patches of lymphatic tissue
in the small intestine. These patches produce a substance which facilitates
electrical contact between the autonomous and the cerebrospinal nervous
system and affects the health of the entire nervous system. Although
the Peyer's Patches were discovered in 1677, it is only recently that medical
science has begun to recognize them as constituents of the body's immune
system.” (From the Oil That Heals)
In 1961, a study was done that demonstrated
that two of the ingredients that make up 94% of castor oil - ricinoleic
acid and oleic acid – were “superior in their activity against several
species of bacteria, yeasts and molds when compared to two known antimicrobial
agents.”
I didn’t know this when I used
it on my children’s cuts, but it does explain why those cuts never got
infected.
The only problem with castor oil
is that it is a very viscous, sticky oil. It stains cloth, furniture,
bedding etc. The way around this is to put a layer of plastic over
the cotton or cloth before putting a bandage or tape on to hold the castor
oil in place. The kind of plastic wrap used for sandwiches
works just fine.
We’ve been using castor oil externally
in our family for about 20 years. In all that time, we’ve only had
positive results – rapid healing of cuts, bruises, sprains and best of
all almost instant pain relief. It’s sometimes still hard for me
to believe. It only takes an incident like I mentioned at the beginning
of this article – hurting my own finger, that makes me remember how quickly
castor oil relieves pain and promotes healing. A first aide kit in
a bottle, available in most pharmacies very inexpensively.
Oil That Heals by William
McGarey, MD
A Physician's Diary: Case Histories
of Hope and Healing with Edgar Cayce's and Other Natural Remedies by
Dr. Myatt N MD
For more information about Edgar
Cayce try www.edgarcayce.org/
Marty Layne is the mother of four
young adults who have never gone to school. As a result of helping
her children learn at home, she wrote and published Learning At Home: A
Mother’s Guide To Homeschooling now in a revised edition and recorded and
produced a children’s music CD Brighten the Day - songs to celebrate the
seasons. She speaks at homeschooling conferences in Canada and the
US. You can read more about her at www.martylayne.com.
© Marty Layne 2002-2004
1850 San Lorenzo Ave.
Victoria, BC V8N 2E9 Canada
Phone/Fax (250) 477-0173
