There are two primary areas to be addressed in using fragrance as a medium for effecting changes in the human condition. We must develop some criteria for the mixing of specific scents in blended oils and we must arrange some way of utilizing the prepared oil blends.
First, it should be remembered that the roots of aromatherapy lie far in the past. Like many of the ancient arts, they are designed with regard to the belief systems that were common in ages past. And in the specific case of scent therapy, its background is shared in many ways with the ancient herbalist.
One of the earliest published recognized voices of authority in the field of herbalism was that of Nicholas Culpeper. In Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and English Physician, originally published in 1826, Mr. Culpeper gives us the foundation of his system of arriving at the proper combination of ingredients to formulate specific remedies. The earliest systems of science were a delightful mixture of the fruits of new discovery within the framework of the ancient arts of healing. Even within the descriptive passages included on the title pages, Culpeper tells his readers that this offering includes descriptions of several hundred herbs along with “a display of their medicinal and occult properties.”
Herbology, like its related practice of aromatherapy, has never been totally isolated from its roots in the ancient religio-occult studies of our ancestors. In reviewing some of Culpeper’s entries on specific herbs, it becomes evident that he was keenly aware of the astrological and elemental virtues of each plant he culled from the fields and mountains, and that these properties dictated their application as components in healing remedies.
In his written selection on lavender, Culpeper notes:
“Being an inhabitant almost in every garden, it is so well known, that it needeth no description. . . . Mercury owns the herb, and it carries its effects very potently. . . . The chemical oil drawn from lavender, usually called oil of spike, is of so fierce and piercing a quality, that it is cautiously to be used, some few drops being sufficient, to be given with other things either for inward or outward griefs.”
Similarly, in his selection on lily of the valley, the properties of the plant are listed as “under the dominion of Mercury, and therefore strengthens the brain, recruits a weak memory, and makes it strong again.” Honeysuckle is given as a “hot martial plant in the celestial sign of Cancer. . . . The oil made by infusion of the flowers is accounted healing and warming, and good for the cramp and convulsion of the nerves.”
In the summary passages of his herbal, Nicholas Culpeper states that the included herbs are virtuous as healing remedies, “and the plain reason thereof is this, because they are governed, made rich, preserved, and are every way made proper and fit to heal the body of man . . . by the celestial ministers of Heaven.” Although we do not turn a deaf ear to whatever advances may be made by modern researchers to our art, its foundation and its creation lie in the arcane knowledge of the old astrologers and alchemists. In fact, the contribution of science often is most valuable in defining why the systems of ancient healing work. The fact that these methods have survived through countless centuries is evidence enough that they work, but it is often helpful to couple the effectiveness of a particular remedy with knowledge of its physiological effects. In this way we can reap the benefits of both worlds, the old and the new. Hopefully, the marriage of the two spheres of working will result in an increased level of effectiveness in both the fields of medicine and the natural healing arts.