Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Essence of Essential Oils Their Connotation on Christian Eschatology and Why They Are Essentially Placebos With Nice Aromas

Essential Oils
In the last three years, there had been a boom of the multilevel marketing; this time is not only with Herbalife; but rather companies who go on the idea of anointed oils which has been marketed on the idea of Essential Oils.

The idea of Essential Oils, has their backgrounds on the eschatology of Christianity; but as well the different companies mixed the religious idea within a New Age propaganda that the oils had been used widely from more than two millenniums.

As many of today's products, in order to sell they have to rel heavily on a communication campaign that involves a hand to hand marketing and advertising levels, to appeal and sell properly to any possible clientele.

To organize the complexity of the selling point of the Essential Oils, we have to start with the idea on what these kind of products are sold by, and that is with the anointed oils, which on the Bible are referred roughly 20 times (Exodus 25:6, Leviticus 8:30, Numbers 4:16, Exodus 30:32, Mark 14:3, Mark 6:13, James 5:14  and Hebrews 1:8).

In any part of the Bible there are any specific set of ingredients, ingredients that were common on the Middle East, Sub-Saharan and the Continental India are pointed on some occasions such as cinnamon and myrrh; but there are not guidelines that there was something holy or miraculous on these oils, and they were made as a test of the Israelite to show their obedience to God. (1)

Humanity on a certain extent evolves beyond the status-quo of religion; but some ideas of the holy and profane always keep lingering in the popular imagery, that there are miraculous cures to almost any ailments. Chrism is found essentially on every religion of the world; but the most common is within the different, thousands of Christians Sects.

We can see that within the Catholic doctrines, there is the anointing of the sick on the Mass of the Chrism; but also the oils are celebrated on the Sacrament of Confirmation (2); it goes on the rite of confirmation and commitment of the young adult within the church. There is a precious symbolism within the doctrine that is almost as old as the church but there wasn't anything magical or out of this world within the unction of the oils, but rather the spiritual commitment of the parishioner to his or her church.

Now, that there is an image on what the marketing campaigns play; we know that there is a quasi-sentiment of magical on the add-campaigns to sell a miraculous cure, that has nothing of a miracle based on the Christian Scriptures; but yet it plays on the image of the believers of the oil as well some of the believers of the faith as they are trying to find solutions within the realm of the fantastic.

Whole Foods
According to Christianity Today (3) the resurgent of the Essential Oils had found their niche among Christian women; but, also they'd appealed to organic shoppers, homeopaths, naturopaths, young mothers and believers. Which as was mentioned previously, the latest one found their uses among the Scriptures.

Some believers as well consumer oriented on this oils had found several examples, albeit not direct examples through the Bible but rather scarce example that border on the metaphorical such as Moses; but rather than that there is a schism between the social use of the oil and the way the idea is advertised and sold today.

Whole Food; the temple of almost everything overpriced, and where the consumer can found everything but real medicines. There are entire aisles dedicated to the sold purpose of selling Essential Oils. Is almost a surreal experience for anyone who realize that Homeopathy is just a "bunch of feel good concepts, based on the idea of ancient knowledge that by today standards had been discarded as mere quackery."

That feel good sensation is always a catch to sell almost any product, if the product aims at the spiritual side of the consumer, as well their lack of knowledge on the medical and biological sciences.

By now, if you had visited some vitamins stores, or stores as Whole Foods, they sell Bach Flower Remedies; which if you check on the first photo, they offer some sort of pop test in order to guess which Essential Oil is the most adequate for you, or as the company promote it Flower Remedies. According to sciencebasedmedicine.org (4) the two main ingredients are Brandy and Water, which they are already diluted on a 50:50, so it's hard to guess the consumer won't get drunk by drinking anything from Bach products'.

The gimmick of their products go that they say they work by transmitting a vibrational energy through the memory of the water. Difficult to believe the water as a sentient being, but the damage done by the quackery of Masaru Emoto is already in the mind of the collective.

How water could have memory and understand a series of 8.500 language and dialects.? The simple idea of Bach Flower remedies is ridicule; but there are always people in close proximity with this kind of lifestyle, that only sugar coats the existence. Besides that gimmick, as is in the photo, there is a small test that compose the words on what you are feeling; if you are feeling fear, loneliness, for dependency or despair, etc. There is a product for you, which offers mostly a quick answer to what could be a deep emotional problem; but the sales adjust to what much of the people on this century believe - We need everything now.- 

The idea that this form of corrupted Ayurveda influenced methods of healing (I rather not say medicine, as medicine involves a process following the Scientific Method, and it will be an offense to compare this form of New Age herbalist naturalism to modern medicine.) is actually beneficial and is good to discard any treatment in favor of this; is just a fallacy to knowledge and ad emotion; masked with a nice aroma of lavender or cinnamon.

References:

1 http://www.gotquestions.org/anointing-oil.html
2 http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/
3 http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2015/january/anointed-trend-christian-women-and-essential-oils.html?paging=off
4 https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/bach-flower-remedies/
5 http://www.scilogs.com/in_scientio_veritas/water-memory-myth-that-wouldnt-die/

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