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 when we die, “Here they lie in spite of castor oil!”
The experience paid off in our caring for our patients and friends, and—as I mentioned earlier—it led to my writing a monograph about the use of castor oil packs in the practice of medicine. It developed into a book and acquired its name because someone in the Middle Ages called the castor bean plant the Palma Christi, the palm of Christ.8
A patient of ours, Sherri, was traveling about forty-five miles per hour on her motorbike when she lost control and crashed. Sherri had skin abrasions on her elbows, abdomen, and left breast, and the palms of both hands were scraped raw down to the dermal layer. Her therapy was castor oil, used liberally on all the affected areas. Her response was excellent. The wounds healed completely without scars.
Injuries at birth sometimes come in the form of bleeding under the skin of the scalp, which is called a hematoma (a tumor filled with blood). This is what happened when Patti’s third son was born. The tumor was relatively small right after birth, but continued to grow in size until the baby was two months old. At that point, it was the size of a baseball, and it was then that the mother started using a castor oil pack on his head, keeping it in place with the ingenuity born of motherhood.
It rapidly decreased in size and, within the next ten days, the hematoma was no longer present.
We have treated fingernails that had been “smashed,” using a little pack kept in place with a Band-Aid®. If treated early enough, the blackened nail gradually gains back its normal color and the blood is reabsorbed.
ELIMINATIONS USING CASTOR OIL
I gradually became aware of another healing concept after seeing the efficiency of castor oil in resolving bleeding in the tissues and exciting the rebuilding of tissues after serious injury to the skin. The concept: that elimination internally and regeneration of the tissue are primary effects when castor oil is applied to the body. If this principle is exercised in therapy, much can be accomplished in the body’s healing process.
Too little attention is given to the importance of eliminations in the medical world today. It is physiologically true that there are four channels of elimination in the body: the skin, the lungs, the kidneys, and the liver/intestinal tract. When one channel is obstructed, damaged, or ill and unable to do its job, the other three suffer. And the body is much the worse for wear.
When an eliminatory organ or system can be returned to a more normal state, the body benefits. Thus, any method designed to improve and coordinate the eliminations of the body is bound to be helpful to its recovery.
It must be kept in mind
