but instead of improving, all the symptoms worsened.
He had been a member of the A.R.E. for a number of years and was reading some of the material I had written about castor oil packs on the day that he had actually given up and had been seen by his family doctor. He reports: “The doctor set up an appointment for me with a neurosurgeon for the next day. That evening, Ellen [his wife] applied a castor oil pack for one hour to my lower back. I felt some relief afterward, but was still in a lot of pain.
“At this point, I was convinced that surgery was the only course of action left. The surgeon examined me, set up a myelogram, blood tests, and x-rays for the next week. My wife continued applying castor oil packs and heat daily.
“After seven days of the packs and a few doses of olive oil, the pain was completely gone. I canceled all appointments. After a two-day break, my wife Ellen applied the castor oil packs daily for another three days. I have not had any recurrence of back or sciatic pain. We also used the same kind of packs on a cyst that my wife had on her leg. It started to drain after three applications and has caused her no more problems.
“I am convinced that I have experienced a miracle and I am thankful to my Higher Power, my wife’s persistence and faith, and the information provided in your book at just the right time.”
I also am glad that Richard experienced his miracle. I understand better now why I had such a variety of experiences earlier in my life because they aided me in writing and communicating through articles and books so that I could be helpful to others, while at the same time aiding me in my own awakening process.
And what is the awakening process if not the soul growth that comes by using every experience in life creatively and constructively.
HOW DO YOU MAKE A CASTOR OIL PACK AND WHAT DOES IT DO?
To make a castor oil pack, you will need the following materials:
1. Flannel cloth
2. Plastic sheet—no coloring
3. Electric heating pad
5. Two or three safety pins
6. Castor oil
7. Bath towel
Prepare a soft flannel cloth, preferably of wool flannel. The cloth should be two or four thicknesses when folded, and should measure about ten by twelve or fourteen inches in size after being folded. This is the size needed for abdominal application. Other areas of the body would need to have the pack shaped and sized to the area to be treated.
Next, pour some castor oil onto the cloth, using a plastic sheet underneath to keep from soiling other articles. Make sure the cloth is wet but not dripping with oil. Apply the pack to the portion of the body that needs treatment, keeping the plastic sheet on the outside.
After that, place the heating pad on the plastic sheet, covering the pack, and turn the heat to low first, then to medium and higher if the body is comfortable with it. Do not burn the skin. This is not therapeutic!
Finally, wrap a bath towel, folded lengthwise, around the trunk of the person being treated, so that it covers the pack and the heating pad, and fasten it in place with safety pins.
The pack should remain in place for an hour to an hour and a half, and the skin can be easily cleansed with a solution of baking soda and water—two teaspoons to a quart. Use it warm, not cold.
The flannel pack need not be discarded after a single application, but may be kept in a plastic container for future use. Unless the pack gets discolored or the oil becomes rancid, it may continue to be used over a period of months. Some like to keep the pack in the refrigerator, but it should then always be warmed up before application.
Frequency of use? From three to seven days a week, to be followed most often after three treatments by olive oil (up to two teaspoonfuls is used most commonly), to stimulate the liver in its activity. Take a teaspoonful or more. Be careful about taking larger amounts.
The most obvious effect that I found in treating the body using a castor oil pack was the enhancement of the immune system. As a portion of their duties, the lymphatics—part of the immune system—drain all parts of the body. When the tissues in any area of the body are cleansed by the eliminatory process, the cells are in much better condition to work normally—and the activity of the immune bodies and substances are able better to do their job in defending the body or rebuilding it.
This has been my way of looking at these things. No proof, of course, but lots of patients are indeed happier than they were and in better health.
Although experiences like the foregoing do not get published in the literature because they seem so strange, the use of castor oil packs has proliferated over the years in many parts of the world and with many physicians and health care practitioners.
At one of our earlier medical symposia in Phoenix, a young orthopedic surgeon reported on how he had every bed on his floor equipped with a K-pack (a special heating pad) and a castor oil pack, and he used them routinely in postoperative situations. Other doctors in his hospital became interested and started using them, but the orthopod never told them that the packs were first described by a psychic. That would have lost his case right there!
Not too long ago, a story came to our attention at the A.R.E. Clinic here in Phoenix about a postoperative patient who nearly died. A licensed practical nurse told us the story; the patient was one to whom she was assigned in her hospital in the northwest part of our country.
The patient was delivered of her pregnancy by Caesarian section and was doing well with her baby, who also was thriving. On the third post-partum day, however, the mother started having trouble with her abdomen and the surgeons on the case agreed it was probably an intestinal obstruction. Surgery was recommended and performed, but the results were not as expected, and the patient’s condition worsened. More surgery was not advised by the surgical team, and the mother’s condition appeared to be deteriorating.
When the female obstetrician was searching for some helpful alternative, the nurse suggested to the doctor that she knew something about castor oil packs and that they might be helpful.
The packs were applied, and after fifteen hours the patient started to pass liquid stools, followed shortly by a normal bowel movement—and the crisis ended. Afterward, nothing was discussed about the packs, but I would suppose there was some awakening in the mind of that physician who was creative and open-minded enough to take a suggestion from a nurse about an unusual therapy, no matter how highly regarded the nurse may have been.
One of the powerful factors operating in the Edgar Cayce material is mystery. Cayce said that mystery excites the imagination of those who find it in their lives—and those who are ready to be awakened are stimulated and move to a greater awareness and a higher consciousness.
An unusual experience I had with serious illness and castor oil packs also involved intestinal obstruction. I was called to see an elderly woman at home; she was a long-time patient and unable to come to the office. She had developed a distended abdomen which worsened rapidly. She had lost her sense of humor, had quit watching her television programs, and had gone to bed.
When I examined her, I found that with her abdomen so grossly distended, the cause was obviously an obstruction and she needed to be hospitalized. A gastric tube had to be inserted in an effort to deflate the belly. She adamantly refused. She was well over eighty years of age, said that
