Now, we are moving into a wonderous area of healing thathas been going on for many thousands of years. In Egypt, the priests, magicians, and others who believed in the power of the gods used this method in healing their ill.
Honey, was one of the treatments used for wounds or bites. I have used this myself, and it does work. I had a mosquito bite on my leg and I put some pure honey on it, and it was completly gone by the next morning. It is messy, but it works.
So, now we go into the Mysteries of Scents.
Incense has been an integral part of religious ceremonies for many centuries all acroos the globe, largely because of the soothing effect its smell has on the mind~and soul.
Temples in India have been historically constructed of sandlewood not only because of its superior material qualities but also because of the spiritual ones of its scent.
Nubians, who rarely bathe in water because it is so scarce in northern Africa, rub themselves all over with dough and then oil their bodies throughly with aromatics. Skin disease is virtually unknown among them, and they’re hardly bothered by the cold, cutting winds that sweep through the desert in winter.
In the fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out half of the population of Eurpoe, yet those who dealt with aromatic oils and essences, especially perfumers, were almost entirely unaffectd by the plague. Five hundred years, later perfurmers again remained immune to the gastly cholera epidemics raging throughout the world.
To reduce Stress and improve efficiency, Japenese construction firms pipe aromatic essences to their employees through their air conditioning systems.
In eighteenth century England perfumes were banned for a time, because they deemed “too seductive”. Women who wore them could even have been prosecuted for sorcery.
Cleopatra is renowned throughout the world as one of history’s great temptresses. Some historians believe, however, that she lured men not through any particular physical beauty but through the seductions of her scent. The Egyptian ruler raised the use of perfumes and skin treatment to an art form and owned a vast herbal gardent that would be worth millions today. This may have been the true secret of the legendary Queen of the Nile.
What do all these unrelated curiousities have in common? Scents, oils, and aromatic essences. Philosophers, scientists, and medical practitioners have known for thousands of years that various plants and herbs possess mysterious properties, from the tranuilizing to the hallucinogenic, from the poisonous to the sweet.
These properties have been tested, explored, examined, philosophized about, and even synthesized throughout the ages, and they’ve been used in cooking, cleaning, healing, performing religious ceremonies, preparing cosmetics and perfumes, preserving food, and even preserving bodies through mummification.
Why did citizens Burn Pine branches in the streets of the medieval Europe? Because the smoke helped fend off the bubonic plague. What would a Renaissance physician have prescribed to calm your blood? Oil of Hyssop. Scent is one of the most mysterious of entities, and some scientists and philosophers even believe that the sense of smell may be closely related to the proverbal “sixth sense”
It certainly works more quickly on the brain than sight, sound, taste, or touch. When the mystery of scent is harnessed for healing, curing, and restoring the mind and body to its fullest efficiency, this process is called aromatherapy. It has been around for thousands of years.