The Oil That Heals. William A. McGarey M.D.

the mother go to bed, elevate the foot of the bed, and put a pack on—without the heating pad—and often she would then carry the pregnancy on to term.

      When a pregnant woman who had a history of miscarriages would come to the clinic, the castor oil pack would be the primary and immediate therapy. There are teenagers and young adults walking around throughout the Phoenix area who may not have made it to birthing had it not been for the use of the castor oil packs. And mothers who used the packs noted also that there were few stretch marks, if indeed any appeared.

      Because of my extensive writing about my work with the Cayce material and castor oil over the past twenty years, many users of the Cayce suggestions write me about their experiences. One forty-year-old man volunteered his story about intermittent pain that he had suffered since he was eighteen. It was irritating, but not disabling. After reading about the use of castor oil in other conditions, he decided to try it. The pain was in the center of each wrist. He applied a pack to each wrist all night long for three consecutive nights. When he wrote to me—more than three months after his treatment, he said he had had the pain “since I was eighteen years old, and I’m now forty—and the pain has not returned since I used the packs.” He added that he had experienced some pain in his upper arm. Using the packs also cleared up that pain with no recurrence.

      I’m sure there were reasons for the occurrence of the pain in this man’s case and he would need to become aware of what really lay behind his pain episode. It was obvious, however, that this man had a castor oil consciousness.

      We have used castor oil on the body in a variety of locations, and the doctors who have been on the staff of the Clinic have become strong advocates for its use, as have many of our patients and correspondents.

      Before he retired, Dr. Ray Bjork sent me this report: “I have been seeing a man who complains of tinnitus, a ringing in the ears. Acupuncture has helped only mildly so far. But he had a keratotic (wart-like) lesion on his forearm and wanted to know if he should see a skin specialist as he wondered if it might be cancerous. I told him I felt it was benign but gave him a dermatologist’s address. Before he left the office, I applied a Band-Aid^® with drops of castor oil on it and told him to apply one drop twice a day.

      “It ended up that he did not go to the specialist, and the lesion sloughed off in just a couple of weeks.”

      Chapter Six

      Therapists Are Born, Not Made

      When individuals with no medical training find out about very simple therapies that are harmless but very interesting and have a history of being helpful, some become fascinated. They want to know “What happens if . . . ?” These are therapists who are born that way. I suspect that they have had past lives helping other humans through physical or mental difficulties.

      When I was in Virginia Beach several years ago, an A.R.E. member told me about a friend of hers who must have been one of these “born-again” therapists. She worked at a supermarket checkout counter, but loved the use of castor oil and most of the Cayce remedies. She would tell her customers about these things as they checked out. Most of the time her customers do nothing about her suggestions, but on those occasions when they do, they get results.

      One woman came through her checkout counter who had plastic wrapped around one leg and was obviously uncomfortable. Emma, the checkout clerk, said, “What in the world happened to your leg?” The answer, “Varicose veins!” The skin had broken down and would not heal no matter what she did. She had even spent three months in bed with no results. Emma told her about soaking a cloth in castor oil and wrapping it around her leg underneath the plastic. She didn’t tell her anything else.

      Emma saw the lady’s husband about a month later and asked how his wife was doing. His answer, “You know, after two or three weeks, the leg healed up completely, and she’s had no trouble with it since.”

      Another one of those investigative therapists was a patient of mine, who told me his story after the fact. He severely sprained his ankle. He wrote this account and sent it to me: “I used castor oil Saturday and Sunday nights and I am amazed at what it does. When I talked with you, I had just had the pack on for about half an hour and had gone to bed to keep my foot up. The pain was pretty hard to take, but after we were through on the telephone, I went back to bed and within a half hour the pain left almost suddenly, and I never had a recurrence.

      “I slept like a log, put my foot in any position I wished, and could walk on it the next morning by using chairs along the way. Two nights before I couldn’t even step on it. I had to hang on to things and shuffle my good foot back and forth on the rug until I got to the phone . . . Now my ankle is fine, discolored a bit but no swelling, and I bind it up and go on my way.”

      In the early days of my association with the Cayce material, I was on call for the emergency room at one of the local hospitals. A woman who had sprained her ankle at work had been taken to the emergency room. X-rays showed no fracture. I checked her ankle; it was swollen and tender to pressure and she had difficulty bearing weight on that foot. I instructed her to make up a castor oil pack and wear it constantly for the next two days, using an elastic bandage to hold it in place and to provide some pressure to keep the swelling down.

      Two days later she appeared at our office, walking normally, with the pack in place. When I checked her ankle, she told me that my instructions were so strange that when she got out of the hospital, she thought, “What am I doing? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of!” But, she said, since she didn’t have anything else to do and her ankle was hurting, she followed the instructions.

      She used an elastic bandage for the next few days, but she walked without a limp and there was no pain. Even I was surprised at that kind of dramatic response. It represents more evidence for me on the amazing value of a common substance used to bring new awareness to the forces within the human body.

      Many other experiences come from among our patient population and from those who correspond with me, but this one tells the story in a different way:

      This was another instance in which a woman suffered a nasty sprain to her ankle. She knew about using castor oil packs and she put one together at once, applying the pack warm, covering the ankle and the foot, and using a plastic baggie to cover both.

      The ankle hurt “like blazes,” she said, for about two hours, but then the pain disappeared completely. She used crutches the first day, but discarded them after that, keeping the pack on day and night for three days, warming it occasionally. Her ankle was a bit tender for a few days, but she was off it for just the first day.

      Her husband had sprained his ankle years ago and was disabled and on crutches for three weeks. More recently a friend of hers was six weeks on crutches after her ankle was sprained. When they talked together (six weeks after the injury), the friend’s ankle was still swollen and painful. She took the suggestion, however, about using the packs and reported that she was delighted with the results.

      INJURIES AND ABRASIONS

      Because of the as-yet-unexplained healing qualities in castor oil, we have used it extensively with our patients, the personnel at the Clinic, and in our own lives. We have found that any puncture wound clears up almost immediately simply by applying castor oil over the area gently several times a day. The date palm trees in our back yard rarely got a trimming without my getting one or two puncture wounds from the needle-like ends of the fronds. I found out years ago that these wounds would become irritated and infected, if left unattended. I used to apply antibiotic cream on them, but that wasn’t helpful. When I discovered the efficacy of castor oil, I never had an infected puncture wound again. I would rub castor oil into the area after washing it, repeat it again several hours later, and then again at bedtime. If it was still reminding me that it was not feeling good in the morning, I would apply the oil once again. Usually, this would take care of the problem.

      Our six children have had castor oil applied to various parts of their anatomy so often over the years that they have reminded us that they will put on our tombstones