Why "Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade" Oils?

There are many so called essential oils available on the market today easily obtainable through amazon.com and other sources, and spanning a wide range of prices.  But it's extremely important to understand that one should never attempt to use commercial, sub-therapeutic grade oils in the ways recommended for dōTERRA CPTG essential oils, because anything less than certified pure, therapeutic grade oils will not effect homeostasis, and therefore healing, and can even do harm, collecting in the body as toxins, and causing adverse side-effects.

A wonderful book, a tome really, on the nature and benefits of essential oils, entitled The Chemistry of Essential Oils Made Simple, by David Stewart, Ph.D., D.N.M., explains in great detail and from several different angles, why the grade and purity of essential oils makes all the difference.  First let's take a look at the various processes used to distill essential oils:

"With careful distillation at atmospheric pressures and minimum temperatures, the extracted essential oil is very close to that in the living plant except that only the lightest molecules… come through the distillation process...

"By strict definition, essential oils are always a produce of steam distillation.  Even though the temperatures of steam extraction of a properly obtained essential oil are not excessively high… the heat can cause chemical changes in the oil that produces ingredients not present in the original plant.  These safe called 'artifacts.'  Chamazulene, the blue color in blue tansy, yarrow, helichrysum, and German chamomile, is an example of an artifact.  However, chamazulene is a good artifact with therapeutic benefits that have been thoroughly studies and well documented...

"When oils are obtained by high temperature, high pressure distillation, (as is done for commercial perfumes and food flavorings), there are many artifacts and many of the subtle healing constituents of an oil are destroyed.  Chemical solvents are also customarily used in extracting commercial grade oils that contaminate the oils with unnatural residues.  Such oils are not therapeutic grade."

Next let's talk about vibrational frequencies:

"There are a variety of sources of vibrational frequencies within the molecules of essential oils.  In fact, there is a whole spectrum of frequencies within every organic molecule and the larger, more complex it is, the greater the spectrum...

"Visualize chemical bonds like rubber-bands stretched between pairs of atoms which can be strummed like a guitar string to produce a musical tone.  Each bond between each pair of atoms in a molecule can produce different pitches producing a spectrum of frequencies like the spectrum of the 88 diatonic tones that comprise a piano keyboard spanning seven octaves,  Strumming the bonds of a molecule is exactly how our bodily cells and organs access the vibrational qualities of an essential oil…

"When the pitch of middle C (257 hz) is played or sung, you can tell what instrument sounded the tone and/or whose voice was the singer…

"This is because the frequency we hear as pitch is not the only frequency present in the sound.  A single vibrating piano or harp string actually sends forth a spectrum of pitches ranging from the fundamental (257 hz) to a range reaching up into the kilohertz range of thousands of cps.  The additional pitches other than the fundamental are called 'harmonics…'

"When you have many frequencies emitted from the same source, our ears usually identify a fundamental as pitch and hear the rest as harmonics that color the tone…

"When you have a mixture of hundreds of varieties of molecules each capable of a variety of frequencies, it could be chaos…

"Amazing as it may seem, the hundreds of varieties of molecules in a typical therapeutic grade essential oil do not form an incoherent mass.  They do not produce chaos.  Their many frequencies are tuned in mathematical precision like the logarithms of a musical scale to make music for our bodies, minds, and soils.  When natural compounds are blended by God to create a healing oil, the molecules, imbued with God's word, respond to one another and adjust their frequencies into the coherence of a finely tuned instrument.  The molecules of a therapeutic grade essential oil form a harmonious, coherent, functional family designed and intended to serve us and heal us according to the highest will of their creator and our creator who is one and the same--God.

"Now do you understand why modifying a therapeutic grade oil by removing some of its constituents, by adding synthetic ingredients, or by adulterating it with solvents can upset or destroy the subtle and delicate harmony that God has so lovingly prepared for us"

"Now do you understand why a non-therapuetic grade oil might carry dissonance, incoherence, and disharmony in its molecular makeup and, thus carry no healing power and, perhaps, carry harm?

"Now do you understand how and why a compound that is potentially harmful when acting along can behave beneficially within the balanced environment of an essential oil as it adjusts its vibrations to play in harmony with the rest of the family of compounds that define that oil?

"Think of therapeutic grade essential oils as symphonies of molecular music composed by God to sing health and harmony to us, his children."

There's more in this fascinating and highly informative book that will have to wait for another day, but for now, just take a moment to contemplate the symphony of your body's many trillions of cells singing in harmony with all of God's glorious creation!  What a wonderful world!